The game is in.

So.........I haven't posted in quite a while.   I am sorry.  We have been pretty loaded down and it was just easy to give our updates a pass.  A long with creating games, I am an artist with clients I deliver images for.  I am developing assets for the company Vexith Games.  They were actually a contributor to our kickstarter, and you will notice their logo on the thank you card in sandwiches.  I am also working on a video game with Sam Bayless, who I created art for on a previous game, Legends of Descent. 

So, Sandwiches!  The game is in.  We are still waiting on shirts and stickers, and then we'll be sending out everyone's copies.  The printing went well, and the game looks nice.  Photos at the end of the article.

Back burner
Not a lot of developing has been going on lately.  I have been reviewing the different designs we already have.   I am trying to find things that aren't necessary or could be simplified.   Sometimes when you are in the middle of designing something you can't rethink elements.  You have a possessive nature toward what you've just designed.  When you give it time, step back, and reevaluate after you've worked on other designs.  You loose a lot of that possessive nature and can identify faulty or less elegant design. 

Raid may have too many do nothing actions.  I am thinking of reducing the amount of pieces, making every move more crucial.  Also, before you could have 4 units in a space.   It took quite a while to assemble all of your villagers into an effective unit to battle the vikings.  I am not sure what the best number of units is the correct amount yet.

Flags has not been working.  I think it has potential, but it might be best to scrap it.  We have another game called Tagging Turf that has some very similar mechanics, at least I'm that you play location cards you want to take over.  We might move some of what I learned on this over to Tagging Turf.  There are some things about flags I really enjoy.  Mainly art style and the like.   We could possibly make this into a  board game where the locations are already on the board, maybe some of the locations are blank so that you can play locations you draw. 

Hulk of the Hood is probably ready to go to testing.   I have had interest from people on playing the game.  I plan to develop a test copy as soon as I get a moment.  There is a lot of art still necessary for the game, but a good portion has already been completed.  I had been working on HotH when I came up with Sandwiches.  It was for a contest.  I realized I wouldn't be able to get all of the art done by deadline, so I set it aside for Sandwicjes.  This will allow us to find more time to develop better mechanics and art.  We were also limited on how much the game would cost to print for the contest, this will allow us to add more locations and items.  That leads to our last subject.

Printing through the Gamecrafter is pricey.  It makes sense for us right now since we don't have enough money to by 1500 copies of a game.  We have been doing research on pricing from other printing companies, it is becoming obvious that moving on to another printer at some point will result in better profits.  We aren't anywhere near there yet.  On an aside note, the longer we work with Gamecrafter, the more of a better price they give us on product.  So, continuing with the Gamecrafter model for a time will have it's benefits.

That was a bunch of info.  Sorry for just dumping it all in one biggest post that kind of rambled.  We're still working and we plan on getting one other game out this year.  Keep an eye on the blog, and Pickle your Sandwiches.

TO THE PRESSES

Two weeks hold time with Amazon are now over, money is now in our Amazon account.  We now have to transfer it to our bank account, which can take between 1 and 5 days.  Once we have money in the bank we will order all over our deliverable items.  Pretty exciting to see the money ready to make this printing happen. 

Back burner this week is Sandwiches.  We've been polishing several elements in the game to make it a little faster.  Play testing has revealed that the symbols we had initially used were too small and difficult to see and understand.  We had planned on using letters instead.  A lot of people preferred some type of icon.  We are using different sandwich toppings for the symbols and we are also including the letters.  This should make play smoother and faster while being more flavourful. 

Being lapse on backburner

Sorry, I've been a bit behind on back burner updates.  We do have a new back burner to talk about this week.  Before we get into it.  Sandwiches was successful funded.  Where are we at on that?  It takes a couple weeks for the money to come through to our accounts, but right after that we are ordering product.  Good job everyone.   We will be launching the store after we get in the initial run.  Everyone who contributed deserves to be the first to get in copies of the game.  The game, the stickers, and the shirts are all good to go.

