Distilled - Now in 8 Languages! 🤯
over 2 years ago – Thu, Sep 02, 2021 at 02:31:05 AM

Only a Month, but so. much. stuff. 

Hello Distillers! Didja miss me? I have honestly missed all of you. That 3.5 weeks of Kickstarter goodness, ending just over a month ago on July 29th, was such an amazing experience. So many of you showed your support in the comments or on social media - it was something I'll never forget (and remember, we can stay in touch a lot easier if you use Facebook, where you can join 1,700 of us talking about spirits and games on a daily basis!).

But we must move on - after all, we're making a GAME, aren't we?!? 🤣

This is one chock-full-o-goodness update, if I do say so myself. After a brief respite, we've been busy and back on the grind, and I'm excited to share some of those nuggets with you in this nice 'n' lengthy update! In this update, we'll cover:

• New Language & Partner Announcements!
• A New and Improved (and Free!) Tabletopia mod
•  Core Team Check-in - what has everyone been up to?
• Plans for the next month (aka Pledge Manager time!)

Multilingual Distilled

As you might know, it has been a goal of Distilled to have a reach around the globe. Not only due to the game representing countries and cultures through its spirits and characters, but in order to educate our global community of gamers and spirits lovers about the amazing stuff that is out there. Thanks to the hard work of Michael Raftopoulos of M.O.B. Vanguard, we've seen that reach become a reality. 

During the campaign, we had Spain and the Ukraine. But as you might recall, I made a promise to all of you. That we would try our hardest to expand that language offering further. I'm happy to report that we've done that, and then some (and we're not done yet!). 

Not only have we signed some great partnerships with companies to translate Distilled in to Dutch and Korean, but we've also aligned with some industry giants like CMON for Chinese and Matagot for French. 

Finally, and likely the most anticipated and requested of all, I am proud to say that Distilled will now be offered in German! But it doesn't stop there with our German edition! We are partnering with happyshops, who will be partnering with Giant Roc to bring Distilled to their popular German-only crowdfunding site, Spieleschmiede! This will likely occur sometime in October, and is a perfect opportunity for those who missed the Kickstarter to consider this second chance with the German language. 

To clarify and make things crystal-clear, you can still get the game in German either way - using your pledge with us in the Kickstarter or by making a new pledge with Spieleschmiede, if you missed our Kickstarter. 

Most of these language editions of Distilled will be available in the Pledge Manager (but not all), in case a particular language is preferred over English. And there are more partnerships on the horizon, so who knows which countries we might announce next!

Can't wait until 2022? Dr. Dave's Prescription: Tabletopia!

It was important to me to have Distilled on Tabletopia by the time the Kickstarter launched. While I prefer Tabletop Simulator as a designer and developer, I know that the accessibility of Tabletopia can't be beat, with it being free, browser based, and having a UI that feels much more polished than many other platforms. But I also knew that my "mod" of Distilled wasn't that great on Tabletopia, and simply didn't have the time or expertise to develop it further. 

Enter Dave Hutchings. Dave works with computers by day, and is a WIZ at Tabletopia by night. When we first connected, he mentioned ideas and approaches I could never even fathom implementing, and then the next day they would be done for Distilled! Over the course of August, Dave has taken Distilled from a clunky, basement moonshine still that I made out of scrap parts and turned it into a polished, state-of-the-art single pot still that has all the bells and whistles!

The Tabletopia version now supports Solo play, Hotseat play, and any group from 2-5 players. Additionally, it has some slick setup instructions, 10 different Distiller Identities to play with, and even works as a Google/Apple App for your Tablet! And best of all, it is entirely free and available through a browser! If you haven't tried Distilled yet, I invite you to visit the Distilled Tabletopia site and consider giving it a go (and thank Dave Hutchings by raising a glass in his name as you're playing!).

What's the Team Been Up To?

Since we don't get to connect with you as much, I thought it would be good to give an overview of what the team has been up to the past month (after we celebrated all around the globe on July 29th!). Remember, Distilled isn't coming from a giant studio, but it also isn't coming from single person. It is thanks to this amazing rockstar team - and all of your support - that we're making this come true!

