Mystic Tiger Games is hitting the road! We are planning on being in the Fort Myers, FL area on the weekend of May 19th, 2018. We will be demoing Manaforge at two gaming stores in the area:

On Saturday, May 19th, Cool Comics and Games is hosting a Manaforge demo, starting at noon and running until about 3pm.

On Sunday, May 20th, Dungeon Games is hosting a Manaforge demo, starting at 1pm and running until 5pm.

At both events, we will have an open copy of Manaforge for players to try out, plus we'll be available to teach the rules. We will also have several copies of Manaforge for players to purchase. And we're currently working on some goodies to give away to game winners and people that buy copies on site.

Drop by and say hello, and stay to play some games! Hope to see you there!

Hello everyone!

It's a busy month since I last posted. Here's what's up:

Fulfillment Complete

I'm very happy to report that I'm 100% finished with Kickstarter fulfillment! Everyone that wanted a game shipped to them had one sent their way. Everyone that wanted a game hand-delivered has received theirs. I've even managed to sign copies for everyone that has asked. My Kickstarter campaign is officially concluded! Thanks again to everyone that contributed to making Manaforge a real game!

Reviewers

So, now that Manaforge is a finished product, I figured I could benefit from some reviews (as opposed to previews) in order to help focus some attention on the game. In late March I posted a request on one of the game reviewer-centric Facebook groups, asking if any reviewers would be interested in doing a review. The response I got was overwhelming. Facebook response posts, direct messages, emails...  people expressed interest in all sorts of ways. In the end I had to create a spreadsheet just to keep track of everyone.

I ended up sending out about a dozen copies to various reviewers. I wish I could have sent out more, but it started becoming too expensive. (I don't mind losing the games themselves, as those are already paid for, but at around $15 a game for shipping it adds up very quickly. I started running out of funds in my business account.)

I've received reports that many people have gotten their copies, and a few have sent me initial favorable responses. Let's see if this goes anywhere from there. :)

Store Demos

Since I've been busy, combined with monetary hiccups and lack of time, I've been putting off going the run around Florida to demo Manaforge that I wanted. However, I haven't given up on the idea yet.

So far, I have three stores targeted: Cool Comics and Games, and Dungeon Games (Ft. Myers area), and Gamesville Tabletop (Gainesville). I still need suggestions for the St. Augustine and Jacksonville areas. Anyone have any ideas?

Sky Pirates

So development on my 'Sky Pirates' game is still chugging along, if slowly. I got some decent feedback at Prototype Con: the game's general concept is good but the way you physically interact with the game is confusing. Players did not seem to understand how to slide cards underneath to add to a pile, and were confused by how the information was presented on the cards. It gave me some things to focus on with how to move forward, but without really much of a direction.

A couple of weeks ago at one of my playtest sessions at Coliseum of Comics, I was able to get the game to the table again, and this time got some very good feedback from some of the more experienced designers there. One designer in particular suggested a couple of mechanical changes to the game that would separate some of the information in the game and free up the layout on the cards, enabling me to rework the game's presentation in such a way as to make it less confusing. I haven't had the time yet to incorporate the ideas into my prototype, but they're still there bubbling in the background, and I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do. Should see an updated version out within the next couple of weeks.

Dark Magic

A lot of my creative energy has been going into my expansion set. For those of you who haven't heard, I've started the design work on the expansion for Manaforge, currently named "Manaforge: Dark Magic". The expansion is meant to add ot the game in two ways. The first is that a lot of people have commented on the 'multiplayer solitaire' nature of Manaforge, suggesting that more player interaction would be beneficial. The second is that some of Manaforge's fans have commented that the game could use more cards, more variety in the items that show up from game to game.

So with those in mind, I've started designing new game elements in three blocks:

New Items - The item cards will be the most tame of the new additions to the game. With the items, I've been designing around the goal of forcing the players to think about their actions relative to what the other players are doing. I've designed workshop cards that react to other player's actions, allowing the player to gain a benefit whenever another player does a specific thing. I've also added some store cards that change in value based on what actions the other players have taken that turn. And I've added in some new wand cards that give extra benefits besides points, including some that benefit all players instead of just the one that built them.

