Production updates and Conventions
almost 6 years ago – Thu, May 31, 2018 at 10:26:23 PM

‘Unfortunately, we are increasingly under the impression that ever more very good games are being hastily put together at the last minute in order to meet release deadlines, without sufficient attention being paid to the comprehensibility and completeness of their rulebooks. We have never had to rule out so many in and of themselves very good games as this year, simply because their rulebooks did not meet the quality we expect. We jury members no longer wish to see ourselves in the role of beta-testers for rulebooks, which are only made adequate on the second printing run.’ - Spiel des Jahres jury chair Tom Felber

No doubt many of you will already have seen the comments above, over the last couple of weeks. The fact that the chair of the SdJ felt the need to comment on rulebook quality is significant. Whether you think there’s a decline in standards, a status quo or something else, the fact that they felt the need to make a public statement speaks to some real underlying issues.

We’ve had our own rulebook issues in recent weeks and, having seen Tom Felber’s comments, we feel more than ever that we made the right decision. During the Kickstarter campaign we said we were going to create a new rulebook format - supplying a ‘learn to play’ book as well as a reference book. This was a very ambitious target for such a small company as ours and it’s probably no coincidence that not many companies our size have attempted such a thing yet. With hindsight it was too ambitious.

We realised in later April that we were never going to meet our production deadlines if we pursued the new rulebook. Fortunately, our rulebook for the first edition has been widely praised so we took the decision that we were better off expending our efforts updating the previous rulebook than delaying production for something that is non-essential. The rulebook for the revised edition will, thus, be based on the rulebook from the first edition but with corrected errata and with 4 additional pages of FAQ’s and examples of things that have been asked since we first published that rulebook.

Where does that leave us? We submitted all scenarios and rulebooks on time and have received production samples. As ever, there were one or two minor issues with these samples but that’s what the samples are for. Basically, we’re on schedule for October, as we promised.

We have also received the finished Victim #3 miniatures and shipped a batch to Ukko, our miniature painter. This means that those of you who added the ‘painted Victim 3’ to your order will receive your complete order at the same time as everyone else.

Conventions

This has been another busy few weeks for those of us in the DDP team, although some of us have managed to take some holiday - which partly explains why this update is late again. Timo and Tiinaliisa’s European convention road-tip has continued and they’ve been joined at various points by other members of the team. You can read about all their exploits in Tiinaliisa’s ‘blog‘. If you want to join us for a few games of Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift, Darwinning! or one of our future projects - or just say ‘hello’ to us - we will be at the UK Games Expo this weekend (stand 1-L10). UKGE has rapidly become one of the world’s biggest boardgame conventions and we’re delighted to be returning this year and showing off our new projects.

Wait, what? New projects?

We’ve learned a lot this year, particularly from our Darwnning! Experience. Firstly, we won’t again run two campaigns so close together. Secondly, we won’t again launch a title on Kickstarter without first introducing it at multiple conventions.

Many of you will know that our next big Perdition’s Mouth title will be Soul Spire, and many of you that know that (understandably) ask about it often. Development of that title is always ongoing and we can now state that it will be playable as a standalone game as well as an expansion for Abyssal Rift. It adds considerably to the world and to the ruleset. BUT. We will not launch it to Kickstarter this year, and will probably not do so before 2020. Partly this is because we want to make sure it’s ready and partly it’s because we don’t want to milk our loyal fanbase - we already introduced a lot of new content in our 2017 campaigns which we’re still preparing for you now, afterall.

So, our next big project will be Singularity Sky, which we aim to launch on Kickstarter in Q1 2019. This is an evolution of one of our earlier games, Phantom League, and is based on Charles Stross’s books of the same name. We’ve been working on the new rules for many months now and we’ll have our first publicly playable demo copy at UKGE. We should also have demo copies of future smaller games to play at UKGE as well and you can find details of all the games we’ll be bringing on Slickerdrips’s excellent Geeklist.

