Everyone gets a dragon ...in Germany!
about 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 03:29:35 AM

Hi all, 

We wanted to check in on the eve of Spiel in Essen, and wish you all a happy October! Big things are about to happen in Eldervale production!

 Dwellings named "#1 Game to Demo" in Essen, 2019! 

Wow, thanks Tom Vasel and the Dice Tower! Top 10 Games to Demo at Essen That's a huge nod from the biggest review site in boardgaming at one of the biggest game shows in the world. Sam Healey at the Dice Tower also picked Dwellings as #3 top demo at Essen, so we are extremely flattered this game stuck with both of these guys. 

Here are all the ways to see the game, should you be at this show:

•  Spiel Preview Night, Weds in Congress Center
•  In LudiCreations Booth 1-D129 (Thurs-Sun). Note, Breaking Games other games are at 4-D102!
•  Arrange a hotel play late night with Peter (who needs sleep?)
•  Dice & Mystics event, Saturday night

A huge thank you to the Dwellings backers who have agreed to help us demo the game - Nicklas, Stefan, Brian and Fabian - you will go down in Dwellings of Eldervale rulebook history. This is amazing help! 

Pledge Manger - Surveys Due!

We have 4,500 surveys completed now (awesome!) - about 79%. Thanks to all of you who have completed your survey. While these won't be locked and charged until November - anything you can do to fill in info now helps us shape up our production order fully.

GROUP ORDERS/RETAILERS- Discounts will be applied in early November. We will reach out to each of you, but to confirm your cart is all set, feel free to reach out to Peter AT breakinggames DOT com to confirm your order. 

Survey stats:

• Cover choice update. We're seeing 2:1 ratio of Element cover to Dread Croc cover selection, FYI
• Wooden Tokens are unlocked as an add-on (so excited!). An update - it's actually even better, + 10 wooden tokens, we added the dragon trove tokens and tactics tokens to these upgraded components in wood. (Thanks for the suggestion Søren Schultz-Nielsen!)
• Mats, Meeple Source resources and Dice Tray add-ons all going well. (thank you!) Most popular dice tray is the ruins, (for owning just one), but after that, Darkness and Chaos trays are top elemental choices. (of course!)
• T-shirts will be now unlocked @ 250 orders, and we have about 50 more to go, if you're interested.

Pre-Orders Open, Now Through November 8

Have a friend who missed out? Friends don't let friends skip the best worker placement engine builders, or any game with this many dragons. If you know someone who has not pledged for Dwellings of Eldervale and will have complete envy after seeing it in full glory on your table next summer, there's one window left to get it with all the stuff, and at this price. This is it! Spread the word! 

Production Begins!

We have now officially signed agreements with 3 manufacturing plants to produce various parts the game. More on this to follow in our November update, and we'll be able to share a preliminary timeline then. We are excited to be meeting with 2 of these plants in Essen, and connecting with their teams. This begins the production of Eldervale to be a real thing on your tabletop!

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Happy gaming to all. Next month, we will dive in with production news and updates!

Cheers, Peter and Breaking Games. 

Dwellings of Eldervale Pledge Manager!
about 5 years ago – Thu, Oct 03, 2019 at 03:04:39 AM

Hello Eldervale! 

Following this update, we will open the pledge manager. Yes, today. You'll receive an invite by email. The pledge manager will be open from October through November 15. 

There's a meaty update here, with some very key information, especially regarding adjustments to shipping, card charge date and unique instructions on certain items. Let me 'splain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up - in video (also in text below):

Here is the finer points of the video above:

SHIPPING AND GAME BOX WEIGHT

The game is heavy! We knew this, but now we really know this. The weight of the box with all unlocked items, packing and outer box is now headed towards 6Kg (13lb), (the campaign page estimate was 3-5Kg but with the big new box, none of the editions are under 4.5 now). So, you'll find in the pledge manager that the shipping is at the high end of the posted ranges, and is over our estimates in two cases - the USA shipping and the group pledges. This is hard news to share, but hopefully you can understand that we cannot control shipping charges, and we are absorbing some costs also. The good news is that the game box is crammed full of awesomeness, and it worth it, we promise!

PLEDGE MANAGER TIMELINE

As mentioned above, the timeline is from now until November 15, 2019. Save the date! We'll also send a reminder as we get closer. No cards will be charged until Nov 15. As of Nov 15, the only changes will be to addresses. The reason we are not charging is because of 2 special stretch goals we are hosting during the pledge manager - see below!

