Project Update: Metal Pawn Reveal♟️New Layout and Art ✏️ Order Lock Date 📆 Upcoming Travel 🚗
It's been a minute since the last update, hasn't it? We've had a very productive few months and are happy to report that everything is roughly on schedule and the design is close to complete. Today, we're delighted to share some news about the metal pawns, some art sneak peeks, and write about pre-production and our spring schedules.
Metal Pawn Add-on Design Reveal
Now that you can see the design of the metal pawns, we'll be giving folks about a month to decide on their BackerKit selections. I'll mention it below again in the schedule update, but we'll be proceeding to lock in pledge quantities on June 25. Cards will not be processed for late-pledges and shipping fees until later this summer, but this will dramatically help us learn how many of these metal add-ons to make after pledge lock.
More Art Incoming
Timeline News
We are still hoping to get into pre-production later this spring, so I am hoping we'll have an update in June for y'all with photos of samples and more production details. It is hard to say right now how fast the remaining art, layout, and editorial review will take as we head into production, but we're in a good place and working at a great pace. We're still gunning to have all pledges fulfilled this year.
For folks interested in an updated Print and Play, I'll kindly ask you to hold off a bit longer. I'd hate for you to take all the time and energy making a Print and Play file for it to be obsolete since we're still actively updating the art and layout of the cards and board each week. We going to be doing lots more layout and art updates in the coming days, but know that we'll release an Print and Play after all files are ready later this summer.
The next pressing date comes when production is wrapping up and we start getting ready for the first orders to ship! Right now, I suspect we will be processing BackerKit payments and charging cards in late August. This will be shortly followed up with some backers needing to confirm their addresses in September - October. Address confirmations will happen right before the games get to fulfillment center, and we try to ship out pledges 2-3 weeks after address confirmations.
As always if you have any concerns about your pledge, payment processing, fulfillment, or anything, email [email protected] and we'll be happy to help.
Wehrlegig on the Road
For folks attending Origins this year, I'll be running a couple sessions of Molly House Friday. One on Friday afternoon and maybe a couple on Saturday night. Details to come when we are closer to the con.
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Okay! That's it. Let me know if you have any questions. From here one out, we'll be updating the campaign on a monthly basis. Our next update will spotlight a near-final set of rules and more art. Stay tuned!
Drew
Project Update: 🛠️ Development News 🎲 Playtesting Print and Play ✈️ Upcoming Conventions
🛠️ Development Progress 🛠️
So what were the major changes? Well, we focused our efforts on three parts of the game.
Second, we spent a mountain of time getting the patrol/constable system right. In the version we last shared with you, getting caught was a matter of pulling specific cards out of the deck. But we found that this created lots of odd timing issues and didn't allow players to ever feel really and truly chased. To fix this problem, we revisited the game's map and general turn structure, and decided to have the constables become physical pawns on the map who would chase the players with the highest sum of that suit in their area. It's taken quite a bit of work to get this system working properly, but the effort has been well worth it as it's allowed us to even more strongly situate the game in the context of 18th century board games with a simple roll-and-move system and a classic circular board. But, don't let the dice fool you, there's a lot of strategic and tactical depth to the system.
All that said, there's still a lot of work to do on the game, but it's coming together at a very good clip now. In terms of the broader project, this milestone means that we can finally lift our "art pause" and can start working with our partners at the factory, Rachel, and our sculptor to nail down the final look of the game.
We'll have a lot more to report on this front for our next update.
🎲 Print and Play + Play Online 🎲
An important note is that these dev kits are still not in final layout. We're starting to move things into concept layout and Rachel is working on the next wave of compositions. In the picture below you can see a really rough mockup of how the cards will be formatted, though Rachel is still working the art. This new format of the tarot/poker hybrid style has been playing really well, and we're looking forward to spending more time on layout and graphic design and more illustrations start coming in.
These Dev kits are very playable, but if you want a late-stage PnP with more finalized art and the new layout, I would hold off another couple of months. I'm quite excited to share a big art update in a few weeks, but for now you'll have access to everything below to get playing!
Dev Print and Play Files
Screentop.gg Dev Mod (Free and browser based!)
Tabletop Simulator Dev Mod
Dev Rules (Google Doc)
✈️ GAMA EXPO + Circle DC ✈️
Convention season is gearing up and we're kicking the year off with GAMA Expo! We've never done GAMA Expo before, so it will certainly be an interesting industry-focused show. We'll be bringing our copies of Molly House with us and are excited to play it with some of the folks going to Louisville March 4-7. If you're at the show, swing by our booth during exhibit hours and at First Look, where we'll hopefully be playing this new build of Molly House.
We'll also be off to DC for Fort Circle's gaming convention Circle DC. We both love spending our time in San Diego with SDHistCon and I suspect this has the makings of the east coast version of that gaming weekend. I think there are still a few tickets available, so check it out if you are interested in joining for what will be one of the the best historical gaming weekends all year : )
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Thank you again for coming out to support this project and giving us the opportunity to make this game together. It's taken a long time and there is still plenty of work to do ahead. Know that backers like you allow us to spend this much time on making the best board game we can, so thank you and see you in another month or so for our next update that hopefully will have more art from Rachel Ford!
