New Teammate, Pledge Manager, Elite Monsters, Walking Destruction, Lord Encounter, Rulebook, Cardboard Tower, Eastar GM, Bad Guy
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 01:58:18 AM

Hello Everyone! 🤩

Time flies and we are back again with some news for you. 💨

New Teammate

In our last update, we mentioned the need for a new member of our team. After a few weeks of searching, we found a perfect match - Peppini, our new Community Manager. 

Maybe you will virtually meet him soon in some email conversation, as a support for the Pledge Manager, in the Kickstarter comments or messages, etc. He’s gonna help us with playtesting as well and he is passionate about this project as we are. Actually, Peppini was helping us with playtesting even before. 😁

Pledge Manager

Thank you again to all of you who have already finished their survey in the Pledge Manager. Most of you paid for the shipping and completed the process. However, there are still more than 110 backers who chose a pledge with one of the game versions on Kickstarter and still did not choose a language or pay the shipping price in the Pledge Manager. 

❗ Please consider it’s not possible for us to produce more than 100 games in all 4 languages as a reserve for these backers ❗

We ask backers whose case this is, to choose the language, pay for the shipping, and complete their survey. The direct email from our new Community Manager Peppini has been sent to all of you. If you haven’t received this email, you don’t have to worry about it. Everything was settled for you.

The FINAL deadline for completing your survey is on October 31st which is our deadline to confirm a final number of manufactured games and add-ons to the factory. After this date, we cannot guarantee that you will receive your pledge! 🗓

Elite Monsters

Finally, we can reveal how the Elites work. At the beginning of the game, a Bounty card is revealed. The Bounty card contains one of the Elites and the location where you can find it. Immediately after that, you will search for the matching Elite card which looks similar to a standard Monster card. Any of the players can then decide to visit the specific location and say: “Hey, you overgrown beast, I’m here to fight you. Show yourself!” If you defeat the Elite, you will keep the Bounty card (discarding the Elite card), and reveal a new one. According to the number of gained Bounties, you will gain Reputation at the end of the game. ⭐

Elites are used in almost all scenarios. The Walking Destruction scenario has a special purpose for them, see further for more information. 👇

Walking Destruction

This is our new favourite scenario with a completely different experience for us. 🤩

The Crystal Golem is normally a kind and generous creature. 💎 Unfortunately, he was possessed with the dark magic Faer and it is your goal to help him.

The Golem is revealed around Ruins on the map.

Each round, he’s randomly moving across the map by using Golem’s Rage cards. New map tiles are not revealed by Golem's movement. The direction of the Golem's movement is chosen by the priority (the numbers in hexes on the card below). For example, the card below means the Golem makes 3 steps in one of three directions stated on the card. First, you look at the map if it's possible to make 3 steps in direction 1. If not and he can make only 2 steps in direction 1, you look at the map if it's possible to make 3 steps in direction 2. If so, he will do 3 steps in direction 2 instead of 2 steps in direction 1. 

Be careful, he can even step on you. 🐾 Fortunately, we know the Resurrection ritual in Euthia! 😅🙏

On his way, he destroys everything (and everyone) he meets. More and more ruins together with Elite Monsters stay behind him. 🏚⚔

The main goal of the scenario is to fight these spawned Elites and use Faer Magic as much as possible to free the golem from its power. ☄

Lord Encounter

This is actually the one that caused the arising of a new scenario we talked about in one of our previous updates. 😆

His requirements are quite special. For example, the Lord will send you to spy in Dragonslayer towers for some information. 🏰🔍 When you arrive there, you will have only one chance to do so. You roll 2 dice but in this case, no roll modifications are allowed. ❌ Depending on the roll, you will find out how successful you were finding requested information. 🎲🎲

With bad luck, you will only find out basic information and then you get exposed. So you’ll get beaten up for spying on the dragonslayers. 💥 If you have more fortune on your side, you’ll find out more advanced information, but again get exposed. In this case, it’s up to you if you bribe the dragonslayers or get beaten up a little again by them. 💰💥 If you are a professional spy, you will find out the whole requested information and no one will hurt a hair on you. 💪🦸

Rulebook

The main challenge of Euthia is its Rulebook. However, we’re getting there and will start working on layout any day now. Other parts of the rules are also in the process - the Appendix, Scenario book (yeah, we decided to put the scenarios in a separate book 😎), components texts, Lore/Artbook, and of course, translations.

