One important thing to realize here is that "finalized product" doesn't just mean "at an advanced stage of board game rule development," but also that they've established through market and production analyses that it'll be a viable commercial product. This isn't a thing that we passionate players may think about much, but it's critical for GtG as a small company. Christopher tossed out the number that they might have had only "a few hundred" players interested in buying Prime War. You can multiply by expected price to see that's not a lot of revenue.
To a degree. That's why I'd expect items to go to KS that they have as a finalized product they are excited about but they don't know how popular or how the market might be for it.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
Didn't they have a almost done project on kickstarter that told them it wouldn't be viable. Something about monster trucks?
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
And there was a worker placement game, Dubai: Rebuild the Ruins that they cancelled on KS when it became clear that it wouldn't fund. So KS can certainly be a helpful guage of market interest.
I think for Prime War the issue was that the launched the pre-orders for the expansion too quickly. Most of the problems/issues that exist with Tactics (from a market perspective) weren't noticed by GtG until after the pre-orders ended, so they found themselves stuck trying to find a way to make it work. The commitment to backers probably kept the project alive a lot longer than it otherwise should have been.
I agree there. I would guess next time we see a preorder for a new game or expansion it's one they know they have a market and is pretty well into development if not nearly finished.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
There was also the Story Wars game that didn't fund.
This was the most frustrating because there was a SotM comic book as part of the KS. While the game failed to gain interest, the comic was heavily demanded and never got made.
We got the comic in a way when thye covered Cosmic Contest on the Letters Page and to me I feel thats probably for the best. Since that comic would be 100+ pages which wouid all have all the art done by Adam. If Adam had to do that it still might in progress.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
Speaking of which, has there been any more news on the Print-and-Play Prime War possibility? I know it’s only been a month, but I’m so close to trying to hack something together from the scraps I’ve heard - and I’m no game designer, so that’s probably a bad idea haha
I'm also itching to see what creative elements they got to have finished before things had to get scrapped, as what previews we've seen of that got me excited to see the rest.
"If life gives you lemons, make a lemon cannon."
Not always the best at social skills; I apologize in advance. I don't apologize for any corny and morbid jokes, though.
Resident Argent Adept and Biomancer fangirl, be forewarned.
Sorry, it's a secret that's centuries old and I, as the sworn guardian of such secret, can not let it fall into the wrong hands, lest the universe itself be put in grave danger!
I paged through the docs, and although the quick start rules mention the co-op materials (e.g. Threat decks), I didn't find those decks in the files. Did I miss them?
I wonder if they got as far as designing the Prime War - uh, excuse me, Meanwhile!!! - character "upgrade" panels and cards for the existing Tactics miniatures.
They’ve added some of the co-op stuff! I’m excited because that was probably the main thing I wanted from Prime War.
I’m actually really intrigued now that I’ve been able to look over the rules. In particular, it looks like you can only move if you pick an attack that includes a move, which makes for a really interesting set of tactical decisions. And also makes me imagine how Tachyon would work - I’m thinking that all of her cards except Lightspeed Barrage and Lightning Reflexes would have some move component, making her almost as difficult to hit as Writhe.
Ah, looks like some of the cards in your "Meanwhile" slots still activate abilities - they're not just cooling down. So you have to make sure you have enough movement between your currently selected card and your "Meanwhile" cards to do what you want... Though I don't see too many recurring movement abilities.
Interesting, so you kind of build an ever-changing set of capabilities for your character, if I understand that right! And you might prefer to have certain cards out on your "Meanwhile" track *instead* of selected or in your hand ready to play, because of whatever buffs/abilities they give you while out in one of those slots. Seems like making a move-attack-move-attack-move-attack build for Tachyon is well within the reason of possibility.
And the threats are doing the same thing - so that's kind of a way to have automated opponents act as if they're slowly changing their priorities, while maintaining some consistency over a few turns.
Co-op threats for Sorrow and Master Warden are now available in the dropbox. Inspired by a minor villain with a penchant for following strong, charismatic leaders, and a mogul that might have turned to managing an interdimensional restricted-living facility in another-other timeline.
We will eventually put out all of the content we had designed, including characters that may have gotten very little broad playtesting (Tactics conversions, an occasional BC/FP character, so. many. scenarios.), although we're going to try a slow drip, as people will likely have questions and this is unfortunately a lower priority project for us at the moment.
If you'd like more specific questions answered, please join our playtesting group/discord! We'll monitor here occasionally (as we're still fans of sentinels), and our website works too, but as MigrantP noted, sometimes notifications about comments slip through the cracks!
I'm glad to see that the Meanwhile system is intriguing to you! It is one of the things we're most proud of, as we think it combines a low enough floor for new players that want to focus on their round-by-round actions with a high skill ceiling for advanced players who want to really tweak a skill rotation and see how they can push a character.
We mentioned two-week bits in our last post, and will likely only be a week behind with pushing out the first of our co-op scenarios as well as three additional playable characters this weekend. Thanks for your patience, and we look forward to seeing what you think!
"But dice are dice, and Dice are Fickle"
Internet Pseudonyms: PseudonymTwitch, PseudonymTweetr, PseudonymGamer
To a degree. That's why I'd expect items to go to KS that they have as a finalized product they are excited about but they don't know how popular or how the market might be for it.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
Didn't they have a almost done project on kickstarter that told them it wouldn't be viable. Something about monster trucks?
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Monster Truck Mayhem I believe
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
There was also the Story Wars game that didn't fund.
