The fast paced strategy game of sneaky Knights and nervous Dragons for 2 or 3 players has funded on Kickstarter! you can still pre-order your very own Kickstarter copy if you missed out, or add more copies to your pledge!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Chapter 12 - Meet the Meeples
over 4 years ago
– Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 02:21:59 AM
Greetings Adventurers, we have a quick update for the curious baby dragons out there;
As is so often the way the prototyping phase of the sampling process has thrown up a number of roadblocks and delayed the project somewhat. We have a few photos of where we have been, and where we are at.
Meeple Mayhem
We started with the ambition to make the Meeple colours White and Silver, but the silver needed to have bits of metallic sediment in it and this led to a less than acceptable finish on the heat transfer:
As you can see the colours are quite dark and the rough finish on the silver led to a speckled effect on the print. Other adjustments we took from this first round were to make the silver knight piece larger as we felt the scale between Ivan and Lady Scyllos was off. We also tightened the shape of the Ivan meeple and added some more room between the spear and the back edge of the meeple.
Which led to round two:
A better result by far, but still not perfect - we have advised the factory to change the grey colour to something darker so there is more differentiation, and to make the meeple of the baby dragon larger so the print has a little breathing room from the edge.
A question for the Board
We have had a lot of tweaks to the box size in the process of the prototyping, as you may know this is the first of a set of three games, so the size of the box will need to be consistent for all three. We have changed the rulebook size a couple of times, and we are considering what size we should make the board in relation to the box. One thought is that we should maximise the board size based on the interior of the box; which would make it 370mm x 260mm. This would leave no room to get your fingers in to the box get it out, meaning you would have to tip the box to release it. The current size is 350mm x 225mm and as you can see by the photo of it in the box below we have a room for easy extraction, but it will move around a little in the box.
Let us know your preference in the comments!
Rulebook rejig
You might remember from last update that the factory (to our surprise) decided that two cute books at 90mm x 130mm were the best option for the Rulebook and "The Dragon Deal" story book. We have gone back to the idea of books that embrace the full size of the box, but have reduced the number of pages fairly dramatically you can check out the latest draft here: The Damsel's Tale Rule Book. Sing out if you have any feedback.
As you can probably surmise based on how long it has taken us to get this far, we are not feeling confident for a January 2020 delivery. We will be working hard over the Christmas break to get everything out before Chinese New Year.
On behalf of all of us at Red Genie Games, have a wonderful, festive and safe holiday season, wherever you are in the world.
Lots of Love,
Ben, Alex, Nico and all the RGG Team
Chapter 11 - Prototypical
over 4 years ago
– Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 03:06:02 AM
A belated greetings good adventures, and welcome to a long overdue update!
We are not sure where the last 2 months have gone, so if anyone has seen them please return them to the nearest convenient calendar. They have not been devoid of activity though, we have been tuning the artwork and print files for manufacture. Along with our MC of manufacturing Nico, we have rolled the first sample prototype out and have some exclusive photos for those of you with eager eyeballs.
This is the first prototype sample and is a perfect example of why we go though these processes. There are a couple of things that were misinterpreted or misaligned in the artwork templates, all have been addressed though.
So the big one is the sleeve has the wrong end, you can't really tell from that top photo but at the moment the box would slide in with the "pages" edge exposed and not the spine of the book. It was an easy fix but Essen is next week we won't expect too much movement on the samples until November.
This is the first glimpse of the insert as well, Nico suggested we make it look like the cavern, and Ben got his Photoshop on to produce a great looking result. We feel it's a much more striking finish than the book page effect we were going to use.
The meeples are obviously the big omission in the photos. We had a first round, but the print wasn't great because the finish was too rough on the silver colour we wanted to use. We have taken the opportunity to make some scaling adjustments on the knights as well. It's an expensive adjustment but this is key component and needs the best finish possible.
Ben and Russel spent the weekend encouraging strangers to blame each-other for random quest related catastrophes. It was as fun as it sounds and we are looking forward to bringing The Barmaid's Tale to you via Kickstarter in the first quarter of 2020.
We also got to play-test The Urchin's of Tinderbox in an early prototype form. It's coming along well and we can't wait to start developing the story and the art assets for it.
Thanks for your patience between updates, we will post more prototype pics soon!
Lots of Love,
Ben, Alex and the RGG team.
Chapter 10 - Show us your Linguists
over 4 years ago
– Sun, Aug 18, 2019 at 03:42:14 AM
A hearty greetings to you, fine Adventurers,
We hope this missive finds you well, wherever you are in your quest. We have prepared a sextet of scintillating segments to satisfy your update needs, so without further ado, let's get into the chapter:
The Grand Render
We have gone back to the well of 3D talent that is the amazing Anton one more time to capture the whole shebang. Enjoy the complete virtual composition* of your incoming game in all it's ray-traced glory:
*also "virtually complete composition" as we have left out the reminder and bonus promo card - see below
Remind me how you say...
We have promised a digital translation of the rules into German, French, Spanish and Italian, with possibly more. These will be presented in convenient PDF format once we have completed the translations. While the action cards are all symbols and need no translation to play, we are going to print the reminder cards in all languages and include them in the game.
To get these off to the printer asap we are asking the bilingual out there if you could help us out with the reminder card translations. We have engineered a Google Spreadsheet for this purpose, so click on through and contribute your local lingo.
What's the Deal?
For those of you who a new to the Red Genie Games/ Vague World journey - last year we had this crazy idea to release 3 games in one Kickstarter campaign, called Tinderbox Tales. We ended up pulling the plug on it, but as we detailed in this campaign we will be releasing all the games individually, The Damsel's Tale being the first of these.
