Changes to the Evolution Promo Card add-ons
almost 5 years ago – Fri, Jul 12, 2019 at 02:08:07 AM

I'm a game design perfectionist, in the extreme. It helps our game studio maintain high standards, but it's annoying to completionists, who feel compelled to re-buy things they already have when we make small improvements. To you collectors, I apologize in advance for this announcement.

There are three promo packs of trait cards for Evolution among the add-ons for the Oceans campaign, and I've recently improved them. I'm writing to let you know about these improvements. If you added the promo packs onto your pledge, you'll be getting these improved cards. 

Most of the changes are cosmetic:

• All promo cards have a PROMO icon.
• The cards are foiled to make it obvious they are promo cards.
• We have standardized the layout, formatting, and iconography.
• Climate icons have been added to every card to make them compatible with Evolution: CLIMATE.

Some of the changes are structural:

• There will no longer be event cards in Evolution. They create problems in the digital game.
• We tweaked a few cards to make them better balanced.

Evolution Promo Card Pack #1

Here are the updated cards in Card Pack #1. The changes to these cards are only cosmetic. 

Evolution Promo Card Pack #2

Here are the updated cards in Card Pack #2. Invasive Species, Last Stand, and Pounce are no longer event cards. Additional structural changes are listed below. 

• Last Stand was modified to make it viable as a trait.
• Pounce no longer requires an additional attacking phase.
• Quills was too weak so we added the first sentence.
• The Non-Carnivore effect of Sharp Teeth now takes 2 Food instead of 1. 

Evolution Promo Card Pack #3

Here are the updated cards in Card Pack #3.  

• Timid was too powerful, so we made it more difficult to get food. 
• We made the effect of Trample optional to give players more control.

 Future Evolution Expansions 

Evolution promo cards are not only designed to give our super fans something fun, they are also used to test cards that might get used in a future expansion. This is why we will continue to tweak them when necessary. You will probably see some of these cards in future expansions, and most assuredly in upcoming scenarios for the digital version of Evolution. 

Thanks again for your continued support and interest in the Evolution series. We've got plans for the series. Just you wait...

 ~ Dominic Crapuchettes, designer of Evolution & co-designer of Oceans 

Final component list & Final rules. Info on Bundle #1 and Bundle #2.
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Jul 02, 2019 at 03:21:53 AM

Final Rules Documents

Here are the final print files.  These 6 documents are listed in the order you will come across them when you open up your copy of Oceans.  The player aids are exactly the same except for the scientific/silly naming scheme.

• Intro
• Reef Variant
• Rules
• Reference Guide
• Player Aid v1
• Player Aid v2

Expansion Deep cards: Bundle #1 and Bundle #2

These 12 cards were designed after the Kickstarter campaign ended. They are not included in your copy of Oceans (standard or deluxe).   The Deep was designed to be infinitely expandable without throwing off the balance of the game, so you can pick and choose which cards to add to your copy of the game. 

We reached out to our partners last Friday about translating the extra 12 expansion/promo cards. Our German partners said they will provide the translated cards to their customers, but if I understand correctly, they don't want to use Backer Kit for these bundles. I will post an update as soon as I've heard back from our other partners.

Final Component List

Oceans

• 120 Surface cards
• 89 Deep cards
• 200 Fish tokens
• 25 Scenario cards
• 24 Species boards
• 1 Reef board
• 1 Ocean board
• 4 Player screens 
• 4 Bonus tokens 
• 1 Cambrian Explosion card 

Bonus Stretch Goal Content  

These components will come in every Kickstarter & Late Pledge copy of Oceans (standard and deluxe):

• 15 Scenario cards (foiled)  
• 10 Deep cards (foiled - this include Sparkles)   
•  5-6 player expansion:   
•           > 40 Fish tokens        
•           > 10 Species boards      
•           > 2 Player screens      
•           > 2 Bonus tokens 

Oceans Deluxe  

These components will only come in Oceans Deluxe:

• 240 Acrylic fish tokens
• 150 Surface card sleeves
• 150 Deep card sleeves
• 6 Player Bags

Let me know if you have any other questions.  I tried to answer everything that came up in the comments of my last update. Cheers!

 ~ Dominic Crapuchettes, founder of North Star Games & co-designer of Oceans  

Oceans promo cards now available on Backer Kit. Also, a timeline update.
almost 5 years ago – Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 03:01:11 AM

Promo Cards

Nick has added two sets of Deep cards as add-ons on Backer Kit.  Each set has 6 unique cards that can be added to your Deep deck to expand Oceans.  

Add-on Bundle 1: Expansion Deep Cards

These cards will be available for $2 each on our website, or you can buy them in a discounted bundle as an add-on through Backer Kit.