And there was a worker placement game, Dubai: Rebuild the Ruins that they cancelled on KS when it became clear that it wouldn't fund. So KS can certainly be a helpful guage of market interest.
I think for Prime War the issue was that the launched the pre-orders for the expansion too quickly. Most of the problems/issues that exist with Tactics (from a market perspective) weren't noticed by GtG until after the pre-orders ended, so they found themselves stuck trying to find a way to make it work. The commitment to backers probably kept the project alive a lot longer than it otherwise should have been.
I agree there. I would guess next time we see a preorder for a new game or expansion it's one they know they have a market and is pretty well into development if not nearly finished.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
This was the most frustrating because there was a SotM comic book as part of the KS. While the game failed to gain interest, the comic was heavily demanded and never got made.
We got the comic in a way when thye covered Cosmic Contest on the Letters Page and to me I feel thats probably for the best. Since that comic would be 100+ pages which wouid all have all the art done by Adam. If Adam had to do that it still might in progress.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
I guess this is closure at least.
I'm over here still playing Tactics with the Broken City playtest characters we had. . .
I may need to reprint those...
"See, this is another sign of your tragic space dementia, all paranoid and crotchety. Breaks the heart." - Mal
Unicode U+24BD gets us Ⓗ. (Thanks, Godai!)
Speaking of which, has there been any more news on the Print-and-Play Prime War possibility? I know it’s only been a month, but I’m so close to trying to hack something together from the scraps I’ve heard - and I’m no game designer, so that’s probably a bad idea haha
https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaneCharlie
I'm also itching to see what creative elements they got to have finished before things had to get scrapped, as what previews we've seen of that got me excited to see the rest.
"If life gives you lemons, make a lemon cannon."
Not always the best at social skills; I apologize in advance. I don't apologize for any corny and morbid jokes, though.
Resident Argent Adept and Biomancer fangirl, be forewarned.
Guys! The Prime War print and play is ready! Here's the PDFs: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pawrwijo0wneja4/AACFarg2ftA1Mh5CoTmeGw8Ea?dl=0
The names have been changed btw!
Have fun you guys and let's talk about it here!
Keaton Fierro
Can I also learn how to make Baklava? =)
Lead Bit Flipper, Handelabra Games
Developer of Sentinels, Bottom of the 9th, and Spirit Island
Sorry, it's a secret that's centuries old and I, as the sworn guardian of such secret, can not let it fall into the wrong hands, lest the universe itself be put in grave danger!
Keaton Fierro
I paged through the docs, and although the quick start rules mention the co-op materials (e.g. Threat decks), I didn't find those decks in the files. Did I miss them?
I wonder if they got as far as designing the Prime War - uh, excuse me, Meanwhile!!! - character "upgrade" panels and cards for the existing Tactics miniatures.
I'd suggest asking them on the blog they wrote with the link https://loreforgegames.wordpress.com/2020/07/04/meanwhile-in-your-printer/
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
I asked there on the 14th but it still says "Your comment is awaiting moderation."
Lead Bit Flipper, Handelabra Games
Developer of Sentinels, Bottom of the 9th, and Spirit Island
They’ve added some of the co-op stuff! I’m excited because that was probably the main thing I wanted from Prime War.
I’m actually really intrigued now that I’ve been able to look over the rules. In particular, it looks like you can only move if you pick an attack that includes a move, which makes for a really interesting set of tactical decisions. And also makes me imagine how Tachyon would work - I’m thinking that all of her cards except Lightspeed Barrage and Lightning Reflexes would have some move component, making her almost as difficult to hit as Writhe.
https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaneCharlie
Ah, looks like some of the cards in your "Meanwhile" slots still activate abilities - they're not just cooling down. So you have to make sure you have enough movement between your currently selected card and your "Meanwhile" cards to do what you want... Though I don't see too many recurring movement abilities.
Interesting, so you kind of build an ever-changing set of capabilities for your character, if I understand that right! And you might prefer to have certain cards out on your "Meanwhile" track *instead* of selected or in your hand ready to play, because of whatever buffs/abilities they give you while out in one of those slots. Seems like making a move-attack-move-attack-move-attack build for Tachyon is well within the reason of possibility.
And the threats are doing the same thing - so that's kind of a way to have automated opponents act as if they're slowly changing their priorities, while maintaining some consistency over a few turns.
Co-op threats for Sorrow and Master Warden are now available in the dropbox. Inspired by a minor villain with a penchant for following strong, charismatic leaders, and a mogul that might have turned to managing an interdimensional restricted-living facility in another-other timeline.
We will eventually put out all of the content we had designed, including characters that may have gotten very little broad playtesting (Tactics conversions, an occasional BC/FP character, so. many. scenarios.), although we're going to try a slow drip, as people will likely have questions and this is unfortunately a lower priority project for us at the moment.
If you'd like more specific questions answered, please join our playtesting group/discord! We'll monitor here occasionally (as we're still fans of sentinels), and our website works too, but as MigrantP noted, sometimes notifications about comments slip through the cracks!
I'm glad to see that the Meanwhile system is intriguing to you! It is one of the things we're most proud of, as we think it combines a low enough floor for new players that want to focus on their round-by-round actions with a high skill ceiling for advanced players who want to really tweak a skill rotation and see how they can push a character.
We mentioned two-week bits in our last post, and will likely only be a week behind with pushing out the first of our co-op scenarios as well as three additional playable characters this weekend. Thanks for your patience, and we look forward to seeing what you think!
"But dice are dice, and Dice are Fickle"
Internet Pseudonyms: PseudonymTwitch, PseudonymTweetr, PseudonymGamer
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