Loki at Work (and Other, Actually Important News for Raid Backers)
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 01:49:26 AM

Hello, Viking Warriors!

Picture this: A longboat glides out of the mist, its occupants hushed and muffling the oars so they don’t slap against the water. Aiming to rely on the element of surprise, the jarl motions for everyone to stay silent as they approach the shore. Everything is shrouded in gray, and the only sound is … the new guy standing in the prow who suddenly shouts, “IS THIS THE VILLAGE WE’RE GOING TO PILLAGE?!”

That guy? It’s me. That’s how I felt anyway, after I began my first day as the person handling updates for Raid (and Modern Games) by mistakenly sending out an email for a different game, which confused backers and caused me immediately to soak through my shirt. I’d have soaked through my armor, too, if I’d been wearing any. And then I’d have been riddled with arrows, some (if not all) of which would have come from my own crew, I’m sure.

To anyone who had a good laugh at my expense, you’re welcome. I’m glad I could add some levity to your day. To everyone else, I have one thing to say:

It was Loki’s fault.

I’m blaming the cunning trickster, anyway, because why not? The mischief, the chaos … a head-scratching email update has his fingerprints all over it.

But enough about me and my disaster of a debut. What you really want to hear is what’s going on with Raid now!

The team has been hard at work updating the rules and running them through blind playtests. If you’ll recall, we wanted to make sure that everyone—including someone who’s totally new to Raid—will be able to interpret the rules as intended so that gameplay is as smooth as possible. That way you can focus on strategy and fun as opposed to wondering whether you’re getting the mechanics right. (If you’re someone who enjoys arguing over minutia in rulebooks, you can still do that, but our goal is to have that be something you do because you want to, not because the rules themselves are unclear.)

We’re excited to announce that we plan to wrap up this rules-revision process next week. That means we’d push the game into production the week after that. In other words, things are really rolling now! In fact, they’re moving along at such a clip that we’ll be ready to announce some more exciting news for fans of Raid in the coming weeks.

Our fulfillment target date is still Q1 of 2022, as we walk that fine line of moving as quickly as possible while not sacrificing the quality of any aspect of the game and trying to account for what surprises the fall and winter may bring in terms of shipping and other vital parts of the chain.

With all of this in mind, and as I noted in my (ahem) prior post, I’ll continue sending out updates at least once a month until the game has landed on our shores at last. As a backer myself, I’m as excited as you are to discover what’s coming next, and I’ll share it as I do. I’m a huge game geek, a Norse mythology nut, a Viking fan … and, obviously, an occasional victim of both ancient gods and modern technology.

Until our next encounter,

—Ryan and the Modern Games Team

An Update on Updates (and Who Will Be Making Them)
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 03:22:18 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Raid Production & Delivery Update
almost 3 years ago – Thu, May 13, 2021 at 12:46:30 AM

Hello Viking Warriors!

We know you are as excited as we are for you to start playing Raid and we've been working hard behind the scenes to make that happen.

As you may recall, in our last update we were working on finalizing production art and what we thought was a final rules review.

As this is the first time we are publishing a game from the ground up (we also publish Beasts of Balance, but acquired that from the original creators last year), we are being super diligent in making sure we are thorough in every detail. Our goal, above all else, is to ship a game that is fun to play, easy to learn, beautiful and sans any issues that could have been avoided by spending a bit more time on the details. 

The good news is we have caught some pretty important issues since the campaign ended in November and are going to ship a better game because of it. Some of those include:

• The four-sided Fate die design wouldn't work as a four-sided die. The Rune illustrations on that die are beautiful, but as it was originally designed the player wouldn't know which Rune was rolled without picking up the die and turning it over. We missed this in the design phase and so did the factory. It wasn't until our Lead Game Designer, Brennen, was play testing the Asgard expansion more thoroughly that we realized this. The Fate die is now a D8 and the Rune the player rolls will be facing up as it should. Photos below!
• Related to the point above, we also realized we didn't have a way to track the Rune associated with each player so that when the Fate die is used in the game, it's clear which player should be targeted for attacks. To solve this, we've added four Fate cards to the Asgard expansion that weren't originally planned. Each player will receive a Fate card at the beginning of the game when the Fate die is in use. Designs below!
• Our original estimate and order for production with the factory was also missing the tuck box for the Asgard expansion. This was something we missed and so did the factory in the earlier stages, but was discovered by our team as we were working through final production art. We've since updated the order to include the tuck box, but it did require getting a new estimate and as is the case in so many industries, there were challenges with getting that estimate due to supply chain issues and price volatility due to the merger of the two major paper companies that supply nearly all game manufacturers in China. We're all set on this now!
• The rulebook for the core game was designed in advance of the campaign and while it made sense to us, we conducted some additional blind play tests during the production art phase of the project and realized not everyone was interpreting the rules as intended. Based on these findings, we decided to bring a professional rule book writer/editor in and started seeking referrals. We quickly learned that the folks who specialize in this art form are in high demand. This has set us back a bit, but we can't ship a game knowing that the rules won't be clear to some of our backers. We are actively working on the rules right now and will be conducting further blind play tests to ensure the rules are solid before resuming the production process.

We set out with the goal of meeting or exceeding our delivery estimate and we have obviously failed in that regard. We know we aren't the first game creators on Kickstarter to have this happen, we likely won't be the last, but we feel terrible nonetheless. We are greatly appreciative of your patience. Thank you!!