Now that we have done some updates, backburner.  There is a new project I've been designing on for a couple weeks and it is just coming together very quickly.  This reminds me of Sandwiches when I first started working on it.  I'm calling it Flags at current, but that name is going to change very soon.  The games about capturing locations or flags, but as I've been designing it the game has changed some.
Flags is a card game, probably 2 to 4 players, played from one deck.  Most of the cards in the deck are different soldiers.  Some of the cards are different locations.   You may play as many locations on a turn as you'd like, and when you play a location you get to draw another card.  The bulk of the game has to do with the interaction between the different soldiers, you get to draw a card to replace locations you play so that a player will not have a disadvantage for playing locations.  We also want to encourage players to play locations since winning is based off of controlling locations with your soldiers. 
Location are played into a middle zone.  No one owns locations here.  When you take a location you move it to a zone on your side.  You may also play a soldier on your turn.  The soldier goes into the staging area in front of you.  You may attack one other opposing soldier in a location or move between locations.  When you move into a location that has no soldiers on it, then you capture the location and move it into you location zone.  All locations give you additional abilities for your soldiers. 
The game is primarily about capturing these different locations, killing opposing soldiers to cut down your opponents options, and card advantage.  You only draw one card a turn, thus if you've wasted a lot of cards gaining your ground you may not have enough cards in total to secure enough territories to win.

That's the basics of the game.  I think this game needs flavor to help drive it.  I've conceived of a setting for the game as well.  I'm putting together some different designs for places and characters.  We're going with something cartoony and fun.  I saw a kickstarter for a game called catacomb.  They are selling a second edition of the game with new art.  The old art is classic fantasy, the new version is pretty interesting adventure time-esque.  I'm taking some inspiration for the style.  We'll also do a comic to precede the game that explains the setting.  If we do a kickstarter the comic might be a reward. 

Thanks for read foxes.
Pickle Your Sandwiches.

We are funded.

Congratulations, everyone.  We did it.  Sandwiches has met its' funding goal.  Now we have a bunch of work to do.  Getting products printed and delivered, we will be sending out notices and asking for sizes for shirt donators.   We're also looking at conventions and other places to demo and drive sales for Sandwiches.  If anyone has any suggestions or comments, please share.  Our current plan is to demo at lexicon in Lexington, Ky.  We're also opening stores on The Gamecrafter and on Amazon.  We'll put up links here on the blog as they go online. 

Demo Season and a Different Back Burner

We had our first demo at Phoenix Feather on Wednesday.  It went well, people had fun, we gave out free chips.  Got a lot of good feedback as well.  Thanks to everyone who came out.  We are going to be in Lexington Kentucky a 6th Street Brewery on the April 7th doing more demos.  Please come out and give it a go.  We will also be at Lexicon this year demoing the game.  This will be after the Kickstarter, but we will have some other of our games that we are developing.

Back Burner Friday, on Sunday.

Raid is a bit of a different game from what you've seen in previous Tree of Woe back burners.  Most of what we have developed has been card games.  Raid is a board game.  You play it on a grid like with chess or checkers, but the board is longer and more narrow.  It is an asymmetrical game.  One side plays as Vikings who are attacking.  The other plays as Villagers.  There are less Vikings but they all start in a unit working together.  Villagers are more numerous, but  they are all scattered.  The vikings start on one side, on their boat, and are trying to get to the other side where the Villagers are keeping their gold.  After collecting the gold they have to get back to their boat.  In the middle of the map is the fort or castle.  Vikings cannot enter the castle, but Villagers can move through it freely.  Vikings move in a straight line, like rooks, and Villagers move diagonally, like bishops, unless they are in the fort/castle, when they can move in any direction, like a queen.  Up to 4 Villagers or Vikings can all be in a square with others of their type. If a Viking or Villager move into the same space, they fight.  Whoever has the most pieces in a fight wins, but when their is a tie the Viking always beat the Villagers.  When Vikings collect gold, one of the Vikings has to carry the gold, this Viking does not help the Vikings win fights, he's carrying too much loot.
The result of this is a game where one side starts off at an advantage, the Vikings are organized and more powerful.  That power shifts as you play, and the Villagers are more powerful as they have turns to get organized and the Vikings are weighed down by their loot.

Coming up on half way.

We are 105 dollars away from the halfway point.  Please, all you foxes, keep getting the word out.  

Back burner

Sorry, folks.  We forgot the back burner last week.  We got a bit wrapped up in starting off the kickstarter.  This week I'd like to mention the game 'Utopian Future.'  In There is one very big deck of cards that everyone plays from.  The backs of each card has different resources like oil and trees.  The front of each card is a different building or event that lends itself to your goal of building a utopian society.  Most of what has been designed so far involves these resources and how drawing works.  At the start of your turn, you may draw two cards from the deck or one from the discard called the dump.  Every resource you draw has an added requirement when you draw it.  Like oil which let's you draw the oil and then the next card and choose one of those two cards to discard.  All of the resource draws lead to really depleting the resources deck quickly.  Even though the deck is really big, it runs out quickly.  The game is meant to mirror certain aspects of our consumer society that constantly depletes the resources we have while ignoring and not taking advantage of those resources em already have.  

