Manufacturing Update
over 5 years ago – Sat, Oct 20, 2018 at 01:47:24 AM

Hey guys!

We're glad to let you know that the manufacturing process for Laruna: Age of Kingdoms is underway. This means we're starting production as originally scheduled!

To give a basic timeline, the manufacturer's final miniature prototypes should be ready in about 4 weeks. Once the final prototypes are approved, the molding process will begin, with the rest of the printing starting soon after that.

We'll be sure to share any images we receive from the manufacturer in the upcoming weeks so you can take a look at the prototyping process and get a chance to check out the minis!

Now that this is officially settled, we'll go back to content updates, starting with our next update which will talk about more of the expansion content.

Thanks again for your support!

Forward Progress
over 5 years ago – Sat, Aug 25, 2018 at 12:53:08 AM

Pledge Manager

Many backers have reached out asking for more time until the pledge manager is closed, and we think it's a fair request! We will now be closing the pledge manager on September 28th, 2018. 

Speaking of the pledge manager, some backers have also asked about the process of adding expansions to their pledge. As a reminder, the best way to do this is to click the blue Upgrade my pledge! text and changing your actual pledge level from there rather than trying to add the expansions. If you simply add the "All-In" package to your pledge, you will be receiving 2 copies of the base game when you may have meant only to upgrade.

If you have more specific questions, the Backerkit support team is great, and if there's ever an issue they can't help with, they will forward that support request to us so we can help you directly.

Our Previous Update

Our previous update got a lot of comments, so we wanted to respond properly. If you've spoken to us in the past or backed one of our previous Kickstarters, you may know by now that in general we're a pretty cautious team. Sometimes we may even be TOO cautious, leading us to be too quick to talk about potential issues and too slow to talk about potential progress.

To clarify the previous update, we do not currently plan to push our delivery back. We purposefully gave ourselves a long timeline which should absorb the delays we've been talking about. We just wanted to make sure everyone knew what was going on while it was happening rather than explain it long after the fact.

From your feedback, it seems we've underestimated the amount of updates and the kind of information you're looking for throughout this process. We hear you loud and clear, so you'll be seeing more updates that include both thorough explanations of what's happening on the production side AND explanation of more of the content of the game, especially from the expansions and solo material.

While we had intended to show some of this stuff earlier, we did feel it was more important to not get ahead of ourselves and settle some of the issues we've discussed in prior updates.

With all that being said, check out our gameplay update focusing on one of the Legendary Events from the Legendary Event expansion.

Legendary Events: The Fae Queen's Masquerade

When choosing to utilize the Fae Queen's Masquerade, the normal World Event deck is replaced by unique cards that will dictate how the Masquerade unfolds.

The Fae Queen's replacement world event cards are split into two types, one with a yellow back and one with a purple back. The yellow-backed cards will dictate where the Masquerade is being held while the purple-backed cards are going to give the "Queen's Declaration."

Unlike normal World Event cards, this deck is forcibly designed to alternate between the two types of cards, insuring that a yellow card is always followed by a purple card, which is always followed by another yellow card. This is important because all players are aware of just when the Masquerade may relocate, as well as when they need be concerned with the ramifications of the Queen's Declaration.

When a yellow card is drawn, the Masquerade miniature goes into play, unlocking new options for gameplay. During the Map Phase, players can move units into the same space as the Masquerade and take an action to receive a new Boon token from the Fae Queen.   

These boon tokens affect the game in two different ways:  

• Players can turn in their Boon tokens for powerful benefits from the Fae Queen  
• If a unit is killed while they have Boon tokens, the Kingdom responsible for killing them receive an equal amount of Wrath tokens.  

When a purple card is drawn, the effects of the Queen's Declaration is revealed. These will grant players new ways to earn Boon tokens and punishes those who have suffered the Wrath of the Fae Queen.

The Queen’s Masquerade deck continues to cycle between Locations and Declarations for the rest of the game, with the deck being re-shuffled when necessary.  

Managing Boons and Wrath of the Fae Queen heavily influences game play, but they go even further to affect the interplay between rulers and the tactics they employ.

