Navigate the path to power in this interactive strategy game about Afghanistan in the nineteenth century.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Component Sneak Peak & PAX Unplugged
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 09:09:37 PM
Hi Backers!
Drew here. It's been a while since we last checked in, so let me get folks caught up a bit with Pamir.
Cole and I have been working on game components with our manufacturer for the last few weeks and boy howdy, this game is going to be beautiful. We have made tweaks for nearly every component to increase playability from graphic design to material choice. We will manufacture Pamir with high-quality components at every level of its presentation. This production is only possible because of crowd funding. Second Edition is going to feel absolutely deluxe, just you wait.
For now, here's a sneak peak of some resin blocks, wooden ruler tokens, and the resin marker:
We're really happy with how the wood and resin pieces are coming along! Though they are test samples from our manufacturer, they feel perfect for Pamir. The final pieces will be colored and varnished, but I hope this glimpse gets you excited to see the next phase of development. We will be revealing more component images next week or so.
Cole is in Philly this weekend with Leder Games stumping for Root and Vast at the PAX Unplugged convention. If you are attending PAXU, feel free to say hello to Cole and the Leder Games folks @ Booth 2415!
If you happen to be at PAX, you'll also have the chance to play a prototype of Pamir in the First Look area. The prototype has a lot of makeshift components, but you'll be able to see the nearly-perfect cloth map and the final card design.
That's all for now. Thanks for your support and stay tuned for pictures of the updated components in the coming update.
Drew
An Updated Rulebook (and TTS mod), SMG's new Kickstarter, and BGG Con
over 5 years ago
– Sun, Nov 11, 2018 at 11:32:52 PM
Hi everyone,
As I wrote in the last update, Drew and I's work has shifted away from development and more to product design over the past few weeks. We are, of course, still tuning the cards, hammering out the solo game, and stress-testing the stranger decks that can crop up in the game, but the rules haven't changed meaningfully in quite awhile. At this moment, the to-do list pinned to the wall by my desk is populated mostly with items about the design of specific components and texts that I want to re-read before I finalize the historical notes on the cards. I've been handing over design assets for the hard components and we'll probably have some photos to share within a month or two with prototypes. Everything is on schedule.
Today, I wanted to share a few things.
The Rulebook (and TTS mod)
In terms of form-factor, illustrations, and content, this is getting very close to final. I have yet to tack on the solo rules and the historical notes (and the credits), but they are getting close. If you'd like to take a look, you can find them here.
As always, I am happy to receive any of your comments either by message (cole AT wehrlegig.com) or just by commenting directly on the drop box file. In structuring this rulebook, I've really tried to make the game as accessible as possible while being concise. So, while the rulebook is 15 pages long, it's a much easier read than the first edition!
A couple weeks ago a few of us at Leder Games had the immense pleasure to represent the company at Essen. Though my days were filled with Root business, I was able to set aside some time to spend with Phil Eklund. At this point I've been working with Phil in one capacity or another for nearly a decade, but we had actually never met in-person before. Well, we hit it off and I found him to be as gracious, interesting, and enthusiastic as I imagined.
Over the con I played a lot of his (and Jon Manker's) new game, Bios: Origins. Its predecessor, Origins: How We Became Human, has long been one of my favorite game designs, and so I went into my first plays of Bios: Origins with some trepidation. It didn't take long for my fears to be alleviated. Bios: Origins is a remarkable game, brimming with compelling ideas. It's got a simple, study framework that is able to support its weighty themes with ingenious mechanics. Based on those plays, I can easily recommend the game to anyone interested in Phil's work or civilization games that aren't interested in just porting Sid Meier's ideas to the analogue space. If you're interested, you can find the game here.
