The Pre-Production Copy Arrives!
about 2 years ago – Tue, Feb 01, 2022 at 08:10:33 PM

Hello everyone! 

Earlier this week I received the pre-production copy (PPC) of John Company in the mail. I think this is my ~12th project that I've seen through the production process, and I can tell you with some confidence that I'm just as giddy to get a pre-production copy now as I was when the first copy of Pamir landed on my doorstop back in 2015. 

With John Company, there is an extra reason to be excited. Normally, when I get a PPC, I try to turn my notes back over to the factory within a week or less. However, this package has arrived right at the start of the Lunar New Year which means the factory in China will be closed for around 3 weeks. This is wonderful timing because it means we can give the game an even deeper final review.

In my preliminary review, I've caught a dozen or so small errors that need fixed or adjusted and I'm hoping to catch more. Thankfully, there's nothing critical and I expect that we'll be able to put the game into production within a few weeks of when the factory's staff returns. Production and shipping will of course take many months, but the biggest hurdles that Drew and I have had to clear will be behind us. We will of course let you know as soon as we have shipping and production timelines worth sharing. 

Over the next few weeks, my main objective is to play and teach the game as many times as possible and design the game's plastic tray system. Like Pamir, this is going to be a tight fit, but I'm working hard to make the insert work for sleeved cards and to have the box close flush. Drew will also be coming up for a visit next week and we'll probably put together a live stream where we talk through the production.  We'll be sure to provide a KS update with information about that when we go live. (I'd guess we'll be doing it next Friday afternoon but we'll see.)

On to the Pictures

Instead of just dumping a lot of pictures on you, I though we should do something special. So, I want to take you through everything more in my capacity as an art director for this game and talk about some of the production/component choices. 

My main impression from going through this game is its sheer size. This is a game on the scale of something like a Twilight Imperium or a Here I Stand. Though the box is not much larger than a typical euro game, it's about 50% deeper than Pamir's box and is filled with pieces. Drew and I will be inserting a pack-up guide and a general introduction on a sheet of paper to help guide players through the experience of opening things up and getting ready to play.

The rulebooks printed beautifully. We filled them with lots of images and more than a few historical notes. While I think it would have been possible to write a terse rulebook in the style of the Law of Root or Law of Oath that might have only been 16 or 20 pages, Drew and I opted to instead let the rules relax in tone so that we could carefully explain as many parts of the game as possible and include lots of reminders and pictures. 

In our introductory sheet, I hope to offer some pointers to new players and encourage them to take their time learning the game in the style of a game master learning a new RPG for the first time. While nothing in John Company is fundamentally hard--indeed, some folks might see it as significantly more straightforward than Pamir or Oath--the world of the game is massive.

I'm quite happy with all of the game's punchboard. The coins in particular turned out really well. These are all 2mm punchboard so they stack very nicely and have a good heft. Their metal version also turned out spectacularly. Careful watchers will also notice that we altered the denominations to shift everything down so we could have 1s and 2s. Because so many of the sums in this game are £1-4 it made sense to put a stepping stone to a £5. For reference, the coin in Pamir is about the same size as the smallest coin here.

We modeled the coins on historical coinage with many liberties taken to make them compliment each other. The metal coins also vary in thickness from about the thickness of a Pamir coin to twice as thick for the larger coins. All of the designs are flush with the coins rim so they stack pretty cleanly. I note this because the Pamir coins were designed to "pile" but we wanted to make it easy for players to keep all of the stacks of cash pretty neat and tidy.

Speaking of punchboard, the Ganjifa-style event tiles came out very well. This was probably the single component I was most worried about. Amita Pai's paintings were wonderful, but they were also quite different from any of the other visual elements of the game. This meant that we were taking a risk that they might clash with the design. To help this we had our primary illustrator (Janek) do icon versions and "reductions" that he could put directly on his map to link them to the rest of the game's look. 

I'll add that they feel wonderful to shuffle! We were going to make these cards but decided to upgrade them to 1mm punchboard which is nice and rigid.

