A Knight of Twilight
Update #51 · Apr 23, 2013 · 72 comments

Myth and Kingdom Death are proud to present the Twilight Knight Mini-boss.

Kingdom Death is a nightmare horror board game with highly detailed, beautiful 35mscale miniatures. They really set the bar high for both miniatures and Kickstarters.

Early in the Kickstarter cycle Kingdom Death backed Myth. We quickly reached out to them. We knew they were busy, but hoped we might collaborate. We began to talk and decided that doing a Trickster Level and providing a Mini-boss was ideal. Keith got to work on the art transition and with the help of the Kingdom Death team fused these two amazing worlds in the solitary figure of the Twilight Knight.

As with all Mini-bosses, she will be accompanied by a stat card. However, unique to the Twilight Knight, Heroes who somehow defeat her win the cursed blade, the Twilight Sword. The only Orange item in the game at this point.

This Limited Edition miniature will be given for free to all backers at the Minion Level and above ($75).

We can't thank Adam Poots and his team enough for their generosity and effort in this relationship. They really love the hobby and are incredibly good people to know and work with.

Note*
This model does not include any unique rules for Kingdom Death: Monster. It only has rules for Myth as a mini-boss. It will also be rendered at 28mm heroic scale so it fits within Myth's game. I cannot make any promises of the figures availability outside of Myth's Kickstarter. The intent of this collaboration project is to show support for Myth's campaign and show the good faith and brewing friendship between the two studios.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Baragash wrote:
Sure, but they're giving them away free at that pledge level anyway so letting people buy them at $10-15 as an add-on to a lower level is still helpful to Myth.

Why would they do that? There are literally 17 people that would qualify for that.

 Alpharius wrote:
They selected the "Trickster" level pledge - and that let's you design a miniature for the game.

Why?

To help out a fellow game creator?

Creator Kingdom Death 1 day ago

@Victor Garrison, Kickstarter is a very strange thing isn't it? I forewarn all that is as much politics and expectation management as it communication and showing your product in the best light possible. I feel it really encapsulates the word "campaign". I think something a lot of us project leads wonder is, would a kickstarter set at the true value actually succeed? Why would someone new take the risk where the stretch goal system seems to work very well.

Creator Kingdom Death 4 days ago

Organization is important to me, since good organization really helps with gameplay flow. We personally found a few games that sport too many tokens / cards very prohibitive to play due to setup time. Then all it takes is one game sessions where people don't clean up and well, things become a mess!

Creator Kingdom Death 4 days ago

@edwardo, yeah i totally understand ya. The trivial pursuit version that is its own self contained box would certainly make the cards more portable. It would also allow you to free up some space on the table since the main game box wouldn't be there. But personally I don't find thumbing thru a compact box style as easy to handle as a dominion box, with its dedicated card slots. I am weighing the pros and cons and I also need to look at the budget so I can make sure to balance everything out.

Creator Kingdom Death 4 days ago

There are never more then 3 "decks" active per game phase. So it doesn't get too out of hand. The only part we've found quickly can get messy is when several people are all sorting thru gear cards at the same time.

Creator Kingdom Death 3 days ago

Honestly, if dominion was just a pile of cards in a box. I highly doubt it would have become a weekend favorite here. The lack of organization is what killed arkham horror. I take the organization SUPER seriously. I just need to find that right balance between, presentation, practical and financially possible.

Creator Kingdom Death 3 days ago

A game should not have to make a busy adult invest SO much time just to get started playing it. Sadly this is why war hammer / war hammer 40k have fallen to the side too. I adored the model building and hobby part of the experience. But then you spend, usually 2 hours just setting up. I don't care how complex a game is once its rolling. Key thought here being it needs to GET rolling.

Creator Kingdom Death 2 days ago

The box cannot be designed in a way to fit all the miniatures and their myriad of assembly options + all the components. So please do not expect storage for assembled figures.

Spoiler:

 cincydooley wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:
Every day I'm sad I missed this one, when do you think we might see stuff available to order outside the KS? Mid 2014?

I managed to get a Flower Knight from the website a few months ago when they came back into stock.

Sadly, I don't think we'll have any idea. Thats why so many people went close to all in with this KS, because getting stock of some of their items is so hard in the first place.