•  Dave (me!): About a week after the Kickstarter, I took my first vacation in over two years, to Michigan, with my family. I've been going to a family camp/resort there all my life, and it was absolutely wonderful to be there. I unplugged with no computer and phone, visited a farm distillery, and played some games. Since then, I've been hard at work on finalizing manufacturing quotes now that we know exactly what we need to make! I'm happy to say we've received those, and are starting to move forward with next steps on finalizing a manufacturer. I'll actually talk about this in more detail during my Whisk(e)y Wednesday update tonight on Facebook. 
•  Richard, our developer, has been hard at work playtesting and balancing all of the stretch goals we unlocked, and implementing them into the game. We've been running regular playtest sessions in our Distilled Discord server, and they've been going really well. Terrence, our community coordinator, has also been an amazing help on this front as well, with both of them running multiple games and doing solo playtests too. We've just about completed testing additional spirits, distiller identities, and upgrades for the base game, and we are going to start playtesting the Africa and Middle East expansion this weekend (and are looking for more players - hit the Discord link above to join us!).  

•  Erik, our artist, has been taking a well-deserved break this last month, to work on other projects he has going on (like his graphic novel), as well as getting ready for the start of the next school year at the university, where he is a professor. Erik and I met last week to go over the big list of what we have left to do, and we're excited to dive back in to those assets, as we finalize the gameplay elements from the playtests listed earlier. Watch for future updates featuring his amazing artwork, as we progress into those last stages!
•  Cody, our rules editor, has been hard at work buttoning up the rulebook, but also doing two other crucial things. First, he's going over each card's text, to make sure it reads correctly with all other systems and naming conventions in the game. He's also begun sketching out a "Beginner's Guide", which we're modeling after effective documents like Wingspan's Swift Start and Root's Walkthrough Sheet. We want to be sure that players who might be new to hobby-level board games can still have a positive and entertaining experience with Distilled, and we feel that this would be a great way to do that. 

Did Somebody Say Pledge Manager?

I know, I know, all of you are chompin' at the bit for the Pledge Manager to open. Don't worry, it will open eventually, but it is actually quite common to have a month or two (at least) go by without it opening after a campaign, so I promise I'm not slacking! Since our timeline is a bit more extended than some campaigns, it frankly isn't *that* important to have it open quickly. After all, it will be open for quite some time, so there is no rush!

There is actually quite a lot to do to have it prepared. I want to be sure that you have as many options as possible to add different things to your pledge, select the right language that fits your needs, have the shipping accurately reflect what you've chosen, and get a chance to ask questions as well. Now that we have finalized most of our languages (we are still working on a few more!), I will be diving deep into that process and hope to have some good news for you next month, with that being the big topic of the October update.

So, as we head in to September, I'll be focusing mainly on finalizing manufacturer costs and preparing the pledge manager in Backerkit. I'll also be sending out the original 10 prototypes of Distilled to our Master Distiller backers, so you might see some pics of those pop up on social media soon! We'll also be continuing to test the various stretch goals we've unlocked and start to crank up production on the artwork again. It should be an exciting month indeed! 

Until then Distillers, I hope you've gotten a chance to play some games and enjoy some spirits - and as always, Sláinte!

Dave

PS. About a 18 months ago, I applied for Distilled's trademark. It was officially confirmed this last month, which is exciting (not necessary at all, but I felt it would be good to have).

The Distilled Campaign is COMPLETE! 🥳 Time to send it to the Warehouse!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 30, 2021 at 01:52:21 AM

I'll try to keep this short 'n' sweet.

THANK YOU.

It's almost two years since I spent an entire night in Scotland, coming up with the idea of Distilled. Along the way, I've been joined by numerous people who have helped bring that dream to a reality. While there are too many folks to name and recognize here, three individuals stand out and are deserving of special thanks. The first is my wife, Emily, who believed in me from the beginning and has supported me through long nights and weekends of me attending cons, playtesting the game on TTS, and spending time away from my family to pursue this dream.  Second is Erik, my partner in Distilled since the beginning, and who's creative vision and amazing artistic talents have helped breathe thematic life into the game beyond what I thought possible. Finally, Richard, who's keen eye for detail, balance, and mechanics as a developer have helped the game to run like a well-oiled machine, much smoother than I could ever have done on my own.

