Sprocketforge: A Gear-Turning Engine Builder

October Post-Campaign Update
14 days ago – Thu, Oct 03, 2024 at 04:06:59 PM

Now that everyone is back home from their various endeavors, it’s time for the October post-campaign update! In this month’s update we’ll share where we’re at with manufacturing, talk about the pledge manager, go over our final faction overview, and (for those who are interested) end with a few photos from Jeremy’s multi-week trip out west!

The files for the resin resources have been sent to the factory and are in the process of being modified for mass production! This was the last of our long-lead-time items, so we’re happy to have checked that box off. The below shapes will be modified for mass production, but here’s a rough idea of what they will look like! We went back and forth on including the bases, but ended up deciding to keep them for ease of stacking the resources in your exhaust and on the enchantments themselves.

Speaking of resources, we also have the final wooden resource shapes ready as well! See below for what the upgraded wooden resources will look like, noting that these will be included in all games since they were unlocked via stretch goals:

We’re putting the finishing touches on the advanced and solo modes before getting all the final files sent over to our manufacturer. The balancing has taken slightly longer than expected, but that is why we build a bit of a buffer into the timeline! We want to make sure the abilities (for the advanced mode) and difficulties (for the solo mode) all feel good and are properly balanced. We’re now hoping to have all the final files sent over by the end of this month!

Time to talk about everyone’s favorite topic - pledge managers! We currently expect to open the pledge manager for Sprocketforge on November 3rd, immediately after we publish that month’s campaign update. For those who aren’t familiar with what a pledge manager is, it’s a tool that many crowdfunding creators use to collect shipping addresses, shipping fees, and taxes from their backers.

The form you fill out in the pledge manager is called a survey, and if you do not fill out your survey you will not receive your copy of the game since we’ll have no idea where to ship it. It is essential that you fill out the pledge manager as soon as possible after we send it out so (1) we know how many games to ship to each of our fulfillment centers and (2) you don't accidentally forget about it.

We put together a step-by-step guide on our website to walk you through the pledge manager in case this is your first time backing a campaign that used a pledge manager. This example was created to represent the process for someone who backed at the $150 all-in level since that covers most of our backers, but the process is very similar regardless of your pledge level.

At a high level, you’ll receive an email from [email protected] (which will show up as Sophisticated Cerberus Games) with the subject "Response Needed - Get your reward for Sprocketforge: A Gear-Turning Engine Builder". You can click on the link in the email to access and fill out your survey. An example of what the email will look like is below for reference:

If you don’t see the email within 24 hours of when we launch the pledge manager, make sure you check your spam / junk email folder. If you still don’t see it, you’ll always be able to look it up using your Kickstarter email at this link (once the pledge manager is open): https://sprocketforge.backerkit.com/.

Once you fill everything out, you’ll enter in your credit card to pay for shipping and any applicable taxes before confirming your order. Note that your credit card will not be charged right away. We currently plan on locking orders and charging credit cards on January 3rd, so you should have about two months to fill out your survey. We’ll send out an alert before we charge cards to make sure everyone is aware.

If you have any questions on the process please feel free to leave a comment on this update or send us a message and we’ll be happy to help.

It’s time for our final faction update, and we saved the best (most important?) for last - the founders of Sprocketforge: the gnomes!

Sprocketforge was founded centuries ago by a group of gnomes fleeing persecution at the hands of the then-ascendant human empire. Since then, the ingenuity of its inhabitants and its central position along the Wyrmsmoke River have grown the once-tiny settlement into a sprawling hub of culture and trade. But throughout its long and colorful history, the one constant has always been the iron grip its oldest gnomish families have held on power.

Gnomes are a small and physically weak species, which has always driven them to seek control. They tend to rule in many cities, not just Sprocketforge. Gnomes tend to have very strong opinions, even on the most trivial of topics. Their cities have debate halls where anybody may express an opinion at the cost of enduring interrogation by their audience. Gnomish confidence leads to an obsessive perfectionism that is both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.

