Insider #6

Dan:

Things are looking up! We just finished up the first half of the pack out, and will be finishing up the second half tomorrow! I can't wait for everyone to finally getting their Warfighters and Counter Trays. In other news, Tiger Leader's Commanders skills changed a bit. The "Medic" skill could be used on infantry cards to fix a Casualty, or fix any Commander from wounded to healed. They can also now alleviate 2 stresses post mission. In order to balance it out, some commanders now have the "Mechanic" skill. This allows them to either fix a single damage counter on a vehicle, or pay the "Large" SO cost on the bigger tanks. We still have Marksman, Spotter, Cautious, Overdrive, Aggressive, Close Combat, and Tactic skills placed on the different Commanders.

Kevin:

Finally having this pack out is a relief. After all of this anticipation, finally seeing the pallets being unloaded into our warehouse feels great! We spent hours putting Warfighter after Warfighter into boxes with every combination of bonus packs and extra dice. Tiger is changing, but I feel for the better, as having commanders with combat as well as non combat skills is necessary. The diversity gives me more options for what I need at any given time. It also means that when I'm a few weeks in, and my commanders are all stressed out, I can buy a new unit and give him a medic commander. He'll be pouring the coffee for my shaken and unfit guys, bringing them back to the fight.

Question:

What is your favorite German WWII tank?

(As a quick note, thank you for everyone who saw our Stug III had a barrel length problem! The updated card is here.)

Insider #5

Dan:

After an uncountable number of hours watching Kevin play test Tiger, we're testing out a new Unit trait called: Large. Having a vehicle with the Large trait means that you need to pay 1 SO for every battle you want to send this vehicle in per week. To compensate, the SO cost of every vehicle with the trait Large was reduced by 4. We'll see how this goes, but I'm hoping that it adds some more historical flavor to Tiger. This simulates the extra supplies, fuel, and maintenance issues suffered by the heavy vehicles like the Tiger and Panther.

Warfighter, its Expansions, and the Deep Dish Counter Trays will be here on Monday! This means that we will have them shipped out, and you will start receiving them shortly. We have no idea why the Port took so long, but we will have them soon!

Holly:

People ask me why I would bother to write a rulebook before I knew the entire game was finished. It sounds perfectly reasonable to wait. It would save time and LOTS of effort if I just sat back and waited for the game to be done. Well, there are two main reasons I write, and re-write for the entire duration of a game's design.

First, it takes weeks to write a rulebook. It's not just the rules, it's the examples, the graphics, and especially the example of play. Every concept must be covered, clearly and simply. If I waited for the game to be done before I started, it would delay the printing by weeks.

Secondly, it IS more efficient. "How can that be?", you might ask. "You need to change the whole rulebook every time a new rule, concept, counter, card, or system is added."

 Trust me, it's more efficient. Here's why…

Writing a rulebook is like telling a story. When you have retold the story a hundred times, it is easy to accidentally leave parts out.

When I write a rulebook, every detail matters. It's not enough to tell players to roll the dice. I must remember to mention it is a ten sided die they are rolling. If I write while the game is being created, I have a much better chance of typing in all the rules, because they are all NEW to me. As soon as the game changes from a 10-sided die to a 6-sided die, I add it into the rulebook. This keeps me from forgetting a rule or letting the rules run together. Imagine how terrible it would be to know a rule, but to forget to write it.

A rulebook is usually the only conversation with the design team a new player will ever get. It has to be great. It has to be clear. It has to make the game feel understandable, and fun. The best way to do that is to make sure nothing is missed, and the best way to make sure nothing is missed is to keep updating throughout the design.

Kevin:

Having this new Large trait really mixes up how I'm going to play. I used to start off by purchasing a lot of cheap units as their cost was half to a third that of a King Tiger or Jagdpanther. I typically purchased Panzer 35's or Panzer IV's for 8 SO. As the best unit in the game, the King Tiger costs 17. Now that it costs 13, I can either buy a Panzer IV and a halftrack with the Transport ability, or pay an SO cost every week, but have a high firepower, heavily armored beast of a tank. This makes these units amazing in short games, as I technically get the -4 SO cost reduction, but only having the tank in operation for 3 weeks, means by the end of the campaign, I've saved 1 SO. However, having a late war tank is a necessity, as my weaker tanks will be blown up through continuous fire from the Allies.

