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For all of the new features that we are building into New Foundations, the expansion boils down to a pretty simple realignment of the game. Previously, most players would direct their entire attention towards winning. Each game culminates with a gigantic scrum, or, what folks sometimes call a “crab bucket.” I have no idea if this term is used affectionately, but I’ve often liked the image. Certainly the end of a game of Oath can feel like you are trapped with a bucket of pointy little creatures trying climb over each other in a mad scramble to get to the top.
Today we’re releasing a massive print-and-play kit for Oath: New Foundations. Just about every element seen in the previous kit has received some polish, and, if you haven’t paid attention to the expansion since the Kickstarter, this is a pretty good time to take a look at how the design is shaping up.
In the first diary I wrote for New Foundations, I described how many ideas for this expansion came out of the process of making Arcs. In the same way that Oath’s development had seeded Arcs’s design both thematically and mechanically, the development of Arcs had done likewise with New Foundations. This virtuous circle is pretty rare for me. Mostly I feel like I work against myself. Each game tends to be a reaction against the project I just completed. Oath and Arcs are perhaps the lone exceptions to this rule. The designs sometimes seem like they are speaking to one another. They don’t agree about everything, but they also haven’t resorted to shouting at each other, yet.
The early development of Oath was a very frustrating, protracted experience, and not something I’ve written much about. Partly, there’s not much to say. While the origins of the design go back very far, I only started working on the game that would become Oath (originally called Saga) during the year after Root’s release. For months, it bore hardly any fruit. With Root, I had benefited from a very clear design prompt from Patrick. Oath could be anything and was, consistently, amounting to very little. Thankfully, I was able to earn my keep during these months by helping out on Vast: the Mysterious Manor and the wave of new Root expansions that came with Underworld.
It won’t seem like it during this campaign, but Richard Wilkins (aka Ricky Royal) and I have been working on Oath in one way or another for almost a year. I first got a text from Cole in late June 2023, just as summer school was winding down, asking if I would like to work with Ricky to co-design a new solo/co-op mode for Oath. I am fairly certain my response was “Hell yeah!”
Tomorrow, we’ll be launching the Kickstarter campaign for the next Oath expansion. Today, I want to talk a little bit about how we think about our crowdfunding campaigns and how they have shaped the identity of our studio. I’m also going to write a little about an element of the Oath expansion which I think illustrates our approach.
When we were first pitching Oath during the first Kickstarter, I would often describe it as “a game that remembered how you played it.” This was less of a pure description than a kind of aspiration. My main task in those days was to find ways to quickly sum up what made the project special and to communicate its ambitions.
When I first proposed Oath, I remember telling Patrick that I had no idea who the game was for. I had a sense of what I wanted to make, but I didn’t know if such a game would ever find an audience. Now, a few years later, I know who those folks are. And so, at the end of this month, we’re going to launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the development of an expansion for the game.