Gnomish magic is unparalleled in its precision, complexity, and longevity, and their artifacts are completely impossible to reverse-engineer. It is said that even a simple mana-lamp enchanted by a gnome will last for centuries, a boast supported by archaeological evidence. Despite their skill as crafters, their ability to market their products tends to be undercut by their unshakeable belief that they know what their customers actually need, regardless of what they asked for.

Gnome crafters also love finding ways to meet requests in unexpected ways. Ask for a portable fire starter and you might get a hat that focuses the rays of the sun. Their creativity is sometimes welcome, but often it is advisable to word requests very carefully. It takes a strong will to stand one’s ground in the face of a gnome’s utter confidence, and many a customer caves to the pressure to change their own requirements.

Aetherbourne Cogworks is the foremost gnomish artificery in the city, and has a reputation for unparalleled quality. Its employees work long hours ensuring that every artifact produced meets the exacting standards of its management, and its works are sought after by every merchant group. But the funny thing about perfection is it can never truly be met, and so the gears keep turning, endlessly striving for an unreachable standard.

The gnomes’ abilities are based on balancing orders - they can gain orders by completing them but lose renown (points) if they have to manually gain face-up orders from the market. Their active ability also lets them use the many connections they have to take a bonus petition action during their turn. Don't worry though - other players can still follow that action!

This concludes the faction / advanced mode overview series. Keep an eye out for an overview of the solo mode to come in next month’s update!

Our tentative schedule for next year is below for reference, but please note that this is subject to change:

Protospiel MN (Bloomington, MN): 1/24 - 1/26
Con of the North (Plymouth, MN): 2/14 - 2/16
Protospiel Twin Cities (Roseville, MN): 5/30 - 6/1
Origins (Columbus, OH): 6/18 - 6/22
Gen Con (Indianapolis, IN): 7/31 - 8/3

This concludes the official portion of this month’s update, but if you’re interested in hearing about Jeremy’s recent trip feel free to keep reading!

I (Jeremy) was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of a new sabbatical benefit at my day job, in which I got four straight weeks off of work. I spent the vast majority of that time traveling on a national park road trip, heading from Minneapolis to Theodore Roosevelt, Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Wind Cave, and Badlands over the course of the past few weeks.

This was my first time going to any national parks, and it was a great experience! Those who know me know that I like to plan things out, so I prepared a multi-tabbed spreadsheet with all of my travel details (including what specific hikes I wanted to do in each of the parks). I won’t bore you with all the specifics, but I ended up hiking almost 200 miles across 50 trails during my trip.

See below for a photo from each of my 3 favorite hikes (in no particular order since I can’t decide which one I liked best):

It wouldn’t be a trip to a national park without some animal photos, so here are some of my favorites! I managed to see a black bear and her cubs from a distance, but missed seeing a grizzly by about a minute. I accidentally got much closer to a rattlesnake than I would’ve liked at Badlands, and got to see some moose at Grand Teton (among many other animals at the parks, including tons of bison, prairie dogs, and elk):

I think Glacier as a whole was my favorite park, followed fairly closely by Grand Teton. Each national park is pretty unique and I liked each of them, but those two were my favorites and I wouldn’t mind going back to them in the future.

For anyone who has been to any of these national parks, leave a comment with your favorite trail(s) or activities! Similarly, if you’ve been to other national parks that you’d recommend let me know about those too! I’d love to visit other parks in the future and have to figure out where to go next.

This is Jeremy, Ethan, and Matt, spinning away…

September Post-Campaign Update
about 1 month ago – Tue, Sep 03, 2024 at 07:47:30 PM

Now that we've recovered a bit from the campaign, it's time for our first post-campaign update! As a reminder, we will be providing monthly progress updates on or around the 3rd of each month. Note that next month’s update may be delayed a couple days due to some of us being out of town, but we plan for most updates to be right on the 3rd.

In this month's update, we'll go over some updates on the box art, resin resources, metal gears, other manufacturing items, and end with another faction update and a recap of our latest convention (2D Con).