New Talents - The new talent cards are intended to be a bit more aggressive, including a couple of effects that disrupt the normal boundaries of the game or allow the player to mess with the choices that other players have. I don't think I quite met my design goal here, as it seems like I'm getting pulled in a different direction with some of my ideas, but this is still early design phase and a lot of the work I've done so far can be easily discarded or pushed off to a future expansion (yes there will be more than one).

Black Die - This is where the nastiness comes in. Each player will get a black die in addition to their regular dice. Each die has a different effect on it, one that messes with another player. Steal gems, sabotage their workshop items, or force them to reroll their dice are all potential effects of this die. However, as a die, it costs one of your dice usages for the turn to invoke this effect, so it's not completely without cost. I will have to play a few games with this die to figure out the right balance for it, but adding this sort of attack in might be just what the game needs. Or not...  I'm designing this die in such a way that the game can ruin without it, for players that don't like this sort of direct player attacking. We'll see in what form this survives playtesting. :)

Bit Bowls

I'm still chipping away at my idea for making my own folding game component bowls. I have a few new prototypes made with my company logo on them, and so far I think they look pretty good. I'm concerned about the component quality, though. The plastic snaps on the corners feel somewhat flimsy and I'm worried about them breaking off after I've sold them. (You have to be gentle pulling them apart; yanking too hard is definitely bad for them.)  Aside from that, these bowls look good and accomplish their purpose perfectly. I think I'll  just have to sell them at a low enough price that if one breaks here or there, that the buyer won't feel too bad about it. (They're inexpensive enough to make that I should be able to just replace it on the spot.)

Amazon

Last bit of good news, Manaforge is now listed on Amazon! I'm not doing fulfillment by Amazon, so they are basically just a fancy purchase referral system. Still, being listed on one of the world's largest online marketplaces should help to increase my visibility. I haven't sold anything yet, but at least Manaforge is out there if anyone chooses to go looking for a copy.


And that's it for now. I'm sure I will have a lot more to report soon, what with the reviews and demos coming up. Here's hoping.

​Thanks everyone!

Hello everyone!

Wow, how the time flies. It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since I relaunched my Kickstarter; the campaign that funded and made my game a reality. Things have been chugging along here, slowly but steadily. I'd like to say it's been uneventful, but really thinking it over there has been a lot happening behind the scenes.

GamesQuest

So, since my last diary post, a lot has been happening with the U.K.-based fulfillment company GamesQuest, and not all of it good.

After the smoke of the holiday shipping rush cleared, I starting having problems with GamesQuest. During 2017, they were responsive and helpful, if a little bit overloaded. But something must've happened to them over the New Year. (Rumors are that they took on more work than they could handle; taking shipping responsibilities for several huge games at once.)  Emails to them would go a week before being responded to. I got complaints from three backers that they hadn't received their games, and queries sent to GQ would yield no useful information. I received an additional order on my store website, and even though I placed an order with GQ for that, it never seemed to arrive to my customer. I asked GQ about re-shipping the games that never made it, and it seems like those new shipments didn't happen either.

On top of that, I finally received the pallet shipment of games sent from their warehouse. That was an ordeal in itself, because the local shipping company that was supposed to handle the last mile ground shipping changed their delivery date to the IGA warehouse and tacked on some last-minute delivery fees. And looking over the games once they had gotten here, it appeared that someone had used the cartons as soccer balls. Some were smashed, had holes in them, or were waterlogged. Several of the games inside had minor scrapes or dents, and three games in particular were crushed and only good as donations or spare parts. Not good. I understand that accidents happen, but having to mark nearly 20% of the shipment as damaged is very bad.

However, around the bginning of March, I managed to make a minor breakthrough. One of my emails made it through to someone at the top of the food chain at GQ, and boy did things get straightened out quickly after that. I finally got tracking numbers for a couple of the re-shipments, proving that those had made it to their destination. I also learned that a couple of the orders were never shipped at all, due to some sort of communication lapse between their office and their warehouse. Those were sent out with haste.