-Drew and Cole
Project Update: Wehrlegig Year Ahead Livestream 📺 Molly House Schedule 📆
Drew here. We've been making really great progress on post-campaign development and I want to share that Molly House is coming together quite nicely. We have some exciting design updates to share with everyone, and while I would love to tease you with some of the changes to the game now, we figured it might be best to do this over a livestream!
Upcoming Livestream 📺
Timeline Update 📆
We are still hard at work on finishing the design, art, and presentation of Molly House, and during the livestream we will go into more details about the project schedule and development. Generally we're feeling great about the status of the project and really excited to start working on more of the fine tuning and graphic design work that lies ahead across Feb. We are working on an updated rulebook, print and play files, and a new digital playtest links to share soon too. If you want to get a jump on things, you can head over to the Wehrlegig Discord Server or wait to get a tour through the newest build on the livestream. Hopefully things are wrapped in March with pre-production for a April production start. We will not rush through development if things need more time, but we're on a good schedule for completion.
So on the horizon we will lock item selections on May 1st as we head into production. Feel free to make any changes before hand, but remember that we won't be processing shipping charges and locking in shipping addresses until July 2024. You can always touch base with us over at [email protected] for any help with your pledge too!
Have a great weekend and hope to see folks in chat during the live stream!
-Drew
Project Update: 📨 Pledge manager surveys coming soon 🌆 PAX Unplugged Recap ⚒️ Updated Molly House Build
Here we are at the end of the year and what a year it has been! We're hard at work getting Molly House ready and we have some exciting developments to share with you.
Pledge manager surveys 📝
Importantly, we will not charge cards for any outstanding balances listed on your BackerKit pledge until July 2024 at the earliest! Right now the plan is to lock surveys around April/May and then charge shipping fees and lock delivery addresses when we are much closer to fulfillment Molly House (closer to late July for some backers and potentially as late as September for others). Survey lock, address lock, and card charging dates will come as a timeline update in March or so.
Wehrlegig @ PAX Unplugged 🎉
Development Update🛠️
We're going to be releasing this build as an update on Screentop.gg and tabletop simulator for everyone to explore in the coming days and we'll be doing more public playtesting soon on our Discord server. If you are interested in playtesting and joining the conversation around post-campaign development, join the Wehrlegig Games and Friends Server and see the Molly House dev threads.
A final note
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Alright, that's it for now. Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions about anything. Molly House pledge surveys. Timeline questions. Access to the new MH build. Whatever it is, drop us a line. It helps to send specific questions about your pledge over email to [email protected]. Thanks for being here.
-Drew
Project Update: ✨ That's a wrap! Molly House Funded!
With the help of 3,500+ backers we have raised over $280,000 for Molly House. This has been a thrilling project for us to explore publishing a true first edition and we thank you for coming out to support this game while it is still in development.
Without you, we would not be able to work on games like this. You've afforded us time and resources to bring the same the level of attention and care to this game that we brought to the second editions of both Pax Pamir and John Company. To all of the folks who backed and liked and commented and posted and shared this project, we see you and are so grateful to have you along.
The team will be taking a few days of rest before getting back to the work of making the game. Though we've come aways, this is really just the end of the beginning. During the campaign, we largely put the game's final design and development on hold. However, with the crowdfunding period completed, we're now able to return our attention to the work of making Molly House the best game it can be. Over the next few weeks, the core development team (Jo, Cole, and Drew) will be pushing hard on the design. Our goal is to make sure every element harmonizes well with the game's overall arguments and that the design continues to produce novel and compelling situations for players for game after game. We want this to be a game you could spent years playing.
Then, in a month or two, we'll be sitting down with Rachel to hammer out the details of the game's artistic direction. Here the success of this campaign will allow us dramatically expand our initial plans for the game's art. Once we get our plan together, we'll likely start putting a new print-and-play kit together sometime this winter.
What's next?
The important thing for you to look out for in this next phase of the project is your pledge manager survey! Because we've only just received your pledge, we want to make sure that all our backers are equipped with information on how and when they'll receive their rewards. The BackerKit pledge manager allows us to send out surveys to organize your delivery address and make sure everything is confirmed well in advance of shipping. This allows us to calculate shipping accurately and customize your pledge exactly as you'd like. We're hoping to launch surveys in just a few weeks, so look out for the next update around PAXU with more details on the pledge manager and pictures from the show.
Okay, time to eat some pizza and celebrate how lucky we work on these amazing projects.
Drew & Cole
Project Update: 📖Molly House Book Club Live Stream and Upcoming Conventions
I wanted to drop everyone a quick update. Firstly, we are streaming today! Cole is actually right now streaming a design update with Leder Games. Go here to chat with Nick and Cole for the next bit, and then tune in to Wehrlegig's Twitch channel in about 30 mins (3pm CST). We are going to be streaming our Book Club event with Dr. Kat today. Please come by and talk about these readings on Molly House with us. It's going to be a real nice time digging into some source material, and if you can't make it live, we will share the recording on our page tomorrow.