Add-on Bundle 2: Promo Deep Cards (foiled)

The foiled cards will be available for $3 each on our website, or you can buy them in a discounted bundle as an add-on through Backer Kit. Promo cards have a slightly different angle than normal Deep cards. These cards appeal to a smaller subset of our fans, but within that subset, they are often the most loved cards available. They are either:

• More aggressive
• More chaotic
• Or more complicated

All the cards in this set except Hibernation are events that get used once and then discarded.

Timeline Update

The print files will be finalized by this Friday and sent to our international partners. We will begin the print run once they have translated everything and given us their print files. Once we start the print run, we will be able to give you an estimate on delivery dates.

You must finalize your pledge before August 1st. There are 900 people who have not yet filled out their surveys. The final day to change your pledge is July 31st. 

Thanks for all of your support and feedback. Oceans is a monster of a game. It's the biggest game I've ever worked on, but it's much more polished and smooth because of your participation. I've removed everything that isn't core to the game. Much love to all of you!

 ~ Dominic Crapuchettes, founder of North Star Games & co-designer of Oceans 

I just saw a tweet by Eric Lang which I love:

"A seasoned gamer can solve just about any problem in a design by adding rules.    A pro developer needs to solve the same problems while retaining simplicity and identity.   A master developer solves them while simplifying the game, still retaining identity."

How to Play Oceans - Rules Document
almost 5 years ago – Wed, May 29, 2019 at 01:44:03 AM

How to Play Oceans - Rules Document

Everyone has a different learning style, but we did our best to make this document foolproof. Let me know if, after reading it, you cannot figure out how to play. Thanks! The first link is to the rules document. The second link is to a Print & Play file for the Surface deck so you can refer to the card text.

• How to Play
• Surface Traits - Print & Play

The rules document was designed to be read with full 2-page spreads (not 1 page at a time). To see it this way, download the rules, open the PDF, click on "view", click on "page display", click on "Two Page View".  

Feedback

If you could not figure out how to play the game, or have suggestions on how to make the document better, please fill out the following Google form:

• Post your Rules Feedback Here

Behind the Scenes - What Goes into Rules Writing?

An extraordinary amount of work went into writing these rules.  

Nick & Brian handed an early version of Oceans to me nearly a year and a half ago. Since then, I've written and updated over 10 rule documents for alpha versions of the game. The last alpha rule document became the first beta rules documents that went out to over 300 external playtest groups. Every confused playtester helped clarify issues for the next iteration. 

Jonathan Liu (from Geek Dad) took the beta v3 document, re-wrote it with more polish, and worked with a graphic designer to create the Draft PDF that was posted in the campaign. After teaching Oceans to nearly 100 people at the Gathering and significant blind testing, I tweaked several rules and reworked the entire rules document based upon the feedback. 

Designing a great game is an iterative process, which makes rules writing difficult. You're trying to hit a moving target because the rules keep changing! Perhaps I should lock down the rules earlier in the process, but it's hard to let things go when you find a new way to solve a old problem. And every time you arrive at a new version of the rules, you have to test it with up to 100 new people, which give you more feedback. This iterative process has a way to making small problems seem painfully obvious, and impossible for me to ignore. Hopefully you'll agree that it has led to the end product becoming better. 

Stretch Goals

We're getting close! You will unlock 6 new cards if my Twitter account (DCrapuchettes) gets 14 new followers. What can you do to help? Retweet this post, tag your favorite reviewer, and ask for people to follow me. If we get to 4,000 followers by June 21 you will also another 9 additional Deep cards for free. Cheers!

 ~ Dominic Crapuchettes, founder of North Star Games & co-designer of Oceans 

Pledge manager improvements: fixed shipping fees, 2 more add-ons
almost 5 years ago – Sat, May 25, 2019 at 12:39:51 AM

Hi Backers, 

We've made two improvements to the pledge manager in the last couple of days: 

• Some backers were getting charged large shipping fees for small add-ons, like promo cards or wood fish. We've fixed that. If the fees were keeping you from getting the add-ons you want, you should be able to get them now. Those who have already filled out surveys will also get the savings, since no credit cards were charged prior to the change. Apologies for the inconvenience.
• We've added the acrylic fish and food bags as add-ons. 

A note going forward

My wife and I (campaign manager, Nick Bentley) will have a baby any day now, and I'll be off for three weeks when we do. Others at North Star will respond to BackerKit support requests, Kickstarter messages, and Kickstarter comments while I'm out. It's possible we may have slightly longer response times then, since the people responding will be doing it in addition to their normal jobs. 

Thanks everyone,

Nick Bentley