Pax Pamir Returns to Dallas
Five years ago I brought an early stage prototype of Pax Pamir to BGG con. The feedback I got was invaluable, and went a long way in encouraging me to finish that game. Every year since then I've just happened to bring Pamir with me to the con. This year will be no different. Drew and I will be at BGG con with a copy of the second edition. We won't have the fancy components, but we will be more than happy to teach (and loan out) our prototype. There are no official games scheduled, but It's usually pretty easy to find folks at the convention. If you have trouble tracking me down, sending me an email (again, cole AT wehrlegig.com), is probably the best way to connect.
Alright, that's all for now.
Seeing the Game for the First Time
over 5 years ago
– Sat, Nov 03, 2018 at 01:23:48 AM
Hi everyone,
It's been a couple weeks, and so I figured it was about time to let you all know what we've been up to. Well, I spent last week at Essen, mostly meeting with our language partners for Root and playing a boatload of interesting prototypes and curious new designs. So, not much Pax work got done on my end.
Thankfully Drew kept pushing things along. He's been hammering the solo game, which seems to be getting very close to being done. I'll be laying out the special cards for the solo game next week, and I suspect the solo game will be the subject of our next major update.
This week, we locked down the final quote for the game, and I started turning files over to the factory for some of the game's hard components. We also finished testing on our final icons for the game. The new impact icons are a bit of a departure from the beveled "jewel" style of the original game. Eh, who am I kidding, the old impact icons looked a little too close to buttons in a Windows 95-era RTS. The new impacts icons were created following the advice of Abol Bahadori, the wonderful artist who did the action icons. They strike a balance between the hand-drawn look of the actions, while maintaining clarity. They are also much larger than the older icons as they are no longer stacked with like types on a card. That is, a card that places 3 armies will have 3 rows of icons on the right. These have gone through a lot of testing, and have made the market dramatically easier to parse at a glance. Considering the necessity of using a very restrictive pallet for the icons, I'm very happy with how they have performed. We may be making a few small adjustments, but they are more-or-less set.
(Note the illustrations are very dark in my copy of the cards because Fed-Ex/Kinkos printers at default settings are not great). ALSO: I tried using a script font for the location, but that will likely change back to all capitals as in previous iterations)
We've also selected a producer for our cloth mats. We ended up decided on a multi-color design on a light colored cloth. This cut out certain producers that we would have been otherwise happy to work with. We've gone back and forth with our printer a few times and are settling on a final design now. Here's a picture of the mat in action:
A couple of notes: First, obviously the score track numbers and favored suit track are pretty unreadable. They were set up at these sizes and styles mostly as a test that I could use to inform the final design. The final design will have a bigger score track (extending around 3/4ths of the board) and the suit icons on the left will be much larger and have a big space for the favored suit pawn (a resin minaret!). Also, this board isn't quite laying flat because I had it folded instead of rolled up right before I took this photo. It will lay flat just fine and the box will have room for it to be stored loosely rolled.
BUT those caveats aside, I hope everyone is as happy as I am with this mat. When I laid it out and placed some cards around it, I felt like I got my first actual view of the game I've been trying to make. The combination and the contrast of materials is exactly what I was hoping for. Though my makeshift blocks aren't quite the right color or shape (they are close though), the juxtaposition of the stony resin(ish), wooden pieces, cloth mat, and finely detailed cards worked together exactly how I hoped they would.
Alright, that's enough for now. In the coming weeks, expect an update about the solo mode, a pdf of the final rulebook (ready for your many thoughts and comments!), and more previews of the game components. Oh also, I should be getting the calligraphy for the cover any day now, so I'll be sure to share that as well.
Next Steps with Backerkit
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 02:38:52 AM
Hi Backers!
Drew here. Happy to report that our Backerkit surveys will go live soon! If you haven't used Backerkit before, it's our pledge manager partner. They will send out email surveys to collect shipping information and allocate your pledged amount. Backerkit will email surveys soon, so keep an eye on your inbox.
Note: Sometimes Backerkit messages are sent to spam...check there if you haven't seen a message after a week.
It’s important to respond to your survey as quickly as you can since we need this information to fulfill your reward!