MINOTAUR AND SLEEVES - PLEASE ADD TO YOUR CART

For the Minotaur, you will need to manually add this to your cart. The reason for this is because he does start as costing $9.99, but as you know, he is free if you enter the code. You need to add him to your cart and then enter his name (from the puzzle) as a coupon code on the add-on page. 

You'll also need to add the card sleeves manually to your cart if you are interested. We've taken $1 from the shipping total and put it on the sleeves as shipping/handling because they are part of the packing and weight. We don't want to be wasteful, so if you don't want sleeves, you can save that $1. 

SPECIAL STRETCH GOALS!

Stretch goals in the pledge manager! WHAT? Yes, a new feature from Backerkit is the ability to list add-ons that are "locked" at first, but become unlocked if enough backers order these. So, we have Crew T-shirts (an often requested item, but not affordable without a group) and 96 wooden treasure tokens - a limited run that isn't feasible without enough orders. If you want in for either of these, you will NOT be charged if we don't make the minimum order. If we do unlock it, it will be in your cart as normal. We hope you enjoy these bonus goals to complete the Eldervale experience!

ADD-ONS - UPDATES

Meeple Source resources can be done IN the pledge manager. As you recall, Meeple Source is producing a set of 100 Dwellings wooden resources painted to look like the cardboard resources in the game. This set is $29 and was previously ONLY on their site. Now, we have worked with them to put it in the pledge manager! For incentive to support Meeple Source pre-order directly on their site, their shipping is a bit cheaper than in the PM (My video is a little confusing on this - If you paid before on their site, it's the same as before, our site is just slightly higher). Our pledge manager allows it be one-stop shopping if you prefer, but the rewards are shipped at the same time, AND we added pick up options (no shipping) for those asking. (Please note the pickup is months after the game deliveries). 

Dogmight trays are bigger and better than before! You can see the size difference in the video above. Check out all 9 colors in the pledge manager. 

Game Toppers game mat - the artwork is done! Check out zoomed in portions of the mat on the pledge manager. AND Game Toppers is offering us their Game mat carrying bag - a useful item if you want to store or transport your mat. 

SPIEL AND ESSEN INFO

Dwellings of Eldervale will be at the biggest tabletop convention in the world - the International Spieltage in Essen, 2019. Breaking Games has a booth in Hall 4 (4D102) and Dwellings of Eldervale will be at LudiCreations booth in Hall 1 (1-D129) - next to Backerkit and other indie creators and displaying the prototype on a Game Toppers mat. ALSO, Dwellings of Eldervale will be at Preview Night on Wednesday - tons of chances to check it out. Thanks to our awesome backers for making sure we got in on preview night!

DEMO TEAM WANTED! If anyone has some time at the show and is willing to offer an afternoon or two to our booth to play/teach dwellings, we'd love to have you. We are open to cover your show ticket, get you games or make other deals! 

GROUP PLEDGES - A HOW TO

A) If you are backing for $1 and not a group leader, you don't need to do anything. Your group leader will get a $1 discount for you in their pledge.

2-6 COPIES 

B) If you are leading a group pledge for 2-6 copies only and you are NOT a retailer, here's what you do. First, if you're backing for standard, deluxe or legendary tier on KS, you already have 1 game in your cart. Great! (If you are backing at $1 but are adding all copies, you'll need to add that first copy to your cart from these:

Now, to get the other copies, scroll down the add-on page until you find these colorful boxes:

FOR COPY 2 - add the red box (select your tier and cover). FOR COPY 3, the blue box (select tier and cover). For 6 copies, add the purple. Purple has 3x copies that must be the same, and balance out shipping (so don't pick them first). You'll notice that between red, blue and purple you can achieve a variety of edition and cover options. 

Please note that these are all full price games. We will coordinate with you at the end to calculate any credit for other $1 backers in your group. If you are backing for 6 copies, you ALSO get a "Wizard's Magic" discount (also added at the end.)

24 COPIES, LARGE GROUPS and RETAILERS:

C) If you are a group leader and you are backing for more than 6 copies, OR you are a retailer backing for any number of copies, here's what you do. First, if you're backing for standard, deluxe or legendary - you already have 1 game in your cart. Great! If you are backing at $1 or are a retailer, you need to add that first copy to your cart:

Now, to get your other copies, scroll all the way down the add-ons. We ask you to not use the red, blue and purple boxes, but to use the section of grey boxes below that, which calculates each copy per copy AND allows you to select any combination of cover and edition. The grey boxes are divided into 6 types - each one covers a different game edition and box cover (depicted). 

