Lyssan

Leave a comment (for backers only)

1. Creator Sam Brown on July 16, 2012
  
  (That last comment in response to David's note below)
2. Creator Sam Brown on July 16, 2012
  
  So I demo a LOT of new games. I'm that guy who always wants to try the new game, or introduce new players to his latest game fascination. So it's up to me to be able to explain games quickly and clearly.
  .
  The best thing I've found for this is to start every explanation with The 3 Big Things:
  1) What's the story?
  2) How do I win?
  3) What's the end condition?
  .
  So naturally, when I was setting up the Lyssan rulebook, I had that formula in mind. More than that, if you look at the back of the player boards*, you'll see The 3 Big Things there, too: Story, Winning, and Ending.
  .
  - - - - -
  * The Council board back instead has a Set-Up cheat-sheet on it. It got picked for that difference because in the backstory of Lyssan, the Council is the most likely to sit out the civil war, while the Hawk, the Wolf, and the Vulture go at it. So if you're playing 3 players, that board is the one you're most likely to set aside as a quick reference sheet for set-up and then put back in the box.
3. Creator David Green on July 16, 2012
  
  Got mine this weekend, going to play tonight. I'm very impressed with the quality Sam.
  
  Best part: How to win the game is the first thing you see when you open the rulebook, which by the way is also very well done. I can't tell you how many games throw victory conditions halfway through the stupid thing.
  
  This Thursday I'm taking it to game night at the FLGS.
4. Creator Sam Brown on July 11, 2012
  
  Do enjoy!
5. Creator Mark Aasted on July 11, 2012
  
  Mine just showed up, and after a quick look before going to work I must say it looks fantastic! thanks so much Sam, I look forward to playing this.
6. Creator jeremy hammond on June 2, 2012
  
  Any new updates?????
7. Creator Mark Aasted on May 20, 2012
  
  I have to say, I'm really looking forward to this! Thanks for all your hard work Sam.
8. Creator RicBret on May 15, 2012
  
  Just wondering how things are going. Last report was a print check. Everything on track? Any projected availability date?
9. Creator Sam Brown on April 13, 2012
  
  Yes, there will be four different colors of castle in the final version. For the test version, like the tray, they only had the one color of samples ready. Just yesterday they sent me a pic of the four different colours, held up next to a pantone color card to show they'd gotten it right. They look great, IMHO.
10. Creator TS Luikart on April 13, 2012
  
  Looks fantastic Sam - one question though: how do you determine who controls a given castle? Are they faction colored?
11. Creator Sam Brown on April 13, 2012
  
  Just got the first full printed copy yesterday. I was on a plane for a good chunk of today, so I'm only getting to upload the photos for that update now. Update: 5 minutes away.
12. Creator Sönke Liebau on April 13, 2012
  
  Is there any news on how things are progressing? Perhaps I missed an update somewhere, but it seems very quiet since the proof copy came in.. Was it good, perfect, right back to the drawing board? :)
13. Creator Paul Stewart on February 23, 2012
  
  I attend monthly meetings of a local gaming group here in Tallahassee that is packed with potential customers. These are all really crazy, die-hard board game and card game players. Will you consider distributing demo copies of the game, or make them available at a reduced price for backers?
14. Creator Tom Hoefle on October 31, 2011
  
  Hi Sam,
  
  sadly i didnt find you - but hey maybe next year
  
  Hope you could some additional buyers
  
  Tom
15. Creator Sam Brown on October 22, 2011
  
  I never did find a freeplay area at this year's Essen. Even the cafeteria, they now come by to bother you if you put a game out on the tables. I've been running demos in the booths of the companies I'm demoing for. The best chance to get a game in might actually be to meet after the con closes, and grab a coffeehouse table or the like for a game! I'm still in Essen until the morning after the convention, and Berlin for a night after that.
16. Creator Sam Brown on October 8, 2011
  
  Absolutely. It'll be a trick as ever to find a free table in Essen. But the whole reasons I'm going there is to run demos for KS friends and find International partners so that non-US gamers don't get stuck with such heavy postage on future printings!
17. Creator Tom Hoefle on October 8, 2011
  
  hope that i can grab a game with you in Essen :)
18. Creator Sam Brown on October 6, 2011
  
