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     You know how we end each update by saying that exciting news is fast approaching?  I’m going to guess that it hasn’t felt fast.   Or exciting.  Or new.

If you thought we were small before…

     We’ve always been a small company.  We had big ideas though, and grand hopes.  We wanted to start small, with Cows, because it seemed appropriate. (And because we think Cows is a great game.)  Also because none of us were independently wealthy enough to start big.  We couldn’t just hire a bunch of people and launch a line of products.

     Now we’re an even smaler company.  You don’t need to pass time with our whining, so let it suffice that it’s hard to anticipate the fickle unfolding of health and fortune.

     It’s really just me now.   A team of one with hopes and goals applenty for a larger team.  (But still without that pesky independent wealth!)  I am metaphorically that sad little kitten in the rickety box.  (I say “metaphorically” lest people think I am literally a sad little kitten, and then I become wildly popular on the internet but also doomed to disappoint people when they realize that there are no literate kitten game companies.)

     But where to begin?  Or where to begin again?  Or how to pick up what was left?

A sad kitten in a box
Kitten in a box, by George Bonev

Next Steps 

     I am….  Sadly, not we.  I am in the process of reviewing the crowdfunding page and production logistics for Cows.  My hope is still to launch that later this year.  A part of the “fickle unfolding” above was the complete failure of marketing partners, so I still have to figure out how to get attention to the game.  I do think that once people see it they’ll like it, at least if they like goofy games and animal noises, or are just looking for an excuse to show off their mooing chops in front of friends and family.  

     I am also working on the Bardworthy lore website.  That game was my baby.  I’ve been working on it for three decades.  I’ve developed other games, but at heart I tell stories, and the mechanics to tell stories on a tabletop have always excited me.  Roleplaying games are some of the clearest distillation of that.

     The current playtest is proceeding as awkwardly as everything else has for the last several months, but I want to share some of the Lore from the world of Tharet, so I’m going to.  As I said, I’m a storyteller at heart.

   Hopefully that will be available soon, and then I’ll get to post another update!

A sad kitten in a box
Kitten in a box, by George Bonev

     I figured that it couldn’t hurt to include the sad kitten picture one more time.

     That’s all for now though, lets hope together that more exciting news is in fact fast approaching!  Until then feel free to leave any comments or questions you have in the space below.  I look forward to hearing from you!

 

As we say where we come from, sweet mother of pearl!

   To be entirely honest, we don’t know if that’s an expression where we come from.  The one of us with the closest to a clear origin doesn’t so much come from a place as a “shifting morass of ghosts from other people’s cultures.”  But he says it, and he doesn’t know why he says it.  We assume it had to come from somewhere.  Honestly, for a while we thought that he had made it up, then we heard a stranger say it.

   He also has exclamations about cake and Moses.  The common thread is that they’re always sweet, even though he seldom exclaims concerning the sweetness of a situation.  The cultural ghosts prefer ironic sugar, it seems.

Everything Has Gone Wrong*

   We make games because we love stories. As storytellers though we admit to a long (and mutually beneficial) relationship with melodrama.  (We’ve read a lot of Dickens.)  In that spirit we hope you’ll understand when we say that every step we’ve taken this past month has felt like it stretched into a marathon.  Through mud.  In a storm.  Uphill.  Chased by Persians.  And Victorian gentlemen.

   You might recall that we had a sudden and unexpected need to research new production companies.  It took longer than we had hoped but we did actually find a company.  All the better, their quote is in the right range to let us sell the game at the low price point we had originally intended.

   We had also received feedback that our Kickstarter Campaign was rather lacking in the “videos” department.  Not being videographers ourselves, nor fit to appear on film, we thought we would take the opportunity to research board game related video channels and investigate having a video made. 

   Everthing seemed to be coming together–we found a production company and and made contact with video producers–then we realized that we had no more complete prototypes.  Before we could commission any sort of video, we needed new prototypes.

