Apotheca

[DanielIndru]

100k
Mai sunt 9 ore.

[DanielIndru]

Update:

Se face in continuare play testing si mici modificari pe carti:

Se lucreaza la forma pieselor de plastic:

Si la artwork pentru potiuni:

[DanielIndru]

Update:

Piesele de plastic:

Si cateva cuvinte despre varianta Master of the Market:

Matt and I are developing the Master of the Market variant (different from the solo variant) that you unlocked near the end of the campaign. We are very pleased with the latest version. We think it will end up somewhere great. It has a ton of interesting decisions and strategic layers. Here is a synopsis of the current rules:

- One player is the Master of the Market, and everyone else is playing in a team against the Master. The Master must make one of each color match to win (red, blue, gold), and the other players must make any combination of three matches as normal.
- The Master always has a "restricted" color of potion under his/her thumb. The Master can only make a match of the restricted color, and no other player may make a match of that color. The Master must spend an action and a gem of a specific color to change the restricted color, controlling the market as he/she sees fit.
- The Master may use any of the three powers in Apothecary Alley, at a cost of 2 gems each. They are not hired, but instantly used, and they do not cycle out when used by the Master. The other players use hired apothecaries as normal, but they pay their hiring gems to the Master instead of to the gem supply.
- The Master takes a turn after every non-Master's turn.

So far we have tested this in 2- and 3-player. We will see if it's suitable for 4-player. We're tuning the different actions that can be taken, as well as the different gem costs to perform actions. Master of the Market is a more complex but meaty way to play the game - we're excited for it!

[DanielIndru]

Mostre de la piesele de plastic, comparate cu cele folosite in video:



Cica mai au de lucru la forma si culoare.


Si multe alte detalii mai jos:

Extra Action Token

There is a known first player advantage in Apotheca, which is why we start the first player with just one action instead of the usual two per turn. While this certainly helps balance things out, we're concerned there is still a first player advantage. It's due to being able to get a gem first, which means faster access to apothecaries. In 3-player mode, we give the third player an Extra Action Token they can use once during the game. This lets them take an extra action that is different from their first two on one turn. We're testing giving this to the last player in every game.
In our expert games, we found it does help a bit to balance things out. In beginner games during the playtest night, players almost never used it, which is totally fine - they enjoyed playing regardless, and never noticed any imbalance. The balance becomes more important once players get much better at the game. We want to make sure it stands the test of time and player skill! (We still have great expert-level games, even after playing for so long We'll continue looking at this as we move forward.
Also, we're seeing if we can fit the extra action token on our punchboards instead of it being on the back of a reference card (that's where it currently is). This will make it a bit nicer.


KS Exclusive Special Potions

After some initial internal testing in expert games, we decided on the set of 3 special potions to try with beginners. We put them into every deck during the playtest night. They all seemed to go over well, but we'll keep testing them. The current special potions are:
Exploding Potion (red) - when revealed, shuffle an adjacent potion into the potion deck.
Peeker Potion (yellow) - when revealed, turn all secret potions towards you (so you can peek at 'em!).
Cloning Potion (blue) - when revealed, place a facedown potion.
Folks had a few questions about the Exploding Potion and Cloning Potion that we are looking into, but all in all they worked well. They are fun and add spice, but at the same time don't sway the game too much.


New Power Wording

After our initial Game Crafter prototype print run for the Kickstarter reviewers and campaign, we redid all the wording for the powers to be simpler. We tested this during Gen Con and it seems we went too simple (they needed to be more explicit), so I edited the wording for all the powers again and printed them off for the playtest night. They went over much better. On the power diagram end there is a little confusion about a few of them, so we will take another look at them.


New Powers

We tested with beginners the 3 Limited Edition apothecaries as well as the KS Exclusive apothecary. All of them went over well, and seemed to be in balance! It was also great to see that the apothecaries were all great in 3- and 4-player as well (our testing always starts in 2-player). One of the apothecaries seems to have a little more power variance than the others, so we will keep an eye on that.


Master of the Market

This is the advanced game mode unlocked during the end of the campaign. We've been having a brain-burning blast with this in 2-player. We had the opportunity to try it in 3- and 4-player with beginners. It is certainly advanced! The beginners, while having had a few Apotheca games under the belts before playing, took a long time with this one. The 1-vs-everyone style gameplay caused analysis paralysis in some players, so we're going to acknowledge the expert difficulty in the rulebook ("Wait to play this until you've played the normal game at least X times!", etc.). The games were close and still finished within a reasonable amount of time, however, so we're pretty happy with where this is. I want to hold another playtest with experienced Apotheca players so we can test Master of the Market with them.


Solo Mode

Lastly, we've continued to test and tweak the solo variant. It's very puzzly and fun. While we have many of the gameplay tweaks close to nailed down, we're still working on the end game and scoring mechanisms. These will further influence play, in addition to the overarching goal of "satisfy as many apothecaries as you can!" We have a unique once-per-space secret potion placement system, which keeps the pressure on the player and forces them to plan many turns in advance. It's cool!

[DanielIndru]

Se lucreaza la reguli, se face playtesting, etc.
Si s-a schimbat coperta:

[DanielIndru]

S-au terminat si cristalele custom.