  I do owe you an update. The short version is that all the i's are getting dotted and the t's getting crossed ready to send it off to the printer. At the same time I'm getting ready for presenting it at Essen. Everything takes longer than we want it to, but it's getting done right.
19. Creator Dr. Brian Moore on October 6, 2011
  
  No updates in about a month. Just wondering when we might expect to recieve the game.
20. Creator Anders H. Pedersen on September 7, 2011
  
  That is great news. Thanks!
  Unless there are problems in customs, that means I have a chance of getting this one on the table for our next gaming night, two weeks from now.
  Looking forward to finally trying the game :)
21. Creator Sam Brown on September 7, 2011
  
  The funds were just released. (Actually, they were released a few days ago, but I was out on the convention circuit, and just got home a few hours ago.) I'm putting the final touches on the pre-pre-release copies and should have them in the mail Friday at the latest.
22. Creator Anders H. Pedersen on September 7, 2011
  
  Has the funds been released?
  When do you expect to be able to send the pre-pre-release copies?
  Cheers
23. Creator Sam Brown on August 25, 2011
  
  The game should arrive early in the new year. The biggest chunk of that time is the ~4 month turnaround at the printer. Tack on front of that the time it takes to ink a deal with the printer. Another chunk of time before the printing can start gets spent on tuning the art for the printing company's equipment: You have to get the color saturation levels just right, make sure you're left enough margins between cards and counters for things to be cut out properly and so on. That can take anywhere from 10 to 30 days after the printing contract is signed.
  -
  Now that we're a few days away from Kickstarter/Amazon releasing the funds for use, I'm requesting final bids from printers. Marek and Tomasz are working on the last batch of card art (not counting the promo cards, which they'll put as much time into as is left between the final batch and everything else tidying up) and Allan has a fair bit of graphic design left to do, incorporating those art assets into the rulebook, player boards, and box. Right now I'm anticipating the graphic design will eat into some of the Murphy's Law allowance I'd left in print time estimates before. We're still looking good to hit an early new year release.
  -
  There will be backer updates about all these steps of the process. But the next update is being banged out right now - about convention season! Lyssan is coming to Penny Arcade eXpo this weekend, DragonCon next weekend, and the biggest of all the boardgame gatherings, Essen Spieltage in October.
24. Creator shadowclasper on August 25, 2011
  
  just checking >> but in all likelihood, we're not going to get our copies till about Christmas right? ^^; maybe a month or so earlier if we're lucky?
25. Creator Joseph Franecki on August 19, 2011
  
  Thank you!
26. Creator Sam Brown on August 18, 2011
  
  @Joseph - Yours went through.
27. Creator Joseph Franecki on August 18, 2011
  
  Howdy: first time supporter here ... in light of the comments from Alpha, could you send a comment or email to me confirming that you received my survey information? Kickstarter seemed to accept it okay, but a confirmation from you would be appreciated as well. Sorry for the inconvenience. (Wow, I hope all 487 of us don't ask for this.)
28. Creator Dr. Brian Moore on August 17, 2011
  
  I have run into that before on kickstarter. A space in the box counts as an entry. So if you do not have any special information you can just enter a space and it should accept your entry.
29. Creator Sam Brown on August 17, 2011
  
  Bother. And good to know. Thanks for that information.
30. Creator alpha on August 17, 2011
  
  I tried again and this time I got an error message concerning answering all questions. Apparently one has to answer the specialities question even if there is nothing special ...
31. Creator Sam Brown on August 17, 2011
  
  And thanks, Nathan! It's very much appreciated.
32. Creator Sam Brown on August 17, 2011
  
  @alpha - Looking over the survey results so far, your name doesn't show any information next to it yet. KSSnafu!
33. Creator alpha on August 17, 2011
  
  Stupid questions: I filled in the survey form and hit submit only to be shown the survey again. No success message or anything like that. Is that correct?
34. Creator Nathan Moore on August 17, 2011
  
  Congrats!! First time supporter and though I admit I couldn't give much at the moment I look forward to buying the game when it comes out!
35. Creator Sam Brown on August 17, 2011
  
  There were just shy of 20 kits sent out to first wave beta testers, then another few (4 I think it was?) sent to reviewers during the kickstarter campaign, such as the one Lance used in his review. Adding the new ones that will be sent out to King & Duke level backers, there will be just under 30 in the world total. (Under 30? Several of the Duke and King backers were beta testers who already have kits. For those I'm working out something new they can get.)
36. Creator Anders H. Pedersen on August 17, 2011
  
  Congratulations!
  Happy to see you reaching the 150% mark.
  Although the last update didn't give much, having made a King-pledge. But that is fine - there are only 7 of us ;p
  Out of curiosity: How many pre-release copies exist in total?
  Cheers!
37. Creator Sam Brown on August 17, 2011
  
  We did it.
  