There are so many more people to thank, but I hope you can understand how overwhelmed with gratitude I am at this moment. Beyond recording the below video, I feel that the best way I can thank all of you is by trying to make the greatest version of Distilled as I possibly can, which I promise to do.

WHAT'S NEXT?

All of the things! OMG so many things! Some are obvious, some are usual business, and some are just plain fun. 

First off, I'll be keeping all of you Distillers apprised with a monthly update via Kickstarter. This will appear in your email inbox and also exist on the Kickstarter page. Given the timing of this campaign, you might not hear from me until early September, but you can be guaranteed that I'll be keeping you up to date on all things Distilled, every month!

Secondly, the Pledge Manager will open in the next few months, allowing you to use your Kickstarter pledge as "credit" towards that reward, as well as upgrade or add other things too, if you'd like (like metal cubes, extra shot glasses, etc.). This will also be where you enter and pay for your shipping. This likely will not appear for awhile, so don't worry - I'll keep you posted about that via those updates I talked about. BTW, if any of your friends were late to the Distilled party, I will have a "late pledge" available for them to find, via the Kickstarter page. They won't be an original Distiller (backer) like you, but they will still have access to Distilled!

Finally, we'll be hard at work starting to update the game with the amazing stretch goals we unlocked. This will consist of new art by Erik, and design and development by Richard and me. If you are interested in helping with testing these new features in Tabletop Simulator, be sure to join our Discord channel to help playtest! Also, remember that our community is quite large over on Facebook, with a group that is close to 1,600 Distillers! We post art and design progress, chat about spirits & games, and I try to provide more frequent (small) updates as well. 

So with that, I leave you with one final Sláinteof the campaign, and thank you again for such a wild and crazy ride this July has been. We've crafted a mighty spirit this past month, and it is time to send it to the Warehouse, so that it can age into a deliciously flavorful game for its 2022 release. 🥃

Dave

ONE. FINAL. STREEEETTTTCH (and Language Update! 🌍)
almost 3 years ago – Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 05:47:25 AM

HOLY WOW. $400,000?!?

We did it (well actually, you did it!)! And you did it faster than we expected, over a weekend when things are usually slow! This means that we have now unlocked some awesome goodies - all as a thank you to the backers! Now, there will be four blank Flavor cards in every mini-expansion, every Original and Signature Blender will get a FREE upgraded metal First Player and Master Distiller Token, and we'll be providing an online Spirit and Recipe Generator to the entire world! This was all thanks to you and your dedication to the project.

BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE. ONE. FINAL. STRETCH GOAL. 

That's right. 

GAMETRAYZ.

What many of you have been asking for, could now become a reality. If we hit $450K, Distilled's base game will feature GameTrayz for its storage and set-up solution. 

GameTrayz is one of the leading insert designers in the biz,  known for their experience, innovation, creativity, and tech. We think that due to Distilled's giant component list - with over 400 cards and 200 tokens in the base game alone - this addition will be a welcome feature and a great way to put a capstone of success and celebration on our campaign! Since not all backers might be familiar with GameTrayz, I've taken the liberty of copy 'n' pasting a few images of GameTrayz that I've found online, to help you better visualize what a treat this will be for Distilled.

I like how Euphoria's solution has an area to support a large amount of cards at the bottom of the box  while also some modular containers for various components and tokens. Each GameTrayz solution is different, of course, as they work closely with the game dev team to create the best possible experience. Safe storage and easy setup/teardown are important parts of what sets GameTrayz apart from the rest. 

Museum is much like Distilled, in the sense that there are a great deal of cards in the game, as well as numerous components and player boards. Museum: Deluxe Edition (which has the GameTrayz insert) has yet to be delivered to backers, but this render and prototype above demonstrate how complex you can get with your stacking and compartmentalising through GameTrayz!

