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Outpost 18: A Micro Strategy Game

Created by angrycyborggames

A two player 18-card micro game. Get a quick fix of strategy, hand management, and base-building action.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Overdue Update
over 3 years ago – Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:00:17 PM

Hey everyone,


Apologies for the long wait for updates. I’ve spent the last few months juggling a flurry of personal and work issues, but I am making progress on shipments and everything is still moving forward. Lesson learned — fulfillment on this scale was a lot harder and time consuming than I had planned for, especially with covid restricting my ability to add help for manual labour. Any future project will be handled with a fulfillment service.


When things aren’t moving as quickly as I like, I take it pretty personally and try not to get down about creative projects like this, but it's hard to keep ahead of that sometimes. So I apologize for going dark for a while there. Anyway, for the good news — According to backerkit, I am down to the last 10% of orders or so. So I am looking to close out all orders this month, with only the leather sleeves left to laser etch and send out to everyone -- still waiting on my access to those tools to come back.


I anticipate a lot of customer service messages on this post, so please bear with me through this, but as I’ve said throughout — I will get you your games! I have more than enough  — I look at them every day, and I want them to be with you. 


UPDATE BY REGION


US/Canada — you should have your order. If you don’t, contact me and I will get it to you ASAP. There’s a handful of people I’ve spoken with already — I’ve got your copies resent and on the way. There’s half a dozen or so that were returned to me with bad addresses / failed deliveries, so I’ll be contacting a few people to sort that out.


UK - you should have your order. However, it’s been brought to my attention that some tracking numbers  are reporting “postage expired”, which is confusing — I’m investigating this and will get it sorted out ASAP. If you don’t get your order within the next 10 days, it’ll be worth shooting me a message so I can look in to it, although I expect this to be resolved pretty quickly. Again, no matter what, I will get you your copy. 


E.U — you guys should be getting shipment notifications now, if you haven't got one this week, you'll get it next week. That means it has moved in to the hands of the international shipping company. Most people are reporting delivery within 2 weeks or so, but sometimes the packages go on quite an adventure.


Rest of the world — working to get these moving by the end of the month. Would love everyone to have their copy before the holidays.


GAMEPLAY HELP / VIDEOS


Working on this, but prioritizing moving shipments with what downtime I get. Until then, playoutpost18.com is your best bet — the AI has a tutorial that teaches the fundamentals, and you can quickly learn how to play the basics. It also will teach you how to prevent stalemate situations and crazy-long games, which is a problem with some first time sessions that seems to stem from passive play. The AI is quite skilled at punishing passive play.


If anyone in the community wants to create content, I would happily feature their tips/advice.


NEXT FROM ME / POST MORTEM


Obviously my priority is getting every game out the door and fulfilling my backers — there are a lot of games to go out and cool sleeves, stickers, and more to send along.


I’ll release a “post mortem” when everything has been moved, and talk about the stuff I’ve learned along the way — as a designer, as a self-publisher, and stuff in between. I’ve learned a lot.


And in the future — there’s a few things I want to spend time developing over the next year, but it’s all been on the back burner until I can get this campaign completed. There’s more to come from me, for sure. I really enjoyed developing this game and seeing it through -- and you've all been great along the way, with what a wild ride this year has been.


Thanks everyone,


Adam

fulfillment: Short Update Now, Detailed Update Soon
over 3 years ago – Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 11:24:22 PM

Hey everyone, I’ve been receiving a few nudges so I want to get something out there quickly!

I have fulfilled half of the total orders for Outpost 18, with the remaining orders getting smaller every day. It took me a while to get a good workflow going, but we got there :) I’m getting messages and pictures of the received games each day. It’s awesome!

If you have received a shipping notification / update on Kickstarter or backerkit, it means you can expect delivery in around 10 days US, 20-ish days international.

If you haven’t received a notice yet — don’t stress too much, I am carefully going through each order personally to make sure they all get out.

Note to leather edition backers: I’ve made the decision to send your games out separately, as I am having delays getting to the tools I need to finalize the custom sleeves due to the pandemic. So those of you with unshipped leather edition orders, you will be getting a notification shortly, along with some little surprises.

Lastly,

Playoutpost18.com has been updated with the final print version of the rule book. The print copy in the tuck box is a bit tough on some eyes — lesson learned for the next one :)

Lastly lastly,

For customer service / etc requests, know that I am handling this all myself to keep the costs down for the project so I am doing my best while juggling my day job. I really enjoy it! Please be assured that I am spending as much of my time as possible sending out games. It’s taken longer than expected, but ultimately, I am REALLY happy that I managed to get a game out for such a low price.

For US / Canada orders, right now I’d ask that you wait until mid September before worrying about lost shipments. International, mid/late October.