June Update!
Update #74 · Jun 24, 2013 · 147 comments

Hello!

I hope everyone has been well. The team has been working like crazy and I am pleased to share our developments thus far.

- Schedule Update
We are still aiming to hit our target date to begin shipping rewards in november. At this time the manufacturing partners involved have made it their priority to meet our very aggressive timeline. Things will be close as time is tight. As we work as hard as possible, If I feel the quality of the game or its components will suffer in any way, I will let you know and we can decide if we should delay it or not. While I feel that maintaing our timeline is of the utmost importance, Anna has reminded me several times that actually you, the backers, are the most important and that no one wants anything to be rushed.

- Shipping Update
The current plan is to personally fulfill all of the domestic rewards from our warehouse / studio in brooklyn NY. We are looking into better solutions for the international rewards and have started to contact fulfillment companies for quotes and deals. The fact that USPS shipping rates more then doubled during the course of the KD campaign has not made this task any easier! Currently about 400k of the funds have been budgeted towards shipping and I'd like to reduce that and shift the money towards production & art.

- Plastic Manufacturing Update
This is one point I am super excited about. We have secured a vendor and a process that I am very confident in. I personally flew to china early may to spend time touring the facility and going over the finer points of the project and the team their is quite capable. They are a small operation and due to the size, complexity and timeline of KD have had to expand to take up the job. The majority of engineering and production will take place from now until september. Once I have a good variety of samples to check, I will take loads of photos and divulge all of the details for everyone. Thankfully they see KD as a wonderful portfolio piece and want to give every last miniature the full attention it deserves.

- Cards & Printed Material Update
I've gotten a lot of concerned emails from fans in regards to warped boards and low quality token sheets from many kickstarter games. I have done a fair bit of research into the projects in particular that were named and I am aware of what lead to some of the issues. We are using a US based board game manufacturer that has been in the biz for 35 years. They are capable of standard components and the more premium components that will be used for KD. The game cards will be printed on a thicker greycore card ( used for casino poker cards ) and the token sheets will all be sealed in a climate controlled area to ensure they don't warp. There needs to be a fair bit of lead time for this, as its not a fast process.

- Hit Location Dice
I got em! They are awesome! We might mix in a very small amount of glow in the dark pigment to the white, to give it a more matte off-white feeling. This gives the die more contrast between the gloss black and matte interior and in my opinion, gives it that little extra pinch of handsome.



- Lantern Armor
The lantern armor is the most durable armor that can be crafted in the core game and it is not an easy set to reach. I was never fully satisfied with the original sculpture and thankfully there was enough time for me to slide in a resculpt! So now you can check out the Lantern Armor as was truly envisioned!



- Hunt Board
Lokman and I worked on this one together. He supplied the awesome border artwork and I did the layout. The center of the board is a unique gameplay element. When you reach this space, you trigger the overwhelming darkness story event. This represents the survivors traveling far away from their settlement and deep into the darkness where the atmosphere is its thickest. In this story event only the courageous or insane get by unscathed.





- Font Size
We've decided to try and stick to an 8pt font size as our minimum wherever possible. While personally I have no problem reading a smaller size, I've chatted with Anna and many of the backers and resolved that bigger is better. For reference most magazines use an 8pt font as do magic cards. In picking a font, we agonized for a while and ended up selecting a special type of font that's edges come to a point to make it more readable.



- Sculpted Slender Man
When the Slender Man concept art was revealed, Jacques-Alexandre Gillois instantly sent me a message the simply said. Let me sculpt this one! We finished up the sculpting on schedule and here are the photos of Jacques inspired sculpt.



- Aya Origin Comic
At this time I am not sure we will make the print deadline for this to be included in the game manual. If that is the case, I will release it online for everyone to enjoy.

And the art continues to be arted!









But yeah, odds are it will slip, and if it does, 2014 will be it's new home!

Sunstalker!
Update #75 · Aug 5, 2013 · 50 comments

Hello everyone! Let's get right to it!

Schedule & Plastic Manufacturing Update
Nothing new to report on plastic manufacturing yet. Still collecting samples so I can have a nice little show and tell for an update. Initially I was planning for this to be mid august, but it might slip to end of august. In september I will be pulling the trigger on production, so if we are facing any delays I will know by then.

