Just a general update on things at Geektopia Games:

Late pledge is still available on MyMiniFactory for those interested in print-and-play including the 3D print files:

https://www.myminifactory.com/campaigns/fearsome-wilderness-131

• Fearsome Wilderness Print and Play has been fulfilled and it’s on!  If you’re backing, join our Facebook Group if you haven’t already, and share what you’ve been doing with a fast-forming community.
• Cage Match! keeps selling at Amazon and getting good feedback.  If you purchased the game, please leave a review on Amazon and/or Board Game Geek.
• If you’re here for the Epic Duels, recent months have seen new decks for Ahsoka and the Dark Troopers from the Mandalorian TV series but also Freedon Nadd from the historical expanded universe.
• Been getting into the game Troyes on board game arena, a dice-drafting Euro, as well as playing some Hive.  I’ll have full reviews on these posted in a little while.
• We are continuing our epic Curse of Strahd campaign in D&D 5e.  Seriously, our party has met every challenge, won some epic fights, and collected some excellent items.
• I’ve been noodling on a space game that I’ve blogged about.  Brain burning with that one.
• Been meaning to play through the entirety of KOTOR2 but it’s been so hard to find the time.

Fearsome Wilderness Print and Play

Fulfilling print and play is actually pretty stressful, because you’re essentially fulfilling the whole game.  I remember hearing on the Board Games Insider podcast from designer and publisher Ignacy Trzewiczek that he would work on his games all the way up to the print run.  That’s certainly what we did with Cage Match!  But, with Fearsome Wilderness, we do not get to work on the game all the way up until the print run but rather, up all the way until the print and play fulfillment, so we had to finish the game within a month of ending the Kickstarter campaign including all components, cards, rules and well, everything.  I mean, if we found a typo or something, we could still correct it before the final print run, but otherwise we’re really no longer in a position to change anything about the game itself.  This is it!  The print run isn’t too far off so it’s just as well.

Plus, we’re working with our backers, answering their questions and troubleshooting their problems.  That part, while it brings some stress, I find it pretty fun to see people taking part in something we created and bringing it to life and am happy to help.

The Nitty Gritty of Board Game Production

My business career has been full of awarding of contracts and projects to vendors, so this is old hat for me but the long and the short of it is, you check around for vendors and reputations, get some proposals, and pick the one you like the best.  I got a few quotes for Cage Match! and selected Whatz Games based on their responsiveness and my love of the game King of Tokyo, which they make.  We think they did a great job with Cage Match! 

Going into Fearsome Wilderness, we were happy to potentially work with Whatz Games again, but also felt like as a company it would be good for Geektopia Games to not become overly reliant on one manufacturer.  We got quotes from Nice Funny Games Ltd. and Longpack so we have other relationships, but it will be Whatz Games for Fearsome Wilderness.  The primary reason we’re going with them for Fearsome Wilderness is because we want the same, spray-washed look of figures that are included the game Unmatched, and Whatz is the company who does Unmatched and their figures.

I actually didn’t know they worked with Restoration Games when I selected Whatz Games for Cage Match! not that it matters because it doesn’t include figures, but a future version of it might so it’s good to know that we don’t have to shop somewhere new if we go down that road.  It’s also no secret that I like Restoration Games a lot so I think it’s cool to work with the same manufacturer that they do.

Something new for me personally is that we’re casting figures this time.  It adds a lot of expense but in this case, I’m a bit stressed by the fact that it adds a lot of time, and that unlike printing, it’s completely outside of my control and there isn’t much that can be done to speed it up.  Printing not only has a shorter timeline, but if you’re falling behind on your end, you can generally do what you need to in order to catch up, and the printer has some capability to catch up as well.  I don’t think that’s the case with figures but again, it’s sort of out of my control and I don’t really know.  What I do know is that the timeline of publishing the Fearsome Wilderness board game will be determined by the figures and if it ends up being late, which is the great fear, it will be due to the figures.  As mentioned, we’re already completed on the final print components, even if there’s still plenty of back and forth with the printer.

A Roll of the Dice

To add one more bit of complexity, we are paying special attention to the Fearsome Wilderness dice.  They are the main component that you play with and therefore, in my opinion, the most important.  The best dice, really, are the ones we get from Matt’s 3D printer but we want as close to that for the game as we can get.  Whatz does a solid job with dice, but we wanted better than solid so we worked with the folks at KR-SG Craft to get exactly the kind of wood dice we want.  This is the great thing about the Kickstarter age we live in — we’re not doing this for profit, so we can sink costs into making the excellent game we want to play instead of worrying about profit margins.

Great news, we already got our samples from KR-SG Craft, approved them, and have confirmed that they’ve been shipped and received by Whatz Games.

Space the Final Frontier

As a company, Geektopia Games is fully focused on fulfilling Fearsome Wilderness and we’re not actively working on anything else or planning to publish anything else at this time with the possible exception of more materials for Fearsome Wilderness.  If you read the blog or follow me on Twitter, I’ve mentioned that I’ve had some ideas for a space game and I’ve spent some time working out some things, though we’re still far from any kind of full-blown prototype.

More Epic Duels

As long as there’s new Star Wars content, I continue to feel compelled to create decks.  I can’t say the Dark Troopers are all that creative but they sure do look like fun nonetheless, a 4-character deck with no minors.

With new series planned for Ahsoka and Boba Fett, more is likely on the way but it may be a while.  Until then, happy dueling!