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Earth Under Siege: Flashpoint Late Pledge

Created by Dark Horizon Games

1-4 player, co-op, sci-fi dungeon crawler where players complete covert missions against an invading alien force!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Update 40: Production Update and Closer Look at Campaign Play!
7 months ago – Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 07:56:51 AM

Hey everyone, time for another update! I know this is a bit later than we'd like, but we have been as busy as we’ve ever been on our end, as I'll explain below. In this update we'll cover the status of production, and then take a closer look at the campaign system that you can look forward to in the game.

Production Update

Production continues ahead with no major delays so far! Most of the print files have been submitted to LongPack with only a few remaining that we are tweaking, such as the rulebook and campaign book. We are doing as much last-minute editing as possible on those books, as well as running a battery of playtest sessions to try and make all of the missions as balanced and fun as we can. Both books for the core set should be uploaded to LongPack this week, with the final print files for the expansion uploaded by next week. Translations are a bit behind obviously, since the translators can't finish their work until we finish ours, but they are all working on updating the material with the final tweaks and changes we've made.

We were hoping to have some proofs from LongPack to show off, but we don’t have anything exciting to show just yet, but we should by the next update. What we can show is the final layout and insert designs for most of the products, check them out below. First up, the core box:

Note: the minis will be in the middle box. The top box will contain the books and tiles, while the bottom box will hold the cards, punchboard, and dice.

The core box will have room to hold all stretch goals, including the Operative expansion pack that comes with Invasion and Extinction pledges, or as an add on for the Incursion pledge level (the figures highlighted in blue above are the stretch goal Operatives). Note that the different colors of figures are just for highlighting purposes and all figures will be in gray plastic. Here's a look at the other insert designs:

3D terrain set
Operative expansion (which comes with the Invasion and Extinction pledges). Note, these minis and cards will fit in the core box. Actual minis will be gray, not blue.
Token upgrade pack
World Killer expansion

Closer Look at Campaign Play

When you play a campaign of Earth Under Siege, there are two types of missions you’ll undertake: Campaign and Special Ops. First, let's look at the campaign missions.

Campaign Chain

The core box of the game contains 21 campaign missions, of which you will play 12 in a single playthrough. The expansion contains an additional 11 campaign missions, of which you’ll play 8 in a single playthrough. How this works is that after certain missions you will be given a choice of which objective you’d like to undertake next. For example, do you want to save a captured scientist, or do you want to blow up a weapons factory? Do you want to take revenge against a group of enemies that attacked your base, or do you want to assist another Allied base that is under attack? Each choice takes players down a three-mission chain as seen here:

Having multiple mission chains means that repeated playthroughs can be very different simply by making different choices. Combined with 12 different Operatives to choose from (all of which have unique playstyles), and different Strategy cards that can be chosen for each mission, means there is a ton of replay-ability in Earth Under Siege.

Decisions with Consequences

However, choosing which mission chain to undertake doesn’t just offer different play experiences, those choices also bring unique consequences. Did you choose to rescue the scientist instead of blowing up the weapons lab? Well, now your enemies have enhanced weapons thanks to that lab still being operational. How is this reflected in the game you ask? Through the Complication deck. 

Complication Deck

Each mission (except the first), you will draw a number of Complication cards equal to your HQ Level during set up. These cards create variable challenges to overcome and add even more variety to your repeated playthroughs. The deck starts with 12 Basic cards which add moderate challenges, such as the following:

However, each time you take a step down a mission chain, a new Complication card is unlocked to reflect the consequences of your choices. For example, if you choose to go after the scientist after the first mission, you would add a new Complication card to the deck at missions 2a, 3a, and 4a to reflect your decision to not destroy the weapons lab, as seen here:

Each time you unlock a new Complication card, you remove a random Basic card from the deck permanently (the deck will always be exactly 12 cards). With this system, your choices will continue to haunt you as you move through the campaign, and because you draw Complication cards equal to the HQ Level, more and more of these consequences will show up each mission.  Note: there is no "correct" path through the mission chains because each branch brings equally nasty consequences, just in different ways. 

Special Ops

Special Op missions are basically "side quests" that you unlock by hacking enemy databases during campaign missions. When you successfully hack an Enemy database, you draw a Special Op card during the HQ Phase which unlocks a unique mission with unique rewards.  Special Ops are designed to be shorter missions, but often more difficult. However, they offer the best rewards the game has to offer. Next month we'll take a closer look at Special Ops as well as how each mission in Earth Under Siege has a unique feel to avoid players getting bored with "samey" style mission designs. 

That's all for this update, we'll be back next month with a production update and hopefully some beautiful images from the factory, stay tuned!

Until next time, watch your six!