The original premise behind Tinderbox Tales was that the 3 games are all part of a combined narrative. We tied the stories together via a journalist character named Godfrey Cobbler, who visits the town of Tinderbox to interview it's characters and uncover its secrets. The stories he gathers from the locals are the "Tales".
Each Tale is printed in the back of the rulebook and provides context to the scenario that the players encounter in the game. In this case, the unlikely "Damsel" that Godfrey interviews is Tinderbox's most eccentric fortune teller; the Madam Zazibella. She relates a tale about a recent visitor that Godfrey has faithfully recounted and chosen to call "The Dragon Deal". This story sheds a lot of light on the title of the game (and provides plenty of chuckles) - you can preview it as a PDF download, please enjoy The Dragon Deal, by Ivan Nevill.
Box liners
What's in the box? We covered most of that in the 3D render above, but what you didn't see was the two, as yet unadorned, printable surfaces inside the box. The inside cover will obviously get a lot more eyeball time that the bottom of the box, and we would love your suggestions for both. We have mocked up a couple of ideas below, a dedication to the backers, the interior of Madam Zazibella's Caravan, something practical like the icons summary, or all the backers names in tiny, tiny text. Please shout out any preference or other suggestions you have, there is a host of great art in this game to choose from.
A Baby Dragon walked into a Bar...
The barman looked up and said "we don't serve your kind in here" the dragon replied "It's OK I'm older than I look".....well you do better, in the comments please.
To tease the next Kickstarter release in the Tinderbox Tales set - The Barmaids Tale, we are including with every pledge this exclusive promo card of Cinder, you're welcome!
Dragon / Knight abilities
So you have all these amazing new characters you can play now, but what do they do ? Well we are glad you asked because we need to explain their particular powers in the rule book and just want to be sure that their explanations are clear and build some FAQs in if necessary.
Well how did that go down? plenty to keep you all busy until the next update I'll wager! Looking forward to your comments.
Just a reminder for the 15% of you that haven't completed your survey to let us know if you are still waiting on the email, they should all have well and truly made their way to your inbox (or junk folder) by now.
May all your quests be devoid of critical fails and overflowing with XP.
Lots of Love,
Ben, Alex & the RGG Crew
Chapter 9 - Pledge Managers and Loose Ends
over 4 years ago
– Thu, Aug 08, 2019 at 09:52:22 PM
Welcome brave Adventurers, to the production phase of the project!
In upcoming chapters we have some more exciting decisions to make, but first - those of you have been paying attention will know that we have some important loose ends to tie up:
Loose end #1 - We haves a winners!
Remember when we announced that competition back in Chapter 5 ? where we asked for some creative Knight and Dragon images on Instagram ? Well it appears it was a quest too challenging for most, however two brave backers heeded the call and ventured forth to add some creative contributions to the cause (even if they did post them on Twitter and not Instagram). So we have awarded them both with an extra special signed copy of the Game.
Our ongoing straight box edge vs curved box edge vote was tighter than a modern democratic election, all the way to the end of the campaign. We are pleased to finally announce that the straight edge took the popular vote by a dragons whisker. My industrial design teacher would be happy with another win for practical design in the spirit of "form follows function".
Loose end #3 - All the Stretch Goals
This is the one you have all been waiting for, due to popular demand (and simplicity of shipping) we are throwing in the final stretch goal, giving everyone the full range of four dragons and four knights to mix it up with. Say hello to Misty, and the Champion of Fools Haven - Captain Kinnen:
Loose end #4 - National Pride
For a fair chunk of the campaign our proud (and public health care strengthened) Australian hearts were beating strong as local backers led the tally! However in traditional style, Team America rallied and bought home the gold in the final stretch! Nationalism aside we are grateful for all our backers and are constantly humbled and amazed that our creativity gets a chance to touch every corner of the globe.
The managing of the pledging
We have set up the Pledge manager with BackerKit to collect your details and pick up some post campaign pledges. If you are looking for an extra copy, or feel like it's time to join the Mumma Dragon club, this will be your chance. We have run the "Smoke Test" which means 5% of backers should have received an invite to complete the survey, once we are happy that we have nailed the setup it'll be on for young and bold.
Look out for your email very soon and spread the word to anyone you know would be into this game.
That's it for now, we have already been flat out finalising our print files for the digital samples and will be keeping you all in the loop as the production process proceeds.
Lots of Love
Ben, Alex and the RGG team
Game On!
almost 5 years ago
– Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 11:01:51 PM
Greetings adventurers!
What a finish! thanks to all of you who helped carry this campaign and then bring it home so strong!
Kickstarters are a lot of work, but always create such memorable experiences for us as creators, we are all so grateful that you could be a part of this milestone event!
The final hours of the campaign involved a great many knights donating their treasures, due to your generosity we managed to bring a few stretch goals home to boot.
There are so many thanks to go out, our team, you folks, every social media post that was shared and posted and of course our valued reviewers: Dez Maggs, Alexa Schobert Chaplin, Cameron Brown, Dane Trimble, Garth and the Dice Men, Holly Drakeford, Jay Dotson, Jean-Micheal Macleod, Jill Wong, John Christopher, Jusgua Burall, Lachlan Herbert, Mark Harris, Micheal Lindh and Sean Hallenbeck.
The story continues...
On the production front, everything is designed, exported and ready to go to print. From here we get a manufacturers sample to quality check the product, then we enter full production, straight to shipping under the expert eye of the industry veterans at Synergy Games.
Your next quest?
Keep a keen eye on your emails in the next couple of weeks. We will be following up with a survey to make sure the The Damsel's Tale delivered to your door.
The pledge manager is also an opportunity to add some more copies of the game or pick up the add-on characters that we didn't reach in the stretch goals. You will hear again from us soon!