On top of that, at the beginning of March GQ launched their online order management portal ShipQuest. While still slightly buggy and missing some features, it has been an excellent way to be able to track the status of my orders without having to bug some of the overworked people there. While people's opinion of them has degraded badly over the past few months (I've seen reports that Kickstarter backers won't touch a campaign that will be fulfilled by GQ), my respect for them is starting to recover a little. I probably won't use them again for my primary fulfillment company, due to the unexpected import taxes and such, but I might still use them as a secondary fulfillment for EU orders.

Fulfillment Status

Thinking of fulfillment, I'm almost completely done! Out of 358 backers and 370 games owed to them, I am down to 5 games left to hand out. Those backers haven't received their games yet because they specifically requested that I hand-deliver their copies. I am working to pin these last few backers down and make sure their orders are fulfilled. It will be so nice to be past that phase of my campaign, leaving me to focus on moving the rest of my copies.

Retail Copies

I'm currently investigating four avenues of getting my remaining game copies out there:

- Advertising. While I don't think most types of paid advertising are worth it, I had some small success with using Facebook ads during my Kickstarter campaign. I will probably pursue that angle again, directing the attention from that to my online store.
- Reviews. Now that I have the shipping supply chain more or less ironed out, I am finally able to ship promotional copies to game reviewers. I will be contacting some of the ones I know of in the coming days, see who's interested in trading a copy of my game for some attention. I've also started listening to several board game podcasts in the past few months, and I'd like to try contacting a few of those, see if I can get some attention that way. Here's hoping.
- Store demos. During my Kickstarter campaign, I ended up at several gaming stores around Florida, looking for support and retailer pledges. While I did get a few that way, it seemed like most of those places were more looking for a finished product. (I don't blame them... I'd probably be skeptical of a KS if I owned a store.) However, now that I have a finished product, I'm planning on going back to some of those stores and trying again. Additionally, since my game is 100% complete now, I'd feel better about holding game teaching sessions and demonstrations. Not only can I get more attention on my game that way, but depending on the level of interest I might be able to get the game stores themselves interested in buying a few copies for retail. I'm due to make trips to the Fort Myers, Saint Augustine, and Gainesville areas within the next few months. Anyone know of any stores that might be open to seeing a new product?
​- Indie Game Alliance. The IGA warehouse has several copies of Manaforge, and I know a few of those have been going out to their minions. (If you don't already know, the IGA minions are basically the Alliance's representatives, holding game demos and teaching sessions for IGA games all over.) I need to look into IGA's premium services, seeing if I can get my game some more demo time at various conventions and game stores. It helps to have an army trying to promote you. :)

Expedition Prototype Con 2018

In case you hadn't heard of it, the latest Prototype Con just occurred at the end of February. (https://www.expeditionprototypecon.com) This is a three-day convention by game designers and for game designers. Designers, playtesters, and publishers came together to test and help refine a large number of unfinished games, and to help connect designers to the resources they need to be successful. I had a great time there, getting to meet up with a lot of friends that I don't see very often. I playtested a few other designers' creations, and I also got in a few playtests of my Sky Pirates game.

The feedback on my game was pretty consistent. Mechanically, it is a fun game. It accomplishes the goal of being a thinky euro-style game while still fitting into a 'filler' length, playable in about 20 minutes. However, many players had trouble with the physical aspects of the game, how cards needed to be stacked together in a specific way so that they could be individually flipped over and have their statistics read. I'm still kind of flummoxed as to how this is a difficult thing, as I made it a point in my demonstrations to show exactly how the cards should be placed and flipped, but since it was a common complaint, it falls to me to fix it. So, the game is still a work in progress.

Bit Bowls

I've recently been exposed to the concept of a folding bowl. I've heard these things called 'travel trays', 'valet trays', or 'jewelry trays', but those all equate to about the same thing. A flat piece of leather/cloth/felt/silicon, with pairs of snaps or clips near the corners, done in such a way that when you clip the corners together the whole thing becomes a bowl. These are useful for board games because they can be stored flat in a game box, and then snapped together to form bowls to hold game components such as tokens or cubes.

