Late Pledge Store - The Old King's Crown: A Tale of Royalty, Rebels and Ruses

ART PRINT VOTE GOES LIVE TOMORROW
over 2 years ago – Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 08:13:51 AM

Hello everyone!

We hope you're all doing well. We're back with a brief update to let you know that the community vote to decide the pieces of artwork that will be included in the Art Print Pack will go live tomorrow!

This vote will allow our incredible community of backers to select eight pieces of art to be included in the All-In pledge Art Print Pack. From these eight, the team will select some to receive a further premium metallic foil treatment. The Art Print Pack pack will include the eight A4 prints selected by the community, along with a few of our own surprises that we’ll be revealing in a later update!

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of all the artwork in the game, but rather a selection suitable for larger scale A4 printing. Please also be aware that these pieces may also undergo some minor adjustments and alterations before they are submitted for print.

The vote is open to all backers who pledged at the All-In level during the Kickstarter campaign as well as those of you who late-backed the project via Backerkit at the All-in pledge level. If you’d like to upgrade your pledge level to get your hands on this Art Print Pack, there’s still time to do so via your Backerkit pledge manager. Doing so will also gain you access to the community vote. 

If you’re an All-In backer, you’ll be sent an email with a link to the voting form. This will be sent to the email you used for your Backerkit survey. These emails will roll out over the next few days, so don’t worry if you don’t see yours tomorrow. If you haven’t received your invite by the end of Wednesday, let us know, and we’ll make sure to send you another invite.

Keep an eye on your inbox for an email with the subject header: The Old King’s Crown Art Print Vote

Note: If you backed the campaign at the All-In pledge level directly through Kickstarter, you'll also receive a message directly from us on Kickstarter with a link to the voting form. 

If you were a £1 backer and upgraded your pledge, or late-pledged via Backerkit we unfortunately aren't able to send you an invite directly through Kickstarter so please keep an eye on your email inbox for your invite. 

Once you receive your invite, follow the included link to the voting form where you will find the list of artwork which you may vote for. You can select up to eight pieces that you’d like to see in the final Art Print Pack. After making your selections, click the submit button at the bottom of the page to confirm your choices.

The community vote will be open for two weeks and will close at 4pm (UK time) on Sunday, 14th July. After this point the form will be locked and no further votes will be counted. 

Once voting ends, we’ll tally up all the votes and announce the eight pieces chosen for the Art Print Pack via email and as an update here. We know that some of you are waiting to see what pieces will be selected before deciding if you would like to upgrade your pledge so we will ensure we reveal the final selections before the pledge manager closes on July 26th.

We'll be back early next month with our normal scheduled update. Until then, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Thank you all, and we can’t wait to see what you choose!

Andrew, Pablo & The Eerie Idols Team.
 

June 2024 Development Update - Pledge Manager Closing Date Announcement, New Rulebook Layout & a Small Surprise
over 2 years ago – Thu, Jun 13, 2024 at 07:50:05 AM

Hello everyone, we hope you’re all well! 

Things have been rapidly moving forwards with our work on The Old King’s Crown and we are still working to the same schedule as outlined in our April update. We have a few important things to discuss in this month's update. Let’s jump straight in!
 

The Pledge manager will be closing on July 26th.
We’ve been able to keep the pledge manager open for much longer than we’d originally anticipated and we’re delighted that more people have been able to get their hands on the game when it starts shipping as a result. 

As a reminder, if you have not yet completed your pledge manager survey, please do so as soon as you can. 
If you haven’t yet received a link to your survey, please check your junk folder as the invites can occasionally be flagged as spam. If you still do not see your invite, please get in contact with [email protected] who will be able to forward on a link to your survey. 
We will make sure to send a bespoke email (or three ;) to make that any final folks who have yet to submit their shipping details are able to do so!

As a quick reminder to those that have signed up to Kickstarter via Apple ID, we  cannot send your invite to you directly via your Apple ID. Please send an email directly to our fulfilment team at [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.

For all backers who pledged for the Art Print pack, we’ll be launching the community vote on  July 1st. 
The vote will run for two weeks and at the end we’ll reveal the art pieces that have been selected for inclusion in the art print pack. We know that many of you were waiting to see what pieces of art would be selected and included in the final version before modifying your pledge, and as we were able to keep the Pledge Manager open longer than anticipated, we’re delighted to be able to offer this. More information will be provided on how to gain access to the vote very soon via a further Kickstarter update. 

Both of our rulebooks (multiplayer & solo) are now going through their final comprehensive editing pass to ensure consistency & readability throughout. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have been able to bring on the help of Liz Davidson, in a role as Lead Editor, who has been ably assisting us with this task. Liz is known for her wonderful Youtube Channel: Beyond Solitaire, but, in addition to this she is currently working as an editor on The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era and is developing her own game, Night Witches, with the extremely talented David Thompson.
Also contributing fantastic work on additional editing duties and usability testing has been another freelance contractor, Miguel Conceição. He has, amongst other credits, worked as an editor on a number of Stephan Feld games - and was recommended to us by the generous Paul Grogan.

With this step nearing completion, we’re now adding the final copy into our new Rulebook templates. These have had a big redesign since our last public rulebook build. The design goal with these templates was to ensure that clarity was front and centre. To that end, we’ve revisited how we present each phase and step within the game. Gameplay examples have more robust diagrams and information can be referenced more quickly whilst playing. We’ve given every element a little more space to breathe so as not to overwhelm new players with lots of new concepts. 

We’ll have the full PDF version of the rules available for download very soon along with an updated Tabletop Simulator module with the final build of the game. Take a sneak peek at some of the latest rules spreads: 

As development of the game has continued, we had team and playtester favourite cards that we had initially cut due to time and component limits. However, with everything moving smoothly, we saw an opportunity to make the call and include these cards in the final collection.