Gamechangers

Thankyou to all of you who donated to the Ugandan boardgame convention. Going only by the emails that we received asking for the ‘Sabotage’ scenario, we helped to raise £230. We’re really happy about that.

If you sent confirmation of your pledge to us you should have already received your download link. If you haven’t then please let us know.

Lee and the DDP team.

Expansion News
about 6 years ago – Thu, Apr 05, 2018 at 12:03:50 AM

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last update and things have continued on schedule here. The new scenarios have now all been translated and are currently being laid out in the new templates. Meanwhile, the text for the new English language rulebook has been produced and is now being proofread. Important but undramatic news.

We do have some surprise announcements though.

First, during the campaign we were asked several times about making the expansions available in different languages, like we are doing for the base game of Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift. We responded then that we didn’t have the resources to do it but that we’d continue to monitor the situation and look into ways of doing it. Well, a way has come about for the German edition.

Happyshops, who many of you may know as a major European boardgame distributor and retailer, have approached us about running a crowdfunding campaign for the revised edition of Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift on the Spieleschmiede platform. They’ll be accepting pledges for copies of the base game that we’ve been working on, including all of our translations, but will also be running a campaign for the Hideout expansion and the scenario pack. These will be localised by Happyshops rather than ourselves, with them handling all translation work.

What does this mean for German backers?

We’re very aware of your support and how far you’ve helped us get. We’d feel terrible if that support meant you missed out in any way. So, we’ve agreed with Happyshops that we’ll be able to supply some of their translated expansions through our Backerkit. Obviously we’ve already locked this down now but we’re going to lift the lock for two and a half weeks for you to change your order to a German language edition if you want to. Backerkit will open again shortly after this update is posted and will remain open until Saturday 18th May.

We know this is an unprecedented step and we haven’t taken it lightly but we think you’ll agree it’s for the best of reasons.

Due to smaller print runs, the translated versions of both expansions will cost a little more than the English versions. The German scenario pack will cost US$25 and The Hideout will cost US$50. This compares to €19 and €47 that Happyshops will charge during their Spieleschmiede campaign (which begins tomorrow), so you’re getting a slightly better deal. Please note though that the possibility of changing your order in Backerkit to take advantage of this really is short-lived. There was a reason that it closed last month.

What does this mean for our other backers?

Having more copies of Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift out in the wild benefits us us all. The more people hear about the game the more likely they are to buy their own copy. The more copies that are bought the closer we are to a base which can support the massive Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift - Soul Spire expansion, in the future. Spread the word about this campaign (and the game in general) and help make that expansion more feasible.

You said ‘some’. What’s the other surprise announcement?

If you follow Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift on BoardGameGeek, or us on Twitter, then you’ll know about this already but it probably is news for most of you. As you know, we had a few stretch goals we didn’t achieve during the campaign. These included some scenarios which are fully playtested and developed and we’ve been wondering what to do with them.

Last year, Gamechangers had a successful funding drive on the crowdfunder.co.uk platform. Several of us backed it because we think it’s a great project. To be clear, this isn’t a game or even a commercial venture, this is a charity that uses modern boardgames to teach social skills in rural Uganda and identify potential future entrepreneurs. Those individuals are introduced to the Butterfly Project, which helps foster entrepreneurship in rural communities as a way of lifting the entire community.

Gamechangers are having a second funding drive now and we wanted to do a little more to help, so we’ve decided to make one of those developed scenarios available as a pdf (formatted to match the printed scenarios). We’ll send a download link for Sabotage to anyone who sends confirmation of having donated to Gamechangers during this campaign drive (their minimum pledge is £10) to [email protected]. Their campaign runs until 2nd May 2018. Since this is for charity we would like to ask anyone that receives the file not to share it publicly. We might make it available again at some point in the future but that isn’t decided yet.

So, that’s our news. We’ll be back again soon with more updates and some more words from our guest designers for you.

Lee and the DDP team.