(Note: in some of these images you'll notice that the punchboard has some worn edges. This is because PPC copies aren't actually punched with a industrial die. Instead, they are cut using a laser which gives them slightly more frayed edges)

The Prime Minister dial also came out pretty well. However, we'll probably be shortening his arm an inch to make it easier to see what he's pointing at.

I really like how the general art direction of the game panned out. One always goes into a project of this scope with a general strategy, but things don't always gel. In this case, I wanted badly to find a way to blend novelist and cartoonish storytelling modes with more serious and institutional design from the period. This was an espeically hard thing to do in this case because I also wanted to primarily use period art which is prone to clash with other period art (which makes sense since they weren't drawn/painting/printed with this game in mind!). 

There were a few things that let us get away with it. First, we used a single bank of textures and tried to use as few historical artists as possible. We were also careful with colors and layout and tried to stop things from being too busy.

We also tried to make sure the various hard components fit in with the general aesthetic. For instance, the back of the prestige cards (pictured above) have a marbling texture that can also be found on the game's dice. 

Things get tricky when we start combining art of different part of the game. For instance, there are several elements at work on the player boards. Here's a player board that's been flipped to its Firm side. 

Of course the big test is the area of play generally and the board itself. John Company takes up a fair bit of tablespace. I'd say just a bit more than Oath. There's a lot to take in and it 's important that a player sitting at the table doesn't get lost in the action.

Looking at a state of play (even an engineered one like this) is always overwhelming. But, for a player at a table, this shouldn't be too hard. 

As you might remember, several months ago I handed the board design  to Janek Lipiński who served as one of our illustrators and probably my closed adviser when it came to the game's  general artistic direction and how it used color. In a shot like the picture above, you can really see his expertise at work. By muting the colors on the board and being a little more strategic with the use of color, the game visually sorts itself into a few different layers which make it a lot easier to parse in practice. I'm espeically fond of our color choices for the player pieces and how those pastels sit on top of the muted browns, grays, and reds of the board. 

India also turned out great. It's a real center-piece of the play area and I like how the piece design reflects the material wealth and power of the subcontinent. The metal flags (used to denote empires) turned out great and I just love how the whole thing feels. HOWEVER, we are having to an adjustment to the materials as the resin towner levels just weren't stacking as cleanly as possible and were a little too heavy. So, we'll be moving to a plastic piece with a wash (in the same color) which will solve both problems. The elephant will stay resin. 

Okay, that's it! Over the next couple weeks we'll probably have 1 or 2 more rapid updates for you all and then things will probably get quiet as production gears up and we begin finalizing our fulfillment timeline.

Best,

Cole

Mini-Update! Backerkit Charging Cards on January 25
about 2 years ago – Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 11:36:48 PM

Hello!

I wanted to share a reminder that tomorrow, starting at 8:00AM EST, we will process payments for all outstanding Backerkit balances for this project. You can check your email for your John Company: Second Edition Backerkit confirmation survey or go here to recover your survey link to know exactly what/if you’ll be charged. Most of the payments that will be processed are needed to cover shipping fees. Some backers are already paid in full. After we process payments, all backers will be able to edit their address until early April or so, and we’ll send out another update when we are closer to that date. Split Shipment folks will be asked to confirm their shipping addresses again.

Lastly, we’re hoping to receive a full pre-production copy of John Company in the coming week! We will certainly be sharing a big update with pictures once it is in hand, but we’re patiently waiting until then. We’re very excited to review the full physical sample and soon we’ll be starting up way to mass-production.

As always, let us know if you have any questions in the comments below or by emailing us directly at [email protected]

Thanks!

Drew

Year-End Update - John Company Public TTS, Samples, Timelines, Pax Pamir, and more!
over 2 years ago – Sun, Dec 19, 2021 at 03:50:10 AM

Hi everyone!

We have a bunch of exciting news to share today, so Cole and myself are going to tackle this update together. We've been hard at work on John Company and getting ready for all that 2022 will bring. In this update, we are going to cover some John Company news, Pax Pamir fulfillment status, and some important dates and reminders.  