You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. Please provide shipping information and purchase additional copies or metal coins if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!
After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page.
If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact [email protected]
Late Pre-orders
For our friends that missed pledging during the campaign, hope is not lost! We are using Backerkit to manage a pre-order store! We will be keeping late pre-orders at $60/copy for a few weeks as a grace period for people that missed the KS, then we will raise the late-backer pledge to $65/copy in mid-Nov. You'll see the pre-order store link on our main KS campaign page as well.
Every copy of Pax Pamir: Second Edition will include all the stretch goal improvements, whether it was pledged in KS or purchased in Backerkit. Metal coins are the only add-on regardless of platform. We are proud that KS backers came out to help fund every stretch goal we offered, and moreover, we are proud to include those SGs in every copy of Pamir we're manufacturing this spring!
Pre-Order Window
Tentatively, we’re saying March 1st, 2019 is the deadline for late pledges. Address changes will still be possible until early June and we can always assist you until we begin fulfillment.
Questions
If you have a question, feel free to email me at [email protected] and I would be happy to assist you!
Thanks!
Drew
Things Move Along
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 01:41:29 AM
Hiya everyone!
There are a few exciting things in the works at the moment, and so I wanted to take a moment and update everyone on what Drew and I have been up to. In the past two weeks, we've settled into a nice routine. We've been putting in a little shift of Pax-related work about every other evening, and we usually manage to work a longer shift on Sundays.
Drew has been busy getting our pledge manager (Backerkit) set up. We hope to launch it October 15th and will open preorders for late backers. Initially, I believe these late backers are going to get the same deal that everyone on Kickstarter got, but the price will increase after a period of time (~30-45 days or so).
In addition to managing the business-side of the project, Drew has also been helping me find partners for a few of the odder elements of the game's production, such as the cloth map. We've got a few good candidates at the moment, but are waiting to settle until we get a couple more factory samples from them. I had hoped to have those samples last week, but one of them seems to have gotten lost in the mail and is currently sitting on someone's porch in Florida. This is why you build extra time in production schedules!
Development continues apace. I'm testing a few smallish alterations to the Dominance Checks which I'm finding really exciting to work with and open up some interesting new (and old) spaces. I'll go into more specifics after this week's battery of tests.
The biggest development hurdle of the past couple weeks was the rulebook itself. I spent about a dozen hours combing through the excellent feedback folks dropped into the document we shared on Kickstarter and making adjustments to some of the game's terminology and the structure of the rules. I'm used to writing pretty terse rulebooks, but, as this will be many players entry point into the Pax series, I'm hoping to maintain a conversational tone that, while specific, also indulges in some repetition to make sure key concepts stick. After this last edit, I'm really happy with the state of the rules and will soon be able to send them over to our editor, Travis Hill. After he goes through them again I'll be sure to share the next version.
In terms of graphics, there are a couple of announcements. First, I decided to commission the professional artist, graphic designer, and art director Abol Bahadori to do the action icons for the game. He's not a board game artist, but he was interested in the project and created a lovely and historical sensitive style for the game. He also offered me some art direction on the cards themselves and I've made some improvements to the icon system and the general layout. Just to give you a taste, here's a picture of the new march action:
(Note, though the icons are done as ink drawings, I'll be using digital watercolor washes to color certain elements so that it will easy to tell the icons apart at a glance. Also, I dropped the windows 95 style buttons in favor of larger action icons, which are about 50% larger than the older icons.)
Speaking of cards, the deck is now art-complete. I have all of the card illustrations I need. Now I just need to finish editing/writing all of those historical notes! For those that use Tabletop Simulator: I'll be providing new files for the deck art as soon as I have all of the art for the icons--potentially within a week or two.
Finally, I just wanted to let folks know that Drew will be gone for the next week. He's presenting at the North American Association for Environmental Education's big conference in Spokane on using game design in education. Drew handles most of the Kickstarter messages, so we apologize in advance for any delays in getting back to you.
