Updated #4 Route East - 235 and counting
Hello Travellers,
Two exciting updates for your Sunday evening - sit tight, they’re quick!
Firstly, since our Kickstarter landing page went live, we’ve hit over 230 followers so far. That’s great progress and, if they all pledge, we’re not far off fully funding! Amazing news! But the higher we get with that magic number the better, and the more likely we can get Route East on table tops around the world!
If you haven’t yet hit the notify button head over now! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lostventuregames/route-east
Jim Gamer’s Review
Our first review is in! The wonderful Jim Gamer has played Route East 6 times in total and has given us a fantastic review. A few points Jim raised that we’ll be addressing:
More focus on country information
Jim has suggested we tune in more on the details of the places players will visit. More content and more info. Each Attraction Card contains a snippet about the location, but we’ll be expanding this out with 4 extra pages in the rulebook featuring top 5 interesting facts about each country that you won’t find in a guidebook.
More attractions
The game is currently designed for players to visit 3 attractions if playing as a two or three, or 2, for games with three to five players. On Jim’s sixth runthrough, he played Route East with each player visiting a whopping 6 attractions! While it took him longer to finish, he liked the extra challenge!. So…we’ll be including something in the rules to say players can load the game with as many attractions as they like should they wish to add extra difficulty. Though we’ll still recommend the normal amounts for a first playthrough.
Take a full read of Jim’s review over on their website: https://www.whatboardgame.com/post/route-east-board-game-preview
Instagram: @LostVentureGames
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lostventurehq
BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/349071/route-east
More updates are coming soon!
Jonny, George, Petra, and the Route East Team
Update #3 Kickstart Launch is Set!
Hello Travellers!
It’s been a mammoth journey to get to the ‘submit’ stage of our Kickstarter launch, but we finally made it, with our go-live date locked in as March 8th. That’s just 8 weeks away!
The race isn’t quite over though. We’re still finalising our Kickstarter page, our launch trailer (which is looking amazing), our advertising campaign and a few other bits and bobs.
We’ve also now published our work in progress rules, which we’d welcome you to take a read of to find out more about how the game works and what to expect. You can take a look here: https://lostventuregames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/route-east-rules.pdf
Of course, make sure you’re following our Instagram where the majority of our updates go (https://www.instagram.com/lostventuregames/)
So now it’s just a waiting game! The one thing we would ask is that you head to our Kickstarter holding page and hit ‘Notify me of launch’. This means that Kickstarter will drop you an email when our page goes live, and the game is ready to pledge! Every little helps and we really appreciate all your support so far! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lostventuregames/route-east
More updates are coming soon as we shortlist 3 manufacturers and nail down the finer details!
Best,
Jonny, George, Petra, and the Route East team.
Instagram: @LostVentureGames
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lostventurehq
BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/349071/route-east
Update #2 The Prototype Arrived!
Hello Travellers!
We’re coming to you with our second update and oh boy, it’s a big one! So buckle in and let’s get straight to it!
Fast-forward just over two months from revealing Route East to the world (and now 13 months from the birth of the idea) our prototypes have arrived! Whilst this may seem very ‘sudden’ - they’ve been a long time coming and the ‘route’ here (excuse the pun) hasn’t been easy.
Even at the prototype stage (where things going wrong is sort of fine), it was paramount to us that we printed a prototype that was as close to finished as possible. We now have 8 prototypes that will be doing the rounds for our final phase of playtesting. We’re looking for groups of 4 or 5 to playtest - if you’re interested please email us at [email protected] or drop us a message on Insta or Twitter.
Let’s speed it up!
Shortly after version 7 (ish) of the game popped out of the old ink-jet, we decided that we needed to speed it up a little. No-one likes a game that drags on.
We’re now at the 1 hour mark for a 2-3 player game, and 90 minutes for a 4-5. This is down about 30%.
To change the timing of a game, you’ve got to mess with the mechanics - and when you’ve got a fun game that works nicely, but is just a little too long, that’s a daunting prospect. The approach we’ve taken though is to throw certain actions into the game to allow players to move along the map faster (a few more freight trains and some supercharged fuel that gives you an extra move). It’s proven successful, but we’re still fine tuning.
Prototypes!
For the last month, we’ve been getting our files print-ready. That’s not just double checking, but also resizing every piece of artwork (that’s 315 single artwork files in case you were interested) to fit the specifications of our prototype makers. While these are ‘just’ prototypes, they need to be as close to finished as possible so our playtesting can be thorough and accurate.
Days before Christmas final files were sent over, and by Boxing Day, we had photographs of the prototype for review! A few days later, they arrived. This was the first time we saw the artwork properly printed, without lines on it and without the red ink slowly depleting. The final prints are truly stunning and really do the game and all its hand-drawn elements justice - all thanks to our brilliant illustrator Yulia.
The Kickstarter count-down has (almost!) begun
So what’s next for Route East? Well, in the first two weeks of January we will be finalising our Kickstarter page. This isn’t a quick job and our entire team will be working on this to get it over the line. Once this is finished and submitted, we’ll be nailing down a launch date.
This is most likely going to be early March - which really isn’t too far away. Good news is that we were so impressed with our prototypes that we’re most likely going to be using the same company to produce the actual game, which means we’re halfway there from a manufacturing front; something that will certainly speed up delivery for our supporters.
Please, please spread the word!
We adore this stunning game, based on a true story and an epic adventure four years ago. Everyone we have played with so far has loved it too, and we want as many people to learn about these fantastic destinations, race to Shanghai, and get into some heated fuel-stealing arguments along the way as well!
We need your support to do this so please spread the word to friends and family. Ask people to sign up to our newsletter where we’ll be doing regular updates, and follow our channels for the very very latest.
Instagram: @LostVentureGames
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lostventurehq
BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/349071/route-east
More updates are coming soon!
Jonny, George, Petra, and the Route East Team