  I am so looking forward to getting this game made for each of you.
38. Creator Jacelyn on August 17, 2011
  
  Woo hoo!! Funding successful =D!!!
  Thanks Sam for replying all my questions =)
39. Creator Jacelyn on August 17, 2011
  
  Awesome!! 150% Congrats =D!!
40. Creator Julian Tysoe on August 17, 2011
  
  Congratulations on smashing the 150% barrier!
41. Creator Sam Brown on August 16, 2011
  
  Thank you all so very much. Most of all it's great to hear that people are enjoying the game and looking forward to it. Hitting the funding level where we get to make it extra posh is certainly a bonus.
42. Creator Istanbul Jackson on August 16, 2011
  
  Sam, I'm proud to be a backer of this. Best wishes to you! This looks like a fantastic game.
43. Creator Dr. Brian Moore on August 16, 2011
  
  So with only a few hours left did you decide on a reward for the $30k mark? Toss us a bone and you will see a surge of green.
44. Creator Nael on August 1, 2011
  
  Tried a 3 player game, it was a lot of fun! I'm going to second the blue/green dificulty, also when the green tokens are exhausted (or whatever) it can be difficult to discern, so maybe making them more similar to the white tokens (a simple broken border) would be nice. One more issue we had was the size of each region can create problems when there is a plethora of tokens present. I understand that the board size has been decided, but a bigger board would be nice.
  
  Even with one playthrough it's easy to tell that the game has very robust strategy (I as first player I took Elbingen to start and was sumarily murdered).
45. Creator Sam Brown on July 24, 2011
  
  Thanks for the feedback, Rune! If I can squeeze it out of the funds raised, one thing I'd like to do is be on site when the parts get printed, to make certain the colors are no less playable than they are pretty. It's a pretty narrow target to hit. We ran into a similar issue with the first wave beta, when the blue pieces were too darkly printed, making it hard to distinguish the front from the back sides.
  -
  The playing pieces will be getting a gentle make-over between now and being sent off to the printer. I'm looking to keep the iconic nature of the symbols, but touch up the art a bit and replace the bars and slashes of color with something more thematic, such as banners of different shapes. While this happens we'll be paying close attention to what we can do to improve the scanability of the pieces.
46. Creator Rune Lunden on July 24, 2011
  
  I am glueing together the print and play version at this moment, and it looks like a really good game. I am looking forward to try it in my weekly boadgame grop after our summer vacations are done.
  
  My first comment that I allready see tho is that for not-so-young-eyes-anymore it is a bit difficult to see the difference between blue and green pieces(counters). For the finished game maybe there is two more distinct colors to use, or brighten up on of them, or maybe let every player be represented by two-color combination ?
47. Creator Sam Brown on July 23, 2011
  
  Jacob: The main advice I'd give beyond the link in the assembly guide is to get a friend to split the work with over a movie or a cuppa hot tea. It's a LOT of pieces to glue out and put together! And do watch your toner - that stuff gets expensive, fast. If you want to print out the rules, you might want to use the more spartan ink settings or go as far as printing them in black and white.
48. Creator Jacob Coon on July 23, 2011
  
  Sam, my friends and I are doing our first ever print and play game and its yours. Any suggestions to make it a successful first try? We will make sure to give any feedback that we can come up with.
49. Creator Julian Tysoe on July 19, 2011
  
  And... It's good of you to link to the Deadfella's kickstarter. I've backed it now. I feel that Kickstarter users are creating a tight indie games community by supporting each other.
50. Creator Julian Tysoe on July 19, 2011
  
  Congratulations! It's nice to see the Vassal Courtier card as it was the picture on the blog post about How the Art is Made (http://lyssan.com/… ) that first stirred my interest in the game and prompted me to follow you on Twitter so I would know when the Kickstarter started.