Who is doing international fulfillment for Wrathborne Champions?
We are currently lined up to do international fulfillment with Games Quest based out of the UK (https://www.gamesquest.co.uk/).
The reviews we found with them were very good and they offered the best prices with a minimum order within our range. I have also received packages from them in the past and were happy with how they did packaging and shipping. Adding to this, we’ve found them to be very responsive and pleasant to work with in setting everything up which increases our confidence further.
We believe they will be a great partner to work with in getting everything to our international backers.
For our Canadian backers, we are working with Snakes and Lattes, located in Toronto to provide Canadian friendly shipping. They came highly recommended, and we are very happy to be working with them to make it easier on our neighbors to the north!
Last updated: February 20, 2017 12:23
Are there any plans for scenarios (setting the scene for each battle) linked to form a narrative/campaign?
We are slowly building our lore for the world of Wrathborne Champions. You can see a little of this by checking out the Minions of Wrath pages on our official website at http://randovergames.com/wrathborne-champions/monsters/
We had intended for those to be fully up to date before the campaign began, but being selected for the PAX Indie Showcase and then maintaining the Kickstarter has thrown a wrench in those plans for the time being.
As for game setting narratives, the original idea was simply to have the boss fight stand alone with the encounter cards setting up which version of the Minion of Wrath you were fighting. For us, getting the combat and encounter feeling “right” was always the most important part so that is what drew our design focus.
We lived in that echo chamber for some time, but were broken out of it thanks to some of our tester asking very similar questions based on how they prefer narrative grounding to the fights. This was double cemented when we saw Edo’s review where he mentioned it himself. This is actually what lead to the Pick Your Path stretch goal!
Before I dive into one of my ridiculous walls of text, I will throw in a TL;DR (or is it TL;WR for “too long, won’t read”)?
TL;WR - They are Choose Your Own Adventure style stories where your choices will lead to, and subsequently alter, encounters with the Minions of Wrath.
Now for the long winded answer!
Back in 2011 I was trying to get a job at Undead Labs as a writer. They were working on a game that at the time was called “State 3” or maybe “Stage 3” or something like that. It was a single player Zombie survival game that would be a prelude to a huge multiplayer game that was code named “State 4” (or something like that).
This game ended up turning into the fantastic game “State of Decay” (which you should REALLY go check out on Steam if you haven’t played it). This is arguably my favorite zombie themed video game and totally worth a look.
Anyways, to aim for this job as a writer, I decided to write a Choose Your Own Adventure story that I called, “Pick Your Path: vol 1: The Keepers”. It was designed to be a three phase Choose Your Own Adventure where your choices altered the other possible choices throughout the narrative.
I had a blast writing it and was exhausted, but quite proud, when I finished it (on page 625… but that is a story for another time), and I sent it into the company… completely unsolicited. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job (the fact that I was cold calling as a random guy with no preexisting experience and some giant chunk of amateur writing probably didn’t help), but I had a lot of fun making it, so I still think of the experience as win.
So, what this means for you guys (I did say long winded) is that I would love to jump back into the choice based narrative structure to make fun scenarios you guys and gals can use to make Wrathborne Champions even more epic!
These stories will let you pick who you battle or how you battle them. They will be designed to let you pick who you save and what you have to do to save them. The choices will be further compounded by what classes, weapons, and items you do or don’t have in your party (gotta have the bow or wand to bring the dragon out of the sky, or you need to have the enchanter to break the magic seal easily). But these unique options won’t always be good! Maybe the Berserker loses it when he sees his most hated enemy and ends up enraging early, hurting himself, his friends, or maybe forgetting to use his weapon!
Something that I hope will make this even more fun is that I would like to do these scenarios digitally through our website (or the dream would be an app of sorts) instead of printing them out. In addition to saving the printing and shipping costs, digital stories could be altered and twisted, so even if you pick the same scenario two months later, it might have new tricks up it’s sleeve.
So, in closing, we will certainly maintain a special Wrathborne lore on our website (and may already have some special Wrathborne stories already in the works), but my dream is to be able to afford the time and effort of providing you guys with new stories each month to frame your adventures!
Last updated: February 20, 2017 12:21
Why aren't there any Kickstarter Esclusives or Early Bird Specials?
The real reason we don’t have any Kickstarter Exclusives in the campaign is actually philosophical as opposed to logistical. For me, WHEN someone finds out about something should not be a limiting factor on their ability to enjoy everything it has to offer. I’m a strong proponent of the XKCD “10,000” way of looking at things. https://xkcd.com/1053/
The basic idea being that even if someone is profoundly late to the party on something, it should be encouraging and exciting to help them experience it for the first time. I think that people should never feel like they “missed the boat” and should always feel included even if they found out about something late.
