Pax Pamir: Second Edition

Live Teach and Play-through tonight at 9 EST
about 5 years ago – Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 01:25:16 AM

Hi folks!

Cole is teaching and playing a full game of Pax Pamir on Heavy Cardboard tonight. Stream starts in about 10 minutes (9pm EST) on their HC Youtube channel. 

If you are able to watch some of the stream, say hello in the comment section! You can find me there answering any and all Pamir questions tonight. Let us know what you are looking forward to the most about this new edition : )

Hope you can join us for the play-though!

Drew

Heavy Cardboard Teach and Playthrough and PAX East's First Look
about 5 years ago – Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 12:03:53 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm happy to report that I've survived my travels so far. It was wonderful to meet so many of you at SXSW in Austin and then at GDC in San Francisco. Thankfully, I've managed to get a little rest this weekend, because, in a few days, I'll be heading to Boston for PAX East. 

Everything is going well as far as the production goes. I'm afraid we've entered the part of the process where we don't have much to show for it and where no news should be considered good news.

That said, we've got a few things for you in store. First, on Wednesday, I'll be joining Edward and his crew for a live teach and play-through over at Heavy Cardboard. We'll be starting the show at 9pm (Eastern US) and the whole stream will probably take two or three hours. Drew should be in the comments section as well to answer any questions you might have about the design or the production of the game. 

After that I'll be taking my copy of Pamir to PAX East where it will be featured in the First Look section. For those that aren't familiar with the event, First Look is one of the real highlights of the PAX shows. Over about 20  tables, tons of upcoming games are featured and are set up in advance, ready to play. They even have a helpful staff that can guide you through the rules. If you happen to be in Boston and plan on going to the show, be sure to stop by and take a look!

I'll be spending most of my time at the show with my coworkers over at the Leder Games booth where we will be demoing some of the new content for Root. If you'd like to say hi, you can find me at booth TT52.

Alright, that's it for now. Hopefully I'll see you Wednesday for the stream! 

Plastic Tray, Upcoming Travel (SXSW, GDC, PAX East), and a Payment Update
about 5 years ago – Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 09:01:42 PM

Hi everyone,

Cole here. Things are about to get pretty hectic, so I wanted to use this quiet Sunday morning to bring everyone up to speed with what we've been up to.

A few updates ago I talked a little about making the box a bit taller so that we could accommodate sleeved cards into our tray design. After some back and forth we arrived at a solid solution. For those who want to sleeve your card with premium sleeves, worry not. 

Normally I'm the kind of person that tosses any plastic tray that comes with a game. But, with the design of this edition of Pax Pamir, we wanted to make sure the wonderful (and heavy) resin blocks didn't damage the other components. This was espeically true of the cloth mat which could get smashed easily. 

To remedy that we had to make the box just a little taller than originally planned. 

As you can see, the new box (white) has grown about a 10mm. This puts it just a little thicker than our average Splotter box but still well under the size of the typical bookcase euro game. (Note: the cover of the Pax Pamir box pictured here is not the final cover.) 

As you can see, even with that size increase, it's still a snug fit. There's just a few mm of air in the box and everything will stay together fine regardless of whether the box is stored horizontally or vertically.

(Note these punch-board components are not final. They were just printed and cut in a shop, so don't worry about those white edges.)

All of the components in the tray are held together with a clear plastic lid. Also note that I have included the bag filled with metal coins, so those should fit without too much trouble. If you do use card sleeves though, you will need to get a little clever and transfer some of the wooden pieces to the small center cavity (which normally just holds the ruler tokens and favored suit marker). 

The cloth mat does not get crushed by the other components. There's a lot of heavy stuff in this box and we had to make sure that those wonderful resin blocks don't hurt the printed components!  

Now, here's my favorite part. It took some doing, but we eventually got to a design that allows for the block tray to be easily lifted out. A special thanks is owed to the excellent engineers at Panda for helping me through this. 

The final block tray will be transparent, which should look a little nicer on the table. I should say that originally we wanted a heavy plastic or wooden tray, but we just kept running into production design problems (cost, size, weight, etc). And, as we tested various options we discovered that our initial hopes for this element of the production were poorly grounded. For instance, we had originally had planned a tray with individual slots for each block, but this turned out to be a bad idea for two reasons: first, it took up a lot more space and, second the blocks were a lot harder to store because they would knock around when the box was stored vertically. It was also more fiddly to play with as you couldn't easily pull or return multiple  blocks to the tray. There are solutions to this problem but they led to an even larger profile which meant more weight and more expense. As lavish as this production of Pax Pamir is, we never wanted the game to seem over-produced. Ultimately the product has to make sense and be modest in its own way. So, the undivided tray was the way to go. 

Most folks will know that the plastic used for vacuum trays like this is pretty thin. This is a big asset for something that needs to fit in a tight space and be flexible enough for blocks to be scooped out. It's also quite durable and the turned out top edge provides a lot of structural strength. In other words, we think we've made a tray that is worth keeping.

