Late Pledge Store - The Old King's Crown: A Tale of Royalty, Rebels and Ruses
Created by Eerie Idol Games
Strategic board game for 1-4 players. An empty throne, a crumbling kingdom and the heirs that would claim it. What Crown Will You Wear?
Latest Updates from Our Project:
April 2024 Development Update - New Board, Timeline & More
10 months ago
– Sun, Apr 07, 2024 at 01:04:11 PM
Hello everyone, we hope you’ve been well!
Here’s the latest update from us on the progress of The Old King’s Crown, coming directly to you from a sunny, albeit blustery Scotland. I’m pleased to say today’s report is a big one and since there’s so much ground to cover, I suggest we dive right in!
First up, it’s my pleasure to share a first full look at what will become the final board for the game. Please enjoy this short reveal video, showing its new form and functions in action. Below we discuss the design in more detail.
Production note: The images we’re sharing are still technically a work in progress. We’re still tweaking and refining, whether it’s UI elements, lighting, colours and minor layout considerations. Some of these will be finalised shortly and others might see minor adjustments after our subsequent rounds of blind and usability testing (covered later in this update). However, we are confident this update gives a good idea of what will greet you when you open the box.
Full shot of the work-in-progree Kingdom Board.
Detail shot without UI.
Detail shot without UI.
Aim
In the prototype version of the game players would place their cards off to the side of the board, directly onto the table, when bidding for and clashing over regions. Separated from that was the Great Road, a marketplace for cards, alongside additional elements like the Order Track.
After much additional testing and work we began to bring these elements together in a single cohesive whole, with the aim of combining them to create a premium board that didn’t overly increase the game’s table footprint.
We wanted a sense of being gathered round a single grand place, a tale being told together. A more expansive sense of things happening in this ancient, crumbling kingdom. A focal point that brings players together in moments of communal play, all the while providing gameplay functionality and benefits.
Full 4-player game in progress.
Size Specs
The Old King’s Crown Kingdom Board will be 66cm x 66cm (26” x 26”)*
For comparison here are the sizes of some other strong titles that broadly share the same weight category. Root (Leder Games) 61cm x 55cm (24” x 21.6”) Scythe (Stonemaier Games) 62cm x 81cm (24” x 32”)** Wonderland’s War (Druid City Games) 55cm x 83cm (21.6” x 32.6”)
Production note: This means that our final box size for the base game of The Old King’s Crown is currently projected to be approximately: 35cm x 25cm x 9cm (13.8” x 9.8” x 3.5”)
*approximately, exact final measurements may be slightly adjusted. **standard-sized board, not the extended version.
Features
Instead of several smaller concertina-folding boards that can develop issues laying flat, the communal play area is now consolidated in a premium six-fold wrapped-edge board.
The unified board allows for a complete phase tracker to be added, allowing all players, as one, to monitor their progress across each round of the game.
Simultaneous and in turn order phases are separately marked, as is the sequencing for resolving specific steps, allowing for quick at a glance understanding as to when certain effects and actions can be triggered.
Each phase and round change can be tracked with new screen-printed wooden pieces. Faster, more satisfying step up.
More stable play experience on the table, no nudging of smaller separate boards.
Easier (and less likely to scuff) packing away.
The game, mechanically, is more than clashes over the map. There’s councils to hold, artefacts and allies to acquire, sites of power to visit etc. We wanted to give a sense of these places and stories that happen throughout the course of a match, beyond the confines of the castles and harvest fields.
Detail shot of new Kingdom Board UI.
If you’d like to know more about the board or see it in action for yourself, following along with its refinements, please feel free to join our community on Discord and/or check out the board directly via our freshly updated Tabletop Simulator mod.
Our friendly Discord group runs regular games using TTS. We welcome all types: from seasoned play testers to new arrivals looking for their first match and others simply curious to learn more and share their queries. We’re always happy and ready to arrange games and to answer any questions you might have. Follow the links below.
Along with the continued polish and amends to the UI, card layouts and board, covered here and in our previous update, the rulebook is one of the latest elements to receive a major update as we continue our march towards completing the game.
Similarly to the board it’s still technically a work in progress but we hope you’ll find lots of exciting refinements and improvements resulting from the last four months of additional work and testing. Publicly available now, this document brings all with it all the latest additions and clarifications, as well as lots of additional visual polish.
We continue to work through the remaining artwork. Here are just a few examples of new card art, along with the first look at the UI as it will appear on Kingdom Cards - those powerful places, people and things you can recruit and acquire to build out your strategies over the course of a game.