The BoardGameGeek sells these on its store site. However, they seemed sort of pricey, so I thought I'd try making my own. With some 6" felt squares and plastic snaps, I have a couple of prototype bowls made. However, I have enough materials to make many more. I'm wondering if this would make a good product. If I created a couple dozen of these and put them up on my store fora few dollars each, would anyone buy them? We'll see how this turns out.


And that's it for now! Fulfillment almost done, gearing up for the retail push, and chipping away at my game in development.

Oh, and of course there's the design Manaforge: Dark Magic, the expansion set for my first game. I have plenty of ideas here, and some of them are starting to congeal. Hopefully I'll have a viable prototype within the next couple of months.

Mystic Tiger Games is happy to announce that we've received a shipment of copies of Manaforge! We're planning on having a release event on Saturday, March 3rd, running from 1pm until at least 3pm. (Later if there is additional interest.) This will be at the Coliseum of Comics in the Fashion Square Mall. Here is the address:

3201 E. Colonial Dr. M-11
Orlando, FL – 32803
(407) 228-1210

If you've ordered a copy of Manaforge and requested that it be hand-delivered, then here is the place for you to pick it up. Have a copy of Manaforge and want it signed by the designer? We can do there here too!

There will be an open copy of Manaforge if anyone wishes to check it out, and we can have demos and teaching sessions upon request. There should also be a couple of copies available at the event for purchase, if you haven't gotten one already. Or just stop by and show your support.

See you there!

Mystic Tiger Games is happy to announce that our web store is now open! Want to get a copy of Manaforge but missed out on the pre-order? Or just get a copy of the digital wallpapers? Or maybe even pick up one of our cute blue tiger stuffed animal mascots? Click through and take a look!

https://mystic-tiger-games.myshopify.com

Thanks everyone!

Happy 2018 everyone! The last few weeks have been crazy, to say the least.

For those of you that haven't been keeping track, Manaforge started shipping out to backers less than a month ago. I was hoping that the shipping process wouldn't have too many hiccups, considering that I was shipping over the holiday season. And, all things considered, I guess it wasn't too bad. Still, it's far from perfect.

Slow Shipping

Because of the time of year, my contact at GamesQuest had mentioned multiple times that their shipping queue was overloaded, and that I shouldn't expect my games to go out before the new year. So I was overjoyed when I was informed that the games would go out before Christmas. While not many backers actually received their games in time for the holiday (mostly just backers in the U.K. got theirs early), it meant that most backers should have their games before the end of the year. Or so I thought.

I was happy to start getting reports that backers were receiving their games. But rather than a large number of reports all at once, it was more spread out. A few one day, a few the next. Even now, almost a month later, I'm still getting sporadic reports that people are receiving their copies. And that's bad, because there are still some people that haven't received theirs. It makes it difficult to determine if those games are just very delayed, or if there was actually a problem. Right now I'm just trying to be patient, but I can't wait forever.

Pallet Shipping

At the same time that I ordered the games to be released to backers, I also ordered a shipping pallet containing approximately 100 games to be sent to the Indie Game Alliance's storage. They're located close to me, so by sending the games there, they should be comfy until I need to pick some up, and it also makes the games available to IGA for demos and sales at conventions and such.

I figure that pallet would have gotten here by now. But it's still in transit. Apparently, the holiday shipping season slowed that down significantly as well, couple with a report from my contact at GQ saying that there was some extra paperwork to deal with. Ugh.

This is also bad for my backers, because many of my friends local to my area requested that I hand-deliver their games to them. (This both helps me out on shipping costs, and allows me to sign their copies.) So because of that slowdown, those people that entrusted their games to me are now also stuck waiting. :(

Missing/Extra Copies

I did expect a few copies of my game to get lost and/or damaged in the mail. Unfortunately, because of the delays, it's hard to tell if a game was just held up or if it's never going to make it to its destination.