The Ticking Clock
about 6 years ago – Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 04:33:26 PM

Hi all, we’ve been busy. Very busy. Have you been following along through Tinsku’s ‘blog?  That gives you a clue of the reasons of being busy.

We’ve just got back from Airecon, in the UK. The weekend before that it was LeiriaCon, in Portugal and the weekend before that it was the Festival International des Jeux, in Cannes, France. Next weekend will be Ludesco, in Switzerland. So we’ve been clocking up the miles and, most importantly, meeting some of you. That’s the bit we enjoy most - if ever you see us at a convention then do drop by and say hello.

In between all of that, we’ve also been making good progress on translations and preparing the final items to be sent to our manufacturer - this is the rulebook, so you can imagine it’s been quite a task. The scenarios are all done now and we thought that you might like to hear from another of our guest designers, Tristan Hall:

‘Working with Dragon Dawn Productions has been a brilliant delve into the imaginative world and minds of some serious gamer dudes. These guys are consummate professionals and what they have achieved with Perdition’s Mouth has been really gratifying to watch: the development and growth of a truly unique dungeon crawler with a cool horror theme. ‘We launched our cooperative fantasy adventure games Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift and Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game at the same time on Kickstarter back in 2015, but rather than behaving like business-minded competitors there’s such a collaborative spirit in the gaming community that we decided to capitalise on this and instead chose to team up with each other and help spread the word about these interesting new fantasy games coming through. But it didn’t end with just having crossover cards in both of our games, and I was delighted when DDP reached out to ask if I wanted to design a scenario for their game too. Having already sent many heroes to their deaths in Perdition’s Mouth, I had a few ideas brewing about the game and its design and it was ace to be able to flesh these thoughts out and contribute something creative of my own into the PM:AR universe along with the help and polish of their dedicated team of play-testers. ‘I hope you’ll enjoy the results, and I look forward to seeing what DDP come up with in the future to expand their dark world of the Insectoid God…’

Tristan Hall is the designer of the sellout fantasy adventure game ‘Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game’ and the historical 2 player card game ‘1066, Tears to Many Mothers’ - both games are still available for pre-order through the Hall or Nothing Productions Ltd official BackerKit page here. 

Speaking of BackerKit, we have a couple of significant deadlines at DDP this week:

• Firstly - and most importantly for anyone reading this - the BackerKit for the Revised edition of Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift closes this Thursday, 15th March. Note that you will be able to change your address after this date but you must have the details of your order - what game and add-ons you’re wanting - locked down by then. The pre-order site will remain open after that date but that is not linked to any pledges made during the campaign.
• Secondly, our Kickstarter campaign for Darwinning! ends this Saturday, 17th March. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the campaign yet then please do hop on over, we’ve had great fun showing the game off at the various conventions and the feedback we’ve had has been really enthusiastic. We’ve reached our funding goal already and it would be great to unlock some stretch goals.

As ever, your help in spreading word of both of those deadlines is really appreciated. You have the power in the age of social media.

Lee and the DDP team.

It's about time
about 6 years ago – Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 12:29:44 AM

This is long overdue, I know. We’ve had a lot of technical issues in the last month which have made life difficult, eventually resolved thanks to changing the hardware and software on our servers. We’ve also been busy of course - with Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift, with Darwinning! and with our European tour. That’s not an excuse, just an explanation. You deserve more regular communication from us and we’ll try to get back on track.

So what’s been happening in the last few weeks?

If you follow us on social media then you’ll know some of this already but we’ll try to run through everything (I’m beginning to feel like this is one of those occasions where you bump into an old friend and think nothing’s changed, only to suddenly realise that everything has).

We’re still steadily progressing on getting everything ready for printing and we’re on schedule. We received questions back from our manufacturers after the first batch of files we sent them and these have now all been resolved.

So what’s happening in the next few weeks?