Thanks for reading.  Keep sharing Sandwiches, they are delicious.  Also, share Sandwiches the card game.  We need your help.

Kurt Taylor

Pickle your Sandwiches

Kickstarter is Go!

Hello People.  All of you foxes out there who have been sitting on the edge of your seats in anticipation of Tree of Woe, a fun time game companies first Kickstarter launch.  Check it!  Share it!  Donate and get rewards!  You like Sandwiches, don't ya?

Link to Sandwiches Kickstarter

Mia kicked off the kickstarter.

We have submitted

Sandwiches kickstarter page has been submitted!   I'll keep updating on the status of the approval.  When we get approved I'll also post the actual go live day, which will be as soon as we can start or maybe the Friday after.  We're so excited about all of this hard work coming to a head.

Sandwiches video live

 

Video is done and is up on You Tube.  If  you were ever curious about how to play Sandwiches, here is how.  Don't be a chump and share any feedback in the comments.  

Submitting to kickstarter for approval.  When it's approved where going live folks. 

Pickle your Sandwiches

Friday Back Burner

Quick bit of news.  Looks like I have jumped the gun.  I forgot about the review time with Kickstarter.  So, it will be  a bit before the Kickstarter.  Sorry to mislead anyone.  We will have updates on the blog about the status and will be letting everyone know when it comes up. 

I am planning to make Fridays a day where I talk about projects that are on the back burner. 

9Lives is a game my wife, Kelli, and I started working on together.  It started off as us just chatting about games and the popularity of cats on the internet.  She suggested that we could make a fighting game that uses 9 face down cards as each players life total.  As you take damage you flip up these cards.  Each card has a different effect on it when you flip it up like drawing a card or increasing damage on your attacks.  As you take damage you  become more powerful.  It gives players very interesting choices about when to damage to one another. 

Here is a rough for the t-shirt that is going to be one of the rewards for the kickstarter.  I wanted to put together a design that didn't just say Sandwiches.  This is a shirt you can wear wherever and people just think that person loves sandwiches, but people who know the game knows you love Sandwiches.  It also sports the Pickle your Sandwiches slogan on the back along with the pickle.  The kickstarter is going to be starting really soon.  I want to do it tomorrow, but a few things might not be in place yet, so Saturday is a possibility.  We'll be spaming it everywhere after launch and have links to it back here.  Also, the Gamecrafter will be helping us with advertising as well.  Exciting stuff.

Changing the design some.

Further play testing has brought to light some layout issues.  So I've put together an update that should help out.  The cards came out to light in color, so I've made adjustments to the colors as well.  Sorry for delays on the kickstarter.  The only thing left to do is a video.  I have all the equipment but finding the time is hard.  We'll keep you updated. 

 Uncut version of one of the new layout.  we've moved a few things around and modified the colors.

Updates

Still working on video, getting ready for the big Kickstarter start.  We'll try and get some photos up of the printed cards just so you can get a gander.  I've been looking for a company to handle printing for our tshirt.

Were also changing the packaging for the game by increasing the size of the game.  We had been using a wrapper before, but now we have a nice box that will be a good place to keep your cards.  We had been going with the wrapper because the entire deck was 11 cards, but the game is, if anything, better with more cards.  This will also make the game playable by 2-4 players.  So, all around the move from an 11 card deck to a 33 card deck is good good good.

Pickle your Sandwiches.

We just got in the first copy of the game Sandwiches.  Looks great.  I am real excited.  Now we can get our action shots put together and we have a video in mind we can start developing.  when we get the video done, we are starting the kickstarter. 

Howdy

Tree of Woe, a fun time game company would like to say hello to everyone out there.  I am Kurt Taylor.  I don't know how you've gotten here but you likely know that this is a game design company.  Kudos to you for finding the blog. 

So.....my intention for the blog is to start talking about games we have in development and to promote the games we are planning to release.  You know, what every game companies blog is about.  Why should you care?  Our games are awesome, that's why.  These questions. 

To get things started we are launching our first kickstarter.  Looking to the people to get us going.  

Our current big project is Sandwiches.  A card game for two people.  The deck of cards is small, only 11 cards in the deck, and it takes 10-15 minutes to play.  A great game that doesn't take up any space and is a fun way to kill some time.  The kickstarter is going to be starting very soon.  We are waiting for the first printed copies to come in the mail.  We have a nice intro to the game video planned and we want to put together some shots of the game in action.

If anyone would like to post comments, we here at Tree of Woe encourage it.  I would like to propose a question to our humble readership.  Do you like sandwiches?