However, what I was not expecting was a couple of backers receiving more copies than they asked for. I asked my contact about this, and his response was that is a very rare occurrence. But it's happened two times so far, and I'm starting to wonder if that's just the more outspoken backers contacting me first.

I don't know the right way to handle this; GQ has offered to provide return shipping labels for the extra games, or in extreme circumstances just reimburse me for the extra games entirely. Still, I'm trying to think of this in terms of the backers. If I received extra copies of a game, I don't know what I'd do with them. What option would involve the least inconvenience on the part of a backer? Just let the backers keep the extras and write them off? Offer free shipping back to the warehouse? Allow the backer to buy the extra games (at a discount, of course)? Have the backer sell/donate the games to a FLGS? What would you do?

I'm getting close to the point where I'm going to post an update, asking who hasn't received their games yet and who has received extras. I'm a little scared of the response I'm going to get. :(

Shipping Costs

As far as the shipping costs go, the numbers to ship to individual backers came out about where I expected. (I estimated about $15 to ship a single game to backers in the U.S., with discounts for multiple games going to one destination. The shipping itemization I received after they all went out came out pretty close to that.)

However, I was hoping the cost to ship a pallet of games to me would be significantly less. It was not. I don't understand why, but the estimate I received for that was close $1500, also coming out to about $15 per game. I have no idea why shipping in bulk would be so expensive, and I have not received a satisfactory answer from GamesQuest regarding that. This cost will make selling games locally a more expensive proposition, something I'm going to have to work around. (Especially because I have a few game stores in my area that are interested in buying some copies. What's a reasonable price to sell to a retailer when I have to recoup heavy costs to get the games into my hands?)


So that's what I'm struggling with right now. That, on top of trying to get my web store up and running (should be soon!), and do some work on my Islands game prototype.

Oh, and thinking of Islands, Expedition Prototype Con 2018 (EPiC) is coming up in a month. I need to have my prototype in a stable spot before then. (The mechanics are good, but I'm currently working on a re-theme.) I hope lots of people will be able to go; the more developers and playtesters that attend, the better it is for everyone involved.

Thanks everyone!

Mystic Tiger Games is pleased to announce that our first game Manaforge is now complete and shipping out to our Kickstarter backers!

As of this writing, Manaforge is getting shipped to a multitude of destinations. We already have reports of backers in the U.K. having received their games, and the rest of them are on the way. With the holiday season upon us, some shipments may be moving slowly, but they are all definitely in the mail and moving.

We'd like to thank all of our backers for believing in our project, and being patient with us though all of the various delays. This has been a massive learning experience for us, but we've come through it intact, and better equipped to handle our future projects.

And for those of you who missed out on the Kickstarter campaign and pre-orders, there will be more opportunities to buy a copy of Manaforge. We're currently waiting on feedback from a distribution company, and we also expect to have an online ordering page set up soon. (Check back with us in January for that.)

Thanks everyone, and happy crafting!

Bah, a month since I posted last. At least it's been eventful.

Freight Shipping

Landfall! I've been informed that the shipment of games has reached port in the U.K. and has cleared customs. Yay! Now I'm just waiting for the local shipping company to pick the games up from the port and move them to the warehouse.

As with everything else in this process, the freight shipping has taken longer than I expected. So far it's not too bad of a delay, but it's still frustrating. The games went onto the boat and shipped out at the beginning of October, and it's the beginning of December now. I was given a total shipping estimate of two months, so I expected that the games would have been at the warehouse and going through inventory by now. However it seems like I'm still a few days short of that. Meh.

I'm still hoping for December delivery, but as it stands now I'm questioning if that's going to happen. I haven't given up on it yet, but the holiday shipping rush has started and I have a lot of competition for shipping bandwidth. I'm keeping my fingers crossed; I could still get lucky.

Oh, yeah, and VAT import taxes hurt! That was a couple thousand dollars that I wasn't expecting to spend. While using GamesQuest for my fulfillment was definitely cheaper on paper, I wasn't told about how bad the taxes would be. I'm going to have to rethink how I do this the next time around.  Maybe doing a split shipment, sending half of the games there and half to the U.S., would work better.

