Blog

Back in October or so while I was struggling with Void Lich, Cole proposed to me that we trade projects. I would take a swing at the new Root project, like I had with Underworld, and he would try a new approach for Void Lich. I was a bit surprised as I knew he had come out of Underworld with a few ideas for major factions that he hadn’t had time to explore yet. But, I was happy to take a break from Void Lich and return to Root.

As with previous Kickstarter campaigns, we'll be posting a bunch of little articles about the design and development of the new content. This is always one of my favorite parts of the process, because it forces us to take an account of what we're up to. What exactly was going through our heads when we made that decision? Why on earth did we think that we should put that thing in a box and call it an expansion?

Well things got a little delayed thanks to the holiday postal traffic, but we now have the first mass-produced copy (MPC) of the Oath board game in the office. Please find some lovely pictures below!

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.

Last Friday, we received most of Fort’s first printing to our North American fulfillment partner, Atlas Games, and the rest was sent from the factory to other region-based fulfillment partners: Fulfillment EU, VFI, and VR Distribution. All regions combined, we have over 3000 pre-orders to fulfill. Due to COVID-19 and how fulfillment works, we can’t ship every order simultaneously. We have timed shipments in each region as closely as possible while respecting that region’s bandwidth, ability to ship with limited options in ocean and air freight, and changes in practices due to the virus.

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.

At Leder Games we spend a lot of time thinking about form factor and presentation, this diary is focused on finally sharing all that effort with you! Fort may technically be a "smaller" game for us but you'll notice we still pulled out all the stops.