As a special treat for Insider readers, a first look at the Tiger Leader rulebook was just posted on the DVG site, but not yet announced. The rule book still has many drafts to go, but it is off to a good start! Check back on future Insiders to get advanced notice and new announcements!

http://images.dvg.com/www.dvg.com/tigerrulebook.pdf

Insider #4

Dan:

I'm happy that Tiger Leader's wrapping up and I'll be setting Kevin on Israeli Air force Leader when we've sent this out. The Tiger Leader Kickstarter will also be coming up soon, and I'm hoping for some fun stretch goals with metal counters, and miniatures for the units! In other news, we're in contact with the molding company, and things are looking good.

Kevin:

Besides minor number adjustments, Tiger is looking to be all set and done! I've played a few campaigns now, and they've all been running smoothly, I'm looking forward to seeing this go off to the printer soon! Other than Tiger, some Modern Land Battles play testing, and Dan is showing me how to write a rule book, which is a lot more difficult than I would have thought. Always writing in active voice, and having each and every sentence say exactly one idea is a challenge, but I enjoy learning this! J Bad news on Warfighter and Counter-Trays though, we STILL haven't gotten our games from port.

Holly:

Well, it's been an exciting couple of days. I heroically handed over the Tiger rules for proofing with a smile on my face and a sense of accomplishment in my heart. The reactions from Dan and Kevin were a combination of nervous throat clearing and side-ways glances. Turns out, SEVERAL parts of the game changed in the last few days. For example, the information on the Campaign cards and the information on the Objective cards (which, last week were called Situation cards) completely changed around.

Do you want to choose Commanders for your Campaign? Well you can't! Because everything I wrote about doing that is different. No problem, I'll just hunker down and start re-typing.

Then, tonight, Dan and I sat down for a fun game of Modern Land Battles. The game is just about done. The rulebook was complete a week ago, with a few finishing touches going in here and there.

Then, during the game, Dan stopped playing and stared at the table for a few seconds. I've seen that look before. It usually comes after a game has been declared "just about done".

His head tilted a bit to the left…then a bit to the right. Finally, he said…"huh". Then, "hmmm". Then he picked up a Terrain card and looked at it for a few seconds, and put it back down.

"What if we change the Terrain cards to do *this*?"

We discussed it for a while, moved cards around, changed the idea a bit and decided to try it.

Then…

"What if we change Maneuvering to do *this other thing*?"

Discussion, discussion.

"…and what if we change our battle rows to better reflect movement *this way*?"

He was getting excited now.

We played the game with the new ideas and…Dang It! It was a better way to go.

Looks like I'll be re-writing both the Tiger and MLB rulebooks. Wish me luck.

Insider #3

Dan: I got a call from the shipping center, and the port is busy, but we may get our Warfighters and Counter-Trays early! Possibly any day now, and then a huge Pack-Out, and hopefully you will all get your games within the next week or so! In other news, Tiger is going well, and I feel like it's wrapping up. The movement system is down, our new Objective cards are working and throwing in a little flavor each game, it's all working, and I'm glad that the time we've put in is paying off.

Kevin: I've been playing Tiger for a few hours every night, and doing some emails/pack outs of orders. I'm excited for when we get our Warfighters and Counter-Trays though, because that will be a long night, but at the end of it, we'll have a huge amount of boxes ready to ship out. I'll post a picture or two of us receiving the games, and everyone packing them out also, so you can see what it looks like. Tiger being close to finishing will be nice, as we can send it to the printer, and hopefully have Israeli Air force done before we have Tiger back.

Holly:
We had a great time playing Modern Land Battles last night. For some reason, we fell into LOL Cat speech.
"I can haz missiles!"
I put my hand up… - "Denied."
"All your artilleries belongs to us!"

It sounds ridiculous, but we were having a great time.

The rulebook is just about finished. I'm putting in the new maneuvering cards now.

In other news, the Rise of the Zombies tutorial is finished and ready for upload.
I am working on the Warfighter tutorial now. It should be up in about a week. Of course, the Warfighter pack-out will jump to the front of the project list, but I can mix in lots of tutorial work.