Cardboard Tower

Now we have the first (home-made) prototype of one of the cardboard towers from the organizer add-on and I must say, it’s awesome even without the graphics on it. 🤩 The playtesting also confirmed this will be the cool thing in Euthia. See for yourselves.

Eastar GM

A few days ago, we had another Skype tour in our manufacturing company - Eastar GM. This time it was in their printing factory. They have more than 7 top-quality offset printers, also many cutting machines and post-processing machines to be able to keep up with the latest customer requests and make everything in time. We’re really impressed by it and looking forward to the mass production of Euthia. Feel free to look at some photos again. ⚙🖨

Bad Guy

In the previous update, we showed you the Accomplice for the crime on the Survivors. Poor guys! 😥 This time, you can meet the main bad guy - the Saboteur hiding at Merchant settlement. Shame on him! 👇

Take care in these difficult times, our dear backers! ❤️

See you in a month or so,
Markéta & Tadeáš

Finalizing Stretch Goals & Rulebook, Pledge Manager & Pre-orders, Organizer, Eastar GM, Stretch Goals, Story, and Graphics
over 3 years ago – Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 01:55:56 AM

Hello everyone! 😁

It seems a lot of you are in need of some news from us… Here it is. 🙂

Finalizing Stretch Goals & Rulebook

After our campaign ended, we planned to have at least a week off. Also, we had about a month time reserve between the campaign end and the start of mass production. However, the campaign ended in a “big style”. Hundreds of you contacted us through emails, Kickstarter messages, Facebook, and others. And it wouldn’t be us if we stopped communicating with you on regular basis (even when we should have planned some free time to recover after the campaign), or answering any question you had and still have. We came to conclusion we MUST find and hire a new teammate for these activities as a full-time job. Especially in times before, during, and after our Kickstarter campaigns. ⌛

Not only these activities have swallowed the whole time reserve we had, but also they regularly shorten our time for finalizing the game, its unlocked stretch goals, and the rulebook. We think communicating with you is one of the most important things and we don’t want to undervalue it. We, ourselves, like having all information available and like having someone for answering our questions. Apparently and unfortunately, this is the thing we underestimated during planning our timeline.📝

Finalizing unlocked Stretch Goals is a great and joyful activity for the whole team. We are always excited during testing new scenarios, quests, elite monsters, Skoldur. And although we enjoy it a lot, the development of the new game elements, e.g. a new character or new scenarios, doesn’t always go according to our plans or expectations. 🤔

This was also the case of some new scenarios and our fellow dwarf friend, Skoldur. ⚒ We needed to alter or even completely redo some of the scenarios multiple times because they didn’t fit the expected feeling. We want to deliver the best possible experience for you, of course. ☝️

A lot of you reached out to us during the campaign with a request for more new characters. Tadeáš always replied that it is not as easy as it seems. It is extremely difficult to create a new character when each of them is played completely different and has a whole chain of special weapons and abilities. ⛓ We need to proceed extremely carefully with balancing these abilities so the feeling during the gameplay defines the character. 🧙‍♀🧙‍♂🧝‍♀

Originally, we wanted to add two characters into the stretch goals. It would be a huge mistake when even the one, the dwarf, tormented us a lot… 🤯

Skoldur is very close to his final appearance. He will have one additional die (the Die of Hope size - 25 mm) to mark how deep the use of Dwurts pulled him into the darkness. 🎲 Dwurt is a transformed Gaar. Although they cannot be used to reroll dice, Skoldur can strengthen his attacks, weapons, and abilities by using them. 💪 If you spend it, it also modifies the rolls (+3 to the Hero roll, -3 to the Monster roll).