Update 39b: Mini-update! Production has begun!
9 months ago – Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 08:20:59 AM

Production Schedule

Hey everyone, as mentioned in the last update, we were waiting on the schedule from LongPack and we said we’d update you when we had that nailed down. After firming up a few things with our rep at LongPack, mostly just verifying item counts were correct and re-signing our agreement, we received the schedule last week! The good news is, production on the miniatures is beginning as we speak! The less good news is that the production is not likely to finish until end of November, which means the games are scheduled to ship in December. That is later than we had hoped (we wanted the games delivered this year), but it’s still pretty good news.

Is it possible things will move faster and we will get the games shipped out of China sooner? Yes, that is possible. Is it also possible there will be delays? That too is possible. The miniatures are in a good place and we should have no issues there, but when we move to the printed components it is possible there could be some issues that we won’t be aware of until we move to that stage (such as colorization issues). We aren’t anticipating any issues, but I just want to make sure everyone is aware that they are possible.

We have a deadline to get the printed material over to LongPack and we’re working hard to make that happen, but we may be off by a week, give or take. Some of that hold up is that we’re still running as many playtest sessions as possible to do balance tweaks on missions and some cards. The game balance feels quite good right now, but there are still some issues here and there that we are testing and tweaking. It’s all very close to complete, but we’re still doing some polishing, and I’d rather delay things a week or so than to have some missions or cards be imbalanced (or not fun).

We’ll obviously keep everyone posted as things move forward, and we’ll share images of the product as we get them.

Until next time, watch your six!

Update 39: Plastic samples, Gametray renders, and production update!
9 months ago – Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 11:26:30 AM

Hey everyone, I know you’ve all been waiting for an update, we’re sorry for it being later than advertised, but we wanted to get some things in place before posting. We got some of the stuff we were waiting on, but not all (as explained below). However, we didn’t want to keep delaying the update and thought it would be best to post what we have, and give the remaining info when we get it.

Plastic Samples!

We received the plastic samples from LongPack and they are awesome! After going over them in detail, we only found one figure that needed adjustment, which was a huge relief. That means that the translation from master figures to actual molds was seamless, so no further delays regarding the miniatures was necessary! Even better, it turns out the miniature we thought needed adjustment, DOESN’T actually need adjustment, there was just some bending due to the packaging (each figure was wrapped tightly in bubble wrap and put in a tray where several figures were squeezed in together). We had the factory make a new figure and send us images to make sure, and the miniature looks as intended!

Here is an image of the complete line up of miniatures followed by close ups:

Olivia, Oscar, and Kyle
Hicks, Marissa, and Billy
The "big bads" of the core box, Kaazag and the Gravity Maw. Technician added for scale
Core box grunts. Get ready to kill lots and lots of these guys!
Core box enemies: Ravager and Fireteam (two poses)
More core box basic enemies: Dominator, Heavy, and Reaver (who's face is a little blurry in the image, sorry about that)
Last of the core box basic enemies: Enslaver, Stalker, and Spotter Drones (two poses)
We forgot this guy when we were taking pictures of the core box basic enemies, so here he is all by his lonesome: the Gun Drone
Core box elite enemies: Mind Killer, Gate Shaper, and Warleader
More core box elites: Marauder, Warbringer, and Headhunter
The last core box elite, the Hunter Killer. This was the figure we thought needed to be fixed. When we unwrapped it, his tentacle was dead center in front of his face, which is clearly not good. However, it was just a packaging issue, and the miniature is fine.
The 3D terrain add on, and the Token Upgrade add on. Love these!
Basic Enemies from the World Killer expansion: the Awakened and the Berserker
Some menacing figures from the World Killer expansion: The Summoner (boss), Assault Drone (elite), and Thought Reaper (elite)
The World Killer itself...be afraid, be very afraid. Technician for scale. Note: the gun barrels on top were bent from the shipping, so they may look a little warped
The stretch goal Operatives: Victoria, Mama Bear, and Vector
Last but not least, the remaining stretch goal Operatives: Ru Ru, Cain, and Luna

The fact that no further adjustments need to made to the miniatures means that we can start mass production! We are told this should take approximately 40 days, but when this will begin is not clear, which brings us to the next topic.

Mass Production

The good news is, that we are ready to begin mass production! This will start with the miniatures, and then move to the printed material. The bad news is that we aren’t sure when the factory will actually begin the process, because we haven’t received a schedule yet. The reason we haven’t received this info yet is because our rep at LongPack has been out of the office due to a family emergency. She let me know on Monday that she would get back to me hopefully by Tuesday, but she has not returned to the office yet. Unfortunately, that probably means the emergency was more severe than originally thought, which is very sad, and I hope everything is okay. Our rep is excellent, and she’s been super helpful and informative as we navigate our first manufacturing experience. Her and her family our in our thoughts. I’m sure I will hear from her early next week and get the timeline for manufacturing. When we have that info, we’ll post a mini update.