A new pal!
An old pal!
Some weird....pals?
We are delighted to announce that alongside our French and Spanish publishing partners, there will be a Polish-language version, published by Galakta.
In addition to a Polish retail release, coming after Kickstarter fulfilment is completed and finalised, if you are a backer of the campaign who would like your pledge to be for the Polish-language edition of the game, you can now update that information in the Pledge Manager. There you can update your version of both the base game and the Wild Kingdom expansion to be the Polish-language edition.
Finally, we’d like to briefly outline our revised timeline. As we hope you can see from this update and the ones prior, our small team is giving this game our all. Over the last four months of additional development and testing we’ve worked to make this the best thing we can and the game has emerged stronger, brighter and better than ever. We can’t wait to get it to you!
All this additional work and time has meant we’ve had to shift our initial schedule back slightly but we’re now driving full steam towards the end. For each update going forward we’ll make sure to include an up-to-date timeline as well as dedicate a portion of the update to talking specifically about scheduling, so everyone can remain informed.
I’d like to take this moment to thank you again all for your support. If you have any questions feel free to ask them here or, if you prefer, follow the link earlier in the update to join us on our Discord server. There you’ll be able to discuss the game, the campaign and all things ol’ king’s crown.
Thanks for your time, have a wonderful week and all the best!
Pablo and the Eerie Idols Squad.
Happy New Year! Progress Update
about 1 year ago
– Mon, Jan 08, 2024 at 02:19:09 PM
We hope you have all had a lovely break and that your 2024 is off to a great start. Here’s to a good year ahead. We’ve got lots of exciting developments with The Old King’s Crown that we’ll be discussing via these updates over the next few months that we can’t wait to share with you.
Pledge Manager update
Pledge manager surveys have now all been sent out, with 67% of you completing it so far. If you have still to complete your survey you will still have a little while before you need to lock this in. Backerkit will automatically send out reminders so keep an eye on your inbox for the pledge manager invite if you haven’t yet completed the survey. Please note that the email will be addressed from Eerie Idol Games via Backerkit.
If for any reason you haven’t received an invite yet, please get in contact with [email protected] who will be able to provide you access to the Pledge Manager.
As a quick reminder to those who backed at the £1 Supporter tier, you may find that the default shipping price will show as £56, however, rest assured, once you fill in your shipping details the price will update to your region accordingly.
We’re also aware of some instances of shipping prices also not correctly showing for some US Army postal addresses but our fulfilment manager is working to ensure the correct prices are being shown.
Progress Update
Since the end of the Kickstarter campaign, the team has been hard at work in the background, playtesting internally and with our incredible Discord community, iterating on several Tabletop Simulator builds. This has allowed us to refine the game balance and polish the player experience even further. Although this has been a long process, we’re incredibly happy with the latest results. We are now moving very close to the final version of the game.
With this step wrapping up we move on to the next important stage; formalising all the amends, polish and additions into a final rulebook and sending it to our rulebook editor for review.
From there we will be ready to release the latest rulebook publicly along with an accompanying build on Tabletop Simulator build - which will essentially be the final beta build of the game before we finalise it.
As always, if you’re interested in playtesting/playing the game online - whether you have tried the game prior or would like to try it for the first time, don’t hesitate to join our friendly community made up of players from all parts, over at:
Thanks to all of your incredible support making the Kickstarter a huge success, we’ve been able to upgrade the quality of several key components for every game copy of the game. These upgrades will come as standard, whether you backed the Base Game or the expanded set with the Wild Kingdom Expansion.
EXPANDED COURT - A major part of our development and testing that we mentioned above has focused on the Court and the Sites of Power. Two key areas of the game that you’ll now not only have more access to, more consistently but that have also been upgraded. Take the Court - it now has expanded to house three distinct Councils. Players can now hold these Councils, accruing not only influence but new special abilities based on each seat they hold. This, along with some other tweaks to the system, mean there is now a lot more courtly intrigue, as players vie for control. As a result we’ve expanded the Court tile, which will now be a dual-layer illustrated board able to house up to three cards at once, allowing multiple cards to occupy different councils within, complete with slots beneath to tuck the cards for extra room at the table.
