As we head into the holiday season, we want to update everyone on the status of Dwarven Smithy. We attended AcadeCon in Dayton, OH November 11th and 12th and had 13 playtesters. The games ran between 70 to 110 minutes and that is right where we want to be. More importantly, everyone enjoyed the game and we are officially at 91 total playtesters (BIG THANKS TO ALL).
Game Development We were able to make the game shorter by removing some of the Guild cards and making the crafting aspect easier. However, after about 10 or so plays, we believe players will want a more challenging game. We’ll include two modes of play base game, easy and hard, and the hard mode will include 10 more Guild cards plus 15 different (harder) King’s items. Art/Illustrations We contacted about 20 artists and started getting quotes. By the end of the month, we'll decide on our direction. To give everyone an idea of the scope of art needed, here's a list; 9 Card Frames, 12 Mine resource and 33 Icons, 3 Environment Illustrations, 10 Apprentice characters, 8 Player characters, 10 Tools, 25 Items, 15 King's Items, 4 Coin art and various other art/graphics needed for the warehouse, reference and player turn cards. Kickstarter Kickstarter planning is coming along well and we believe we'll still hit our Q1 2017 goal in late March. Hopefully, the next Dev post we can officially announce a date. We are also looking to hire a graphic designer and videographer early next year to get everything setup. Print and Play Expect an update next month to the print and play files and rules. Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for reading, ~ Mike Warth
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In the past few months since Gen Con, we have worked to refine the game. We've attend three game designer playtest nights at The Rook OTR and attended CinCityCon in Cincinnati. With the recent changes, the 4-player game is now running about 60 to 90 minutes, which is a major improvement. We have been able to reduce the game play time and player down time by making the resource matching slightly easier. However as an option, we may add 15 more difficult resource matching cards for more experienced players. The prototype card designs were tweaked and we replaced wording on some cards with icons. We will continue to playtest and refine however, we feel the game is ready for Kickstarter.
Next on our to do list is start putting the Kickstarter project outline together, contracting some artists, hire a layout designer, start collecting bids from printers, create some demo copies to get out for reviews and hundreds of other details. We were hoping for a January 2017 launch, but we want to do it right. We are now targeting a launch for sometime in March 2017. Thanks ~Mike Warth Time for another development post. After receiving the great feedback from our playtesters at Gen Con 2016, we've had some time to discuss and look back over all playtests of the game for the past year. We use a modified version of the Unpub feedback form, asking people to rate the game from 1 to 5 (1=Poor and 5=Excellent) in these categories; Length of Game Play, Interactivity, Ease of Learning, Originality, Game Decisions, Player Down Time and Fun / Enjoyable. Here are the numbers for the playtesters that would buy our game:
3.92 - Length of Game Play 4.13 - Interactivity 4.21 - Ease of Learning 4.65 - Originality 4.42 - Game Decisions 3.75 - Player Down Time 4.69 - Fun / Enjoyable 4.25 - TOTAL Average Score 88% said they buy it While these numbers are really good, we do have room for improvement (Length of Play and Player Down Time). We don't want just good, we want great. Many playtesters are playing for the first time, so it is understandable their first game takes a little longer and other players take a little longer on their turns. So with everything taken into consideration, here are the major issues we are addressing:
That's all for this week. We've started planning for our kickstarter in January 2017... More on that soon. Thanks! ~Mike Warth We had a wonderful experience at Gen Con this year. The folks at Double Exposure did a great job running the First Exposure Playtest Hall. We were able to get in six playtest sessions over the course of the first three days. We are looking over the comments and already have a list of changes to make. The game plays well with both male and female and all age groups. It’s time to start preparing for a Kickstarter in the first quarter of 2017. We’ll continue to playtest, refine the game and get it ready for the market.
Overall, 90% of gamers who play Dwarven Smithy like the game, would recommend it to a friend and buy it. That’s an incredible number! The game plays well with both male and female and all age groups. We would also like to say a special thanks to our Gen Con playtesters; Aaron, Andrew, Ben, Bethany, Briana, Chris, Don, Duncan, Eva, Jeremy, Joe, Kevin, Laney, Lauren, Matthew, Nancy, Noah, Sarah, Stephanie and Stephen . Thanks to everyone for their support! Here's our schedule in the First Exposure Playtest Hall (ICC : Rooms 107-110) at Gen Con 2016.
The Library is in ICC : Rooms 101-106. In preparation for Gen Con 2016, we have released version 1.0 of the Print and Play for Dwarven Smithy.
Click here to go to the page. Another great night for playtesting Dwarven Smithy. We are ready for Gen Con 2016 in two weeks! Special thanks to Lindsay, Jason, Brittany, Kyle, Rugen, Paola, Cody, Kevin and Dan for hosting.
There's been a lot of activity behind the scenes here at Flatworks preparing for Gen Con in 22 days. We've been busy getting our banner, putting together handout information, adding a few new cards to the game and ordering new shirts. We will be at the First Exposure Playtest Hall (FEPH) and tickets are free for anyone who wants to play. Also, shortly before Gen Con (Aug 2nd), we'll be publishing a Print and Play version of the game on the website.
Our time slots in FEPH at Gen Con: Fri 6PM-8PM and 10PM-12AM Sat 4PM-6PM and 8PM-10PM We'll also be in the Gen Con Game Library on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If you can't make those time slots, please drop by if you want to demo or playtest the game, and we'll be glad to show you. If you haven't checked out our Facebook and Twitter pages, we invite you to go out, take a look and give us a like and follow! Facebook: Facebook.com/FlatworksGaming Twitter: @FlatworksGaming Email: FlatworksGaming@gmail.com Thanks for everyone's support! ~ Mike Warth We had a wonderful time meeting other designers and playtesting Dwarven Smithy at Origins Game Fair last week. Development of Dwarven Smithy is coming along nicely and the feedback has been wonderful. The game has been in development for over a year and we are still polishing and making minor adjustments. New things still pop up from time to time and we are very thankful to everyone who is helping make this a great game. Next, we are gearing up for Gen Con in August. Promotional materials have been ordered and our banner will be sent off to print within a week.
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