Arty Box, Coinage, Voting, and Werewolves?
almost 6 years ago – Wed, May 23, 2018 at 05:32:16 PM

Panoramic Box Art: Achieved!

Bickety-bam! Our £70,000 stretch goal is rubble! Haakon will create a panoramic landscape painting for the bottom the Villagers game box.

You guys keep on surpassing all our expectations for Villagers, and we’re incredibly grateful!

Coinage

Our next goal is to add 30 extra coins to the game. Both the base game and the Coin Box get 10 more 1’s, 10 more 2’s, and 10 coins of a new denomination: 100’s. This makes the Coin Box more versatile for using with other games, and absolutely 100% guarantees that even with five players having a perfect game of Villagers (an astronomically unlikely event), there will be enough coins to cope with it.

First Player Token: Planet Earth Decides!

It’s time for us to vote on what the First Player token is going to be! We’re going to include this in the stretch goal expansion pack, and it will be approximately 40mm (1.5") high.

Haakon has created a shortlist of four options from all those suggested. Villagers is 100% his vision, so he’s selected the ones he feels happiest with.

Click here to cast your vote!

We will announce the winner in the next update, which will hopefully be when we unlock the new coins.

Werewolves in the Village

There’s another village a long, long way away from ours that has terrible trouble with werewolves. Someone should make a game about that!

In completely unrelated news, we were honoured to be contacted by Bezier Games’ Ted Alspach, co-designer of One Night Ultimate Werewolf and many others. Ted is a backer of Villagers, and is running his own Kickstarter right now for Bezier’s latest game, One Week Ultimate Werewolf. How do they think of these things! Ted kindly offered to tell his backers about our little game, and so we’re extending him the same courtesy. One Night Ultimate Werewolf is fully funded and smashing stretch goals. Check it out here.

So if our quiet village gets a sudden influx of shifty looking strangers with eyebrows that meet in the middle, you'll know why. Just eat lots of garlic, wear a black cat, and you'll be fine.

Much love,

Dave & Haakon

New Solo Events, New Goal, & Pledge Manager News
almost 6 years ago – Tue, May 22, 2018 at 04:16:15 PM

Goood morning, villagers!

OK, it's actually afternoon here. I'm slowly losing track of what day or time it is, but it's fine, I'm fine, everything's going to be fine.

We Only Went & Unlocked Another Stretch Goal!

Last night we broke through the £60,000 barrier and unlocked four new Summer event cards for the Villagers solo mode. These will be included in the expansion pack.

Haakon has now started work on illustrating the event cards, and these are they...

If you'd like a look at the Print & Play rules & cards for the Beta version of the solo mode, you can find them here.

What's On The Box?

Our next stretch goal is approaching fast! If we can get to £70,000, Haakon will paint a panoramic art piece for the bottom section of the box. It adds no content to the game, but it does help make it more of a beautiful artifact that you'll be happy to have in your house.

Just a quick heads-up - the goals after this one are going to be harder to reach. We're only on day 8 of 29, and we have to pace ourselves. This is a marathon, not a sprint! But don't worry, we still have some really cool stuff to come.

Pledge Manager?

As this campaign grows, it is becoming very apparent that it would benefit from a pledge manager. For those who've never used one, a pledge manager is a software system that takes over from Kickstarter after the campaign ends. Think of it as the bridge between Kickstarter and the game arriving at your house. Using one will allow you to make any changes you might want to make to your pledge, confirm your address, and have any questions answered in a timely and efficient manner.

Sinister Fish Games currently has one full-time employee - that's me. Using a pledge manager will make my life SO much easier in the days following the campaign. It is like having a team of professionals coming in to handle a lot of the time-consuming administration work that I'd otherwise have to deal with on my own. 

So, I'm happy to tell you that I've chosen to partner with the industry leaders in pledge management software: BackerKit.

Best wishes,

Dave & Haakon

£50k Stretch Goal, Solo Mode, and a new Review
almost 6 years ago – Mon, May 21, 2018 at 10:28:05 AM

Hello again, villagers!

My apologies for bothering you twice in one day, but things move quickly in this village. Also, I was really late posting the previous update. I'll try not to bombard your inbox more than once a day from now on.

