Funding Successful! We Did It!
over 7 years ago – Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 01:04:47 AM

Thank you so much! You are the best ever. You all rock!

I'm going to be spending some time with the family, then hunkering down in my office for a few days to get the PnP and Rules ready to get out to you all as soon as possible. 

Then I'll be working to ensure the pledge manager is good to go so we can turn on pre-orders and then I'm also going to get the full schedule updated with all of the current information.

Onward!

I will be sending out updates a little more frequently now, as we spin up into production. Updates will spread out a little more as less is in my direct control.

I'll be sending out updates at least every two weeks at the latest just to keep you all up to date on what's happening behind the scenes!

Celebrate!!

Be sure to watch all the way to the end... ;)

Final Stretch Goal Unlocked - Player Aid!
over 7 years ago – Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 12:04:22 AM

You guys did it again, and for the last time! We are fresh out of stretch goals! We have officially unlocked the Player Aid to be included with the game!

The Player Aid

I'm still the in the process of figuring out a layout that works for the player aid best. Both to be space efficient and easily readable. Here's another example of one of the layouts testing out.

This would be a bi-fold design, and would end up having a reasonable amount of extra space to add some neat things. My main concern here is readability. The explanation text for each location is pretty small with this layout.

Have no fear! I'm confident I can create a player aid that will fit in the tin and be useful! I'll keep you posted on what I come up with.

Onward!

Well we are out of stretch goals, so from here It's me doing lots of work to make sure everything is ready to go to the manufacturers as soon as possible.

I'll be posting with more info about what's to come when the campaign ends tonight! So I don't want to take up any more of your time this morning.

Hedgehog???

No Sonic this morning, but I'll make it up to you tonight!

Stretch Goal 15 Unlocked - Corporate HQ
over 7 years ago – Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 11:13:51 PM

Good morning! Wow! That was a pretty exciting night! We've managed to knock down another stretch goal! Gonna be a short update this morning, so let's get with it! Here is the final card to be added to the game.

The Corporate HQ

I like the HQ because of it can provide a nice late game boost for mints to any player, even if they weren't going for engine building early, and it really kicks the  mint production up a notch for somebody who's gone heavy into red.

It's reasonable cost to purchase makes it a good early game buy that will grow with you as the game progresses as well! That makes the corporate HQ a wonderful last plan for the game!

Onward!

That means all that Is left is the player aid! Here is a first draft of what the Player Aid might end up looking like, with an existing card for scale.

Hedgehog Time!

Since I didn't get a hedgie picture in the last update, I promised two this time around. So here you go!

Stretch Goal 14 Unlocked - The Mint
over 7 years ago – Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 12:07:40 AM

We Did it!! Holy Smokes!! $60,000. Here we are, 3 days left and we are still knocking down stretch goals! I've got a few things to cover in this update, so I won't hold you up any longer. Behold the long anticipated card...

The Mint

This card has been requested in many different forms by many different people. This is how it ended up making the best sense to Mint Works and is a fun card to me. This is because it has the potential to force other players to play around a ticking clock. 

That ticking clock being each round you get one more point.

The cost to buy The Mint helps to prevent this card from being too strong, as players won't be able to buy and build it in the first round, and in most cases the earliest you will see it turned up is round three.

Couple this guy up with the museum and you could be on your way to a 2 plan victory if you're lucky.

Onward!

Our next stretch goal adds the last card to the tin, the red production card Corporate HQ! This is another fun card that allows any player, even someone who's not focusing on production, to get a nice boon.

Now I've been saying for a while that there wouldn't be any more stretch goals beyond the $70k mark, however I've been trying to come up with some neat ideas. Two that I came up with were:

• Mint Scent inside the tin
• Player Aid with the card listing

Mint Scented Tin

I posted a poll on Facebook yesterday to get an initial interest on the idea of the Mint Scented Tin, because this idea worried me. Mostly because many people are highly sensitive to various scents, and they may not want their game and hands to smell like mint all the time. 

This could prove to turn away players, rather than bring them in. I had initially planned to release the poll in an update as well, however the initial feedback has already confirmed what I had suspected. The added mint scent would not be a very welcome addition for enough players that it isn't worth adding it to the tin.

So the tin will not have any mint scent added to it. It will smell like a normal board game inside.

Player Aid

Now my idea here was to add a small piece of paper that can be unfolded to show all of the plans in the game and have a super simple explanation of what to do on your turn.

This would greatly enhance the openness of the game for new players. It would also give some extra information for the strategic types that want to plan around what might still be left in the supply draw pile.

The player aid will most likely be about the size of 4 mint works cards laying out together, printed front and back. It should be fairly easy to read and super handy!