Okay, longer update than I thought :)

Thanks everyone.

Shipping update & timeline
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 11:31:45 PM

Hey guys, quick update on shipping. The first 250 games are winding their way through the postal service, some delivered yesterday and today.

I took a bit of extra time testing the packaging to make sure the games shipped safely -- and we are all clear on that front. I've received games in multiple locations and everything is good and clear. I also had to find a way to divide up the 1400 orders in to chunks for delivery, and that is under control.

Canada: Games-only orders are in the mail -- but, note that I am taking a bit of extra care with the leather orders to make sure they get shipped safely. Premium backers will ship next! Due to the laser engraving, they need a bit more care to not smear in transit. Anyway, it seems to take about 3-5 days for Canada. I am working to update the backerkit status for these, not everyone has received a notification yet.

United States (the bulk of the Kickstarter): packed up and ready to go, I am just releasing them slowly to make sure there aren't any snags in delivery. It's a bit more complicated because they have to cross the border, which is slower than usual. I'm using a service that takes bulk mail and moves it with USPS. The first 100-200 orders should be arriving to US addresses in 5-10 business days.

International orders: Sorry International friends, infinitely patient... I will be releasing those once I confirm us-bound deliveries are going smoothly. 

Happy Canada Day & I have a lot of games!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Jul 02, 2020 at 02:21:59 AM

Hey everybody,

Happy Canada Day! It's crazy to me that it's already July 1 -- This is basically one year since the campaign. I'm obviously not thrilled that it took this long, but given how 2020 has gone so far... Hey, happy to give some positives :)

I now have the full first run of games safely in my warehouse. Everything looks great. I'll share a picture of the fulfillment station when we get it up and running, but as of right now -- everything is going according to plan. 

You will all receive a notifcation via backerkit this weekend to lock in your order addresses, and I will begin the fulfillment process immediately after. 

First in, first out

Orders will be sent out in a first-in, first-out process -- basically, the earlier you supported the project, the earlier your game will go out. I will be staggering the shipments in groups of around 100 every few days, just to ensure that everything is flowing properly. I am hoping to have all games out and in the postal system within 15 days of starting.

Shipping specifics

Each game is being packed in a small, thick card-stock mailer which will prevent any damage in transport. Each game is individually wrapped and sealed in plastic, and the game box itself is quite rigid and will hold up in transport. I expect there to be very few, if any, damaged deliveries.

Due to the low weight and volume of the game, it opens up a lot of options for shipping. My goal is to get it to everyone safely, and inexpensively. Rest assured -- if you pledged for this project, you will get your game. By keeping the fulfillment in-house, I'm able to keep costs down and will be overseeing it all personally.

As noted on the project Kickstarter page, I will be shipping everything in accordance to whatever International laws apply for your delivery service -- I have no control over how your country handles customs or duties on incoming product. I don't anticipate this being an issue for 99% of backers because the game is such low value, and it is essentially a gift, but some of the higher value premium boxes may be flagged.

US/Canada shipments

Single games: These will be sent via Canada Post or USPS. Most deliveries should happen within 5-7 business days.

Multiple games / leather editions: These will be sent via Canada Post or USPS as parcels. Again, should be 5-7 business days.

International shipments (everywhere else)

These are being sent out by a few different services based on your location. Most should be delivered within 2 weeks. Anticipate up to a month of waiting.

Communication

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns, but I just ask for continued patience as we move these out all over the world. The pandemic has caused a lot of postal / infrastructure delays, especially when it comes to International shipping.

Bigger picture & impact

Also, while I am not preachy about it.... This project was in part designed to show the "world" of tabletop game designers that we can make a difference by thinking outside the box. Quite literally. I see tons of community discourse around the design community about how we can change things -- switching to bamboo or a more compostable box, changing components from plastic to other materials, etc. 

Here's how we did it: the entire first print run (thousands of games) fits on my desk, stacked half a foot high. 

While components and materials make a difference, that discussion misses the core problem with the tabletop industry. Fulfillment and logistics not only costs game publishers and consumers tons of money, but it causes incredible stress to the environment. No matter the materials put in to a game box, that box then has to be moved all over the world. It takes up room in vans, ships, planes, warehouses. You've all helped make a difference and prove that you don't need a 2kg box and countless components to make a compelling game.

Of course, some games are destined for big boxes! But, food for thought.

short & sweet: customs clearance done! pickup on Monday
over 3 years ago – Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 03:13:57 PM

Hey all, customs clearance was all good. The games are current warehoused in Montreal, and unfortunately the warehouse is closed until Monday. So I’m going to be doing a nice little trip Monday morning to grab them!

Excited to get this show on the road!