We publish tabletop games, review others, and make stuff for Epic Duels and Unmatched
Cage Match Update: The First Review Copies Are Away!
Last night I assembled all of my materials for Cage Match! and put together 2 complete review copies, inserts and all. Today, I mailed them off. Nerve-wracking stuff, I tell you. I’m not even going to say the names of the reviewers in case they don’t like it. You never really know when you’re ready for the world to see your game. I’ve asked a few folks, how do you know? I got a variation of this answer from more than one:
It’s always hard to tell. At some point you just have to pull the trigger. You can always improve a game/product, and there’s a point where you just have to say, “this is the game I want to make.” But of course it’s hard to know exactly when that is.
5 boxes, one is mine, and 2 have gone out to reviewers. I have most of what I need for a 3rd set for a lucky reviewer, then I’ll have to put a 4th one together.
Well, we’re at that point now with Cage Match! There are some things we could do differently. There are some other things we could try. But, we’ve been playing this game for over a year and a half. It’s time to give it a go. If you like mixed martial arts, you will probably like this game. If you don’t like mixed martial arts at all, you probably won’t. No amount of tinkering is probably going to change that. There probably are quite a few folks in the middle, who have a passing interest in the sport, or at least like boxing or wrestling. It will come down to your appetite for a light “take that” game, and a 2-player game that can be played in under 10 minutes yet still have some twists and turns. The tinkering could sway some of those folks one way or the other, but I’m not seeing a path to grabbing a whole extra swath of them.
As far as launch timing, we’re close to the end but it will probably be late summer or early fall before this gets out. Once we hear back from these reviews, we can apply one more set of work from the graphic designer, including a once-over on the game and final Kickstarter graphics, then we can commit to a date. I see other games out there already committed to a July launch so we’re probably looking at late July at the earliest, and it could easily slide into August. There will probably be less Kickstarter activity at that time, but perhaps less competition as well.