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be increasing the number of Kingdom Cards in the base game from 45 to 51 cards. These six new cards are all thematically linked to character of the old king. Each a personal belonging, now a relic left-behind, that provides significant advantages to the player that controls them. The King’s Spear, for example, allows you to turn one of your cards into a "deadly" card for a round (adding the ability to augment regular cards with this powerful elimination effect) before the card is discarded. The King’s Helm on the other hand protects one of your cards from being eliminated, allowing them to fight another day, however sacrificing the Helm in the process. Others interact with the Lost Pile, recoup Supporters and allow to get very tricksy with you hand management. These six new cards will be included, free of charge, inside all copies of the base game. 

LaserOx have now received the white box sample. We know that some of our backers were waiting for confirmation as to whether Laserox will be able to produce an insert that will allow you to store all of your Wild Kingdom content within the base game box. We should have confirmation from them very soon, and certainly before the pledge manager closes so you can make an informed decision on whether you wish to add the insert to your pledge.

A final note is that from our own manufacturing development concerning the full and final components, and the box insert, it is looking like both the base game and the expansion materials should all be able to fit in the base game box, if you wish to consolidate all the components into a single box (we increased the base game box size a bit in response to the final full size board and this as certainly helped in this regard!). We still need to do final designs and amends but it is looking likely (despite the increased amount of components in the final game).

That’s all for this month. 

Now, back to editing, editing, editing! 

Thank you all for your support!

Andrew, Pablo & The Eerie Idols Team

May 2024 Development Update - Solo Mode, New Art, White Box Sample
over 2 years ago – Thu, May 09, 2024 at 07:26:09 AM

Hello everyone! We hope you’re all doing well!
Work on The Old King’s Crown has been moving forward at a rapid pace as we push into the final development stretches of the game. We’re still very much on track with the schedule laid out in last month’s update. We’re excited to share more about what we’ve been working on so without further ado, here are some of the latest updates.

We’ve been working with our manufacturer Panda GM, to develop a white box sample of the game. This is essentially all of the game components but without any of the art or text and is used to ensure that all components can fit in the game box correctly. Additionally, it allows us to finalise our insert design! This is where we can catch any problems with the physical manufacturing of any of our components. Fortunately, we have already tested and refined many of our wooden components before the Kickstarter campaign began so this should allow us to move through the approval process much faster. 

The white box sample is now complete and is making its way to us and our partners, such as LaserOx who will in turn begin their final designs for The Old King's Crown deluxe wooden insert add-on. We are excited to see see what they come up with, as we were blown away by their initial prototype design. We'll make sure to update you all with any updated details and images the moment we have them! 

Currently, 80% of backers have completed and locked in their pledges in the Backerkit Pledge manager.  

We know many of you are awaiting confirmation from LaserOx as to whether the Wild Kingdom expansion materials will fit in their storage solution for the base game. We should have confirmation of whether this will be possible soon, however, rest assured, we will not close the pledge manager until we have this confirmed to allow you to decide on whether to add one of these inserts to your pledge. 

We will endeavour to keep the pledge manager open as long as we can to allow for upgrades to pledges, as well as any further pledges from late backers. 

Once the pledge manager locks, the community art print vote will go live, allowing all backers who pledged for the Art Print to vote on which pieces of artwork they would like to see included. 

We announced last update that we have partnered with Galakta to offer a Polish version of both the base game and Wild Kingdom expansion. So, if you’d prefer this version of the game, remember to update your pledge via Backerkit. 

As always, Pablo has been hard at work on even more illustrations for the game. Here is a small sample of some of the latest work. 

With the core rules for the base game locked in place, the team, including the wonderful solo designer Richard Wilkins/Ricky Royal (Pax Pamir/John Company Renegade etc) have been busy putting the final development touches to the solo mode and so bringing it in line with the latest improvements found in the multiplayer game. We’re excited to share that we will be including some new components as standard within the game to make setup and moment to moment gameplay more streamlined and enjoyable. 

We’ve introduced a new bespoke Simulacrum tile board which acts as its headquarters of sorts, housing all of the components, and allowing for a more organised play space for the Simulacrum. 

Additionally, we've added a number bespoke Simulacrum tokens that allow its presence to be felt across the game board. 

Finally, we've been hard at work finalising the contents of the Forge and its cards. This system (previously nicknamed "mods" if you followed any coverage of the solo mode) allows you to create your own solo "archetypes" (alongside pre-built ones we've designed for you) using Forge Cards. These allow you to alter not only the difficulty of your solo rival but to fundamentally change their behaviour and play style, forging your own ideal opponent as you go. We cannot wait to see what wild creations players come up with!

If you fancy challenging the Simulacrum (and even test building your own solo archetype using a selection of Forge cards), head on over to our Discord where you can gain access to the beta version of the Tabletop Simulator Solo mode. A public version of this mod will be going live soon if you’d prefer to wait for the finished build. 

That’s all from us for this update, we’ll be back next month as we finalise all of our files for our localisation partners and put the final touches on the game. As always we'll have more news to share, more art updates and plenty of details on the remaining portions of the project!

All the best from us here to you there. Thank you so much for your continued support, enthusiasm, kindness and input! 

Andrew, Pablo & The Eerie Idols team

 

April 2024 Development Update - New Board, Timeline & More
over 2 years 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.

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.

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.

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. 

DISCORD

TABLETOP SIMULATOR MOD

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. 

RULEBOOK

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.

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
almost 3 years 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:

DISCORD

New components in all versions of the game

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.

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