As first time game creators/publishers, we're learning a lot about the process through this campaign and are already adjusting our approach for future games. In fact, we had intended to launch a campaign for another new game this summer and have pushed it back so we can ensure we avoid having this happen again. We will also give ourselves more time to deliver on future campaigns. We were overly ambitious with a six month delivery timeline; especially, given everything going on in the world of manufacturing, supply chain and global shipping today.

Fulfillment + BackerKit // FAQs

As we are still working on locking down the rulebook and will need to conduct further blind play tests to confirm the rules are in fact doing their job + we don't want to have to send out this type of update again, we are now targeting the fulfillment of Raid in Q1 (January - March) 2022. We know this feels like a long ways out from now, but we still have some real work ahead of us to get the rules where we want them and when we get back to production we're going to be in the throes of a very busy manufacturing season with holiday production and shipping delays very possible. We don't want to miss this date again and are therefore being conservative. We will do everything we can to deliver as quickly as we can and really appreciate your patience as we complete the journey together.

We have understandably received some messages asking when we will lock orders in BackerKit and charge credit cards. We have not locked orders yet. Nor have we charged credit cards. We won't do either of those things until closer to the close of production and fulfillment of pledges. Most of the BackerKit charges are for shipping and taxes and we don't need to collect those funds until around the time we are fulfilling orders. We will update BackerKit with new dates for order locks and credit card charges soon.

Future Updates + Job Opening

To no surprise of any of you, our updates have been few and far between. Up to this point, we have chalked that up to the fact we are a small team (true) that is working really hard (also true) to deliver this campaign + manage an ongoing business and Kickstarter for Beasts of Balance. In our e-commerce business and all past businesses, we haven't really had the community element that is clearly a huge part of Kickstarter and we underestimated the commitment to update and engage the community we were signing up for when we launched the campaign.

We realize now that we need help with this and are actively looking to add someone to the team who excels at community building, writing, storytelling and customer service. And we're starting right here on Kickstarter with our backers. If you are passionate about games (especially the ones we are making) and have an interest in helping us surprise and delight backers before, during and after campaigns + could help out in other aspects of the business—we want to talk to you! This is a part time role to begin with, but could become full time in the future. Send us a direct message through Kickstarter if you think you're a good fit!

New Designs!!!!

We can't end an update on heavy, depressing stuff and because we have some designs we can share... let's end on a positive note!

Fate Die

We received samples of the corrected D8 Fate die and are sharing them here first! We are probably going with the darker blue and may adjust the illustration color again, but these are looking sweet already.

Fate Cards

There you have it! A pretty much final Fate die and the new Fate cards. 

Thank you so much for the trust you've placed in us to deliver an awesome game. Even though it's taking longer than we had originally envisioned (and we know that is disappointing), we're doing everything we can ensure Raid is one of the best games you'll back on Kickstarter (or play for that matter).

— The Modern Games Team

Production Updates & BackerKit Surveys Closing in Three Weeks
about 3 years ago – Tue, Mar 09, 2021 at 01:25:35 PM

Hello Viking Warriors!

Production

We just wanted to let everyone know the factory is back up and running following Chinese New Year and we are continuing to work with them to finalize production art/etc.

As part of our pre-production process, we are conducting our final rules review to get some fresh eyes on those documents. This will help ensure everything is easy to understand and get setup and playing when you receive your copy of Raid! This is the final detail for us before we go to production.

As soon as we have firm dates for delivery, we will provide an update. As of now, we are targeting June, but as with any new game and manufacturing process there are still things that can cause delays.

Behind the Scenes: God Card Hand Drawn Concepts

We thought everyone might like to see some of the hand drawn concepts Stone did as we were working through the God card illustrations back in November/December. 

If you like seeing details like this, let us know and we'll share some more in future updates!

BackerKit / Pledge Manager

As a reminder, the BackerKit Pledge Manager surveys are set to lock in about 3 weeks. If you haven't completed your survey, please do so ASAP. We have about 10% of backers who have not completed it yet. 

If you have completed your survey, but expect your address to change prior to receiving Raid this spring/summer, please be sure to update your address before the survey locks.

Thank you all for your support. We are super excited for everyone to play Raid!!

— The Modern Games Team

Launching next week... Beasts of Balance: Rebirth
about 3 years ago – Sun, Feb 07, 2021 at 04:15:35 PM

Hello Viking Warriors!

While we're all waiting for the delivery of Raid this summer, we have some exciting news to share about another one of our games.

As some of you may know (and others may not), the Modern Games team acquired the hit game Beasts of Balance last April. We have been huge fans of BoB since the early days and are excited to carry this brilliant game forward into the future.

To that end, we are excited to bring Beasts of Balance back to Kickstarter for the launch of the first new Beasts in four years along with the first substantive app updates in a couple years as well.

The details of what exactly will come to life with Beasts of Balance: Rebirth will have to remain a mystery for another week or so, but if you want to be the first to know what we've been cooking up, click the "Notify me on launch" button here. 

If you've never played Beasts of Balance, you should really check out the Kickstarter next week. It's one of the most fun games we've ever played and there will be plenty of reasons to back the next iteration on Kickstarter. 

As for Raid, the factory has officially wound down their operations for Chinese New Year. Making this the perfect time for us to launch the BoB campaign on Kickstarter. As soon as the factory is back, we'll be pushing forward with the manufacture of Raid so we can deliver to all of you in May/June!

We hope you're all enjoying a good game this weekend!

- The Modern Games Team