Card game play mechanics are just about complete and the official rules have been written. A couple of new “Action” Cards have been added to the game to smooth out game play, and a few have been removed since they did not “make the cut” during play-testing.
All the artwork for Master of Spies has been finalized and will soon be added to the card game. A new design for the game’s “chits” has also been completed and will be manufactured in the same time period. New prototype decks will be produced using this artwork and review copies will be sent out to some game review websites very soon.
Recent Play-Tests and Kickstarter
So far the clear majority of our recent play-tests for “Master of Spies” have resulted in positive feedback, so we are excited to move forward into the next stage of development. Hopefully we can bring “MoS” to Kickstarter soon (Early 2017? Keep posted).
We still have some play-testing notes to comb through, but overall this card game is very close to going into production.
What’s next? We’ll be digging out our second game, clean away the dust on it and resume development on that one as well, Rob has also teased us with a project he has been developing that has some local flavor!
Hello again, and thanks for checking out Move Rate 20 Games!
Sorry for our long absence, but hopefully we will be here on a regular basis going forward!
If you have been here before, thanks for coming back…and be sure to spread the word about us to all your gaming friends. For those of you who are visiting for the very first time, WELCOME! I hope all of you stay with us for the ride, as we have what seems to be a challenging and exciting rest of the year ahead.
Work continues on “Master of Spies”.
The “new & improved” game play mechanics are now complete. Official rules have been written, the retail box has been re-designed and we have some demo copies set to go off to some reviewers. We still have some playtesting notes to comb through, but overall this game is very close to going to production.
So far the vast majority of our playtests for “Master of Spies” have resulted in positive feedback, so we are excited to move forward into the next stage of development. Hopefully we can bring “MoS” to Kickstarter again soon (Early 2017?).
So stay with us for the ride folks…it may get a little bumpy, but it will sure be fun!
Well, we didn’t quite make it. Still, this has been a very positive experience for all of us at Move Rate 20. We’ve learned so much about the process. and gotten some great feedback. And to have acquired over 100 backers for our first project tells us that we’re not far off. So, THANK YOU so much to all our supporters, everyone who backed the project, and took the time to like & share our posts, we really appreciate it! Now we’re going to take a little time, apply everything we’ve learned, retool things a bit, then come back with a new & improved campaign later this year. We hope we can count on you all again when that happens, but regardless, thank you all again for everything. We’ll be posting updates on our progress via the Move Rate 20 website, Facebook pages & Twitter (@MoveRate20). In the meantime, enjoy the weather, and we’ll see you all again later in the year!
Happy Gaming!
Best, The gang at Move Rate 20 Games
Will the last 24 Hours of the Kickstarter be as exciting as the first?
Nervously watching the Kickstarter in its final hours
It all comes down to the next 24 hours (where’s Kiefer Sutherland when you need him). We are a little less than $2,500 short of our Kickstarter goal. A long shot? Yes, but we’re not going down without a damn good effort. As I’ve said in earlier posts it’s been a learning experience and I plan on writing a blog post after similar to my “5 Things I Learned About Myself At TotalCon 2016“, but I need to wait to see how the story ends.
Of you are reading this before March 30th 10:00am EST, please got to our Kickstarter page and back us! Share with your friends.!
If we don’t make it, it’s not the end, we’ll take what we learned and revamp, retool and rest the campaign in a few months and try again.
Thank you for your support, no matter how small, it all means a lot!
So here we are in the thick of a Kickstarter campaign!
So we’re past the initial rush of launch, the wellspring of support from our family and friends and now we’re into the part of the Kickstarter campaign where the real work begins, getting the world to notice “Master of Spies”. We’re looking at some strategically placed ads, reaching out to gaming websites and even doing some “street-team” canvasing of the local gaming and comic stores around the area. And we, of course, appreciate all the work you guys have done by sharing the project and your helping us to get the word out there!