In other news, we just passed £50,000 in funding. That is absolutely bonkers. I would have been happy if the campaign had finished on half that. I am genuinely flabbergasted, and immensely grateful to you all for joining us.

But enough of this frippery...

The Profiteers Are Here

It's another expansion pack upgrade, unlocked and in the bag: 3 new villagers that offer end-game scoring opportunities. We're still balancing these, but they're designed to make new strategies possible.

This brings us to a total of 26 new cards and 13 new villagers added to the expansion pack. Will there be any more? Yes, there will, as long as we can reach our next goal...

As if she wasn't mean enough, the Countess, who you'll face if you play the game in solo mode, wants 4 new event cards to beat you over the head with. Some of you have asked to see some more information on the solo mode, so here is a PDF file with the beta version rules and cards. Bear in mind this is not the finished article, and that it's all subject to change.

A New Review 

I was just given this link to a written review of Villagers by Mark Capell-Helm. Mark played the game more than 10 times before he wrote his thoughts down, and it seems **spoilers** he really liked it.

Speaking of reviews, I still have a few to share with you, and I wanted you to know that even if the game gets bad reviews, I will still share them with you. It's ridiculous to assume that everyone will like any given game, and I find that negative reviews can be as useful as positive ones when determining if a game is for me. It might sound like I'm softening you up for an absolute stinker of a review, but I'm actually not. It could happen, of course, but it hasn't yet...

Thanks again for everything!

Dave & Haakon

Stretch Goal News and a Live Q&A
almost 6 years ago – Mon, May 21, 2018 at 10:27:14 AM

Hello, villagers!

It’s a beautiful Sunday here in Lincolnshire. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the stretch goals are falling. My kind of day. Apparently some minor nobles from the other village had a big fancy wedding yesterday, with free food and everything, and they didn’t invite any of us. How rude!

The Addition of Division

Late Friday night we unlocked a set of six full colour card dividers which will be included in the base game. They’ll be made from 1.5mm greyboard instead of smelly thin cardstock, because that is how we roll around here.

Money, Money, Money!

For our next stretch goal (which isn't very far away now, because this update is late, sorry!) we have a six card mini-expansion featuring 3 brand new villagers: it’s the Profiteers, everyone! What? Don’t look at me like that! They’re really nice when you get to know them.

The Profiteers all have a silver coin icon, which means they give you a conditional amount of gold in the final market phase. They will offer up new ways to score, and will make different strategies possible.

You might notice I changed the format of the stretch goal graphics a little bit. Now it's clear which of them are upgrades for the base game, and which are included in the free expansion pack we're giving to Kickstarter backers.

Live Q&A

Tomorrow (Monday 20th) at 2pm GMT (+0:00), Haakon and I will be going live on the campaign page via the magic of magic. We'll be happy to answer your questions and / or look awkward if nobody turns up. Please save us from that embarrassment, and come & say hello on Monday!

If you can't watch us live, you can still post a question and watch the show later. I believe it stays on the campaign page for 48 hours after the live broadcast. You can leave your questions here.

We'll soon schedule another Q&A for later in the week, probably Thursday or Friday around 7pm GMT.

See you soon!

Dave & Haakon

New Pledge Levels, Retail, and Haakon in a Hat
almost 6 years ago – Sun, May 20, 2018 at 12:36:35 PM

Hello villagers, just a quick one: we have some new pledge levels...

Two of Everything

I've added two new pledge levels for anyone who wants an extra copy of the game. I'm sorry they can't be cheaper, but our shipping is already as low as we can get it. It's based on weight, so there isn't much savings to be had, but I've given a small discount for those of you who double up.

• The Two Lumberjacks pledge gets you two copies of the game.
• The Two Wood Carvers pledge gets two copies of the game, and two Coin Boxes.

Both pledges include free stretch goal packs.

Retail Pledges

We've also opened our retailer tier - if you run a retail outlet, feel free to make a pledge at the Shopkeeper level and then message me directly so we can figure out quantities & pricing. You will need to provide proof of retail status.

Due to the high cost of shipping heavier packages outside the EU, retail pledges are only available to retailers within the UK and the wider EU. If you're a retailer anywhere else in the world who would like to stock Villagers, I would urge you to contact your regular hobby games distributor nearer the time of release.

Haakon in a Hat

Here's that picture I was telling you about, of Haakon in a hat!

Best wishes,

Dave