The more Skoldur uses them, the more the dark magic causes him wounds and lowers his reputation. The power he receives (Dwurts, Silver and Gold cards) for exchange is worth it though. 💥 This way, Dwurts becomes both blessing and curse. 🙏😱

New scenarios really extend the replayability and diversity of the game. We will talk about them next time.

Most of you have already realized, we are talking here about the delay. Currently, we are about a month behind our plan. This doesn’t necessarily mean there will be such a delay in delivering the games but there is a probability there will be some. It’s not about that some activities have been completely stopped, everything is in the process, but it all takes some extra time. ⌚ This extra time we can also give to improving the graphic design, orientation and recognisability of Encounters on the map (see at the end of update), working on and improving the Rulebook and Appendix. We are working on these with Paul Grogan for a couple of months now. We are pretty sure the result will be great. 🤩📙📘

Pledge Manager & Pre-orders

There are still about 20% of you who haven’t completed their survey yet. Regarding the previous topic, for those who haven’t done this, we decided to keep the Pledge Manager opened till October 20th. You can expect the Pledge Manager will be closed on October 21st, 2020. After that, there will be no possibility to pay the shipping cost and thus we won’t be able to deliver your pledge.

We thank all of you who have already completed their survey. Locking your orders will take place according to the original plan together with charging your credit/debit cards at the end of September.

Once again, we ask all of you who have a problem to find their survey (or any other issue), to let us know at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to help you. 🤝

🛒 The Pre-order store will be closed on September 30th, 2020. To all those who missed our Kickstarter, you still have a chance to pre-order the game for the discounted price here: https://euthia.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Organizer

Some of you requested more information about the organizer add-on. Just because we don’t have any samples yet, we will try to describe it more in writing here including more images.

THE ORGANIZER CONTAINS:

*Please consider the art is not final. It is all work in progress. The Cardboard parts will be 2 mm thick with lamination.

•  1 Big Cardboard Tower 

The biggest tower stores all three different trading offers, i.e. 73 Merchant tiles, 76 Alchemist tiles, and 70 Dragonslayer tiles. You can easily pick up items and use the upper floor as a discard pile. This way, you save a lot of space on the table and the components are more accessible for all players around the table. After the game, you can close it with a cover and put it safely to the box. Basically, you can move it as you wish with that cover. The components won't mix up. It’s the end of the components piles falling and scattering all over the floor. 🙃

•  2 Medium Cardboard Towers 

These two medium-size towers store all the natural resource tiles (25 for Mountains, 25 for Lakes, and 24 for Caves) and all 3 levels of treasure tiles (60 tiles in total). As in the case of the big tower, you can easily pick up items and use the upper floor as a discard pile, save a lot of space on the table and you can close it with a cover and put it safely to the box. The components are more accessible for the players. You don’t have to place them on more different spots because you have a small table anymore.

•  3 Small Cardboard Towers 

3 smallest towers store all Hero tiles and all other square tiles. This means two of three towers are for all characters’ abilities (more than 130 tiles in total) and the last one is for all other items in the game like potions, sacks, quest rewards, artifacts, etc. (more than 70 tiles in total). See for yourself in the image below. These towers are for easy and quick setup and with the cover again, it provides safe storage.

•  6 Big Plastic Boxes 

These boxes consist of four trays and store all 84 tokens of each hero (more than 500 tokens in total!). The setup of your Hero’s tokens is done within a few seconds, the gameplay is effortless. Boxes also save a lot of space on the table. The end of having your tokens mixed up in one big pile is here!

•  2 Small Plastic Boxes 

These two boxes consist of two trays. One of them stores gems and essences, the other one is meant for Gaar, Chaos, and all other tokens. You don’t have to worry about mixing up the gem and essence tokens anymore. The setup is also done very quickly and it makes the gameplay easier. And like everything in the organizer, the boxes save space on the table.

• 5 Cloth Bags

There are three bags to help you with setting up the map pile and protecting all map tiles in the box. The map tiles are divided into three groups according to the “setup table” in the rulebook. The other two bags are for storing all dice (especially the beautiful custom dice) and all standees.

Eastar GM

We are in regular touch with our manufacturing partner - the Eastar GM - for 2 months now. We are preparing the minis, dice, and metal coins production along with other game content.