In this way, you can add any combination of games, editions and covers. Please note that these are all full price games. We will coordinate with you at the end to calculate any credit for other $1 backers in your group. If you are backing for 24 copies, you ALSO get a "Dragon's Deal" discount (also added at the end). 

Please don't hesitate to ask questions or check in for all group needs - email me - peter AT breakinggames DOT com.

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Talk again soon! 

Thank you for your patience, passion and support!

Peter and the Breaking Games Dwellings of Eldervale team!

Of pre-orders and pledge managers...
over 5 years ago – Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 01:59:57 AM

Hello from Eldervale! 

Hi everyone! It's been about a month since Kickstarter - did you miss us?! Hope everyone is enjoying some adventuring in other games until your dragons of Eldervale hatch approximately 9 months from now...

We've closed the portal now for a bit. :) We've also closed external "I just missed it!" pre-orders for right now, so we can focus on making the game! (Everyone who is in for at least $1 now, you can get all the stuff!)

Pledge Manager Opens Soon! (note NOT August 22)

Turns out this week is not a regroup turn, just yet. I had hopes of getting this by Thursday, but we need a couple more days of worker placement in Backerkit. Luckily the survey does not impact any game schedule, nor when you'd pay for shipping either! We have fun things to share soon - aiming to have this out by end of August. The pledge manager/survey will then stay open into end of October, and we'll seek to close and bill cards in November. From mid-November onward, the only edits will be to addresses, which can be changed until close to shipment time.

Game Previewed at Gen Con (and coming up at Spiel in Essen)

We had a fun time at Gen Con this year - Breaking Games sold out of tons of games (especially our new game called We're Doomed! It's a great 4-10 player, 15-minute "not-everyone-has-a-seat-on-the-escape-rocket" experience!) Dwellings of Eldervale was on display as well, and sign ups filled super quickly! Day and night we had plays of the awesome Print and Play prototype! Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see and/or play what they backed! If YOU played the game at Gen Con - let us know what you thought in the comments. Matt Wishart, (who also donated a vampire cow mini to the cause - haha Matt, thank you?) posted a playthrough recap on BGG! We appreciate hearing the stories. 

We were featured on a few Gen Con coverage streams:  Bower's Corner - Gen Con Bonanza Corner, Marco's War Corner to name a couple. We had a fun offer from someone to cosplay as one of the faction leaders next year!

We are so thankful to be able to feature Dwellings of Eldervale on a Game Toppers table (a borrowed Adler) AND with a first printing of our custom mat!! WHOA. What an experience! Here's how the mat looks! (everything is still prototype here): 

As mentioned above, we will be bringing the game to Spiel this year. Thanks to our comment wall here, (cheers Skazz!) we found out about a new preview night on Weds eve in the hall, and will have Dwellings there (https://www.spiel-messe.com/en/spiel-preview-night) as well as through out the show, and late at night in hotels of course! For that week only, we will open up the pledge manager one final time to take the last round of orders before the pledge manager closes in mid November.

Walls and Wonders - Adventure Cards

We'll be back soon with more, but I promised some backers (thanks Timo in particular for the interest!) that I would highlight some of the cards we unlocked at the end of the stretch goal map. We hit two really cool classes of cards ones at the end - each goal unlocking 8 CARDS (every element has to have one!). Both sets of cards are the first "hybrid" cards in the dungeon - costing 2 different resources.

WONDERS - these cards cost 2 of the main elemental resource, and 2 of the secondary elemental resource. While they are expensive at a "4 cost" - honestly this makes them sometimes easier if you're getting a little of everything.  The wonder cards are truly all different. They do different things in the game, some require an orb, some don't. Some are straight forward and powerful (looking at you firey catapults), and some will change your play style - such as Crumbling City in darkness - where you can burn cards for max scoring value now AND get resources, rather than wait until end game.

WALLS - As diverse as Wonders are, Walls on the other hand are a solid adventure card you can count on to act the same per source - they grant you resources when other players gain elemental power in that element. A very interesting card - both easier to grab for someone behind (the 4 cost here is split between main resource for that element and swords), but also incentive for the leading player to grab and possibly slow down the interest in their favorite element, or at least make some profit while other players join you. I love Luke's solution here to a take-that card. 

