New TTS, Gen Con Online, Charge Date, and More
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 08:27:08 PM

Hello everyone!

Normally I'd be writing this post from my hotel room in Indianapolis, but obviously that is not happening this year. Though we are sad not to be able to meet so many of you in person over the next few days, I'll admit to not minding the fact that I was able to have breakfast with my kids this morning! 

We have a few things we want to let everyone know about. First, I'm happy to announce that the TTS mod has been updated with tons of new features, including many bug fixes, more art, and a fresh set of icons! Over the next week, we'll be folding in a few new features as well, including the final art for the game's board which Kyle is working on right now (I can't wait for you all to see it!).

The TTS mod is fully public. If you'd like to play, you can find the mod here.

Right now basically every element of Oath has entered the layout stage of production or will be entering it soon. We'll do our best to keep the TTS mod updated with the newest files as take them through the graphic design process. Eventually, we'll also have the solo and tutorial mode built into the TTS as well.

Next week I'll also be posting an update pdf for folks who printed the a physical copy of Kit C. This includes some new cards and things that will let you play our fancy new battle system. If you're interested in how the combat changes happened and what the new system is like, you can read a detailed description of my process here. 

Gen Con Online

Gen Con this year is being run entirely online and has been more-or-less opened to the public. I encourage everyone to take a look at the events. There are a ton of wonderful things happening. For Leder Games, we're mostly running ticketed events for our games. I'll be playing daily games of Oath. For these games, I've decided to do a rolling demo where I'll let one game inform the next rather than restart the game each time. You can follow along with that history by reading The Oath Chronicle over on the LederGames on twitter account and following hashtag #OathGenCon. 

Charge Date

The date we will be charging cards on Backerkit for shipping costs and any additional copies of Oath you may have added to your survey will be charged on September 4th in the morning time (CDT). 

Lastly, While we've been working on Oath over the past year, some team members were have been working on our new small box game, Fort, which is now available for preorder.

Questions and/or Support?

Please email us at [email protected] for any questions or assistance. Please do not use the Kickstarter messaging system to contact us.

Print and Play Kit C, Upgraded Components Preview, and Charge Date
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jul 03, 2020 at 02:21:31 AM

Hey Friends!

We hope everyone is still gaming safely! The Leder Games staff is slowly transitioning back into the Saint Paul office, starting with our creative and development team. This has allowed us to quickly make our final playtesting kits to be sent out for usability and rulebook testing. Being back in the office has also made it possible for us to stream in person again and show off the physical components of the game! If you missed Cole's Oath Update stream and Q&A from Tuesday (6/30) you can watch a recording here.

Now on to some more exciting updates...

Print and Play Kit C

As Cole mentioned in our most recent Oath Update stream, the Print and Play and Tabletop Simulator Mod Update (Kit C) is now available starting today. We will also be playing with this during today's Oath Playtesting stream at 2 PM CDT, you can watch on Twitch or Facebook.

Click here to see Kit C!

And if you'd like to play the game on TTS, you can find the mod here!

One small note about the TTS mod. Our mod creator will be adding a couple features and fixing one or two known bugs within the next day or so. These are not huge issues, but if you have any trouble, make sure to check out comments he left on the mod's Workshop page. 

Upgraded Components and Game Board

We have been playing with some samples of the upgraded components sent to us by our manufacturer in our office, and we are really excited with how they are turning out. Note: these are not final! The neoprene game board will be in every copy of Oath, while the resin secret books and metal coins are included in the Upgrade Pack (included with your Kickstarter pledge) and are represented as punch tokens in the retail copy of Oath.

We have changed the resource "magic" to "secret" to match more closely to the lore and world of the game, secrets are represented by these satisfying chunky resin books with a gold inlay. ~*So Fancy*~

Then we have our metal coins - roughly the size of an American Nickle, the Oath coins have raised metal teeth that allow them to be locked into a stack and a dark wash that gives them a nice worn look. 

Lastly, the game board - I want to note again: this is not final, but I want to show everyone the direction we are headed. Currently, we have been playing on a single-sided double-stitched neoprene board which also showcases our new board layout (Cole goes into detail on this layout change in the update video around 16mins 30sec). The colors are very rich and the details of the art are coming out pretty crisp. 

Development Timeline Update

(This update will be very reminiscent of the Dev Update in our 4/20 Kickstarter Update)

There will be another Designer Diary coming from Cole within the month that will delve into more about the changes in design, as seen in our Kit C update. For a rough update of where we are in the timeline for development and this project, due to Covid and the distress in Minneapolis this has put our playtesting and development time back a month. This time is also allowing us to make some design improvements and will ultimately make for a better game for you all. Right now we don't believe this will affect the project's delivery time in any major way, but we will know more within the coming months and will of course update you along the way. 

Charge Date Change

Seen on the Kickstarter page, we had originally communicated that the Backer Kit closure and charge date would be in June. We are changing this to September to allow for some more time for people to late pledge and plan ahead. An exact date will be communicated closer to September, but final component counts and details will also be communicated before the charge date for those who would like to get in on the sleeves but are just waiting for those final details. (Due to us still being in development nothing is final yet.)

Live Stream Today

As mentioned above, we will be playtesting Oath with the new Kit C live on Twitch and Facebook today at 2 PM CDT. These streams have been a blast to host these past couple of weeks and it has been great interacting with the chat, we hope to see you there!

Questions and/or Support?

Please email us at [email protected] for any questions or assistance. Please do not use the Kickstarter messaging system to contact us.