Current Projects

So, I'm having trouble with Suicidal Cabbages. I've been working on this game for almost two years now, and while the rules have come along fairly well, the game is still missing something. I've had that vague feeling pretty much every step of the way, that the game as it stands now is mediocre, like playing it invokes a 'meh' feeling. It's just an instinct, really, hard to put a finger on. I've gotten plenty of good feedback about the game, but some negative too. I think it's time to put it on the shelf for a while, come back to it later after I've had a flash of inspiration or something.

In it's place, I'm currently working on a new game. It's doesn't have a real name yet, but at the moment I'm calling it 'Islands'. It's basically an area control game, but it doesn't have a game board. Instead, the game's map is a group of randomly-chosen cards laid out in a row in the center of the play area, where each card has a location shown on it. Each player plays several 'troop' cards with both locations and strength values printed on them. The troop cards are played into splayed stacks such that only the top card is completely visible, while the location is obscured but the strength is visible for cards underneath. This signifies that the locations for the cards underneath don't matter; the 'army' is at the location indicated on the top card.

But here's the catch: the cards are played face-down! All players know how large a stack is, but not it's location or exact strength. To counter this, each player gets one 'scout' action each turn, which lets them flip up one card owned by an opponent. Typically players will flip up the top card of stacks, to know where an army is located, but not all of the cards will be turned up by the end of the game. This makes it a hidden information area control game. I personally don't know of any other games out there that use this particular combination of mechanics, although I doubt I'm the first person with this idea.

So far I've been through three playtest cycles of this new game. The feedback has been strongly positive. Frighteningly so, in fact; I didn't expect it to come together this quickly. With a huge amount of luck, I might actually be able to launch my Islands game next year. (Of course, it won't be called that. It does need some cleaning up, not to mention a theme and artwork, but so far I seem to have a good foundation.)


So far, so good, I guess. The games are moving along, and I have a second project chugging along with haste. Plus, I still have the Manaforge expansion waiting on the back-burner, bubbling with ideas.

 It's been a relatively quiet couple of weeks here. Here's what's new:

Freight Shipping

Manaforge has started its freight shipping phase. The batch of games has been loaded onto a boat and has set sail for the U.K.! I've received a rough estimate of mid-November for when the games will be arriving at port. Once at port, it will be a few days to clear customs, a few days to travel over ground from the port to the warehouse, and a few days to unpack and take inventory.

I wish I could say the games will ship out to backers after that, but there is a glitch. It takes time and manpower to package the games up for individual shipping, and I will be competing with both other game companies and the rest of the holiday season packages for attention from the packing crew. So as much as I want to guarantee that backers will have their games for Christmas, I cannot. I will however be unhappy if the games do not start shipping sometime in December. My initial shipping goal was November and, while I'm pretty sure they won't go out by then, at least missing by just one month isn't bad for my first Kickstarter project. I just don't want to miss by more than that, especially because it's the holidays; perfect time to sit around the table and play board games! :)

I'll let everyone know once I get more info, but that's where I stand right now.

My Next Game

So, with the downtime of waiting for Manaforge to reach the European shores, I've been putting some of my energy into developing Suicidal Cabbages. I've been a little lax on this front; seems like life has other things in mind for me right now. But I'm putting in a few hours here and there as I can.

For those of you who have playtested Suicidal Cabbages before, especially if you haven't played in within the past month or so, know that the game has gotten a pretty significant overhaul. For starters, here is a rough list of what I began my design with:

