Been a bit absent of late, due mainly to looming deadlines. I have, however, been reading all the comments on the DB teams and have made some tweaks accordingly. The feedback has been very useful and I need to thank all of you who’ve taken the time to read and respond with your thoughts (whether I agreed with them or not). This is especially true of those of you who’ve found the time for a game with the new teams.
I’ve also been working with various clients to reorganise my schedule. This means some short deadlines in the short term, but a better spread overall and hopefully better visibility for what’s on the horizon in the medium-long term. All of which is intended to allow me to do more public testing for longer. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it does look like it should happen.
With that in mind, you can treat this as a heads up, or a warning order (if you’re feeling particularly military) for some Deadzone stuff in the next week-ish. There will only be a very short window to test it out, so if you want to join in now’s the time to get the stuff ready that you’ll need.
All of which reminds me that I still haven’t finished the post I started about playtesting and the various stages thereof. Ah, well… another time.
Quirkworthy 
Oh as far as playtesting for Deadzone…is there a list up of what we need to play the updated Beta rules/etc? If so me and my two buddies who went in on kickstarter together for this would love to know what we need/ideas to playtest along with the rest of those faithful followers 🙂
The biggest thing will be getting a board/scenery ready. have a look on the faceBook and other forums for some inspiring test tables folk have already made. I’ll be finalising stats for various factions – but I’m sure most gamers can find a model or two to proxy 😉
Is there a deadzone Facebook page??
Try https://www.facebook.com/groups/568703273169734/
Thanks Jake – is the Dreadball Beta finished now, or would you still like additional comments on the teams? I have a game on Monday where we’re planning on trying out some of the other teams.
I’m always happy to hear comments. Even if it’s been printed it’s worth knowing what’s going on. DreadBall, like every other game that survives (fingers crossed), will evolve over the years. I hope that it will continue to grow in popularity and we’ll be able to continue to develop it. Part of that development will be tweaking the balance of things as we go along, if anything is seriously out of kilter. Feedback is always worth having 😉
I’m interested in demoing. Are dust tactics tiles good to use as a board? Hope you have asterian stats soon as they seem the most interesting to me. 🙂
YaY! Deadzone updates! Do you know if James plans to start over and get a Deadzone gameplay video with the latest rules posted at any point? The video that was posted while rushed, did help with establishing any tricky bits in how the game plays. A video that tackles elevation, true point of view, etc… will be valuable in getting others interested in the game.
I haven’t spoken to him about it so I can’t say for sure. It all depends on timing, I suspect. If we can get one sorted in time it might not be a bad idea. Mind you, having said that the written rules are what people need to be able to learn the rules from, so perhaps it is a bit of a distraction. What we really need to be doing is ensuring that the rules and diagrams are as clear as they can be.
So all you have to do is learn to think exactly like me then it will be easy 😉
I’m already keen to the way you think. 😉
I’m a retailer backer. I like being able to quickly show a customer how cool a game is. The Dreadball Academy videos on Beasts of War have been fantastic and I hope we don’t have to wait as long for some Deadzone coverage in the same fashion. It’s a great marketing tool.
We’ve got a mockup board and some proxy figs waiting for the Beta updates. Be assured your clean crisp rules take priority.
A good, but slightly different, point. Demo videos for marketing will be well worth doing, though I’d really want the finished product to show off and we won’t have that any time soon. At present we don’t have the models, board, rules, cards or scenery in their final form so it’s not going to look like the product you’ll be selling.
I’ll forward your comment onto the relevant folk at Mantic so they are reminded 🙂
Looking forward to the new Deadzone material. I have used Dust Tactics boards and scenery along with some buildings quite successfully! Keep up the great work, Jake!