[DanielIndru]

Se pregatesc sa inceapa tiparirea.

[DanielIndru]

Versiunea pre-productie se poate vedea aici:



Iar cei care au sprijinit jocul si vor fisierele PNP, sa ma contacteze.

[DanielIndru]

Canada and EU backers: your copies will be freighted after CNY. For our US shipment, we had enough copies that it was cost effective to get a full container, but for Canada and EU, we are splitting up the copies amongst two containers -- one to Amazon in each region -- and sharing them with other folks freighting their goods. Full containers are faster to procure than "less-than-container load" spots, which is why we were not able to get those shipments out before CNY. Ports were very busy, especially Shanghai. I will let you know when these leave port after CNY. If everything goes smoothly, fulfillment should begin in late April / early May.

[DanielIndru]

The container to the UK is scheduled to ship on March 11. It is estimated to take 28 days. After the containers reach their destinations, they will be shipped directly to the Amazon fulfillment centers.

Deci probabil primim jocurile prin luna mai.

[Chuckila]

Deci probabil primim jocurile prin luna mai.

[DanielIndru]

Pe scurt: s-a mucit grosimea la cartoane, unul e de 3 mm (asa cum trebuiau sa fie toate), restul sunt de 2 mm.
O sa adauge inainte de shipping inca un carton de 2 ce il inlocuieste pe cel de 3.

Hi all,
A belated Happy Easter to all who celebrated yesterday! I've been working hard to address the punchboard issue. Thank you to everyone who commented on the last update. It seems the problem is ubiquitous - the special potion punchboard in every copy is thicker than the other punchboards.
Here is some background information and a more detailed description of what's going on: During the campaign, we reached stretch goals that thickened the punchboards to 3mm. In addition, we unlocked Kickstarter-exclusive special potions. We also added the Secret Potion Bag add-on as an option. Thus, we had 3 versions of the game being manufactured/assembled: Kickstarter, Kickstarter with Bag, and Retail. We decided to make the retail punchboards 2mm, since that seemed fine for those copies and would save on manufacturing cost and shipping weight.
During manufacturing and assembly, the manufacturer mistakenly made solely the Kickstarter-exclusive punchboard 3mm, but kept all the other punchboards at 2mm. This is incredibly unfortunate and I've been trying to resolve this ASAP.
At this point, all of the US backer rewards have been shipped out or are in the process of being shipped out. So, it makes solutions to this problem very costly because any solution has to be shipped again. The ideal solution would be to replace all four of the 2mm punchboards with 3mm punchboards for each copy of the Kickstarter game. However, this is extremely expensive. Not only do they have to be manufactured and air shipped to US, Canada and UK, the size and weight of the tiles puts each package in a very expensive shipping tier. So unfortunately, this is not an option. I really apologize for this, since I am fully aware the 3mm punchboard was a stretch goal in the campaign. I had no intention of this happening, it is a manufacturing mistake.
The next option is what I believe is the best compromise, so we are executing on it. We will replace the 3mm punchboard in each copy with a 2mm punchboard. This will make the game cohesive, and not lead to unintended thickness-based deduction during gameplay. This is still expensive; the manufacturer is going to pay for 2/3 of the bill, and I will pay for the remaining 1/3 (approximately). For US backers, these will ship as new packages (and no need to send back what you've received prior to this). For everyone else, the replacement tiles will ship with your games. I don't know the timeframe on this yet, but we are working as fast as possible to make it happen. We sent the files to the manufacturer over the weekend and I just saw the eproofs for the new tiles this morning, so the manufacturer is working on it.
Again, I apologize that this happened and I really wish it wasn't the case. I was extremely disappointed to learn this and I am sure many of you were too. This is the best we can do in this situation without going broke.
Please know that my backers and this project are always top of mind. Thank you again to everyone that supported the project, and other than this, I'm so glad to hear so many backers say they love the game!
A couple more things:
1. If you have an issue with your particular copy of the game (such as missing pieces), please message me directly.
2. I likely won't be responding to comments and messages promptly because a family emergency just came up.
Thanks,
Andrew

[DanielIndru]

Un nou update: cica s-au facut mostre pentru doua noi seturi de tiles care sa le inlocuiasca pe cele de grosime gresita, si ambele sunt inutilizabile.
Inca o mostra se face saptamana viitoare, apoi incepe sa caute altii mai buni daca astia nu sunt in stare sa potriveasca culorile.

Cam praf...

[Chuckila]

Si intre timp Apotheca e de vanzare prin magazine (cel putin in US stiu ca l-am vazut cand ma uitam la unul dintre site-uri dupa playmats) de saptamani bune.

[DanielIndru]

Poate era la pre-order?

[DanielIndru]

Au ajuns mostrele de replacement tiles, le da drumul in productie, ne mai anunta cand incep livrarile.

[DanielIndru]

Dispatched via UPS (estimated delivery date: 13/06/2016 GMT)
Tracking No: 1Z577E526805250447
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5 Apotheca KS Replacement Tiles
SKU:J4-FVEA-6U45

5 Apotheca KS
SKU:KNA 0203


This parcel was sent to:
Daniel Indru

[l2extasy]

Yupee, vin jocurile!