While this is more component-heavy, In the Hall of the Mountain King is another great example of a Kickstarter that was able to offer this to their backers due to the support and enthusiasm of the community.

Suburbia Deluxe Edition is a BIG game, but how they've organized some of the components and covered them with clear plastic adds a nice touch, and allows everything to be stacked and set-up fairly easily.

Do you have a favorite GameTrayz insert, or ideas we should incorporate into our design if we reach the funding goal? If so, please leave them in the Kickstarter's main comments section! 

 But wait - there's even more! Let's talk LANGUAGES! 🌍

TL;DR: I have good news for many of you frequent commenters.  Read on for the full story ;)

Even just a few weeks before launching the campaign, I had planned to simply publish Distilled in English. As an indie designer, I figured that it was enough of a challenge to try to have it published in my own native language, let alone others! I didn't understand the intricacies of "localization" (the term for bringing a game to a different region, which also involves language translation and licensing, amongst many other things). 

But then Distilled caught fire all around the globe. 🔥

Enter Michael Raftopoulos of Meeple on Board - Vanguard (MOB Vanguard for short), who connected with me just days before the campaign launched. Michael's agency helps indie games like Distilled to connect with the various licensees around the world. Based in Greece, Michael brings the experience of owning a board game retail store and combines it with working on localization and licensing for titles like Endless Winter, Hidden Leaders, and Machina Arcana, among others. Just as the campaign launched, Michael helped us to finalize licensing and translation contracts with companies in both Spain and Ukraine, which was wonderful. This happened because both of those regions were aware of Distilled beforehand. This was thanks to fans communicating to these companies about this little gem and urging them to pursue localization in their language.

But as one can imagine, it is quite an involved process to navigate an official agreement on localization in a country (especially during a Kickstarter!). It involves playtesting and demos, meetings and conversations, and agreements on procedures, schedules, rights, and payments.  Because of this, things have slowed down a bit, but it does not mean that Michael hasn't been working tirelessly in the background to finalize some of these big wins for all involved.

I frankly don't know if we'll have more language announcements before the end of the campaign, but I can make you a promise - a guarantee - if you will. Read on.

Michael and I are very confident that we will be finalizing localization agreements with the following countries/languages in the near future:

• Germany
• France
• Italy
• Poland

But I also understand that it is hard to ask you to make a commitment about something before it is "officially announced". I would be thinking the same thing if I were you, considering backing a project on Kickstarter from from an indie, first-time publisher. So, if you are someone who would be purchasing Distilled in German, French, Italian, or Polish languages, I would ask you to do the following simple thing:

Support Distilled at the Wee Dram Pledge Level for $1 USD, so that you can have access to the Pledge Manager after the campaign. I am confident that we will have positive news to share about these four languages in the coming weeks. After that, you will be able to increase your pledge for your chosen reward, in your specific language.

And if you do that, here is my guarantee: if, by the time the Pledge Manager closes and we have not finalized a localization deal in the language that you would be backing (from the above four), you can request a refund and I will cancel your Wee Dram pledge and refund you for up to $1 USD, no questions asked  (obviously, if you don't contact me or decide to still back another version, we won't cancel your pledge or refund you anything!).

I hope this demonstrates how much I want you to share this experience with us as a fellow Distiller, and also how confident I am that we will be bringing Distilled to these four languages, sometime in the near future.

Distilled, like good board games and good whisk(e)y, is all about the people you enjoy it with. I'm awestruck by the amazing community that has formed around this project, and want to be sure each and every one of you can come along with us for that ride.

See you at the finish line, and Sláinte,

Dave

This is the Stretch Goal Announcement where we THANK YOU, the Backers! 🙏
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 11:58:31 PM

5,000 BACKERS?!? 🙀

That's a big number! Almost as big as... 

Crossing over into the $380K stretch goal earlier today, we've now unlocked the optional add-on for metal recipe cubes. These will provide a real sense of weight to the game (no pun intended), in three different colors of bronze, silver, and gold. For just $12, you'll have 37 metal cubes that will not cost any additional money to ship if you add them to your pledge.