This week, we had an exclusive interview and excursion with the Eastar company management on Skype. They were showing us the production preparations, the production itself, miniature packaging and the quality control. We were amazed by the determination and diligence all employees work with there. We asked them for permission to share some photos with you.

These photos show the preparation of metal molds for producing miniatures.

The following photos show the quality control of the miniatures. For curiosity, Eastar has one over 60m long working line for checking the miniatures. Each employee always checks the one and only miniature type.

The company regularly improves its technology and machines so they use the latest processes and meet the market requirements. This is the reason why we are so glad for choosing Eastar GM as our manufacturing partner.

Stretch Goals

We prepared the whole chapter of O’Johnny’s story for the campaign and we decided to share it with you in one place, even the unpublished part of it. We had an idea to make an easy and quick overview of the whole Stretch Goals unlocking process. Look for yourself.

Story

Last week, we shared the last part of the main Euthia story on social media. For those who haven’t noticed it yet, here is the link to our website for reading it: https://euthia.com/awakening/

Graphics

I’m always excited to show you some more designs and arts made by our artists, mainly Iveta, our lead graphic designer and illustrator.

As I’ve mentioned somewhere already (in some comment I suppose), we were still thinking about the elementals. Not only to tell you again the elemental pack is not necessary for enjoying the game, we made "final touch" on them on the map - both illustrations and design (the one that shows you their power to all adjacent hexes). Also, the illustration of the fire one is completely new to correspond the miniature more. See for yourself.

Encounters were also improved a lot by adding this glow around them. Now you can easily recognize them on the map. Also, one of the new Encounters is included in the image below - Survivors.

For completing two of the Survivor's quests, you need to find and defeat the Saboteur or Accomplice. Well, isn’t she “beautiful”? 😍

I hope this update was helpful, enjoyable and full of explanations to all of you.

Thank you so much for your support, our dear backers! ❤

Stay safe and healthy,

Markéta and Tadeáš

Finalizing the Game & Rulebook, Digital Content, Pledge Manager, Playtesting, Production, Graphics, Story
over 3 years ago – Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 01:11:39 AM

Hello everyone,

We are happy to be back and able to share some news about the whole process. 😎

Finalizing the Game & Rulebook, Digital Content

All necessary activities and processes are in progress and going well according to our timeline. However, finalizing some parts of the game slowed us a bit because it mixes together with finalizing of the Rulebook.

We can give you one example so you can picture it. The global effects of 2 or more elementals of the same type were applied for each elemental before (for example, in the case of a hex next to 2 Earth elementals, the +2 roll bonus was applied for both of them) and the whole game was built around this mechanics. To unite and remove too complicated rules we needed to get rid of these multiple global effects. This change affected the gameplay and some of the game mechanics and we had to think about it properly and make some other changes because of it. As you know, Euthia is a huge and complex game system so we needed to proceed extremely carefully ❗🧐

We found more issues like this during the finalizing process and that's the reason why we haven't give you the promised digital content yet which we planned to deliver much sooner. We apologize for this delay. You will receive the links for downloading this content very soon through the Kickstarter message. It contains all the miniature STL files, 3 wallpaper designs (each is available for all basic screen resolutions), and we even made a few wallpapers for your phones.

We're still finalizing the English Rulebook with Gaming Rules!. It’s not an easy task for all of us but it’s going forward. And even it takes more time than expected the result will be great, for sure. 🤓

Pledge Manager

Currently, we have 72% of all surveys completed. Please remember, the Pledge Manager closes at the end of September. We'll notify you again when the date will be close.

Playtesting

Not only there was a change in applying the elemental global effects, but we also simplified their effects during interaction with them. We're testing it and it works just great. What does it mean? There are no more texts on the cards and it also enables using the new 3-level treasure system. Now we can use these treasures as a reward not only in the case of elementals but also for the fulfilled quests and others.