PRESTIGE AND NEW CARDS TO GAIN - Similarly, each player's Site of Power has gotten an upgrade, specifically through a new secondary currency to the game called Prestige. This can be accrued each round, as well as acquired from many abilities, to be spent on cards at your site. Speaking of which - each faction now has access to new cards at their Site of Power - powerful additions to your deck if you can gather the Prestige. Now you’re able to create markedly different builds of your Faction, depending on which of these cards you choose to acquire in a game. More deckbuilding, more options, more strategy.
HAND SIZE TRACKER - Instead of tracking player hand size using multiple double sided card tokens which we had always felt was a slightly fiddly compromise, after a punch of development and product design meetings, we feel we’ve landed on a much neater (and fancier!) solution. We’ll be upgrading this feature to include silk-screened wooden discs, matching the size and quality of the other wooden components. This component will slot into a groove in your dual-layer player board, allowing you to easily read and adjust your hand size, without the need for cardboard tokens.
Finally, there’s a whole number of smaller additions, too many to list here but which we’ll make sure to highlight as we move forward.
Prototype - Design not final
That’s it for this update but we’ll be back in two weeks to deep dive into these latest refinements in further detail!
Have a wonderful week and as always if you have any questions, let us know!
Andrew, Pablo & The Eerie Idols team
PLEDGE MANAGER LIVE FOR ALL BACKERS
about 1 year ago
– Fri, Dec 22, 2023 at 02:14:10 AM
Hello everyone!
We’re happy to announce that we’ve completed the smoke test phase of the pledge manager and we’re now excited to roll out the pledge manager to all backers!
Expect to receive an email invite from Backerkit, now and over the course of the next few days. Be sure to check your spam filter as these invites can sometimes be flagged there. Although we have endeavoured to catch as many issues with the pledge manager as we could with the smoke test, if you do spot a mistake with your pledge calculation*, or if you still don’t see your invite by next week be sure to send an email to [email protected] who will be able to check and rectify any issues.
* IMPORTANT NOTE: Your shipping amount may display at some default amount (often £56), this is simply a placeholder amount and does not reflect the final shipping amount. Once you enter your shipping address and details and reach checkout, the shipping price should reflect your region appropriately.
Any questions regarding this, can be clarified with our dedicated fulfilment manager at:[email protected]
Please note that it is vital that you complete the Backerkit survey as without it, we cannot ship your rewards.
As a quick reminder to those that have signed up to Kickstarter via Apple ID, we may not be able to send your invite to you directly via your Apple ID. Please send an email directly to our fulfilment manager, [email protected] with the subject line: The Old King’s Crown Apple ID. This email should be sent from the email address you used to sign up for Backerkit (or if you haven't yet set this up, the email address you intend to use).
How long will the pledge manager be open?
We will keep the pledge manager open as long as we can to ensure you are able to change your address, or purchase any further add-ons. We estimate a closing date of around April / May 2024, with cards being charged around this time (Don’t worry, we won’t be charging any cards right before the Christmas period). We will also be sure to give plenty of advanced notice of when cards will be charged via a further Kickstarter update.
A Short Break
We will be taking a short break over the Christmas period but will be right back to the studio after the new year with a brand new progress update on the exciting developments that we’ve been playtesting. This will be followed by a new Tabletop Simulator build, which is going through its final paces as we speak. This version forms the first of the final builds - and introduces some exciting new features and adds some great balance improvements (plus secret stuff like an expanded Court board - but that's for a future update ; )
We wish you all a wonderful festive break and look forward to sharing the exciting developments in the new year.
Thank you for all for your incredible support and best wishes from Pablo, Andrew and the Eerie Idols team.
PLEDGE MANAGER GOES LIVE THIS WEEK + NEW ADD-ONS & LATE PLEDGES
about 1 year ago
– Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 11:36:49 AM
Hello everyone,
We hope you’re all well. As mentioned in the last update, the pledge manager is the next big step on the road to getting The Old King’s Crown into your hands. We have now had the all clear from Backerkit to launch the manager but to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible, we are going to send out a smoke test. This involves the pledge manager survey being sent out to a random 5% cross-section of backers. This allows us to catch any issues with collecting shipping addresses and payment details, before rolling out the final version to the remaining backers. This should only take a day or so and after that everyone will receive an email invite from Backerkit to complete your pledge manager survey. We will post another update when the pledge manager goes live to all backers, so don’t worry if you don’t immediately see your invite. However, if you do not see the survey in your inbox by the end of the week, please first check any spam folders, and then send an email to [email protected] who will make sure to rectify any issues you might be having..
Please note that it is vital that you complete the Backerkit survey as without it, we cannot ship your rewards.