Upcoming Things
We are going to be going to BGG CON and PAX Unplugged this year too! Two great conventions sandwiching Thanksgiving and we've never done both in one year. We'll see how wildly exhausted we'll be by the end of it all, but we are excited to be bring Molly House in active development and running playtests basically the entire time at BGG Con. We'll have a booth at PAXU, so if you are on the fence for PAXU, please come! Jo is flying out for their first time to the States and I hope this show is a warm welcome because we get to meet our backers that allow us to do this.
Also, we were hoping to have more information on our metal sculpts before the end of this campaign, but I am not sure if those samples are going to come through before the end of this campaign. Because of this I am going to extend an offer a very flexible policy on metal add-on refunds. We will provide full refunds and allow backers to add metal figures at the same backing rate through the entire pledge manager period.
With only a few days left, the gratitude and appreciation for supporting this campaign is about to get overwhelming! We'll have an end-of-campaign update coming with timeline updates, info on the pledge manger phase, and what we'll be getting up to moving forward.
Thanks again and hope you'll check out the book club!
-Drew
Project Update: Playtesting Kits are now live, Art live stream Saturday, October 28
Just a quick update to say that the playtesting materials are now live! You can check them out at the link and poke around the Molly House's development files. While the art and graphic design still have a while to go and the rules have some hiccups that need sorted out, we hope that exploring the digital and physical playtesting kits will still give you a good idea about how the game works and feels to play.
Also, there is now a link to Ricky's solo development video on Molly House on the campaign page. You'll see that the solo mode is still getting worked out so we do not have solo materials ready for playtesting quite yet, but hopefully in the coming weeks we'll have that ready. Ricky's wonderful peek into how the current solo build should give you a good glance into how it feels to play Molly House at 1P. If you want to get a feel for other player counts, our 2 player playthrough stream Jo and I ran yesterday is also in the Videos section.
And finally, I also wanted to plug a short interview we will be doing with Rachel Ford this Saturday, October 28th! We'll be talking about Rachel's process with the art of Molly House and learning a bit more about their other projects. We'll have a recording of our stream shortly after as well. Here's an exciting preview of some of the lettering that Rachel is working on for the cover too.
I hope to share a mock up of the box cover with the new drawn title in layout later this campaign, but that might have to wait until we return from our in person playtests of Molly House coming to San Diego HistCon next week! See everyone on the playtesting discord and on the art stream on Saturday!
Thanks again and happy playtesting,
Drew
Project Update: What's Next: Schedule Changes, Getting Back, Cole's in NYC
Drew here. What a week! I just wanted to share another note of gratitude for the support and enthusiasm we've seen for Molly House. We rely on crowdfunding to bring our projects to life, and witnessing how excited folks are for Molly House has us feeling encouraged about this game and emboldened about future projects. We are thrilled we get to keep working on this project knowing that we have flexibility with production options to bring the best version of Molly House into existence.
I have a few updates I wanted to share with y'all below:
Date Update
The other update is about the playtesting kits going live. Because I need a bit of extra time preparing the playtesting files and mods before they are shared widely, we are going to wait until Wednesday, October 25 to share the playtesting kits. I hope this isn't too much of a burden for folks, but trust me, it will be better to have a nicer experience playing Molly House for the first time! I'll be putting out another update later this week when those links are ready.
Getting back to things
Lastly, I wanted to share a quick invitation to anyone in the NYC area. Cole is off to Bard Graduate Center this week and he is giving a talk on October 25 that is open to the public. Check it out here if you are interested in attending.
Again, we'll be back on top of things in just a few more days, and as always, feel free to comment or send an email to [email protected] and we'll get to it as soon as we can. Thanks again for being the best backers out there!
Drew
Project Update: The First Day
If you caught our stream earlier today, you probably have some sense of how we're all feeling. We are overwhelmed by your support. Molly House is essentially a new style of game for us. Pax Pamir, for all that it offers players, is essentially a political game. John Company, though it has a novel perspective, is also another game about empire. These are well-trod themes in board games. Molly House is different. Molly House is a game about social history and, to put it simply, we weren't sure if it would resonate with you all as much as it has resonated with us.
But, here you are. Molly House's first day has been a huge success and we cannot wait to finish making this game for you all.
If you missed the stream this afternoon, you can find the video here:
And, if you'd like to learn more about the game, I'd suggest you give Dan Thurot's thorough preview a read. What I like most about his piece is its ability to weave the experience of playing the game within the broader context of Molly House's many arguments and interventions. It's really a remarkable piece of writing, and I couldn't think of a better introduction to the game.
Tomorrow, I'll be hosting another live stream in the afternoon (4pm cdt) over on our Twitch channel and hosted on our BackerKit page as well. I'll be talking a bit about the process of making this game and highlight a few areas where we are going to be spending our time in the coming months. Then, on Thursday, we'll be posting the rules. Drew and I will then be gone for a couple days on a short trip, so there may be a delay in response time, but we'll try to stay on top of everything.
Thank you so much,
Cole & Drew