Blog

We’ve made it to the finish line! Or one finish line, that is. A few days ago we received the pre-production proof, and yesterday we finished packaging up the final print files for Oath. In case you don’t know me, I’m Josh, a developer and editor on Oath.

Yesterday, we got a very exciting box from our manufacturer that contained a pre-production copy of Oath. No matter how many times I go through this process, packages like this still make me giddy.

Over the past few weeks, the whole team has been working hard on finishing the game. On the development side, our work has been mostly limited to small adjustments to a few key systems, some alterations to card balance, and seeing through the end of our final usability study. On the graphic design front, everyone has been pushing the files into final layout and Kyle has been producing some amazing art pieces.

In mid July, Oath crossed a major development milestone: design lock. This means that all of the core systems are no longer subject to any change. I still have some work on the solo game ahead of me and want to take the cards through another round of editing, but the game is getting very close to being fully done.

Today we're releasing the second public print-and-play kit for Oath, and it seemed like a good time to bring everyone up to speed on the game's development since I wrote to you last in January. I also wanted to take this opportunity talk a little about game development generally and my own personal practices.

Throughout the campaign, I've received dozens of requests (mostly polite) for me to write about how Oath plays as a solo game and with two players. This is something that I would have loved to talk about earlier, but it's always felt too early to really dig into how the bot works. But, recently the design has started to settle down and it seemed like a good time to share it's general shape.

Over the past few months, I've spent a lot of time talking about design, but I haven't gotten into how we organize our development schedules. With the release of the public print-and-play kit later today, it seemed like a good time to talk about how game development works. At least, to say a few things about how we make games here.

Earlier this week I wrote a little about the rules that inform the game's card list. Today I'm going to chat a bit about some cards in the context of those rules.

When I tell folks about Oath, one thing I like to mention is that the game will have more than two-hundred unique cards. Today I want to talk a little about where that number comes from and walk you all through some of the design challenges that were associated with working on such a large scale.