Shipping Update
So far we have sat down in meetings with, USPS, DHL and Fedex. Things are looking much brighter there then I had anticipated. Fedex offers a service that we are currently discussing in greater detail, wherein packages would be picked up and then shipped from a single international point of origin. What customs taxes people can expect from shipping within Europe using this method still remains to be seen but it's a promising option. The suit & tie fedex reps, were not prepared for our warehouse and the hoards of tiny men that presented them. They kept talking about how different it was for them.


Game Dev Update

After much agonizing, we decided on the final dimensions of the game book. It will be 11"x8.5" landscape format. There were many design considerations that went into this, but here are the ones that really matter to us. Wide format art looks way more awesome! By going landscape we make the book a little easier to fit on a busy table with lots of gaming pieces. Finally, for future online content we really wanted consistent look and feel to be possible from anyone's home printer.

I apologize, these have not been thru the editor yet so I will not be posting readable versions of them.



Thru play testing we discovered that tracking the number of elapsed years often fell by the wayside when players started the settlement phase excited to essentially start shopping for new gear. We also found that despite the year being what triggered the end of the game no one really cared much about it.

So we went back into the design phase for this and have extended this aspect of the game into a full-fledged timeline. Now you just tick of the years as you go and trigger the appropriate story event on that year. There are things in game that can add, remove or move story events on your timeline and in the case of certain expansions, you will use a blank version of the settlement record sheet to setup unique timelines.

The final blank version will be available for download so that if people want to create fully customized campaigns with their own chronology of story events (or even new ones!!) they can.

I wanted to keep the design nice, simple, and information focused. This minimalist style also works to keep things visually consistent from any home printer.



Art!
Here is the monster that caused our little delay today! I wanted to assemble him and take some photos for the update. I am happy to present the resin Sunstalker, sculpted by Allan Carrasco! Following him is the Sacred Pool, the unique settlement location you have access to when you play a sunstalker campaign and finally after that are some shots of the resin Primal Huntress!

Kevin Lindsay about 8 hours ago

Can the Sunstalker be hunted or is it only in use as an optional end boss? Either way AMAZING!

Creator Kingdom Death about 8 hours ago

@Kevin, both!

Jorge Barreiros about 6 hours ago

Great looking content, as always.
I wonder, most of the updates understandably focus on the amazing components. But what is the state of the gameplay content (cards/rules/playtesting/expansion content etc)?
I'm not terribly enthusiastic about the FedEx solution, as anything coming into EU from outside is taxed accordingly, if I understand correctly. So, unless the "single international origin" is EU-based, which seems unlikely, we'll still get hit by taxes. Oh well. At least the game is looking amazing.

Creator Kingdom Death about 6 hours ago

It would be EU based, as the majority if international backers are in the EU. The core game is getting pretty solid, while the expansions are still currently wildly unbalanced and need quite a bit more fine tuning.

Eduardo Guimarães about 6 hours ago

Great Update, this game will be the perfect mix of boardgame and RPG. More gameplay updates are very welcome.
For the non-EU international backers, you should give the option to use USPS. FEDEX, DHL or USP will pratically double the price of the game for me. I would be willing to pay more to get the game via USPS.

Creator Kingdom Death about 6 hours ago

@Eduardo, I am really sorry but we will most likely not be offering that level of customization for individual backers. In order to get a rate that makes it fiscally possible we need to choose the best overall solution. The magnitude of what needs to be shipped ( over 6,000 very complex pick and pack orders with a VERY heavy game box ) means that we have to be very careful about whom we work with, how its insured and finally what the final bill comes to.

That being said, I won't know until we are closer to it. But we are exploring many options.

Milana Adamov about 5 hours ago

Great update
Sadly I have to point out that in my country DHL and Fedex (they have freelancer companies here working in their name) will ask not only to pay the price of taxes the same amount that I spent on funding the minis - but one part of the shipment has to be destroyed by law too. So I am literally begging you to send me the minis via US registered mail, since otherwise I will not be able to get them at all.