John Company News

John Company has been in development for quite some time, and a few weekends ago Cole and I got together to play for the last time (in-person) before we move to the next stage of production. It was an incredible experience playing with many near-final sample components! Below is a picture from the session and Cole and I kept saying out loud "I cannot wait for people to play this game."

If you've been watching the conversation over on the Wehrlegig and Friends Discord, you've probably seen that with each passing week the adjustments we've been making to the game have gotten smaller and smaller. The past few weeks have basically only been very minor timing adjustments and a couple of minuscule balance tweaks. This means we're finally putting a bow on everything and and we've fully closed development. Outside of any last-minute loophole closing, the game is now fully done. 

To celebrate, we are thrilled to announce that John Company is officially released on Tabletop Simulator. Starting right now, anyone can search the Steam Workshop and find the full release of John Company: Second Edition in its current state. We are so proud to finally publicly list John Company as a major milestone for design as we go into Pre-Press. If you want to see John Company in its entirety, check out the link to the TTS mod here.

There are a few small caveats. There are a couple assets that are a little older or adapted specifically to TTS. We also have a few places where we still need to do a bit of layout cleanup, but it shouldn't impact anyone's play experience. Likewise, the rules document is now 99% done and only needs one more diagram, an illustration or two, and a nice paper texture. I'll also be adding a couple pages in the coming days with the games official credits and a couple of essays about the game's history and design. 

If you'd like to read the rules, you can find them here.

There's still a bit of small layout to do on the solo/2p game Crown Handbook, but we're really happy with how low player games have developed. You'll see how much Ricky Royal has put into this solo game when you see the handbook! The text for this document has just been finalized, so Cole will be giving the Crown handbook another layout pass and then we'll send it off to editorial. 

And for anyone wondering about the Print-and-Play, we will list the PnP publicly after we complete fulfillment. We want to make sure you are printing and cutting the best files possible, so let us spend some more time with the files to make sure your DIY John Company copies won't need any patches later on.

 And with all this pre-production news,  check out these John Company samples!

We're so happy with these early production samples of the coins. There are some important notes. The denominations will be changing to 1s,2s,5s, and 10s, and each denomination will have a unique color metal + wash. If you'd like to see how they look, take a look at this image which shows the punchboard version of the coins:

We are very excited to get these changes in and see them with the final colors and wash. We certainly think that anyone who picked up the metal coins will be glad they did. Of course, those that are sticking with the punchboard will also have a really great looking punchboard coins with the same designs in each copy too (and the game is compatible with standard sized poker chips too).

If you're sad about missing out on the metal coins, don't worry. We'll be printing extras and will do our best to keep them in stock after the game ships to backers. 

Important Pledge Stuff

This is a reminder that all outstanding balances in Backerkit will be processed on January 25! If you're unsure if you owe anything, I highly encourage you to check your account and make sure you know what will be charged to your card on the 25th. Some of you are already paid in full and won't need to worry about it at all. To do so, go to this link (or find your Backerkit survey in your email) and view your confirmation / Edit your address in the upper right side of the page to see your balance and your address.

The next important date will be when we lock addresses in early May 2022. For folks that did split shipments, we will be un-locking your addresses in Backerkit, and we will send you confirmation reminder emails again in April. We are working with our manufacturer to print John Company this upcoming spring, and hopefully the first copies will be sent out in June 2022. Again, this is a few months later than our initial projection of March 2022, but we know the extra time for development was well worth the delay.

Pax Pamir Fulfillment

The news doesn't stop! I am really, really, relieved to share that everyone that backed for Pax Pamir-only or opted-in for Split Shipments should at least received a tracking number for their order! We are still wrapping up shipping in the United States right now, but nearly all orders have been processed, packed, and shipped out. We have experienced many delays along the way, but we were committed to shipping these games as fast as we could given all of the obstacles from this last year.

As always, if you ever have any questions about your pledge, or if you have any issues with the components in your game, please send us an email [email protected] and/or fill out our replacement component request form here. We'll be shipping out replacement bits in January.

