Update 41: Production update and deep dive into mission design!
over 2 years ago – Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 01:06:00 PM

Hey everyone, time for another update! I had started writing this almost two weeks ago, but some personal issues occurred that set things back quite a bit. There was a sudden death of my aunt that took us all by surprise (she was sick, but was not expected to pass so soon). There had been a charity event scheduled this past week to raise funds for her illness (ALS), but sadly, she passed before the actual event, which made it all the sadder. Hug your loved ones everybody, life goes by way too fast.

With this update coming a few weeks later than expected, we’ll post a second one towards the end of the month once we get updates on some of the things talked about below.

In this update we’ll discuss current production, translations, and a deep dive on our mission design goals you can look forward to in the game. On the to update!

Production Schedule

We are hoping to have some images of the ongoing production soon. As of right now, we haven’t been informed of any delays from the factory, although there is possible delay regarding translations (see below). On our end of things, we’re still doing some proofreading on the two campaign books, but all writing and testing is complete. LongPack did point out a few things we needed to correct in some of our files, but they were fairly minor and were cleaned up in a couple of days.

Translations

We were informed that the German translation would not be complete this month as we had hoped, but will likely be complete next month. This delay is not the fault of the translator, but ours for not getting the final versions of the files done sooner. Our German translator has been amazing, and has helped not only with the translation, but also proofreading. Should there be a delay, we aren’t sure if/how this will affect the production timeline, but we should know more now that our LongPack rep has returned from Essen Spiel. More information to come on this in our next update. 

The French translation seems to be going fine so far. The Spanish and Italian translations have plenty of time to finish since they do not need to be done until fullfillment starts.

Mission Design

One of the main design goals we had with this game was to make sure each mission felt unique. I think all of us gamers have played campaign games that we really enjoyed, but eventually started to feel “samey” and repetitive. Or worse yet, a “grind.” We spent a lot of time trying to avoid these pitfalls and we feel like we succeeded, but the ultimate judge will be you, the players. While it’s true that some of the objectives you’ll need to complete in Earth Under Siege missions will bear some similarities (such as missions where you need to rescue one or more captives, or missions where you need to download enemy data), there is uniqueness in each design. Let’s take a closer look at some of these missions to give you a feel for how different each mission is (no spoilers).

Killing Them Softly

In this mission, the team has tracked down a group of enemies that are responsible for an assault on the player’s base, resulting in many friendly casualties. The scum responsible have retreated to their barracks, thinking they are safe. This mission involves the players sneaking into the facility at night, while most of the enemies are asleep, and literally executing them in their beds. This is not as easy as it sounds and requires Operatives to sneak from bed to bed, using a special Execution action available only in this mission to kill sleeping soldiers. Each time an Operative moves inside the barracks, or executes a sleeping soldier, they need to make stealth checks to see if anyone wakes up. And if one enemy wakes up, ALL of them do. These rules create a very tense feeling as you roll those stealth checks hoping no one wakes up. There’s even a fun multiplayer only rule that says Operatives may not verbally communicate without making noise (only hand signals are allowed) so no discussing plans unless you want to wake the entire place!

In Too Deep

In this mission, there is a deep cover Operative that has gone missing. The last communication from the Operative was a retrieval signal that indicated an extraction was needed, but no other information came through. Is it a trap? Maybe, but AEGIS doesn’t leave their people behind, so the players need to either extract the Operative, or find out what happened to him. The catch? If he’s alive, he’ll be disguised as an enemy technician (of which there are several in the building) and there’s no way of knowing where in the facility he is. The only way to find out if he’s alive, is to sneak room to room, and either spy on each technician for information, or grab each of them and question them. Triggering the alarm before it has been discovered if the agent is one of the technicians or not results in mission failure (when the alarm is triggered, all technicians are removed from the board as they flee). But there’s more surprises in store with this mission, like what is the purpose for that empty room on the left side of the board? Guess you’ll just have to find out on your own…