New Gametrayz Renders

The other piece of info we had been waiting on were the new renders from Gametrayz for our Campaign Tray Add On. These trays were reworked to hold more material than originally planned to ease setting up and tearing down the game. The add on comes with a campaign tray, and four player trays. Each player tray holds all individual Operative components, including your deck, upgrade cards, gear cards, player tokens, and miniature. Check it out:

Player tray all sealed up
Player tray expanded

The campaign tray is designed to hold all cards, dice, and dashboards needed to play the game. It even holds the rolled-up Valor Bag (the long rectangular well at the bottom of the tray). There is an empty well to the side that can be used to hold cards that aren’t added into their respective decks until later in the campaign. For example, at the beginning of a campaign, Gear decks consist of only Level I cards, and the level II-IV Gear cards can be stored in the empty well until needed. Similarly, the Complication deck begins with only Basic cards, and Special cards are added to it depending on the choices players make during the campaign (for example, choosing to rescue a scientist instead of blowing up a weapons lab means the enemy has access to more powerful equipment, which gets reflected in the Complication deck). Check out the campaign tray here:

Campaign tray all sealed up
Escalation Track and boss dashboards go on top
Player dashboards go under the boss dashboards
Campaign tray expanded. Contains all decks, dice, valor bag, and some commonly used tokens

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The player trays stack nicely on top of the campaign tray, as seen here:

Everything stacked together with room up top for Gametrayz generic token trays if desired

Also, for all of you sleevers out there, yes, these trays were designed to hold sleeved cards!

That’s it for now, hopefully we’ll have an update from LongPack next week regarding the production schedule, and when we have that we’ll post a mini update to keep everyone informed!

Until next time, watch your six!

Update 38: Quick update, more to come this month!
11 months ago – Thu, May 04, 2023 at 09:11:26 AM

Hey all, we're a bit late on getting this out (we wanted it out end of April), but we've been waiting on info from the factory to give a proper update on the state of things.  We didn't want to keep you backers wondering what was going on though, so I thought I'd throw out a quick update just to let you all know what's happening.  We'll post a more in-depth update towards the end of the month when we have further details, but for now, read below for where things stand!

Miniature Production

On the miniature front, LongPack is still working on the molds.  They had hoped to have them complete and have the plastic samples shipped to us no later than this week, but we were informed that some of the molds had issues and needed to be reworked.  We weren't given details on exactly which molds or how many, but the updated timeline from the factory is that they are HOPING to have the plastic samples sent out by the end of this month.  So, a set back of at least 3 weeks, which is a bummer, but these things happen.  We were sent pictures from our rep of the current plastic samples, and so far they look really good, but we'll know for sure when we can examine them in hand. 

Once we have the plastic samples, we need to check them for any corrections, which we are assuming there will be at least a few, but based on the quality of the masters, we are hoping there won't be many.  Once they adjust the molds based on our feedback, the miniatures will go into mass production.  According to our rep at the factory, manufacturing the minis should take about 40 days, give or take. 

Here are some of the pictures we were sent of the plastic samples:

Overhead shot of the core box minis. Can't wait to see these in person!
Close up of the boss, Kaazag. Note: we need to take a close look at the way the boxes are set on the base because we see a bit of a gap in the photo.
3D Terrain Upgrade pack! Love these!
Miniatures from the World Killer Expansion

Written Material

We are still wrapping up the campaign books and tweaking various cards and sections of the rulebook based on playtesting.  Things are getting close for finishing the written material, but the testing is ongoing.  There are still a few missions that we are tweaking to avoid weird edge cases, or balancing issues.  We will be testing right up until the last possible minute, but the progress has been good and we should be able to coincide finishing up the written material with the completion of the miniatures so the manufacturing process is uninterrupted. 

Translations

Translations of the written material has been going well.  Our German and French translations are very far along, which is good, because those need to coincide with printing of the English material. The Spanish and Italian translations have more time to be completed, since they will only be released as PDF's, so they do not need to be finished until fulfillment time. 

Okay, that's it for now, we'll post again towards the end of the month once we have updates from LongPack.  We should also have some renders to show of the final GameTrayz add on, which have been reworked a bit and we think everyone will really like how they turned out, so stay tuned!

Until next time, watch your six!

Update 37: More masters and updates!
12 months ago – Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 01:29:17 PM

Hey everyone, time for another update! Lots to discuss, so let’s get into it!

Pledge Manager

Pledges are now locked, but if you have any remaining issues please reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll see what we can do to help. There are still a decent number of failed card charges, so if you need to update your payment method, please do, we cannot deliver your game if your survey is not completed!