For starters, we wanted to share some updates we're making to the box art! While these updates are not finalized yet, we wanted to make the cover artwork brighter and stand out more and we are quite pleased with the results. We hope you are too!

We've also been hard at work with our 3D sculptor to create the final resin resource models. While we don't have factory samples to share yet, here are some example pictures from our factory that show how we envision the finish to look on the final resources:

Changing gears (pun intended), thanks to everyone who responded to our metal gear survey. The overwhelming response was to have separate finishes for each player, so separate finishes it is!

We also had quite a few people ask for a blue steel or rose gold finish, so we're checking with our factory to see if those are possible. The most popular finishes by far were antique bronze and antique silver, and we have to say we agree! We currently plan on doing those two, black metal, and blue steel and rose gold if the factory is able to make those work.

Aside from all those updates, we continue putting the finishing touches on the advanced and solo modes and running blind playtests with the rulebook before we lock everything in.

We're pleased to share a sneak peek of the mini-expansion as well! The mini-expansion will contain 5 new House cards, which will be an entirely new class that requires the least amount of exhaust to petition. This means that they cannot be followed by other players like the other House cards can, so it introduces an additional benefit for maintaining a low amount of exhaust. A few sample cards are below, noting that these could still change slightly before we hit print:

It will also have a couple unique enchantments that can be added to the game! These new enchantments are the only ones with 2x recycle and 2x order icons on them, and they are also the only "full utility" enchantments (without any mana production):

Overall we're pleased with how things are progressing! We're still tracking towards beginning manufacturing in October, and we have already started some of the longer lead-time aspects (such as the gear molds).

It’s time to resume our regularly scheduled faction overviews! This will be the second-to-last entry in our faction deep-dive, with this month's spotlight on the goblins of the Adamant Moon faction!

Goblins are one of the most widely respected species in the city of Sprocketforge, due in no small part to their ironclad reputation for scrupulous dealings. Despite their fearsome appearance, goblins pride themselves on never breaking a deal, even when circumstances change. The popular saying, “that’s a promise forged of night,” is thought to have its roots in the historical reliability of goblins, the only nocturnal peoples among the sentient races.

Historically, goblins have come a long way from their distant ancestors. Centuries ago, they were reviled as little more than savages. As they integrated into society, their unbreakable code of personal honor did much to redeem a bad first impression, and they became ubiquitous among the bureaucracy and the merchant classes due to their incorruptibility. They can be very competitive, and have no compunctions about setting up business right next to a rival and blatantly poaching customers.

Nightlife in Sprocketforge is driven almost entirely by goblin culture, since they make up the majority of people awake at that time. Goblins love meat, and appreciate high quality meats prepared in elaborate ways. Goblin slang has over five hundred words describing different types of meat. They also love collecting obscure magical artifacts, due in part to an ingrained instinct to hoard.

Goblin magic is quick, but not particularly robust. While more durable than human creations, there is nothing about goblin-forged artifacts that is particularly notable. It is speed and reliability that attracts patronage, instead. Customers of goblin-run establishments expect to be served in a timely manner.

Though they already control much of the commerce of Sprocketforge, goblins now want to expand into the manufacturing sector, too. Adamant Moon is the first such venture. The artificery is a model of goblin efficiency and organization, with round-the-clock work hours and a ticketing system to ensure customers receive their orders in a timely manner. Through steady and reliable service, they will prove that goblin-made goods can be just as trustworthy as their makers.

Given their emphasis on throughput and timely delivery, Adamant Moon’s abilities all revolve around orders. Their orders form a queue that cannot be rearranged, and there are both bonuses and penalties based on the sequence in which you complete your orders. Players will need to carefully plan out their order selection and execution in order to maximize their efficiency!

Stay tuned for our final faction overview in next month’s update, which will be focused on the founders of Sprocketforge: the gnomes!

We wrapped up our last convention of the year about a week and a half ago, and we came home with some hardware!