Here's 2 art examples for the Order and Chaos walls: 

Next Up

Well, FYI - Luke will have the game at Pacificon in San Francisco Bay area for Labor Day! We'll continue to stream plays as we hone in on final components too. The main next step is the pledge manager opening, as mentioned above. We'll have another update that day for people to comment on and ask specific questions.

Going forward, we will shoot for an update approximately every month. The September update will focus on where we are with manufacturing, rulebook editing, and hopefully a rough production timeline, if known in enough detail.

Take care and talk soon!

Peter and the Dwellings of Eldervale Team

AIR, EARTH, WATER, FIRE, LIGHT, DARNESS, ORDER and ... CHAOS! - This game has it ALL!
over 5 years ago – Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 01:46:15 AM

Hello Dwellers of Eldervale!

WE DID IT - We're making a game! This is super exciting!!! 5,540 backers! Over $540,000 raised! Thank you everyone - we have funded this dream game with all of your wonderful support. Can't wait to share it with YOU!

There's a lot to do, and updates to write, but first, in this THANK YOU post-campaign email, some immediate things are:

• CHAOS roll results!
• Dice Tray Winner!
• 2v2 Match Stream Winners!
• Thank you from Shari Spiro, Luke Laurie and myself, Peter

CHAOS SOCIAL GOALS

SOCIAL GOALS MEGA UNLOCK! Thank you for those who could tune in to our only slightly delayed (thanks Chaos!) stream of social goal rewards. We joked around a bit with ideas like "add $1 to all shipping" and "remove the trayz", but in the end, got some serious ideas for 1-6 options for our d6 roll. 

And the winner is...  ALL OF THEM. We rolled a 2, technically, (linen cards), but because we crushed the social goals like # of backers and all pushed so hard beyond our final funding goal, we decided to ALSO add: Inner Box Art, Linen card finish, Spot UV on the back of the box (again, Chaos here...), some TBD Dice upgrade, and TBD meeple upgrade.(both will be covered in production updates) And Sleeves included in the box.  I will get this video uploaded to YouTube, for now it's in our Facebook Group page. 

THANK YOU for the fun!

DICE TRAY WINNER!

Over 460 comments on update #8 where we hypothetically asked what colors you'd want if YOU won a set of 5 custom dice trays from DogMight! Thanks for that fun hypothetical.. that just got real. Congrats Adam E. (backer #2643), we're going to add-on 5 trays plus shipping to your pledge - have fun playing with you game group's classics -  Yellow, green, red, purple, and blue!

Thanks to everyone for commenting! I can say now having played with these trays, they are awesome and are going to enhance your game night in the elemental colors if you grab one or more!

BREAKING GAMES STREAM WINNER - 2v2 with UNFILTERED GAMER

We have had a blast streaming the games for everyone, hope you have enjoyed them as well. The 2v2 game was a great one, and it is on the Breaking Games YouTube channel. For everyone who engaged and commented on the stream, we decided to pull winners for 3 games (we do that from time to time - thanks for playing!). Winning Expancity, is Caitlyn Hagen, winning Rise of Tribes w/Deluxe is James Russell and winning Manhattan Project Energy Empire (signed by Luke!) is Matthew LeSage! Congrats all - I will reach out on youTube comments, or if you read this you can email me  - peter AT breakinggames DOT com

THANK YOUS!!

From Shari Spiro, Producer:

Thank you so much for backing Dwellings of Eldervale ! It was awesome to see the entire community that came together during this Kickstarter. We are so grateful that you appreciate the tremendous amount of hard work and talent that went into creating this game. It is, without a doubt, one of the best and most interesting and exciting tabletop games I have ever played.  I am so proud of the work done by Luke, Peter, Chris, Andrew, Mike as well as many others on The Breaking Games and Print and Play teams to make this kick starter a reality.  Now I think some of my team members need to get a good nights sleep, and take a few days off and relax and enjoy the summer. For all the people who believe in this game and backed it, you are the reason we do what we do.

- With sincere thanks, Shari Spiro

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From Luke Laurie, designer:

I want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone involved in the Dwellings of Eldervale Kickstarter! Thank you to the CEO of Breaking Games, Shari Spiro, for taking a chance on this monstrosity of a game! Many publishers would not be so bold. Peter Vaughan has truly lead one of the best Kickstarters I have ever seen, pulling out all the stops to make this game better and better for all the backers, and making the whole Kickstarter experience a fun adventure to be a part of.