Another significant change was made for Silver and Gold cards. We simplified their effects, mainly from a graphic point of view and 2 Gold cards now have their own repeating effect, which is currently tested. The whole mechanics is now more clear but in some cases, it is also a bigger challenge. 😅

Our fellow dwarf, Skoldur, is also in the testing phase and you can look forward to some surprises. We will share more information in one of the next updates. What we can share with you already is he is a quite different character than the others. After all, it is a dwarf... 😉

Production

The samples of the custom dice are in the production process. We should have a visual very soon.

Also, some necessary small modifications are made in the miniature designs so it'd be possible to produce the molds and start the mass production of them.

Graphics

Our artists and designers are still busy and it will be this way for some more time.

Check one of the new Encounter places - Thief's Guild.

The illustrations for 3 levels of treasures are already finished too.

And of course, a new monster came to Euthia - Behemoth. Personally, I just love this piece of art and I'd print it and put it on my wall if I could. Maybe someday... 😍

Story

It's about a week we shared another part of the main story of Euthia on social media and our website. House in flames is waiting for you here: https://euthia.com/a-house-in-flames/

Take care of yourself our dear backers and see you soon again! ❤

Markéta and Tadeáš

Pledge Manager, Pre-order Store, Additional News
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 03:42:39 AM

Hello everyone,

Long time no see! 😁 A short update is here... 

Pledge Manager (till the end of September)

We've just launched the Pledge Manager for all backers. All of you should have received their emails with the survey. In case you didn't receive it, please check your Spam/Junk folders. If you don't find it there either, please contact us at [email protected]. Here is a few useful information about the Pledge Manager you are going to enter.

• When you come to the Pledge Manager, you can change your pledge level right on the home page if you want. You can do this by clicking on switch your pledge level under the Get Started! button.

For Czech backers only: You can also choose the "Local Pickup" instead of Czechia in "Select your country for shipping" if you wish to pick up the game yourself in Jince (Czechia) or local game shop/game club (in Czechia, most probably in Brno, Plzeň, Praha, Ostrava).

• If you've already clicked on the Get Started! button, you can still change your pledge level by clicking on your Reward at the top of other sections. In the opened window, click on Switch Pledge Levels?  

• Carefully select language for your game or games.
• In the Add-ons section, you can choose whatever you like to add.
• Carefully fill your shipping address including your phone number - it is necessary for most of the delivery services. Having the phone number also reduces risks during delivery.
• If you have any doubts or questions, or something is not working properly, don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected]. 
• Be aware, we need you to complete your survey as soon as possible so we can start the mass production and your rewards could be delivered on time. Pledge Manager will be closed on 30th September 2020. 

Griffin Bonus

Again, everyone who is entitled to the Griffin Bonus will see a "Griffin Bonus (Free)" item right under their Pledge Level. It is still valid you'll get one Griffin Bonus for each copy of the game you order. In the case you won't order at least one game, you won't get the Griffin Bonus at all. It was stated in the campaign, it's just a gift to the game itself.

Pre-Order Store

Did you miss our Kickstarter campaign? Don't worry, now you can pre-order the game here: https://euthia.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

If you want to help us to spread the word about it, feel free to share our Pre-order Store on social media.

Additional News

In the last two days, our lead illustrator Iveta finalized the new armor from Stretch Goals. Internally we call it Sunbow Armor. 🌈What do you think about the name and arts? And yes, it's made from Euthium, one of the natural resources in Euthia. 😁

And again, one of our monsters impatiently waiting for the fight with you... 

Take care! ❤

Markéta and Tadeáš

Pledge Manager, Griffin Bonus, Rulebook & Translations, Finalizing the Game, Production Preparation
over 3 years ago – Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 12:10:57 AM

Hello everyone!