   Fortunately our new production company was happy to make prototypes, and with decent expeditiousness.  Unfortunately they had entirely different file requirements from our original production company, so none of our established art and layout files would transfer.

   Also unfortunately, the program suite we had been using didn’t work with their particular requirements.  We had to procure new software, then learn how to use it, then recreate our layout documents from scratch.  All just to order the new prototypes, with which we hope to commission videos for our eventual crowdfunding campaign.

   Clearly, our anticipated launch has been further delayed.

*Slight exaggeration

Time, the Most Heartless Monster of All

   We feel quite apologetic and ashamed of the delay.  We really had worked really hard to plan time for failure into our anticipated schedule.  We had underestimated our ability to fail.  Or overestimated our ability (simpliciter).  

   And while we struggled after Cows, our other most notable project, Bardworthy, lay stagnant.  We still hope to launch the next round of playtesting this month, but we also hoped that our Cows crowdfunding campaign would be finished by now. 

   For those who are following along and anticipating their chance to craft stories with our new system, we can only ask for continued patience.  We remain convinced that it will prove worth your wait.  

     That’s all for now, but as always more news is always fast approaching!  Eventually, just through the law of averages, some of it is bound to be entirely positive!  Until then feel free to leave any comments or questions you have in the space below.  We look forward to hearing from you!

 

A New Place and Time for Cows

You might have noticed that the expected launch date for our Cows crowdfunding campaign has moved.  It was always a tentative placeholder, but we’ve had to make more adjustments than we expected, which was a pretty high bar.

A Good Place to Start

Cows crowdfunding banner image

First, we want to thank all of the people who previewed the crowdfunding page and gave us feedback.  Looking at it now compared to how it started, all of that feedback really helped us improve it dramatically.  We even got to make animations, which is something that we hadn’t done before!

If you haven’t had the chance to check out the campaign page yet, there’s still time!  Head over to Kickstarter and give us your thoughts.

So What Happened?

Remember when we talked so foolishly about how the game was relatively inexpensive to produce?  Ah, we were so young.

Our production quote expired.  We expected it to expire, and we built a potential cost increase into our financial plan.  We radically underestimated how much the costs would increase though. There wasn’t room in the new cost structure for us to keep the price of the game down where we wanted it.   Even if we raised the price, though, it would have been tough to finance both production and delivery.  It was an unpleasant surprise.

So we’ve spent the last couple of weeks exploring our options. At times it’s been harrowing.  We’ve waffled between frustration and hope so many times that we developed a new emotion entirely, although we haven’t decided whether to call it “frope” or “hopestration.”  The process is still ongoing, but we’ve found some good leads.  The game will get made and we should still be able to pass on low prices.  Our frope/hopestration is trending  hopeward.  We ought to have a clearer picture by the end of this week, or by next week if our luck continues apace.  (We’re trending hopeward, but there’s some drag.)

And What’s Next?

While we pursue a new and more practical production quote, we also want to take this opportunity to try to expand the reach of our small community.   Our expectations have always been modest, but  we enjoy the idea of being able to share our whimsical little game with more folk.  

We’ve created the option to sign up for email updates.  We’ve reached out to some online content producers to see about partnering to make videos.  We’re even listed on BoardGameGeek now!

We’ll still be improving our Kickstarter campaign page too.  If you’d like to help and you’ve already given us your feedback, share it with your friends and family.  The more eyes that see it, the more we can improve it to capture the excitement and charm that we think the game deserves.

In Other Moos…  er…  News.

We have also, at long last, created a proper page dedicated just to Cows.  It’s still in the general list of “Our Games” on that page of course, but now you can explore further by clicking the logo.   You can even click the logo here, if you’re feeling adventuresome.

Cows

We’ll also include a link for those feeling less adventuresome.

That’s all for now, but as always more exciting news is always fast approaching!  Until then feel free to leave any comments or questions you have in the space below.  We look forward to hearing from you!