There were lots of great games at 2D Con, so we're honored to have taken home the innovation award. Note that even though the award says it's for The Stifling Dark, attendees were just as enthralled by the metal gears in Sprocketforge as they were by the flashlights in The Stifling Dark - the voting form only had The Stifling Dark on it so it was the only option for attendees to vote for our games. Thanks once again to everyone who stopped by to say hi and check out our games!

With the last convention of the year over with, we're already looking forward to next year's conventions! Our tentative schedule for next year is below for reference, but please note that this is subject to change:

Protospiel MN (date and location TBD)
Con of the North (Plymouth, MN): 2/14 - 2/16
Protospiel Twin Cities (Roseville, MN): 5/30 - 6/1
Origins (Columbus, OH): 6/18 - 6/22
Gen Con (Indianapolis, IN): 7/31 - 8/3

That’s it for now! We’ll be back next month with more updates, keeping in mind that next month’s update may be a tad later than the 3rd due to some travel.

This is Jeremy, Ethan, and Matt, gearing back up…

Sprockets Fully Forged!
2 months ago – Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 01:02:09 PM

And that’s a wrap! Thanks so much to everyone who backed the game and helped bring Sprocketforge to life. Hitting that launch button is always incredibly nerve-wracking, but knowing that we have amazing supporters such as yourselves makes it just a tad easier.

We’re thrilled that we were able to unlock all of our stretch goals and get all the component upgrades we wanted into the game. Now that the campaign is over, the next phase of work begins!

We’ve been hard at work throughout the Kickstarter refining the solo and advanced modes of the game and working with our 3D sculptor and graphic designer to finalize the components and icons for production. We’ll share updates on that front as we have them, but as of now we are still on track to send files over to our manufacturer by the end of next month.

From there, manufacturing will take a couple months before the games are ready to be shipped to our distribution centers. We know we’re bumping up against Chinese New Year with our production timing, which is why we extended the production timeframe through February in case we don’t get the games out ahead of time.

We currently anticipate opening the pledge manager on November 3rd and closing it on January 3rd, but that will all depend on how manufacturing progresses. We will keep everyone updated in our monthly campaign updates and will send out plenty of notices ahead of time once we lock in final dates.

Note that late pledges are already available! We will be matching Kickstarter pricing for a limited time (likely until we open the pledge manager), at which point those will increase to MSRP. If you (or someone you know) missed out and wants to get a copy, they can do so now by visiting the below URL!

https://sophcerb.com/sfg_order

Seeing as we just posted a faction update yesterday, we’re going to skip that section in this update and include it in the next one. Gotta build up that anticipation for the next faction!

We wanted to end with a quick note on communication going forward. As mentioned on the main campaign page, we plan on sending campaign updates out once a month. There will be instances where we have to send one-off campaign updates (such as when we have major fulfillment news), but for the most part you can expect an update once a month.

As always, we’ll be active on BGG, our Discord, in the comments here on Kickstarter, on social media (@sophcerb), and via email ([email protected]). Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you ever have any questions and we’ll be happy to help out!

We’ll end where we started - with sincere gratitude for each and every one of you. You’re the ones that made this happen, and we can’t wait to get Sprocketforge out in the real world!

This is Jeremy, Ethan, and Matt, resting our gears…

24 Hours Left!
2 months ago – Wed, Aug 14, 2024 at 01:17:47 PM

It’s been a wild ride, and we’re down to the last 24(ish) hours of the campaign! Thanks to everyone who has supported the campaign so far and who stopped by at Origins or Gen Con to say hi and check out the game. We blew through the action token stretch goal and just reached the $60,000 for the final stretch goal with the metal coin! We are ecstatic that we unlocked all of our goals with this one!