Thanks for all the support!

Oath Design Live Stream Today!
almost 4 years ago – Tue, May 26, 2020 at 10:59:28 PM

Hey Friends!

I just wanted to post a quick update to let everyone know that Cole will be going live on the Leder Games Twitch and Facebook Page today (26th) at 2 PM CST! He will give an update talk about the general design progress, when to expect the next Print and Play and Tabletop Simulator mod update, where the solo mode is at right now, show off some samples of the components, and answer your questions! 

Feel free to drop any questions before the stream on this twitter thread, and make sure to join us live in the chat on Twitch and Facebook! If you miss the stream a recording will be on Facebook and up on our Youtube channel. 

Lastly, our next update will be covering the charge date for shipping in Backer Kit, to recover your survey link please go here.

Questions and/or Support?

Please email us at [email protected] for any questions or assistance. Please do not use the Kickstarter messaging system to contact us.

Thanks for all the support!

The "Many Things" Update: TTS and PnP, AUS/NZ Shipping Prices, and Development Timeline
about 4 years ago – Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 11:40:52 PM

Hey friends!

We hope everyone is staying healthy and gaming safely! This update will cover a couple different topics. Of course, I recommend reading through the whole update, but make sure you read how COVID-19 is affecting our development timeline for this project in the Development Update below. 

TTS and PnP

For those who have watched our most recent streams of Oath, you've seen that the Tabletop Simulator mod for Oath has gotten a pretty big update! Updated versions of the print-and-play kit and Tabletop Simulator mod are now available to play:

Click here for TTS

Click here for PnP Kit B

AUS/NZ Updated Shipping Costs

We’ve got great news! We’ll be partnering with a local Australian fulfillment partner and have updated our shipping prices to Australia and New Zealand accordingly in Backerkit and our spreadsheet on the Kickstarter campaign page. Here are the new shipping prices:

Australia - $20USD + $5USD / additional copy (max 4 copies per pledge)

New Zealand - $25USD + $10USD / additional copy (max 4 copies per pledge)

Click here for the updated shipping spreadsheet.

If you are a AUS/NZ $1 backer from the campaign and are waiting for our updated shipping price before fully committing to your pledge, please email us at [email protected] so we can move you into the $90 Kickstarter price for Oath. Otherwise, Backerkit will reflect the post-campaign $100 price for Oath.

Development Update

Hi everyone, Cole here. I wanted to provide a little update today and reflect on how the situation with COVID-19 is impacting the game's development schedule.

A few weeks ago I wrote a long designer diary about the road to Public Kit B. You can read that update here.

In the weeks since that update, things have continued moving along. You can see some of the changes we've made in the most recent Oath livestream, and we'll be showcasing more of the changes and some of the new content when we play again for you next Thursday.

At this point Oath is nearly content-complete. All 198 denizen cards have been designed and many have gone through several rounds of development, and the same is true of the site cards and most of the other game systems. The solo and two-player games are set to enter testing within a week or two, and we'll be spending a few weeks working on the five- and six-player games to determine if we need to make any balance adjustments.

In our original timeline, we planned to start recruiting local testers for an intensive month of in-person usability testing and final balance work right now. That, of course, is impossible. Because this final phase is critical to our process, the team is currently considering a few options. The most likely option is that we push out the final stage of the game's development. This would give us another two months of remote testing, and then, hopefully, in July we'll be able to resume in-person testing and conduct the necessary usability studies. If by June it looks like this testing regime won't be possible, we can also adapt and try to complete this stage of the project remotely. This isn't ideal, but we can adapt our processes.

In terms of what this means for you, the good news is that we already built a lot of cushion into Oath’s timeline. So we're still shooting for fulfillment in Q1 of 2021, with only minor delays. And because usability testing mostly affects printed components, we can get started on the more time-intensive elements of Oath’s production, such as the wooden meeples and metal coins, more-or-less on time. Nothing is set in stone yet, but I wanted to let you all know how the global pandemic is impacting us. I'll add too that everyone on the team has been doing some amazing work, and I'm grateful for the wonderful remote testers who have helped fill our ranks. When we get further into the process, I'll be sure to write a longer piece about how we've adapted our testing system to our newly remote world.

Questions and/or Support?

Please email us at [email protected] for any questions or assistance. Please do not use the Kickstarter messaging system to contact us.

Thanks for all the support!

Live Streaming and Backer Kit Surveys
about 4 years ago – Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 12:29:39 AM

Hey Friends! 

Today is going to be a short update, but we have some exciting things to share!

Live Streaming Schedule 

Currently, the Leder Games office has moved to a "work from home" model to ensure the safety and health of the staff and those around them. We are still maintaining our normal hours and all of our current projects are still on track at this time.

Also, during this time we have noticed a lot of our community is also working from home and that got us thinking of ways where we could hang out with everyone! So starting TODAY until the 27th, we will be live streaming M - F at 2 PM CST! We will be kicking off with an Oath Playtesting stream Today at 2 PM CST on Facebook Live and Twitch.  Can't wait to see everyone! 

Backerkit Surveys

The smoke test last week went well and all survey invites are now in the process of sending to the rest of backers today! Please allow a day or two in case you do not see your survey email right away and please remember to check spam folders just in case.

For any questions regarding surveys, please refer to our last update here. For direct questions, please email [email protected]. We're still catching up on two weeks' worth of emails so please be patient as we try to help everyone as quickly as we can.