So with that, I've added an $80,000 stretch goal. This one is going to be tough to reach but it's going to make the game that much better, and even more user friendly!

Tabletopia Event

Tomorrow (Sunday the 11th) Tabletopia is hosting a learn to play for Mint Works at 1pm Eastern. Everyone is invited to join in and play Mint Works on Tabletopia for free!

Click here to find out more

 

Shipping Charges

Several people asking a very similar question, I took some time too look over how I was calculating my shipping costs for larger pledge levels. As several potential backers pointed out, it was cost prohibitive to select a 5 or 10 copy pledge level because of how expensive the shipping was, resulting in paying a higher amount per copy of the game.

So I spent an evening looking at my spreadsheet and noticed a bug in calculating shipping. I had figured out the shipping cost for every given pledge level and those numbers all looked right.

However when I looked at how it calculated with backers at those levels it seemed.. off. Higher than I would have expected. So I did some sidelong calculations manually and those numbers were WAY lower. Now I was determined to figure out what was going on.

I'll spare you the time it took to find the glitch, and let you know what I had done. I was calculating the shipping cost for a given pledge level times the number of units that were needed for that pledge level. For example:

If there are 5 Glorious Gamer backers, that will need 50 units to be produced. I then took that 50 and multiplied it by the shipping cost per pledge. Let's assume I'm shipping those 5 Glorious Gamer pledges to the US. That's $15 in shipping per pledge.

I mistakenly multiplied that $15 x 50 in my spreadsheet, telling me it would cost $750 to ship those 5 backers their stuff!! Add in my $6 shipping subsidy and it doesn't really touch the number, because of the bad math! 

So I discovered the issue, and have fixed the charts. Now that same situation will properly report $15 x 5 for shipping to those backers, at a nice and comfortable $75.

What does this mean for you?

Well it means I was able to provide way better shipping charges for the 5 and 10 copy levels and have made new pledge levels to reflect that. I've also been able to add a new pledge level for 3 copies of the game!

Shipping charges for Gift Giver are now

• US: $1
• Zone B: $4
• Zone C: $25

Shipping charges for Glorious Gamer are now

• US: $2
• Zone B: $7
• Zone C: $49

If you have pledged at one of the older Gift Giver or Glorious Gamer pledge levels, I highly recommend switching to the new pledge levels. If everybody manages to do so. I'll remove those old levels entirely.

Stretch Goal 13 Unlocked - Embossed Tin
over 7 years ago – Mon, Sep 05, 2016 at 12:30:50 AM

We did it! 1000% funded this is so awesome! And to celebrate how awesome it is, we have hit a super exciting stretch goal! The tin will now have an embossed lid!

Embossed Lid

What is an embossed lid? Well rather than the lid being flat, it will have actual 3-D relief. If you look at an Altoids tin, they have the name embossed (raised up from the surface) as well as the fancy frame.

Now this was a really tough choice for me, deciding what to emboss on the lid. I didn't want to get too crazy. I had considered each of the little squares being embossed as well as the text and logo of the game.

I felt that would make the lid a little bit too crazy, so I went with a little more mellow option. We will have the main logo for Mint Works and the text all embossed.

All of the elements outlined with green will be the  elements that are embossed. I think this will give it a nice fancy look and not get too busy with the texture of the lid. This is so exciting!

Tabletopia

The fine folks at Tabletopia have reached out to me, and we have worked together to update the look of Mint Works within Tabletopia. 

If you have an account for Tabletopia you can log in and play Mint Works right now if you so desire! (Tabletopia is still in beta, so you won't be able to log in just yet unless you backed their project on Kickstarter.)

Mint Works Live Stream

I'm going to be hanging out with David from SitDown Standard playing Mint Works. You can tune in to watch us at 6:30pm PST on Monday September 5th (tomorrow.)

Keep an eye on the Five24 Labs Facebook and Twitter feeds to get the link to watch the stream. If you aren't able to tune in live, don't worry the stream will be recorded as well and I'll post a link to it in an upcoming update.

Onward!

We only have 2 stretch goals left! This is so crazy! I think we can hit them still though. With the final 48 coming up next week, and especially if you guys keep being so awesome with talking about the game and getting into the discussions!

The Mint and Corporate HQ are still within grasp!

Translations

The community of translators have really been working at it, I've seen first drafts for quite a few languages. I want to thank all of you that are helping out with the translation of rules! It's so awesome that you're doing this to allow others a chance to enjoy the game!

Advance Copies Work Has Begun

I spent some time out in the garage this weekend and I've cut all of the tokens out, and have begun sanding, tumbling, priming and painting them. Here's a few pictures of the progress.

Snugly Hedgehog

Here's sonic chilling out in his "Snuggle Sack" being a cutie.