An all-new game featuring the retro villains of Boss Monster. Conquer the overworld in this game of tile-drafting and map-building!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Overlords, the time draws near! Put your kobolds on patrol, command your orcs to set a watch, and summon an eye guardian to the top of every tower. Your BackerKit surveys are coming!
And it's about time. We previously expected surveys to go out this weekend, but payment processing took a bit longer than we anticipated. Now we're just waiting for final confirmation from BackerKit, at which point the surveys will go out. We expect they'll go out tomorrow, Tuesday the 28th.
When you receive your survey link, go ahead and click on it. BackerKit will guide you through the process. You'll need to provide a credit card to pay for shipping, as well as any add-ons you want to select. Here's a preview of the interface, showing a hypothetical backer in the US who pledged at $1.
Some things to keep in mind:
Once the survey has been out for a few days, we'll send a reminder and follow up with folks who haven't updated their info.
If you have any questions, post them right here in the Comments and we'll answer them right away. Thanks for your patience during this step of the process. We can't wait to send you these games!
Happy weekend, Overlords! It's been one week since the end of our campaign, and during that time, everyone at Brotherwise has been working round-the-clock getting Overlord ready to send off to the printers. Our goal is to ship this game by late October, which we know is aggressive, but thanks to a lot of prep before the Kickstarter, we're off to a great start.
We're currently turning over the instruction manual for final layout. It's still a work in progress, so you'll see some notes to the graphic designer, but here's a look at the current Overlord rulebook:
We're also working on FAQs for our website, so if you have any questions after reading the rulebook, let us know in the Comments below!
Meanwhile, we're laying out all the cards, tiles, and tokens. Here's a peek at a couple of our punchboards. In parallel with the campaign, we've conducted some final playtesting and usability testing. No rules have changed, but this has resulted in revisions to the syntax of scoring icons on each tile. You'll notice that (unless a tile has a comes-into-play ability like the Volcano or Summoning Circle), the tile's baseline Power value now comes first.
We've also been designing the Terrain Selection Cards, and these are a little different than what we showed in our previous update. It proved unwieldy to have these clutter the table as rules reminders, and more important that new players understand the matching crystal and monster tokens for each terrain type. So the final Terrain Selection Cards look like this:
There will be a separate cheat sheet detailing how each terrain type is scored, in addition to the two-page spread in the rulebook. So these cards are purely for game setup, to randomly pick which terrain types to use.
Everything else is moving along nicely, and our printing partners are eagerly awaiting the final turnover package so we can keep things on track. We'll provide another layout update next week!
Speaking of next week, stay tuned for an e-mail from BackerKit (along with an update from us) at the end of next week. We expect the pledge manager to go live by next weekend, allowing you to process your shipping payment and any Add-Ons you wish to purchase. Until then, stay safe and have fun!
Overlords, today we just want to say thank you. First, a message from the designers, Aaron Mesburne and Kevin Russ:
“We would never have thought a small prototype about plants could become the game that Overlord is today. A huge thank you from both of us to each and every backer! We are deeply grateful for your immense outpouring of support. It is because of you that we were able to add so much more to game, so we hope you enjoy sharing Overlord with your friends and family!”
Here at Brotherwise, we couldn’t agree more. In every sense of the word, you rule.
After an exciting 19-day campaign, we reached a milestone we’ve never hit before: over 11,000 backers. Our last day was our biggest day, bringing our total to over $550,000. We really saw the pace of pledges ramp up in the second half of the campaign, and we think part of that is because we added so much to the game. This is basically a core game and a large expansion shipping in the same box.
We also know that you’re to thank for that big increase! We saw you guys spreading the word on social media, making sure everyone in the board game community people heard about this project. That kind of buzz is a big part of why a Kickstarter campaign is the best way to launch a board game, so thank you for making it happen!
Our updates won’t be hitting your inbox quite as often now that the campaign has ended, but we’ll be keeping you in the loop. Here are the key next steps:
Your credit card should have already been charged for the amount of your pledge. If it didn’t go through, you have another 2 or 3 days to update your credit card information.
We’ll keep BackerKit open for just two weeks, so by mid-August we’ll have all the information we need for fulfillment. Our goal is to go into production next month and ship everything for arrival by the end of October, so Overlord can ship to retail in time for the holidays. Everything has to go smoothly to hit those dates, so we’ll keep you updated on how we’re tracking in the weeks ahead.
Again, thank you for a fantastic campaign. Aaron and Kevin have designed a great game that we think you’ll have a blast playing with your friends and family. We can’t wait to get it produced and into your hands!
- Brother One and Brother Two
When we started this project we were confident it would be successful. Aaron and Kevin designed a delightful game, and the team here at Brotherwise did a terrific job bringing it into the world of Boss Monster. We also have a lot of faith in you, our backers. Kickstarter backers started this company down its road to success, and Kickstarter backers have always been there for us when we needed them.
But...
Holy crap! We didn't really expect this level of support. We planned our Stretch Goals expecting a certain level of campaign, and you guys delivered something much bigger. We just broke through $500,000! From everyone here at Brotherwise, we are humbled and grateful.
With the level of excitement for this campaign, we couldn't end the day without a couple of surprises. So we did a review of the comments and looked for what people were requesting most. One thing we hear over and over again is "more Bosses!" So allow us to introduce another Limited Edition Boss: The Brothers Wise, a blast from Boss Monster's past. It's a personal thank-you from both of us, "Brother One" and "Brother Two."
We'll provide a closer look at the card next week, and The Brothers will be gaining a few more pixels between now and then... this is just a placeholder using the original pixel art.
Since the beginning of the campaign, we've listed a scorepad in the contents of the rulebook, but it hasn't been in most images of the components. So to confirm, we will include a scorepad! It will be a color-printed tear-off pad featuring 50 double-sided sheets.
We've also heard a number of veteran gamers requesting Terrain selection cards, a set of mini cards that would allow you to randomly choose your starting five Terrain types before each game. We debated whether this was necessary, but we're up for anything that makes the game more convenient. Once you've selected your terrain types, you'll also be able to use these cards as scoring reminders! We'll include 10 Terrain selection cards in every game along with 1 Dungeon rules reminder card. (The Limited Edition bonus pack will include an extra selection card for Tower tiles.)
These assets are still in development, so the images here are work-in-progress. But we're be sure to share the final versions in a future update!
We've also seen a number of backers express concern about whether we're producing enough of the various Add-Ons, especially our limited-run reprints of Boss Monster items like the Collector's Box, the Hidden Secrets Pack, and the Paper & Pixels Pack. While we don't want to over-produce these items, we also don't want you guys to worry about getting them if you really want them.
We've created a VERY short survey here: Add On Survey
If you are interested in any of these items, please jump on this survey and let us know.
Thank you again for all you've done. We can't begin to express how cool it is to make games that people want to play. You've made our dreams come true again.
- Chris and Johnny