- As opposed to Manaforge, which I designed mechanics-first and added the theme onto later, with Suicidal Cabbages I started with the theme and tried to come up with mechanics that matched it. I particularly want a quick, light card game that fits with the tongue-in-cheek silly vibe of the theme, cabbages shredding themselves into coleslaw.
- I came up with two mechanics that seem to fit what I'm going for:
 (1) There need to be 'tool' cards that deal damage to you, representing how much you've shredded yourself. Damage is recorded by moving a marker along a score track.
 (2) There need to be 'ingredient' cards that make up your coleslaw recipe. These work set-collection style, with each ingredient fitting into two of the six possible recipes, and you get bonus points for collecting ingredients of the same recipe.
- These two mechanics, tools and ingredients, represent the core of the game. Everything else might change, but I'm going to try as hard as possible to keep those two pieces in some way.
- Most cards require you to discard other cards from your hand when you play them. The stronger the card, the more you have to discard.
- You draw cards each turn based on how much health you have left. The closer you get to the end, the fewer cards you draw.
- Tool cards have 'timers'. When you play a tool, you play it facing a certain direction, representing the number of 'ticks' (rounds) until it's effects trigger. Each round you rotate the card 90 degrees, representing it ticking down. When it hits zero, the tool damages you and is then discarded.
- As a player, one of the decisions in playing the game is deciding which aspect to focus on. Go heavy tools and shred yourself quickly, go heavy ingredients and rack up the recipe bonus, or try for a balance between the two?
- I have a third type of card, called 'actions'. These are the take-that cards that disrupt your opponents' plans. Slow down your opponents' tools, make their ingredients spoil, steal cards from their hands.

With some of the recent playtests and designer feedback, I've made these changes:
- Previously, each player would take their turn separately. With up to six players, this was way too slow. The game is now draft-style, a la Sushi Go or 7 Wonders. Each player gets a hand of cards, plays one face down, hands the remaining cards to the player to their left, and then flips up the card they played, resolving the effects simultaneously. Good for keeping the game moving quickly.
- With this new draft format, the game is now divided up into two rounds, tentatively called 'lunch' and 'dinner'. When one player hits the halfway point on the damage track, the game switches rounds; players discard their hands, sweep played cards off into a lunch pile, and start the dinner round with a fresh tableau. Players may choose a different recipe for each meal (round), giving an out if the ingredients just weren't going your way the first time.
- Any tools left un-triggered on the board when the round ends get a 'fizzle' effect instead, sort of a consolation prize. I want to try to improve on this, make the fizzle effects more unique, make them something the players might specifically try for.
- Since playing a card carries more weight now (no more card discard costs), 'action' cards needed to be more appealing. So now, they give straight victory points in addition to their effect. Also, in the interest of game speed, a lot of the effects have been redone to either affect only you, or to affect the entire board. Quick calculations.
- I've had a lot of games go 'out of sync', where one player will become distracted and will skip their turn or play twice or something like that. Someone suggested keeping triggered tools on the board, so that you know exactly how many cards each player has played (they should all be the same) and who is missing something. I'm incorporating that idea in.
- The original ingredient scoring was supposed to be triangular (1 3 6 10 15) on the number of unique ingredients in your set. I'm changing that to a flat bonus (+2 each) and seeing how that plays.
- I'm tinkering with the idea of having players keep leftover cards after the lunch round, making a huge hand to pick from for dinner. Dunno yet if this is a good idea.

Whew. Lots of ideas, not all of them good. I haven't found the 'fun' in this game yet, but I'm getting the feeling that each change gets me a little bit closer. Here's hoping I unlock something soon.

Who wants coleslaw? :)

Happy news! The batch of 1000 copies of Manaforge is officially complete! Yay! I recently received an email from the factory saying that the entire set of games is manufactured, assembled, boxed, wrapped, and ready to ship. I'm definitely happy about this, because it's taken significantly longer than I expected to get to this point. Now I can only hope that I make up a little bit of that lost time with the next phase.

The next phase of the journey is shipping seven pallets of board games from the factory in China to the fulfillment center in the U.K.  I've been talking with the company that is handling the shipping, and it seems like all everything is all set. I just have yet to hear any solid confirmation that the games have gone out. I will be pinging the shipping company again over the coming week, just to be sure.

One other interesting note is that two other games are getting shipped along with mine. Same source factory, same destination. Hopefully having three companies leaning on them will be an incentive to keep the process moving, and with a little bit of luck it will end up being cheaper for everyone involved.

Next stop, the U.K.!