Creator Kingdom Death about 5 hours ago

@MIlana, If you live in a country where registered mail is the only option, please contact anna and we will make special arrangements. We have had many problems with Russia, Czech republic and a few other places on our wonderfully diverse planet.

Hunter Kelly about 5 hours ago

I'd like to second the comment about A4. Even if there aren't different versions, but the various printable things have been tested with A4, that would be great!

On the shipping issue, will there be a way to mark deliveries as gifts? I've seen other kickstarters do this. It seems to stop the recipient of the gift from getting nailed with customs/taxes/whatever.

Creator Kingdom Death about 4 hours ago

@Hunter Kelly, we will do what our export specialist advises. I cannot promise you we will make any packages as a gift. Im pretty sure the settlement record sheets will look just fine on A4 paper.

 cincydooley wrote:
I never cease to be amazed at how well the unpainted pin-up models stand up as little pieces of art. I mean, they really remind me of renaissance sculpture.

At this point I think I'd actually be interested in buying a full nude male miniature by one of their sculpters, simply because I think the beauty in the anatomy of it would be so striking.

Tom about 20 hours ago

Maybe Poots can confirm if the Kingdom Death - verse has a sea? I wonder where all the water goes? Survivors gotta eat 'n' drink!

I actually quite like the idea of KD being on an endless plane of black sea. (With a food chain of sea monsters!) Perhaps it is possible to fall off the edge of the world.

Creator Kingdom Death about 18 hours ago

@Tom, that fiction was written for WOK. It is not cannon to KD. Does Kingdom Death have a sea? You know me, not only do I not like spoilers, but I am also totally obsessed with how things in the world are presented. So... I will just have to say... we will have to wait and SEE!

( sorry i couldn't help myself! now I must finish my china battle suit for when i fly back out to do quality control )

Slowing down for Quality
Update #77 · Sep 8, 2013 · 238 comments

I am delaying the project.

This has been an incredibly hard decision to make. Sticking to the timeline and fulfilling the entire project on time was paramount. The backers (you guys!) would be thrilled and the final product would be just in time for new buyers during the holiday shopping season. And I think we all know, that is a big deal for the future of KD.

Kingdom Death fans have been supporting this project for a long time, we consistently sell out of our resin stock and not only did they push me with emails everyday to run a kickstarter… once it was live fans became backers and smashed thru every previous record. During the course of the kickstarter campaign we expanded the planned game from a single 12" x 12" box to a 12" x 24" box, 11 game expansions + over 21 single figures! That's HUGE!

I decided long ago to match fans enthusiasm by offering my absolute best. Today that same decision has led me here. To ensure that the entirety of the project is the absolute best I can offer, I must delay it. Additional time will be spent on play testing, expansions, and plastic production. This includes a return trip to China to oversee the final 2-3 weeks of production in person.

If there is any one to blame for this delay, blame me and my absolute refusal to compromise the quality of Kingdom Death. A brand built entirely by fans and now thousands of backers. I have never before rushed anything to market or compromised the vision for this project.

This kickstarter has been an amazing opportunity for Kingdom Death and we will not squander it by simply rushing to the finish line.

Plastic
After touring and evaluating many options, a deal was struck with an incredibly talented factory and we decided that Kingdom Death deserved the best. Essentially, hard plastic kits on sprues, just like GW and many other companies.

The factory is so impressed with Kingdom Death, they are treating it as a true portfolio piece. Not only has no expense been spared, including staffing up their team and buying a new half a million dollar machine to cut finer mold detail. Their commitment is the real deal, they are pushing themselves to their creative and technological limit to produce these minis and I would have it no other way.

A part of this very time intensive process includes scanning every single precious hand-sculpted miniature and painstakingly re-touching them with digital tools to optimize each sculpt for plastic production.

Of course I have photos to share! But please keep in mind that they are not final and still open to more scrutiny and mastering.








Hard plastic costs considerably more than PVC, both in mold and unit cost. The core game has swelled in size so much that the retail value will rise quite a bit to reflect the value added. When the game is released it will be in the $150-$200 range. That is simply the reality of covering costs on the much larger deluxe box, nearly 700 game cards printed with premium materials, record sheets, game book, two game boards! ( the showdown & hunt board ), tokens, and the huge number of hard plastic miniatures on sprues inside the box.