Thank to each and every backer. So many folks pledged their finances on a campaign that isn’t exactly cheap, and put your faith in our work. Above and beyond that, you helped answer each other’s questions, patiently giving your time to create a solid community of support. You raised issues along the way that highlighted improvements that could be made, and you spread the word to get more folks excited about Eldervale. None of this would be possible without all of you. I hope to meet many of you at upcoming conventions, and I look forward to seeing this finished product on game tables around the world!

-Luke Laurie

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From Peter Vaughan:

Well, I've said it before in many updates, and on the campaign wall, and in streams and wearing a trobils hat on a chaos roll of a dice - THANK YOU! This is a dream game of mine to make, a wishlist item in my head for over 5 years. Thank you to Shari for letting me make this a reality, and to Luke for an epic partnership, and to the 25+ people that shared a slack channel with me over the last couple months to dig in on art, illustration, modeling, graphic design, playtesting to get it ready for Kickstarter. I dared to ask all the artists if they would come together in chat and help each other make one vision, and they all did! Each element feels unique and yet also unified in one world.

Thanks to every single backer - this game is here because of you! We're going to go with all the power of the Air realms now to make this game come to your tabletops as quickly as possible!

We'll be back with many more updates - highlighting more cards and art, mechanisms. We'll be back with updates from production about pieces and bits and decisions and then as a contrast to chaos - how about a nice orderly schedule when we have one with a timeline about pledge manager and final expected date of delivery!

Comment anytime on Kickstarter, make a thread on BGG or pop in on Facebook - we're here, and we love to hear from you - what games you're playing, what ideas you have on cards, factions, mystery mercenaries and much more!

Cheers,

Peter and the entire team at Breaking Games!

BOX COVERS - WHICH ONE ARE YOU GOING FOR??? 

"THE ELEMENTS" COVER

OR THE DREAD CROC COVER:

The one about the Mother of Dragons...
over 5 years ago – Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 01:31:26 AM

Hello Dwellers of Eldervale!

FINAL HOURS! A couple of quick notes as we count down the rest of this campaign AND A PEEK AT THE FINAL GOAL!

•  THANK YOU for being here! Many of you are in the comments daily, and this community is great to see. We appreciate all the excitement!
•  We will attempt some live streaming today on/off (various hours). We ran into some issues streaming from YouTube live, so we're working on it. Note: We are pros at making games, not streaming, so we'll communicate on the KS wall, in FB and Discord when we have times/links. Look for a d6 roll for the chaos social stretch goal at some point today!
•  We've unlocked 16 more adventure cards! This is great news1 Wonders and Walls are fun dual cost cards, and now we have over 100 amazingly illustrated, fine tuned and balanced, deeply thematic and mechanically diverse adventures to go on. We will highlight these new cards as soon as we can. For now, I'd like to show a bit more of the Dragon, so that everyone can see what is coming! Watch out, she bites... a lot.

The Final Goal - Mother of Dragons "mini expansion"

The Mother of Dragons mini Expansion consists of a Monster card, a Dragon's Den Ruin Realm tile, a Miniature, standee and five Trove tokens. The Mother of Dragons uses a sound fx base shared with the Frost Giant.

HOW TO SET UP: At the beginning of the game, after setting up Eldervale, shuffle the Dragon’s Den Realm tile into the top half of the Realm stack. When this Realm is drawn, add it to Eldervale, and place the Mother of Dragons Miniature/standee on it along with three, random face-down Trove tokens.

Worker Placement at the Dragon's Den: When you place a Unit in the Den, you gain one Gold, but the only way to gain a Trove token is to defeat the Mother of Dragons in Battle. Trove tokens, unlike Treasure Tokens, are kept face-down in the Dragon’s Den.

Only when all of the Trove tokens have been taken, is the Mother of Dragons is destroyed. (Oh yeah, she's coming to live here in Eldervale...)

 A special shout out to Sasha Radivojevic for illustrating this mother of all monsters. During the production, because we gave Sasha the cover, I tried to take away the Dragon assignment. Like the Den mother, he stayed protective over this one and poured a lot into it, as you can tell. Cheers Sasha!

We will show the Miniature for the Mother of Dragons Work-in-Progress in the next update!

One more thing, we can also peek at her Ruins tile - art from our good friend Sergio Chaves. Thank you Sergio for all of our gorgeous hex tiles in this game! You might not want to linger at this Dragon's Den too long, dear explorers of Eldervale... but then again, there is the GOLD.

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Well, you know what to do. It's time to go find this monster, start an epic Battle on the tabletop, and bring a friend to join in. Cheers all!

- Peter and the Breaking Games Dwellings of Eldervale Team