I personally believe that early bird specials and Kickstarter exclusives are the antithesis of this idea. While it certainly does encourage people to support you at the start, later it effectively tells people, “well, you’re late so you don’t get this. Sucks to be you.” Situations like this have actually put me off of products I’ve found after a Kickstarter campaign is long since over.
If I come across a game and the creator says it is only worth $40 to the first 50 people as an early bird special, but everyone after that is charged $50, then I feel like they are charging me a premium because I’m not fast enough.
This is also why I don’t make any Kickstarter exclusive content. If you find out about Wrathborne Champions after the fact, I don’t want that happenstance to leave anything blocked from your grasp. Even if you find out about the game two years from now, I want you to be able to spend about the same money to get around the same product.
I am a completionist by nature and won’t dive into things if I know from the start that something was held back artificially; the key point here is “artificially”. I completely understand limited quantities and rarity, but something being cut hard and made exclusive for a campaign isn’t traditionally because of material concerns, it is simply making a bigger carrot for people who are “in the know” or get lucky.
This is precisely why the metal Wrath Token is a limited edition item and not a Kickstarter Exclusive. Everyone who backs for the game will be given one without additional charge, mailed alongside their copy of Wrathborne Champions. After the fact, if someone wants one of these tokens, they will be available as supplies last, but will be priced at $10 each.
Truth be told, these custom metal Wrath Tokens are quite expensive to manufacture (even in bulk) so this price is a normal mark-up. Giving one of these away for free to everyone who supports us now is our way of saying “thank you” for starting this journey with us and helping to make this game a reality. However, if someone finds out about the game for the first time on March 1st, I don’t personally believe it is fair to take this token (which is purely cosmetic) and say, “sorry, you weren’t fast enough.”
All of that said, I do freely admit that a Kickstarter Exclusive would make things more enticing for people on the fence now. I also completely understand that it might have cost our campaign a few backers because they didn’t feel like it was special enough for them. To all of them, I say the following:
“That is totally cool, and I understand. I promise you that if you change your mind in the future, you will have the opportunity to get the full and complete game, and all it has to offer.” :)
Last updated: February 24, 2017 06:18
Who is doing international fulfillment for Wrathborne Champions?
We are currently lined up to do international fulfillment with Games Quest based out of the UK (https://www.gamesquest.co.uk/). The reviews we found with them were very good and they offered the best prices with a minimum order within our range. I have also received packages from them in the past and were happy with how they did packaging and shipping. Adding to this, we’ve found them to be very responsive and pleasant to work with in setting everything up which increases our confidence further. We believe they will be a great partner to work with in getting everything to our international backers. For our Canadian backers, we are working with Snakes and Lattes, located in Toronto to provide Canadian friendly shipping. They came highly recommended, and we are very happy to be working with them to make it easier on our neighbors to the north! Last updated: Mon, Feb 20 2017 3:23 pm EST
Are there any plans for scenarios (setting the scene for each battle) linked to form a narrative/campaign?
We are slowly building our lore for the world of Wrathborne Champions. You can see a little of this by checking out the Minions of Wrath pages on our official website at http://randovergames.com/wrathborne-champions/monsters/ We had intended for those to be fully up to date before the campaign began, but being selected for the PAX Indie Showcase and then maintaining the Kickstarter has thrown a wrench in those plans for the time being. As for game setting narratives, the original idea was simply to have the boss fight stand alone with the encounter cards setting up which version of the Minion of Wrath you were fighting. For us, getting the combat and encounter feeling “right” was always the most important part so that is what drew our design focus. We lived in that echo chamber for some time, but were broken out of it thanks to some of our tester asking very similar questions based on how they prefer narrative grounding to the fights. This was double cemented when we saw Edo’s review where he mentioned it himself. This is actually what lead to the Pick Your Path stretch goal! Before I dive into one of my ridiculous walls of text, I will throw in a TL;DR (or is it TL;WR for “too long, won’t read”)? TL;WR - They are Choose Your Own Adventure style stories where your choices will lead to, and subsequently alter, encounters with the Minions of Wrath. Now for the long winded answer! Back in 2011 I was trying to get a job at Undead Labs as a writer. They were working on a game that at the time was called “State 3” or maybe “Stage 3” or something like that. It was a single player Zombie survival game that would be a prelude to a huge multiplayer game that was code named “State 4” (or something like that). This game ended up turning into the fantastic game “State of Decay” (which you should REALLY go check out on Steam if you haven’t played it). This is arguably my favorite zombie themed video game and totally worth a look. Anyways, to aim for this job as a writer, I decided to write a Choose Your Own Adventure story that I called, “Pick Your Path: vol 1: The Keepers”. It was designed to be a three phase Choose Your Own Adventure where your choices altered the other possible choices throughout the narrative. I had a blast writing it and was exhausted, but quite proud, when I finished it (on page 625… but that is a story for another time), and I sent it into the company… completely unsolicited. