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.
At this point, our team has been working on this title for over a year. For most of that time, we were all working on something that didn't really exist outside of our imaginations. For games as big as Oath, it can be hard to get a handle on the scope of the project—especially when so many of play tests were done digitally. Well, no longer. Oath is here, and it is massive.
As you can see, this box is a little bigger than the usual Leder Game, and it is brimming with content. Within minutes of getting the package here in Saint Paul, the full team began going through everything with a fine-toothed comb.
The PPC review process basically has three components. First, it's critical for us to review everything. This means we took the game through its built-in tutorial and double-checked both the Chronicle Phase and Setup procedures. I single out these two things because the TTS module automated both of those parts of the design. It's also true that traditionally the setup and teardown of each game tend to be ignored by experienced players who do it from memory. This makes them far more prone to potential errors. Happily, we didn't find any errors, but we did decide to improve the wording of a section.
After that's done, we go through everything and make sure that all of the pieces are the right size and are easily handled. In the office we play on size-reduced kits (5-15%). This is done mostly to make printing the kits easier, which saves a lot of time cutting and assembling and allows us to spend more time working on game development. Towards the end of development, I usually build a 1:1 scale copy of the game, but it's important to double check everything with the PPC. Happily again, the production is lovely and we didn't find any problems.
We also made sure to play a game with the cards sleeved to make sure everything fit.
Again, I'm happy to report that pretty much everything checked out. Today, we'll be submitting some revised files to the factory to cover a few small cosmetic improvements and other small fixes.
The final aspect of the PPC is making sure everything fits in the box (both sleeved and unsleeved). This stage is a little tricky and won't be done for a few weeks. Basically, we need to wait for our factory to finish the prototype of the plastic tray. This doesn't delay us since everything else will be in production and/or drying while they make the trays and get ready for assembly. A good chunk of my time this week will be spent working on that.
As soon as we lock the box size and get a little further into production, we'll be sure to give everyone here an update on our official timeline. As I said in the last update, with everything that has happened this year, we are running a little behind on our original date. But the game's files are ready, and the production is looking excellent. Thank you all again for allowing us to work on such an ambitious project. I cannot wait for you all to get your copies.
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