The Depths if Horror

For each Elite Enemy in the game, there is a unique, named version of that Enemy that is the focus of its own Special Op mission. Each of these named Elite Enemies have unique stats and abilities and are classified as a mini-Overlord (mini-boss). In The Depths of Horror, the players are tasked with tracking down and killing a unique Hunter Killer called the Ultimate Horror. This monster has taken over an enemy base and made it its lair. The base has been heavily damaged, with corridors choked with rubble and covered in complete darkness that is only broken by occasional flickering lights and sparking wires. In addition, several civilians have been captured and are restrained throughout the facility and in need of rescue. One of the things that makes this mission so unique is that the Ultimate Horror is the only Enemy in the entire mission! That’s right, no other enemies guarding the halls, no patrols moving about, just the Ultimate Horror, hunting the Operatives even as they hunt it. But the question is, where in the facility is it? This creature starts the mission off the board, lurking in the ventilation shaft. Each time an Operative passes by an open vent, there’s a chance the Ultimate Horror will strike, it’s tentacles lashing out at vulnerable Operatives. During the Enemy Phase if the Ultimate Horror is not on the board, it exits the vents at a random access point, coming down to stalk the halls like a nightmare made flesh. If it sees an Operative, it engages them, otherwise it moves towards the nearest restrained civilian to feast and heal itself. If the Ultimate Horror is attacked and suffers damage it retreats towards the nearest vent. If it reaches one it is once again removed from the board, returning to the vents. Can you kill this beast before it feasts on the civilians, or, worse yet, feasts on your team? We shall see…

Arms Deal

In this Special Op the players have learned of an arms sale between the human terrorists assisting the Xethan in their invasion, and an unknown seller. But the objective is not to just stop the sale, the players need to actually retrieve the weapon components before killing the seller. The catch? The deal won’t be made until the seller is satisfied that the buyers are on the level. That means the players must go undercover and impersonate the enemy terrorists making the buy. If their ruse is successful (by making stealth checks), the seller will have the weapon components brought in from a portal to complete the deal. After acquiring the tech, the players need to clean house and make sure no one escapes; however,  the seller is protected by a modified Gun Drone that the players have to get through first…

Finding a Weakness

What makes this mission unique is that it takes place in two different facilities at the same time. The main objective is that players need to find some special Xethan tech that is stored in a warehouse. Where the tech is stored isn’t known, so players will have to search over several rounds. The real problem though is that all of the buildings security systems (which are extensive in this mission) are being controlled at an off-site facility. What this means is that the players will need to split the team, with some members going to the warehouse to search, while the other team engages the security site to disable the defenses so the search team can safely perform their part of the mission. Since the teams are split, and there’s no way to get from one facility to the other, each team can choose their own Strategy card. Does the search team go with Black Op, or Espionage to help them sneak around? Does the assault team go old fashioned Breach and Clear, do they choose Black Op so and try to take out the security team with stealth, or do they get clever and take Espionage so they can send in a deep cover operative ahead of the assault? There are several options, and each brings a different feel to how the mission will play out.

World Killer Expansion

This uniqueness continues in the World Killer expansion. For example, in the mission Covering Fire, the goal is to interrogate an enemy engineer, but to do so, a distraction is required. As such, the players are split into to two teams, the assault team, and the covert team. The assault team’s job is to engage the enemy head on, holding their ground from a position of cover and making as much noise as possible while the enemy charges towards them. To assist the assault team, four soldiers (regular grunts) join the fight to help hold the front line. Meanwhile, the covert team needs to stick to the shadows and use the distraction to get deep into the enemy facility to interrogate the engineer. The unique nature of this mission means that the alarm is already triggered for the assault team, but not for the covert team, which creates a completely different play experience. Also, note in the image above how this mission has a different Enemy lineup depending on if you've completed Mission 16a or 16b. This is another example of how player choice can affect your missions (see the previous update for more info on that).

These are just a sample of the different types of missions you can expect. There are many more unique scenarios to uncover, like one where you have to lead a group of survivors through a tunnel system while enemies swarm from all sides, or one where you have to ambush a convoy of soldiers carrying experimental tech, or one where you have to infect an enemy database with a virus, or another where you have to rescue wounded soldiers while dodging sniper fire. The list goes on. If you include the expansion there are 62 total missions in Earth Under Siege (32 campaign missions and 30 Special Ops), and we really hope that you find each of them unique.

In a future update we’ll go over the reward system in detail to illustrate how players are always gaining something after each mission, with no need to “grind.” But for the next update we’ll take a closer look at Overlord battles (boss fights) and what makes them very different from standard encounters.

That’s all for now, as mentioned above, since we were late with getting this update out, we’ll do another one this later this month, hopefully with pictures from the manufacturer!

Until next time, watch your six!

Update 40: Production Update and Closer Look at Campaign Play!
almost 3 years 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:

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:

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!
almost 3 years 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!
almost 3 years 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:

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:

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:

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

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!
about 3 years 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:

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!