Our deepest thanks,
Steve R, Steve P, Rob & James
The Move Rate 20 Games Team
I decided to post the rules for Master of Spies so people can take a look at them and comment if they make sense to people who never played the game before.
Please try and be constructive in your critiques and thank you.
(2/15/16 additional) Here’s the video on how to play Master of Spies as well
https://youtu.be/2xsKtemQPx8
Stephen P.
Art & Marketing Director
A.K.A. The Creative
I know we’re been quiet here on the Move Rate 20 blog, but between the holidays, gearing up for the next batch of gaming conventions and getting our Kickstarter for Master of Spies set up, there just hasn’t much time to blog, Sorry about that!
Kickstarter!
Anyway, we are planning for our Kickstarter to launch Feb. 29th with a modest goal of $6,000 dollars, you can see the preview here, please comment if you see anything that looks like it could be improved and please be constructive with any comments you make.
Working on the Kickstarter project page.
Setting up the campaign is about what I expected, work-wise; but it can be time consuming to gather up all the info the need as well as set up Backer Levels and Stretch Goal ideas that won’t completely throw off the budget. Another issue is how do you get a frickin’ package to Canada without it costing a fortune? I hope we can come up with some sort of a solution because I don’t want to leave my brothers and sisters to the North out of this.
We’re also in the process of getting review sample together, admittedly we let this slip through the cracks, but I’m busily working on it!
Putting the demo deck, rules, chits and contact card together after the big(?) snow storm of 2016.
February Cons & Networking Events!
So here’s a list of where we will be over the month of February to spread the word of our little game and demo it to the public.
Feb. 5th & 6th Captain Con at the Crown Plaza in Warwick, RI
We will be there demoing Master of Spies Friday night 6p to 10p and Saturday from 2p to 6p.
Feb. 9th Board Game Night at 745 Atlantic Ave, Boston, MA
A monthly networking/Boardgame night for professional looking for fun and to connect, Meetup.com info here.
Feb. 19th, 20th & 21stTotal Con at the Holiday Inn in Mansfield MA
We will have an expo table set up to demo the game and we’ll be there with our friends from Wyrmwood and Rivendell Books & Games.
We are also hoping to get to a few demos at local gaming stores in over the next several weeks as well.
Hello all…
So as some of you may already know, our upcoming game, Master of Spies (now scheduled for a Kickstarter in February 2016), takes place in the fictional setting of the world called Eldinar. What is this strange and mythical place? Well, Rob L is here with some answers to that question and more……
Art by Paul Singer
1st Age- The Age of the Wyrm (2612 years)
Little is remembered of this age, and less is recorded. What is known is that the Dragonlords ruled supreme. Century upon century of harmonious existence, with little to interrupt their equanimity. Eventually, though, they grew bored with this life, and longed to turn the land into a living shrine to themselves.
Art by Jack Holiday
Whether men were there from the beginning, or were created by the Dragonlords for their purposes, has been forgotten. Only Uthrax, the Dragon King & eldest of their race, may recall how they came to be. Regardless, the Dragonlords utilized the humans as slave labor, though the humans also came to worship the Dragonlords as gods, a notion the Dragons did not dismiss.
Over the years many shrines were erected & statues carved, though most important were the massive temples & carefully tended groves deep within the spawling forest which the Dragonlords called The Verdant Canopy (later referred to by the humans as the Umbrageous Wood).
As mankind spread across the land in their labors, they encountered strange creatures, similar to them in features, but taller & fairer, with an otherworldliness about them. They claimed to have come from “across the sea” to visit this land and discover its secrets. They called themselves elves, and some stayed among the humans for a while, and a few even mated with them, producing offspring. Eventually, most of the elves returned from whence they came, but their progeny remained, and these were regarded as fate-touched by the humans.