The metal first-player coin will fit in quite nicely with the metal gears, so fingers crossed we have a strong finish and nail that goal as well! Speaking of metal gears…

It’s survey time! As promised in our previous update, we wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on having all metal gears be the same finish or having 5 separate finishes (one finish for each player). You can vote for that and choose your favorite finish in the below survey:

https://forms.gle/Zak6a6reVHs5oZX57

We’ll keep the survey open for a week to ensure everyone has enough time to vote and share the results in the next campaign update after the survey closes. Time to get voting!

As a reminder, the campaign will end at 3 PM US Central Time tomorrow. That will be your last opportunity to lock in your free mini expansion by pledging at least the base level ($60) and being on our mailing list! If you get redirected to the Kickstarter page after clicking on the mailing list it means you’re on the list already so you’re good to go!

We are still on track to have the files ready and sent to our manufacturer by the end of September. In fact, we have actually already begun manufacturing! Our factory is in the process of producing the mold for the plastic and metal gears since those had the longest lead time and are already finalized. That just means there’s less to do once we have the remaining files sent over!

We’ll share more specific timing for the pledge manager in a future update, but we’ll give you plenty of warning before it opens and closes.

It wouldn’t be a campaign update without a faction overview! We have two more factions left to go after this week, so we’re officially at our halfway point. This update’s featured faction is none other than your friendly neighborhood dwarves of the Singing Stone faction.

The Hunger. For the entire history of their people, Dwarven life has been shaped by their physiological need to absorb ambient mana. Without it, their powerful muscles atrophy and their luxuriant beards wither and rot. Too long without access to mana and a dwarf will die. Ambient mana is plentiful beneath the ground where manastone is abundant, but is scarce on the surface. Unfortunately, in the modern world, the surface is where civilization is.

Dwarves tend to be very sociable people, perhaps due to thousands of years living in dark, cramped underground spaces. Torn between their need for mana and their desire for company, many turn to drinking to numb the aching hole of mana deprivation. Alcohol affects dwarves differently than most species, and it is almost impossible for a dwarf to become completely drunk. Unfortunately, this also makes for a very expensive habit.

Since ancient times, dwarves have primarily expressed their magical talents through their unique runic techniques. They discovered early on that carefully traced runic circuits could precisely control and amplify mana emitted by manastones, and developed the art of “auracrafting” around this method. Though slower than some other magical techniques, auracrafting is capable of producing beautiful and subtle effects not possible with most other forms of magic.

Sprocketforge, like many cities, was designed to accommodate dwarves’ unique needs. Underground manastone bars flourish throughout the city, built for dwarves to recharge while enjoying a beer and chatting with a friend. Though dwarven employees require frequent and lengthy breaks when working in above-ground establishments, their stalwart work ethic, tendency to work well with others, keen eye for detail, and innate mana sensitivity makes up for it.

Some dwarves, however, yearn for more. They want to walk the streets without needing to always track the nearest tunnel entrance, to enjoy a nap in the midday sun, or to live in an apartment building on the top floor. Singing Stone was founded by dwarves with a dream - to use their skill and determination to create a city where specially crafted mana pylons stand at every street corner, emitting a song of nourishment and strength. Such a lofty goal requires influence, however, and a lot of money.

The dwarves’ abilities are all related to their insatiable appetite for mana. They will be able to interact with stored mana much more often than other factions, but they also need to continuously disenchant or reforge their gears or risk losing points. Singing Stone’s abilities can be very synergistic if you play your cards (or gears) well. Stay tuned for another faction overview in our next campaign update!

That’s it for now! We’ll be back tomorrow once the campaign ends for a final recap and discussion of next steps.

This is Jeremy, Ethan, and Matt, keeping those gears grinding…

Five Days Left - Final Stretch Goal!
2 months ago – Sat, Aug 10, 2024 at 03:19:49 PM

We’re back safe and sound from Gen Con and are finally mostly caught back up on sleep, so it’s time for another update! We’re now down to the last five days of the campaign, so we’re on the final stretch. Speaking of, it’s time to reveal the final stretch goal!

Us gamers love metal, so we figured it’d be fitting to have our final stretch goal be a metal first-player coin. This one will indeed be a bit of a stretch, but we’re hoping we can end strong and get this final goal unlocked!