We are back! This time with some long-awaited information - you're right, it's about the Pledge Manager! 💪🤩 But not only about it, feel free to continue reading... 🤓

Pledge Manager

We planned to open the Pledge Manager (BackerKit) in the middle of July but it took a lot of time to have all information and set up the shipping prices. We worked hard to give you the best shipping prices we could. This is one of the reasons we're finalizing it just right now. During a few next days, you will receive the BackerKit survey where you fill all the necessary information. ✍

The original plan was setting the shipping for each country separately. However, the shipping costs increased and for a lot of you, it would mean higher shipping than we stated in the Shipping section on our Kickstarter page. So we decided to keep the prices exactly the same, with one big difference. We chose the Weight Based Shipping option which was definitely a lot more challenging to set up for us but all the backers will have the opportunity to order Add-ons for reasonable shipping, not for the fixed amount for each of them as we stated in the Shipping section. The Weight Based Shipping assigns the shipping price depending on the whole order weight in contrast to the standard item shipping price which is used for most of the Kickstarter campaigns. This was the main reason for the delay in launching the Pledge Manager. However, we believe you'll be happy about this.

We give you an example. If you are from the USA and choose the Miniature Pledge together with 5 Add-ons, you will pay 24 USD in total. The standard item shipping price would be 36 USD in total - 16 USD for the Miniature Pledge itself + 20 USD for 5 Add-ons (4 USD for each). We think the difference is worth the work we needed to do to set this up. 🙂

Griffin Bonus

Everyone who is entitled to the Griffin Bonus will see a "Griffin Bonus (Free)" item right under their Pledge Level. It is still valid you'll get one Griffin Bonus for each copy of the game you order. In the case you won't order at least one game, you won't get the Griffin Bonus at all. It was stated in the campaign, it's just a gift to the game itself.

Rulebook & Translations

Even though Paul Grogan told us (and praised us a little 😊 ) our Rulebook version is understandable even for a person who read the rules only and don't have the game itself available, it's still a lot of work on it. Paul and his team are working hard on it. They're proofreading, changing the structure, etc. The next phase is to show the upgraded Rulebook to other members of their team who know nothing about the game to try if everything works the best way possible. Also, it will be necessary to make the rule changes I will talk further in this Update and of course, the rules for the unlocked Stretch Goals.

Then we can start working on the Appendix. Once both booklets will be final, we can start translating them to other languages.

Don't worry, for the beginning of the mass production in October, we mainly need to have the translations (Czech, French, and German) of components ready. The Rulebook and Appendix are printed in the last phase of production. That is why we need to finalize the game first - before the Pledge Manager will be closed at the end of September.

Just for the reminder, this is how it is the plan for other languages:

•  Full Localization: English, Czech, German, French
•  Professional-made Download & Print: Polish, Spanish
•  Possible Fan-made Download & Print: Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Danish, Romanian

Finalizing the Game

Of course, the big part of our jobs these days is finalizing the bonus content for the game (Unlocked Stretch Goals, Add-ons Scenarios, etc.). We had this little "accident" during setting and testing the new Quests. The new scenario arose by mistake. 😬😅 So we will add it to the Rulebook...

Three treasure levels are finalized and tested properly. We were pleasantly surprised by how this mechanics improves the experience and balance of the game.

From the whole-world testing running from December 2019, a lot of players tried the game. We've received international feedback which also revealed small unbalanced moments in some game mechanics, e.g. Throwing Weapons. Throwing Weapons were too way powerful against the dragon Farruga but we didn't want to remove them from the game. And that's the reason why we allowed all heroes to use them and we also added some new so it'd become a relevant game strategy.  The "negative" thing about it is there will be a little more components in the game. 😁😁😁

There were also some minor issues in the heroes' abilities, mostly in Dral's and Taesiri's, but even some details in other characters' abilities were found and upgraded.

The next upgrade was for elementals. We decided to remove all text complexities from their cards and make their "rewards" identification smoother. We've added a new teleport symbol that will be used on scrolls and other components too. 

Also, Silver and Gold cards were scanned and changed a little so the game would be more flowing and it would be easier to play them for the newbies.

Production Preparation

From the production point of view, Eastar Game Manufacturing (our production partner) is in the process of making Custom Dice samples.

We're finalizing the miniature files. And because we are infinitely unsatisfied with just everything, we made up some improvements for them. Look at the Dral's base, what do you think about it? 😎 

 The air elemental was upgraded to be more different from the water one. 

And what would you think about us if we don't show you some new monster art? Ladies and gentlemen, this is Faer Demon! 🎉

And that should be all...

Take care! ❤

Markéta and Tadeáš