Time passed, and the numbers of men grew, while the Dragonlords slowly dwindled (this fact was kept hidden from the ever-increasing humans who still worshipped & feared them). Long life they had, but few offspring. To counter this, some of the optimal humans (nearly always ones with elven blood) were conscripted to serve as breeding partners for the few fertile Dragonlords who remained. They maintained that the purpose for this was to bequeath their own greatest aspects to the fecund but generally weak & short-lived humans. These pairings produced more hatchlings among the Dragonlords than had been seen in centuries, and succeeded in producing a hybrid that embodied many of the foremost traits of the superior race. Mankind, however, had contributed from among their keenest attributes as well, though many of these were to remain dormant for hundreds of years……
No one knows what caused the Dragonlords to sleep. Perhaps it was an inherent hibernation instinct, perhaps it was ennui; but sleep they did. And thus the 1st Age of Eldinar ended with mankind left to their own devices, for the first time in their existence.
An important aspect of games that needs to be kept in mind while designing a new game is its length. While not immediately apparent, game length has a surprising amount of influence on other aspects of the game including its fun and playability. While designing a game, try to imagine how long players will be able to continuously play while still having fun. Once you have a reasonable idea of how long this will be, try to set up your game so that it will finish before then. You want to be able to finish the game while the players are still interested and engaged, it is much better to hear “I just needed one more turn, let’s play again” than “how much longer is this going to take?”
Mechanics are a useful tool in determining game length. Many games make use of a set amount of turns in order to keep gameplay within the expected timeframe. Some will overtly tell you that you have a set number of turns, usually delineated somewhere on the game board and occasionally dressed up thematically as something such as years or seasons. This method is most often found in games involving repeatable actions that can be taken every turn. Other games use the same principle but rely on a limited resource, such as the deck of cards or tiles being place, to achieve this effect. By controlling the number of turns, the designer has a reliable way of ensuring that the game will end when they expect it to and while players are still enjoying it.
Game length also affects the groups of people that the game should be designed towards. Shorter games, usually under thirty minutes, tend to be less complex than other games. This simplicity, along with the shorter time required to play, makes a good target for younger gamers, who generally have a shorter attention span and may not be able to grasp harder mechanics yet. Another group that appreciates shorter games is those that play with larger groups. A short, simple game can fill the time after a longer game has finished while waiting for another group to finish so the play groups can intermix. Medium length games tend to be popular as there is sufficient time for more complex mechanics to be used, without completely dominating an entire play session. Longer games can be just as fun, with many interesting mechanics in use, but usually require advanced planning to make sure that they can fit into all the participants’ schedules. The next time you find yourself bored with a game, try asking yourself if it is the mechanics of the game boring you or if the game just went on for too long.
So much is going on as we break our silence from the dog days of summer. We got our newly printed, full sized cards for the next phase of Master of Spies and we are ready to take it on the road. Below is the “sexy” unboxing video of the product.
We are also an official LLC in the eyes of the Massachusetts and Federal government. It took a lot longer than we expected but it was important to use to do this right and at the beginning of the month we received our official documents.
Straight from the Attorney General desk, our stamp of approval.
Also last weekend on Sept. 12th we took part in the Boston Festival of Indie Games. It was a really great day and a bit of a learning experience. James, our “Game Breaker” and myself manned the table and demonstrated our card game, Master of Spies to lots of nice folks there, and got really encouraging feedback. One of the greatest things said to us was, “Thank you for having a short game”, in a show that was loaded with a load of great, but intensive, indie games, that really meant a lot..
We felt so official when we saw our table sign.Our table, all set up and ready to go when the doors open.Picture of our neighbors to the right of us.James standing to welcome in anyone who wanted to try our card game.A group of attendees giving Master of Spies a try.A never before seen, 3 tokens on one card. It one of the things I love about our card game, every game is different.My end of the day celebratory drink to a show gone well.
We will be bringing our card game around to local, and a few not so local, gaming stores and shows. Please check in regularly and stop by, say hello, and give Master of Spies a try.