The campaign will be ending at 3 PM Central on Thursday 8/15, so if you’re a dollar backer or are on the fence about pledging now’s the time to do it! Keep in mind the only backers eligible to receive the free mini-expansion are the ones who pledge at the base level ($60) or higher who are also on our mailing list.

As a reminder, if you get redirected to the Kickstarter page after clicking on the mailing list it means you’re on the list already so you’re good to go! If you aren't certain, feel free to reach out to us and we'd be happy to check to make sure.

Gen Con is always the convention highlight of the year due to the sheer scale of the event. All four days were fully sold out, and that was very much reflected in the insane amount of people we saw everywhere we went.

We got six public playthroughs of Sprocketforge in (in addition to quite a few internal playtests), and they all went swimmingly. There were no major hiccups or changes needed, although we did come up with a couple new ideas for things we could tweak slightly to improve balance or streamline things a bit.

We also had the metal gears on display, which continuously drew people in to our booth. We had the plastic gears set up alongside the metal gears so people could test them out and feel the difference, and the metal gears were a huge hit. One question kept coming up: “what color(s) will the metal gears be?”

We had originally planned on having all 25 gears be the ancient bronze color that we’ve shared previously, but after talking with backers at the show it sounds like there is an appetite to have five different finishes for the gears (one finish for each player). We are getting a list of the potential finishing options from our factory and will be sharing a survey for backers to vote for their favorites once we get that list, so keep an eye out for that!

Those of you with a keen eye may have noticed Jeremy holding something in the picture up above - we found ourselves a three-headed mascot while we were at Gen Con!

He’s pretty great, but we can’t decide what his name should be! Let us know what you think we should name him in the comments so we can officially welcome him to the crew.

You know what time it is - faction time! This update’s featured faction is Golden Bastion! Golden Bastion is a group of humans, and their backstory is below:

Once, humans ruled the world. But those days are long past. Centuries of aggression and expansionism against their neighbors turned many a civilization against the tenacious creatures, and their empire slowly shattered before the resentment of an entire world. Humanity now lives on in the impoverished slums and seedy underbellies of younger civilizations.

Humans have a hard time getting jobs, which leads many to crime as a way to survive. Though poorly represented in the upper echelons of society, they rule the criminal underworld of Sprocketforge. Unfortunately, their success in the darkest recesses of the city further tarnishes humanity’s reputation, perpetuating the cycle of desperation.

There are few human nobles in Sprocketforge, and even those that have reached a privileged position in society have often used blackmail and underhanded dealings to get there. Human nobility has a low status and a willingness to get their hands dirty not often shared by their peers. Though often looked down upon, human houses like Tresh and Ferrier serve a vital role in society by running much of the sewer maintenance and garbage collection in the city.  

Human magical traditions have been criticized by other species as disgustingly inefficient, and to some extent this is true. They have a knack for finding natural pockets of magic to exploit, and consequently have never needed to be particularly efficient in their enchanting. Human-made artifacts are often extremely powerful, but leak energy like a sieve and break down rapidly. Their raw power makes humans excellent at waging magical war, a mostly useless specialty in the current era of peace and prosperity.

But now, things are changing. Golden Bastion aims to prove to the world that humans can emerge from their troubled past to become a shining pillar of society. With their new factory, the newly-formed company will show that human enchanting techniques can be as reliable as they are powerful. But not all of their stakeholders are entirely honest, and old habits die hard…

The humans will start the game with blackmailed house cards that are reserved for their use. They may spend renown to take advantage of the abilities granted by those houses, but have to carefully balance their desire for using those houses against their desire to petition other houses - they will lose renown for blackmailed houses at the end of the game. Stay tuned for another faction overview in our next campaign update!

That’s all for now folks! We’ll be back with another update in a few days, and we can’t wait to finish out the campaign on a strong note!

This is Jeremy, Ethan, and Matt, turning the wheels of creativity…