The pledge manager is your hub for managing your order. From here you will be able to:
Provide your preferred shipping address.
Pay shipping fees.
Pay any outstanding tax and VAT associated with your region.
Choose your preferred language for the game (English, French and Spanish).
Upgrade your pledge level by selecting add-ons.
Purchase additional copies of the game.
Purchase any further add-ons.
Note for Apple ID users: If you used your Apple ID to log in to Kickstarter, the BackerKit surveys will not be able to be sent to your email address. Please send an email directly to our fulfilment manager, James at [email protected] with the subject line: The Old King’s Crown Apple ID. Please send this email from the same email address you used to set up your Backerkit account (or if you haven't yet set this up, the email address you intend to use).
Late Pledges
For anyone who missed the Kickstarter campaign but would still like to back the game with the exclusive content, a late pledge option will be available via the Backerkit Pledge manager. A link to this will become available directly from the header of the Kickstarter page soon. If you know anyone who missed the campaign and would like to back a copy, please feel free to share the link to the Late Pledge page and we can welcome them to the kingdom. All rewards and exclusives will be available, at the same prices as during the campaign!
New Add-Ons
After listening to your feedback regarding potential add-ons, we are incredibly excited to announce that we have partnered with LaserOx to produce a beautiful laser cut birch plywood insert for the base game box.
The insert features thematic engravings from each faction in the game with enough space for fully sleeved cards. LaserOx are also aiming to be able to fit both the base game and expansion materials into this organiser.
We had the pleasure of first meeting the team at UK Games Expo 2022 and have continued to be impressed by their work ever since.
Prototype components for the Laserox Wooden Insert
We also pleased to announce that we are able to offer a pack of high quality clear card sleeves. Each pack includes tarot, bridge and mini sized sleeves, enough for every card in the Base game and Wild Kingdom expansion in one convenient add-on.
Sleeves are available as an add-on
All-in Art Print voting
As part of the all-in pledge level, a community vote will be held to decide the artwork that is included in the art-pack. All backers who pledge at the All-In level, whether it was during the campaign or through the pledge manager will be eligible to vote. This will be sent as a later survey in the new year.
Next steps
Whilst we’ve been preparing the pledge manager, we’ve also been hard at work polishing and balancing the game and we’re excited to share more soon. We’ll be back with another progress update soon, along with a short update to announce when the pledge manager goes live to all backers.
Thanks from Pablo, Andrew and the Eerie Idols team.
Pledge Manager on the Horizon
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Dec 07, 2023 at 01:53:32 PM
Hello everyone!
We hope you’ve all been well!
As promised here is the first of our fortnightly updates, as we begin the last long leg of the journey to complete this game and get it on to your tables - all shiny and new.
Once the campaign dust and debris had settled, we set right to work again. Whether tweaking faction balance, beginning insert design, rulebook layout tests or new pieces of artwork (some of which you’ll see in this very update), it has all been full steam ahead over these last two weeks.
The Buried Palace Kingdom Card
A big part of this has been preparing to launch the Backerkit Pledge Manager, which will be opening its doors to you within the next two weeks. This is where you’ll be able to add any additional elements to your order, including a couple of extra add-ons requested by the community, as well as complete your shipping transactions.
Whether you’re familiar with the Pledge Manager process, or are backing a campaign for the first time, we’ll make sure to include all the necessary information you might need to coincide with the Pledge Manager going live.
As always, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to us and we’ll hopefully be able to clarify any details you might require!
Ahead of that, two questions that many of you have reached out with, that we’d like to quickly cover here:
Will people who missed the campaign be able to join in through the Pledge Manager, as a late pledge?
Yes, absolutely! We want to make sure that people who might have missed the campaign, or otherwise weren’t able to join at the time, have a means of accessing what they might have otherwise not been able to get a hold of.
Will the game/extras cost more than during the campaign and will I miss out on any exclusives?
The game and any additional elements, such as the Kickstarter exclusive metal active player marker and the Wild Kingdom, will all be available, at the same prices as the campaign. Certain elements will not be available later at retail but for the duration the Pledge Manager is open (essentially until the game is finalised, ready for its print run) you’ll be able to have complete parity with the original campaign.
The Innkeeper Kingdom Card
Thanks again for the support and we look forward to this next step!
Until then, you can find us on our Discord, as well as our social media channels, which will, in the coming weeks, start to feature the new art work and developments mentioned here.
Until then, have a wonderful rest of your week and enjoy your weekend!