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job (the fact that I was cold calling as a random guy with no preexisting experience and some giant chunk of amateur writing probably didn’t help), but I had a lot of fun making it, so I still think of the experience as win. So, what this means for you guys (I did say long winded) is that I would love to jump back into the choice based narrative structure to make fun scenarios you guys and gals can use to make Wrathborne Champions even more epic! These stories will let you pick who you battle or how you battle them. They will be designed to let you pick who you save and what you have to do to save them. The choices will be further compounded by what classes, weapons, and items you do or don’t have in your party (gotta have the bow or wand to bring the dragon out of the sky, or you need to have the enchanter to break the magic seal easily). But these unique options won’t always be good! Maybe the Berserker loses it when he sees his most hated enemy and ends up enraging early, hurting himself, his friends, or maybe forgetting to use his weapon! Something that I hope will make this even more fun is that I would like to do these scenarios digitally through our website (or the dream would be an app of sorts) instead of printing them out. In addition to saving the printing and shipping costs, digital stories could be altered and twisted, so even if you pick the same scenario two months later, it might have new tricks up it’s sleeve. So, in closing, we will certainly maintain a special Wrathborne lore on our website (and may already have some special Wrathborne stories already in the works), but my dream is to be able to afford the time and effort of providing you guys with new stories each month to frame your adventures! Last updated: Mon, Feb 20 2017 3:21 pm EST
Why aren’t there any Kickstarter Esclusives or Early Bird Specials?
The real reason we don’t have any Kickstarter Exclusives in the campaign is actually philosophical as opposed to logistical. For me, WHEN someone finds out about something should not be a limiting factor on their ability to enjoy everything it has to offer. I’m a strong proponent of the XKCD “10,000” way of looking at things. https://xkcd.com/1053/ The basic idea being that even if someone is profoundly late to the party on something, it should be encouraging and exciting to help them experience it for the first time. I think that people should never feel like they “missed the boat” and should always feel included even if they found out about something late. I personally believe that early bird specials and Kickstarter exclusives are the antithesis of this idea. While it certainly does encourage people to support you at the start, later it effectively tells people, “well, you’re late so you don’t get this. Sucks to be you.” Situations like this have actually put me off of products I’ve found after a Kickstarter campaign is long since over. If I come across a game and the creator says it is only worth $40 to the first 50 people as an early bird special, but everyone after that is charged $50, then I feel like they are charging me a premium because I’m not fast enough. This is also why I don’t make any Kickstarter exclusive content. If you find out about Wrathborne Champions after the fact, I don’t want that happenstance to leave anything blocked from your grasp. Even if you find out about the game two years from now, I want you to be able to spend about the same money to get around the same product. I am a completionist by nature and won’t dive into things if I know from the start that something was held back artificially; the key point here is “artificially”. I completely understand limited quantities and rarity, but something being cut hard and made exclusive for a campaign isn’t traditionally because of material concerns, it is simply making a bigger carrot for people who are “in the know” or get lucky. This is precisely why the metal Wrath Token is a limited edition item and not a Kickstarter Exclusive. Everyone who backs for the game will be given one without additional charge, mailed alongside their copy of Wrathborne Champions. After the fact, if someone wants one of these tokens, they will be available as supplies last, but will be priced at $10 each. Truth be told, these custom metal Wrath Tokens are quite expensive to manufacture (even in bulk) so this price is a normal mark-up. Giving one of these away for free to everyone who supports us now is our way of saying “thank you” for starting this journey with us and helping to make this game a reality. However, if someone finds out about the game for the first time on March 1st, I don’t personally believe it is fair to take this token (which is purely cosmetic) and say, “sorry, you weren’t fast enough.” All of that said, I do freely admit that a Kickstarter Exclusive would make things more enticing for people on the fence now. I also completely understand that it might have cost our campaign a few backers because they didn’t feel like it was special enough for them. To all of them, I say the following: “That is totally cool, and I understand. I promise you that if you change your mind in the future, you will have the opportunity to get the full and complete game, and all it has to offer.” :) Last updated: Fri, Feb 24 2017 9:18 am EST
Current Estimated Shipping Date: October 2019
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