In this example, he Masquerade is being held in Faranok, right on the doorstep of both Mesadrin and Epilesis. Deciding to double-down on their duplicitous ways, Mesadrin fields an extra 2 Units and move 3 units into the Masquerade early, giving them all Boon tokens.

Epilesis immediately has a lot to consider! Normally, having a horde of Mesmulot on her doorstep would be an instant cause for retaliation. But killing all of these units would transfer too much Wrath to Epilesis. This early, that wrath may prove too damaging over the many turns that still remain. Unfortunately, Mesadrin could force the issue if they declare war and march the troops across the border.

Epilesis decides instead to play it safe and increase her defenses by recruiting a Skylancer and moving it to the masquerade, where it quickly gains its own boon token. 

Now there is at least some repercussions should Mesadrin choose to ambush this unit, and they certainly won’t do so while the Masquerade is still there, as that would incur even more Wrath. Still, Mesadrin may be aggressive enough to ignore the Skylancer entirely and rush into a siege. 

Fearing this solution won’t be enough, Epilesis turns her eye to the Darco’Garaith ruler in a bid to gain an ally for the potential upcoming war. 

 “We can’t allow Mesadrin to declare war so early in the game! Not only will she jump to an early lead, but you can be sure she’ll be turning her wrath-bombs towards you sooner rather than later. Help me defend my lands, even if it means we need to divide a little wrath between us to prevent a disaster!” 

Darco’Garaith finds wisdom in Epilesis’ words, and decides to gather some boons of his own just in case he has to keep Mesadrin in check.

An uneasy tension has arisen--Epilesis and Darco’Garaith are loathe to kill any of Mesadrin’s units in this turn for fear of the upcoming Declaration (which is when the consequences of having Wrath is felt.). So they brandish their mutual concern as a shield and hope it’s enough to convince the Mesadrin ruler to back down.

Mesadrin has an effective ticking time bomb on her hands--does she immediately decide to declare war and force Epilesis to either get sacked or receive a horrific amount of Wrath in the defense? Or does the potential alliance between Epilesis and Darco’Garaith keep her in check long enough so that she decides to instead cash in her Boons for some other benefits? Either way, the threat of war has done its job, and the Fae Queen smiles knowing she has sown just a little more chaos in Laruna. 

Managing Boon and Wrath give new complexities to both unit positioning and unit loss. As demonstrated above, this can and will likely also add new wrinkles to the interplay between players as they struggle in their quest for the Favor of the Gods.

In our next update, we'll take a look at the second Legendary Event in the Legendary Events expansion, The Skylord's Fury!

Manufacturing Solutions and Pledge Manager lock down
over 5 years ago – Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 12:25:26 AM

Hi guys,

Wanted to give you some updates as to how things are progressing so let's start with the last significant event - Gen Con! It was a great con as always that gave us the opportunity to meet with friends both old and new. Of course, Gen Con wasn't just fun and games.

We were finally able to get some real solutions presented to our manufacturing concerns. We were able to sit down with a head engineer and speak face to face for quite a bit. This helped us impart how important some of the aspects of style and scale are for the project and allowed them to physically demonstrate some of the things available for the game. 

The primary drawback in all of this is the time lost in the back and forth. Even getting to this stage has cost us way more time than we had anticipated and we've already been warned that since we require the assistance of a key person in the engineering department, we will be subject to further delays as their schedule permits.

We personally hate this because we're already flirting with the real possibility of delayed final delivery and it's not something we accept lightly. On the other hand, we want L:AOK to look every bit as nice as it deserves and we'll be sure this way to have a top person make things as high caliber as possible. 

Fortunately, the discussions lead to improvements in both material and molding methods which will help us deliver a better final product as well - so that's pretty damn exciting. We'll keep you updated every step of the way so you know what to expect as the manufacturing goes on.

Pledge Manager Lock Down

Friday August 24th we will be locking down pledges in the Backerkit. Please be certain that your information is correct so everything proceeds smoothly, and of course reach out to us if you have any questions.