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This year has been massive. This is without a doubt the biggest game either of us have worked on, and we couldn't have done it without you. We have weeks and weeks of work ahead of us still, but I hope you will rest assured that we are aiming to stick this landing. To all of our backers and to all of our play testers, thank you so much for being here and helping make this game be the best it can be. Cole and I will be taking a much needed break starting in the middle of next week through the end of the year, but we plan to hit the ground running in January as we move into the bowls of file verification and pre-production copies. 

Drew + Cole

Shipping Pax Pamir, finishing John Company, dates for 2022, and VIDEOS!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 03:00:29 PM

Hello Backers!

Drew here. It’s been a few weeks since our last update so allow me get everyone up to speed about where we are at with Pax Pamir fulfillment and John Company development.

Pax Pamir Fulfillment

As you may have guessed, things are still behind schedule for our shipping plan for this project, but there is forward progress! All Pax Pamir items have made it to their fulfillment centers and some packages have already been shipped out. Below is a list of region-specific updates for your perusing:

USA

The 3rd printing of Pax Pamir items have arrived safely at our US fulfillment center and we are in queue for our project to start shipping during the week of Nov 29th. There are more US orders than any other region, so shipping Pax Pamir to backers will likely take 1-2 weeks to ship out every order. I have to ask you lovely people for your continued patience while we inch closer to getting Pax Pamir to you.

The warehouse staff is currently fulfilling other KS projects, but shortly all US Pax Pamir backers will receive an email confirmation with a tracking number. If there are any problems, please reply directly to that shipping confirmation email, which will copy the warehouse staff as well as us.

Canada

Pax Pamir just arrived at our CAN shipping partner last week and they will be shipping games in the coming weeks. They have sent out many address confirmation emails already. They don’t have as much of a warehouse backlog so they hopefully will be able to get these orders moving very soon.

Australia / New Zealand 

Aetherworks will be fulfilling Pax Pamir items and sending out confirmation emails with tracking numbers soon. We are only their schedule for November fulfillment. I have not heard about how soon they will be starting up AUS shipping notifications, but certainly keep an eye out on your email this month.

Southeast Asia

We work with VFI Asia, that works with several different local shipping companies for fulfillment. All copies in China have been sent out, but items scheduled for delivery in Indonesia are shipped to a partner hub (Monopolis Board Game Store). You can see the updates for each region here. 

EU / UK / Int’l+

Our shipment to Fulfillment Europe has arrived and I’ve been informed that the first Pax Pamir parcels will be sent out later this week! Because they have our 2nd largest stock on hand, it will be weeks for them to get through all the orders. Please keep an eye out for their email with tracking information.

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As always, reach out to us to us directly [email protected] if you need any help with your pledge or if you have any questions about your pledge specifically.

John Company Development

In other news, John Company: Second Edition continues toward the end of its development and file preparation. While the final illustrations are coming in and the graphic design is nearing completion, there are still several weeks of hard work ahead still. Cole and I are both feeling really optimistic about the design and thrilled with how this game has come together, especially in the last few months.

We are currently about to submit a full parts list to our factory and we are talking the steps to getting a nearly-complete pre-production copy together! There are a few components that have not been finalized yet, but know that the project is in a really great place and is moving forward a nice clip. A clear path lies ahead of us to finish development and move into pre-production.

As Development winds down in early December, Cole and I will share a nearly finalized updated rulebook and a public release of our Tabletop Simulator Mod as well.

John Company Timeline

Like we’ve outlined previously, the production of John Company is now set to hit manufacturing in early 2022 and backers can roughly expect fulfillment to start up in May/June 2022. We’re still on track for this and hopefully we can hit some clear production goals and start up production of the hard components like the wooden family pieces and resin empire pieces as early as possible next year.

We also have a many outstanding balances for John Company on Backerkit that have not been processed yet. We will be processing the remaining balances on John Company pledges on January 25, 2022. Please be aware of that payment will be charged then if you have any outstanding balance in Backerkit.

You are welcome to search your email for your backerkit confirmation or find your pledge here (https://john-company.backerkit.com/). The “edit your address” button allows you to see your account overview and any unpaid balance on your account that will be processed on Jan 25.