I also plan to link the tutorials to the website, so you can see the game, and see the link to the tutorial.
It would be great to get feedback on the tutorials. I would like to make one for each game and I am only on game number 4. If there are changes, problems, or a better way to do something, now is the time to get it right. I'm open to most changes, except for live action filming. If a camera is ever near me, I choke.

Insider #2

Insider #2

Dan:

I've been play testing Tiger Leader, and made a huge breakthrough with the placement of your starting Special Operation points from the Campaign Card to the Objective Card. We also changed "Situation" to "Objective" as it sounded better. I created the final art for the Headquarters Sheet and updated it with all of the information a player will need for quick access. Finally, I finished up some of the emails that have come in since yesterday.

Kevin:

I sent away some pack outs and edited the rulebook for Tiger that Holly made. We typically go through 20-40 rulebooks until it's finalized. While play testing Tiger, the enemy Operational Movement was always a bit clunky, and we came up with a new concept! For longtime fans, the enemy Operational Movement system is similar to Thunderbolt Apache Leader. However, in that game, you have airplanes and helicopters. Here, you have Tanks and Infantry Squads. We used to say that you could move any of your units anywhere on the battlefield, but that felt weird that some Rifle Squad could run some 70 miles and jump into combat. Then, we said whatever each unit's Tactical movement is, is where they can move, but then Artillery could never participate except for battles in the Frontline. Now however, we figured out a system that for the last few campaigns has worked well. Attacking enemy Battalions in the Frontline, German Transit, and German Staging is free. For every enemy Battalion you attack in the Transit, it costs you 1 SO (Special Option Point), Rear, 2 SO, and Breakthrough 3 SO. This allows you to move and jump into combat with any enemy Battalion in your area of operation. These SO points represent the fuel, food, and resources it would take to attack deeper behind enemy lines.

Holly:

Hey, I've been hard at work writing up the rulebook for Tiger and incorporating all of the edits that Kev and Dan are making. I'm also working on the Modern Land Battles rulebook. Bouncing between the two games and remembering which component goes where can be difficult especially after a long night. On other news, I'm almost finished with the Rise of the Zombies tutorial, and am about 75% through the Warfighter tutorial. I'll post these online as soon as they're done, and they're used mostly for people to learn and relearn the game. They tell you everything you need to know about playing them in less than 30 minutes.

Insider #1

Hey everyone, this is a first but we'd like to give you a personal view into DVG and give you an insider's look into what the three of us are working on day to day.

Dan:

The shipment of Warfighter and the Counter Trays will be here soon as I just heard that the ship has made port! This means that depending on where you live, you may get your order in as soon as 2-3 weeks. I've been watching Kevin play Tiger Leader making little changes and reprinting cards as the edits obscure the card text. I updated the entire action deck for Modern Land Battles as the deck was lopsided towards defense, and I want the game centered more on aggressive tactics. I've also been discussing DVG's next big step after Tiger Leader and Modern Land Battles, and it will be the biggest jump we've made as a company yet. The game is heavily centered on plastic miniatures, and we're ordering 3D models and 2D artwork now.

Kevin:

I've spent the last two months glued to the seat playing Tiger, and when I'm not playing Tiger, I'm at school finishing my psychology degree. Later tonight, when Holly writes up more of the Tiger Rulebook, I'll be going through and editing it. When Dan's updating cards and Holly's typing up Rulebooks, I tend to do Emails, Pack out Orders, and file all of your Pre-Orders. A couple months ago, I was let in on a conversation pertaining DVG's largest game yet.

Holly:

Hello! I've been busy working on the Tiger Rulebook, and have been making little changes every time they come back to me at the end of the night telling me all of the updates to Tiger. After finishing their Poland "For the Reich" campaign, I'm sure Kev will have a new set of edits. Also, I'm going to be doing some Pre-Order filing tonight, as the Warfighter/Counter Tray shipment will be here soon!

4 Games at the Printer!

This is going to be a busy summer for DVG! :)

Right now at the printer, we have:

Hornet Leader (reprint)
Down In Flames - Aces High (reprint)
Thunderbolt-Apache Leader
Down In Flames - Wingmen Expansion

If you are on Facebook, I just opened a group for people who want to discuss our Field Commander Napoleon game. Here's the link...
FCN Group