July Update
almost 6 years ago – Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 02:15:50 AM

Leaders of Laruna,

It's been about 6 weeks since our last update, so we wanted to check in, say hello, and let you know what's going on in our corner of the world.

On the convention front, Origins was awesome! We loved meeting up with backers and introducing LAOK to a new audience. If you missed Origins but will be at GenCon, be sure to come by booth#1238 and say hello!

On the production front, our discussions and meetings with our manufacturers and engineers have been going well. It's been taking quite a bit of time to sort everything out, as LAOK has some complicated sculpts that require a close eye and intelligent hand on the engineering side. Some adjustments need to be made to ensure that some of the miniatures are up to standard, so we have been careful about making sure we go over all the possibilities before choosing which will make the best game for you all in the end. We're hoping to have more concrete information about any adjustments that may come out of this process. We have some follow up discussions in the next week and we'll update you when we have any specific news to report in that regard.

Finally, since everyone loves eye-candy, here are a couple of work-in-progress shots of some stretch goal models! These models are subject to change, but they should give you a good idea of the direction we're going with the Spirit King Kreesh and the milita units!

Odds and Ends
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Jun 01, 2018 at 11:34:29 PM

This update covers a few different subjects, so let's dive right in.

Pledge Manager

Thanks to every one who has already filled out your survey! If you haven't got a chance, we'd appreciate it if you could do so ASAP. As a reminder, the Dreamscape: Laruna RPG is a limited item, so if you were interested in adding it to your pledge, you should fill out your survey sooner rather than later.

We've had a couple of questions about the Pledge Manager, so we wanted to clarify a couple of points.

1) The Pledge Manager will stay open for backers at least through the summer. Once we settle on a firm closing date, we'll be sure to give every one plenty of advanced notice so there are no surprises.

2) Kickstarter Backers will not be charged through Backerkit until AFTER the Pledge Manager closes. Again, you'll know well in advance, so there won't be any surprises here.

Agendas are on the agenda!  

On the game balancing front, we're glad to say that so far our changes have been a big hit. While most of the tweaks were relatively minor, they have succeeded in giving players better and clearer options for how to run their kingdom.  

Now that resource and army management is where want it to be, the last piece of the Kingdom puzzle is the Agendas

Agendas mostly work as intended, but we think their usage could be a bit clearer. We noticed that there are 2 kinds of Agendas: cards that can be played immediately and have an immediate effect, and cards that stay in play and have a longer-term effect.  

To help accent the difference between the two, Agendas have now been split into two card types: Agendas and Actions.  

Agendas now refer specifically to cards that remain in play and have a longer-term effect on gameplay. As the name suggests, these cards help set the tone for the Kingdom and bolsters them in unique ways. Agendas will last longer and change less often then they do in the current implementation, but will have wider-reaching effects.

Actions are now cards that are specifically meant to be used quickly and often. They can be seen as the equivalent of Spells, only using multiple resources instead of just mana, and being tied to the Kingdom rather than the specific Leader.  

Minis, Minis, Minis.  

In a good/news bad news situation, one of our modelers has informed us that their hard drive crashed and they lost all of their work. That's the bad news. The good news is that the majority of his sculpts are already in our possession, so this is a relatively minor issue on our end. It does mean that we'll need to wait a bit longer to reveal the work-in-progress stretch goal minis, though.

In other miniature news, we are currently working with manufacturing engineers to correct some issues with a few models. Some of our models are on the larger and more complex side, so this is an intricate process that takes some time with a lot of back an forth. Still an exciting step that we hope to have completed in the coming weeks so we can keep everything on schedule!  

Origins Game Fair

Going to Origins? Be sure to come by our booth! We'll be running demos of The Shared Dream right in the booth! We'll also have some prototype Age of Kingdoms material on display, and the developers will be in the booth to answer any questions you may have. Origins is always a fun convention, so come hang out with us at Booth #1045.

Once we're back from Origins, we're going to start putting together in-depth updates that will look at a few things of interest - Balance changes, the Add-on contents and Solo play. Each of these are getting some graphical work done so we can better show/explain what we want to highlight, so that should be fun!

Thanks as always!