For Split Shipment backers, we will confirm your address again when we are about to send out your John Company items later in 2022.

New Videos!

This last weekend, Cole and I showed off John Company at the digital San Diego Historical Gaming Convention! Here are a couple of streams Cole recorded for the con while he presented on discord for the SDHistCon audience. Cole recaps the history of John Company’s development and a review of the many shapes of the second edition and also does a full, exhaustive teach of John Company! 

Don't be too scared by the length of the full teach! Learning nearly every single rule in one big battery is not the ideal way to teach the game, and most players will do just fine to learn the game as they go. To help this along, Cole organized his teach in several sections, so it's easier to find answers to any of your questions. When we get the production copies next year, we'll certainly either produce a cleaner and shorter set of videos on our own or we will will find a professional team to handle it. Hope this video tides you over until next year!

Okay, that's everything. Phew!!! Thanks as always for being here and always feel free to reach out if you have any questions about your pledge, our games, or anything Wehrlegig.  👋

-Drew

Pax Pamir Fulfillment Begins, Final Development and Layout Continues
over 2 years ago – Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 02:17:06 AM

Hello everyone!

Drew and I have had a very busy October getting your games ready.  Pax Pamir has begun fulfillment for some of our backers in Asia. The shipments to the US and Europe have made good progress. In the US, we've actually made it into the customs queue (the Australian shipment is in a similar place). Hopefully we'll be able to start fulfilling these over the course of the next month, which is just a month behind our initial schedule. In a year like this, we both consider this a pretty serious win. It looks like Europe fulfillment will get started just a little behind the US, but it is also moving along. As with most things, we ask everyone to be patient while we try to get this out the door to you all as fast as possible. 

In terms of John Company, I've been heads-down on finalizing some balance adjustments to the event system, the firms system, and doing a general cleanup on the games systems. This is one of my favorite parts of the process of making games. The game is basically entirely done and a few weeks ago I took a long break from playtesting so that I could catch up on finishing the game's product design and the layout for the printed components. This break went a long way in giving me a fresh set of eyes, and I'm now conducting something of a final development review. 

During this phase, I'm going through everything carefully and looking in particular for places where there might be redundant systems or parts that aren't perfectly harmonizing with the rest of the design. Generally this leads to three different kinds of changes. The first is just phrasing and layout adjustments that make the game a little more usable or easier to teach. The second are very subtle balances. Often, at this stage, these types of balances are more about design aesthetics rather than fixing a broken system. In other words, I'm less worried about exploits than about making sure the game is being true to the larger arguments at work. The final group of changes are simplifications or adjustments of rules that include things like standardizing some actions, ironing out a counterintuitive mechanism, and sometimes moving rules from one part of the game to another to improve flow. 

I am very  close to being done with this review. I expect I'll have this process wrapped up within the next two weeks. After that, most of my development time will be spent working on rulebook examples, finalizing the card powers and balance, and writing any historical commentary that I haven't finished. 

Near final deed cards.

While that is going on, I'm continuing to receive final art files from our 3 artists. I should have the final designs of the coins soon and high resolution scans of the ganjifa cards. In addition, I've been working closely with Janek on the game's remaining icons and making everything harmonize with his new board. I'll be keeping the TTS mod updated, so feel free to check out our progress if you're so inclined!

Lastly, Drew and I will both be running virtual sessions at the San Diego Historical Games Convention in mid November. This is a special show for Drew and I and for John Company. Last year this was the first show where we showed John Company to the public and the response was so enthusiastic that we decided to run this Kickstarter in the spring. This year, Drew will be demoing John Company and I'll be making two presentations. But, don't despair! We'll be recording both of my sessions and later posting them to the Wehrlegig Youtube channel.  In  the first session, I'll be doing a comprehensive teach of John Company with the near-final rules. In the second session, I'll be talking about the game's long development with particular attention on the changes that have been made since last year's showing of the game.

That's all I have for now. In short, everything is going pretty smoothly. When we next update you, I hope to have a couple videos to share and maybe even a near-final rulebook. Till then, be well!