Some of the larger monster, Lion God, Sunstalker and maybe the Gorm. Might still be best kept in PVC. A direct benefit of the delay is running even more tests to determine which material would best suit them. A hard plastic Sunstalker would be dozens and dozens of parts and spread across a stack of sprues!

Art Upgrade
During the campaign, many backers requested that we come up with an icon for every monster to help further distinguish card types from each other. Instead of making just an icon, we went ahead and designed a full gorgeous crest for every single monster in the core game and every expansion monster. The crests will grace the back of the monsters unique decks and will also appear as an icon on the front of their cards. And yeah, I am totally making a t-shirt of the butcher crest.



Story Events

The story event system and the new timeline have been so well received by play testers. We are refining it further and adding more. The originally planned 19 full page illustrations for the game book has blossomed to well over 30. ( maybe around 40?) Many of the expansions are getting an art boost too. Details will come down the pipeline later. Here are some quick WIP shots ( these actually just came in 5 mins ago! ) of some of the additional illustrations going into the core game book :







Oh that reminds me, I don't think I've shown the artwork for the Mask Maker yet! Here it is below.



How long is the delay?

Initially fulfillment was planned for Q4 2013, with operations beginning late November. Now we are looking at Q1 2014. I will have a firmer date once everything is loaded onto cargo boats and headed for our warehouse.

Poots' Crappy Painting!
Part of the process of quality checking the plastics… is actually taking a brush to an assembled kit! I want to ensure that the details are not too soft and get obscured by paint too easily. I am in no way a good or even great painter, but even I can tell the difference between a challenging detail and one that not polished enough on the manufacturing end. Faces need to be crisp and edges need to be sharp! Here is a photo of my WIP hard plastic dragon sacrifice that I have shared with the factory. Maybe when I finish It I'll share it with you guys again.



I appreciate everyone's tremendous support. I'm still very grateful for this incredible opportunity. It has been a little crazy at times and it certainly has had its challenges. Doing right by the brand and keeping the quality high is the right choice. By popular request, we will be updating more frequently with smaller updates so we can bring everyone along with us as we wrap up.

!!!

Thank you,
- Poots

Creator Kingdom Death about 8 hours ago

@Larabic, You can add. And I know this is gonna sound crazy but... we can only keep it open and take requests for a short window. We have to, HAVE to get back to the normal daily schedule. if you do, keep in mind that your entire pledge has to be re-done - so remember what you had in there!

 lucasbuffalo wrote:
Re-opened and double my pledge >.>. My poor, poor wallet.

 cincydooley wrote:
Yikes. I'm still higher than that.... Oi vey what am I doing

Creator Kingdom Death about 18 hours ago

Settlement wipe yesterday, an enraged, ground fighting level 2 lion wiped out two hunting teams in a row. How the cards lined up to make that exact combination twice in a row... augh isolated statistics be damned!

Funny enough, if we had grabbed those darts or the whisker harp we would have been fine. But nuuuuu everyone had to spend their resources on silly things like better weapons and fancy armor. -_-

Creator Kingdom Death about 4 hours ago

Butcher forced 2 Survivors into retirement today. Blinded one with 2 seperate critical injuries to the head, took one eye the first time, then the other a few rounds later. The other took a blow to the head that left them slowed and unable to gain or spend survival points anymore so... yeah. That's two benchwarmers. Thankfully our group was pretty prepared and we managed to push thru.

But... it was only a lvl 1 butcher. The level 2 will be knocking on our door in around 3-4 lantern years if the nemesis rolls favor us! That's not a lot of time to get ready.

 Absolutionis wrote:
From what I understand, if your character "dies", all their equipment remains. All you do is take the gear you've built, reduce the settlement's population by one, and you get a new character with all the equipment of the old one.

A settlement wipe only occurs after all players run out of the communal pile of "extra lives". It's a great mechanic that encourages spreading the loot, sharing, and protecting your allies. Their failures affect you.

You're encouraged to keep your individual character alive through "survival points", but as far as progression goes, equipment is a huge factor.

In the end, you won't necessarily be playing through a bunch of early games. A character death or even a party wipe isn't the end; it's just a setback.