The next batch of material is due to be sent this week and it includes most of the scenarios. These have all been playtested thoroughly and many of them have now been translated into the various languages, so we’re looking good to make that deadline. We expect to receive feedback on this quickly as we’ll be sending it right after the Chinese New Year and everything will be getting back up to pace again.

Samples of the new PVC miniatures are also due to be sent this week to Ukko, who will paint them for us in the next few weeks to show you.

We’re expecting to receive the white copy of the game (for those of you that don’t know this means a complete set of game components, including cards, etc., that have not been printed) some time this week as well. This is an important step in ensuring that we’re happy with the quality and that our manufacturer knows how we want everything assembled.

Tinsku has continued to ‘blog about the DDP tour and the Multamäki family’s adventures, encompassing both the Nuremberg Toy Fair and the International Games Fair in Cannes, in February. If you’d like to come and say hello our next ports of call with be LeiriaCon (where Timo, Tiinaliisa and Wyrm are headed straight after Cannes) and Airecon (where I will be manning our stand on my own).

Are there any other important things to note?

Yes, first, please remember that Backerkit closes on Thursday 15th March - that’s now less than three weeks away. If you haven’t completed your survey yet please do - we’re as certain as we can be that all of the shipping price issues have now been resolved. Any orders for the first edition of the game that were completed before Timo left Finland were shipped then and those backers should now have their copies, the next batch will be processed after Backerkit closes.

Finally, as I alluded at the beginning of this update, we have re-launched Darwinning! on Kickstarter. Thanks to your feedback we’ve completely overhauled the campaign page and the graphic design - we think it’s vastly improved from the first time when, if we’re honest with ourselves, it was a bit rushed. We’ve been getting really positive feedback on the game as we’ve toured Europe so please do drop by the campaign page, have a look and let us know what you think.

Lee and the DDP team.

Catching Up
over 6 years ago – Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 11:45:13 PM

You may have wondered why you didn’t received an update last week, if you did, then thanks for your patience. I wish there was an exciting story as to why this was but in truth I just got caught up with other things. So here’s a rundown of where we are now:

Production

We’ve received feedback on our first batch of material sent to our manufacturer. We’re checking it over but so far everything looks good. The second batch of material is due to be sent to them at the end of this week and we’re on schedule. We've also received new pictures of the Raven miniature.

Reviews

We’re really pleased that Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift is continuing to get good reviews. You can watch the latest one (in German) below, by Fantasy Welt, our distribution partners in Germany.

Backerkit Issues

We have now added another weight level for Backerkit in North America, this is for items up to ¼lb and is US$4.50 for USA and US$6.25 for Canada. The previous lowest level was for items up to 1lb and this will continue to be applied to orders weighing more than ¼lb and up to 1lb. This should help people who have been concerned by the high shipping charges when adding small items to their order.

We think that this is (finally) the last of the Backerkit issues to be resolved. If you’re still having problems then let us know but please remember that the rates quoted are not just for postage - they have to cover fees from our distributor, fees from Kickstarter and fees from Backerkit. There are a lot of people involved that have to take their cut!

It’s Good to Talk

We’ve started to re-evaluate how we use social media. We know it’s an area that we can improve in and we’ll look to do that over the course of this year. To begin with, we’ve chosen to focus on Twitter. If you already follow us there, hopefully you’ve noticed our increased presence in the last fortnight. If you don’t follow us yet then now you have a better reason to. Do feel free to look us up there, ask questions and share experiences of your games.

Conventions and Festivals across Europe

Although what you may think of as ‘the convention season’ is still a few months away, boardgame players and companies are beginning to emerge from their winter hibernation across Europe. As you know, you can follow Timo, Tinsku and Wyrm’s progress across Europe and the conventions on Tinsku’s ‘blog. It all begins now. We’re set up at Spielwarenmesse, in Nuremberg, and we’ll be there until the end of the week demo’ing Darwinning! and Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift. Please do come and say ‘Hello!’ if you’re attending.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be attending Cannes Game Festival (France) and Airecon (Harrogate, UK).

Lee and the DDP Team.