Okay, enough about the tray. I also wanted to let everyone know that I'll be travelling quite a bit this month for Leder Games as we promote the next Root expansion on Kickstarter (Launching March 14!!). 

This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday you can find me at SXSW in Austin. Mostly I'll be in and around the tabletop area running demos. Then, on Sunday, Patrick and I will be speaking about the creation of Root at a panel at 1pm on the Discovery Stage (Exhibit Hall 2). 

Right after we give our talk, I'll be flying to San Francisco for GDC. On Monday I'll be speaking at 11:20 in Room 3005 (West Hall) and offering a defense of Kingmaking in Board Game Design. Though both talks are being recorded I'm not sure the degree to which they will be available afterwards, but I'll try to keep everyone posted. Following me on twitter is the best way to get that kind of information.

Furthermore, at the end of this month I'll be at Pax East with Leder Games as we wind up our Kickstarter campaign. I'm happy to report that Pax Pamir: Second Edition will be in the First Look section, so you can finally get a chance to play the copy I keep taking pictures of! There's also a good chance of a Heavy Cardboard playthrough happening around that time too, but I'll wait till I have specifics before I say more. 

Finally, we want to express our thanks for your response on Backerkit. We've locked orders and plan to confirm addresses right before we plan to ship. Another reminder that if you preordered any amount over your KS pledge in Backerkit (or if you were a late backer after the campaign), your order will be processed closer to our shipping date in early June. We'll send another update about address confirmation deadlines later on. If you have any questions or concerns about your order, you can always reach out to [email protected]

Thanks!

Worldwide pre-orders closing 2 days, new US orders still open, and MSRP update
about 5 years ago – Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 10:13:30 PM

Hi backers!

Drew here. I want to share a few Pax Pamir production updates as we move forward into manufacturing this spring and delivery this summer:

We are on track for delivery in July! We are so happy with how development and pre-production has been moving along, and we are especially pleased with how the final game is going to look, feel, and play. This production is truly beyond our expectations. Once we have the final version of the box + components (what we currently have in our hands is about 90% accurate), we will take a nice series of photos and potentially a little unboxing video.

During the pre-production phase of product design and material testing, Cole and I kept saying “this game is such a deal!” The quality of the box, resin + wood pieces, cards, cloth mat. It feels like such a luxury to produce a game with such high quality components. All the pieces feel like they are not just enabling this design we are exceedingly proud of, but they are actively adding value and immersion.  Pax Pamir: Second Edition is an expensive game to manufacture and ship because of the components. Cole and I are here to make something remarkable and we’re proud to say Pamir deserves a higher price tag. We’ve decided to raise the MSRP of Pax Pamir: Second Edition to  $84.99. This does not change anything to current orders. This shouldn't change anything for int'l orders declaring value at customs. The reason behind raising MSRP is to set a much more representative value of the product after release in its limited retail market. This summer, we will plan to sell remaining Pamir at the updated MSRP. Backers helped raise funds so we could make a the best production of Pamir possible, and value gained from the crowdfunding should be reflected in its cost for this printing.

So, if you know others that want to preorder Pax Pamir: Second Edition, there are two days left to Preorder worldwide through our Backerkit! You can find and share the link to the Backerkit pre-order store here. 

Also, a reminder that current KS/Backerkit backers have two days left to make changes (add coins or additional copies) to their Backerkit orders! We plan to lock orders on March 1st, around 4:00pm CDT. Locking current orders allows us to give the best estimate of our quantities to our manufacturer. 

We will be shipping all of our additional copies to our fulfillment hub in the US, and we will plan to accept new US preorders after March 1st. After March 1st, new Backerkit orders will be available only to US customers for a limited time. We plan to keep new US orders open until late May. We’ve partnered with Ion/SMG to handle new EU customers. Ion Games/SMG will be selling a limited amount of Pamir 2e in the EU later in 2019. We will share info about when Pamir is on sale through Ion later this spring.

After orders are locked, Backerkit delivery addresses may still be changed. We will be solely using Backerkit addresses to fulfill orders. We will send an email to confirm your delivery address later this spring. That will be the address we give to our shipping partners in July!

Lastly, we have not charged cards for any Backerkit preorders yet. It’s best practice to withhold charging cards for Backer kit preorders until we are near our shipping date. If you have preordered any amount in Backerkit, expect your order to be processed when we charge cards in early June. Another update will come as we near the date we plan to process payment.

This is our dream version of Pamir, and we never could have made this production without your initial and continued support. So again, thank you for pre-ordering Pax Pamir: Second Edition and helping us make this game a reality!

If you have specific questions about your order, please let us help! Send a message to [email protected] or leave a comment below.

Drew

Wehrlegig Games 

A little 2-player TTS Stream
about 5 years ago – Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 12:03:23 AM

Hi everyone,

Drew and I are jumping into a two-player game (or two) on Table Top Simulator. If you'd like to join us and hear a little about how Pamir plays with two, the stream can be found here (starting now):

https://www.twitch.tv/wehrlegiggames

If you can't make the stream, don't worry, we're making a proper capture this time and will be uploading the video to youtube. In the next regular update, I'll be sure to include a link to the video.