Production Update

Not a lot has changed since last months update regarding production. LongPack is still in the process of making the molds for the miniatures, which we’ve been told should be done mid-April. Once that is done, they will create some samples and we will look them over for any final changes. There are often small differences between the 3D sample prints and the molds, so we will need to look them over in fine detail to see if there are any tweaks that need to be made. We will update everyone on the status of that next month.

Masters

Speaking of miniatures, here’s some more pics of the masters, this time, the core box Basic Enemies, which includes stretch goals!

The fearsome Dominator is known to weaken your resolve and test your endurance
Spotter Drones may not pack much punch, but their sensor package can ping the location of Operatives, causing headaches for the players
Note the Enslaver's face here is a little blurred, but that's from the picture we took, not the miniature itself
Grunts may be the weakest Enemies individually, but when they gather in groups they can unleash a hail of blaster fire that even the quickest Operative would have trouble dodging
The Fireteam are elite soldiers, well armed, and well armored
Fireteam are elite soldiers that are heavily armed, and heavily armored
Gun Drones are mini-tanks, capable of shrugging off many attacks before being destroyed
The Heavy doesn't just pack a huge weapon, he is also protected by an energy shield that can deflect Operative attacks
Ravagers are teleporting shock troops who have spent so much time jumping through portals that their very physiology has become unstable, causing them to 'blink' in out of existence, making them difficult targets to hit
Reavers are savage opponents whose minds have degraded from too much exposure to the Xethan portal technology, reducing them to nothing more than bloodthirsty berserkers
Stalkers are the premier hunters of the Xethan forces that specialize in setting ambushes for the Operatives where nearby Patrols swarm unexpectedly

Printed Components

On the non-miniature front, all components except the campaign books are 99% complete. When I say “99%”, what I mean is that all cards, tokens, dashboards, etc., are all created, but we are still doing proofreading for grammar and tweaking based on playtesting. So, while everything is 'finished', getting that last 1% complete is a bit of a moving target because we will probably be tweaking and editing right up until the files get sent to print (there’s always room for improvement). As an example of this, we tweaked the Rulebook a bit since it was posted in the last update due to proofreading feedback from some of our translators as well as one of our backers who volunteered to help out on that front (thanks Paulie!).

While they are making the molds, we had LongPack look over our card files to make sure our formatting meets their requirements (it does), so once we've made the final tweaks to the cards and books, we’ll be ready to upload the files quickly now that we know we have the formatting correct.

Campaign Books

The only components not at 99% are the two Campaign Books (core and expansion). While all missions are written, we are still doing testing on many of them to make sure they are fun and balanced. Playtesting these is more involved than just running through a mission once or twice due to the sheer number of possible combinations of game elements. Not only are there 12 Operatives, each with different builds they can be played with and different upgrade options they have access to, but each mission can also be played with 3 different Strategy cards, which changes the way the mission gets played. We are testing as many different combinations as possible, looking for imbalance and edge cases that need to be addressed.

So, with all that being said, I would peg the Campaign Books at being about 70% complete. The writing is more or less done, but with testing we are still tweaking many things. We are also still doing formatting and layout on those books as well.

The goal is to have both books finished around the same time the miniature making process is complete so we can go straight into full production. We’ll keep you posted on the progress!

Focus on Dr. Victoria Usman

Pick your poison, lead or steel

The last Operative we haven’t done a spotlight on yet is Dr. Victoria Usman, a specialist in nano-technology.  Like Mama Bear, Victoria has a unique mechanic centered around Ongoingcards, but in her case, Victoria’s Ongoing cards have the “Enhancement” trait. Enhancement cards are unique in that not only can they be played on Victoria herself, but she can also play them on OTHER Operatives. What’s more, Enhancement cards do not count against the maximum number of Ongoing cards an Operative can have in play at once (normally 2), so you can either spread the love around the table, or you can pile them all up on one Operative to create a huge powerhouse...for a time.

However, these Enhancements come at a price. At the end of the round, when Ongoing cards are discarded from play, each Operative with any Enhancements must make an Overcharge check by rolling a d6 and adding the number of Enhancements they discarded. On the result of 6+ that Operative suffers 1 damage. Of course, the good doctor has a few cards that can help mitigate these Overcharge checks, and a few cards that allow Operatives to get even more boosts based on the number of Enhancements they have in play.

But Enhancements are not Victoria’s only focus. She also has access to cards that let her take advantage of her bionic arm.

Victoria is an interesting Operative to play, requiring the player to carefully balance how to distribute her Enhancement cards, and how to make sure the team stays healthy while enjoying the fruit of her labors.

Next update we’ll take a deeper look at the campaign mission chains and special ops, as well as pictures of the core box Elite Enemies!

Until next time, watch your six!