Note: you cannot add them to your pledge yet, but you will be able to do so after the campaign, in the pledge manager (more details on how that works later, as there is no rush). 

So, here we are. FIVE DAYS LEFT in the campaign.

It's time to do one final lap of "thank you" stretch goals! These are just for you - the backers - for getting us this far. Rather than putting down three separate 20K stretch goals, we've crammed them all in to one single 20K stretch goal, for when we reach that major milestone of $400,000!

Since we're nearing the end of the campaign, we wanted to do one final "thank-you" in the form of cool bonuses that have popped up as ideas during the campaign, some of which have come from you, the backers! I'm going to outline each of these bonuses below, in detail.  Note: these three thank-you-goals will be available for all backers (details in each of the below breakdowns).

After we announced the Flavor votes in a previous update, we had a lot of people wishing that "their flavor" had made it into the game. We had at least one Distiller suggest that it would be cool to have some blank Flavor cards. What a great idea! Now, you'll be able to customize your Distilled experience with four additional cards, and be added to the 14-card mini expansion. These can just be unused and blank forever in your box, combined with the current flavors, or replace four current flavors if you'd like! We will be including one blank card for each of the four sell values in every game of Distilled ($0/1/2/3). We can't wait to see what you all come up with, and we hope you'll post your titles, sketches, and flavor notes on our Facebook and BGG community when that time comes! When we reach $400K, these will be added to Distilled's FREE 14-card mini expansion, so our Original, Signature, and PnP backers will have four blank cards to have fun with! Note: As a reminder, the mini-expansion will not be found in the retail game, and only obtainable in limited quantities after the campaign (while supplies last).

Remember back when we reached $150,000 and we unlocked a new "Master Distiller Winner Component"? Well, that allowed us to have a component - likely the backside of the first player token - to be a bragging component that you will get to place by your distillery player board at the end of the game if you were the winner (the Master Distiller). This was a fun little addition to the game, especially for those who might want to snap a pic of their board for social media and brag about their win ;)

But when we got into the $300K's and above, we realized it was time to upgrade a component as a big thank-you gift to all of you. So, if we reach $400K, all Original and Signature Blend backers will receive a thick metal commemorative coin to use as your First Player Marker and Master Distiller Medal for free. You will be able to add-on additional coins in the Pledge Manager as well if you want to get them for your friends ;)

The concept of the coin will be inspired both by spirit awards (above) and also by the challenge coin (below). The World Spirits Competition is famous for giving out various medals in Bronze, Silver, Gold, Double Gold, and Platinum. Given to the best spirits of the year, these clearly represent victory and prestige, worthy of possession by the Master Distiller in our game. Challenge coins are often found in the armed forces and other organizations, but also have a great history in the spirits business as well, including bartenders, distilleries, and even YouTube channels (one of my favorites, Aqvavitae, was one of the first to start the challenge coin trend in this space). 

These cast metal coins will measure roughly 2" in diameter (conveniently the size of a Glencairn class rim!). Perhaps some of you will carry these in your pocket, flash it at a convention to challenge someone to buy them a whisky, or even let the winner carry it in their pocket until the next game of Distilled in your local game group. Either way, when we hit $400K, it will be something all Original and Signature Blenders will receive for FREE, as our core group of Distillers! Note: This will not be found in the retail game (or the PnP!), and only obtainable in limited quantities after the campaign (while supplies last).

Okay, this is exciting stuff. You know how we have unlocked 15 different spirits to make in the base game alone? That's a LOT of different spirits and recipe lists! But some of you have asked about specific spirits, and whether they are going to be included in the game. As you can imagine, we can't include EVERY spirit in the world in the box, but we can most definitely give you the tools to help us reach that goal on your own. 

We want to put the power of customizing Distilled into your hands. Want to create a spirit from some part of the world that currently doesn't exist in the game? Well, once we hit $400K, this could become a reality. When we hit $400K, we will be commissioning Seth Berrier, our digital demigod of Distilled, to create a website that will allow you to generate and print out new spirits and recipe lists on your own (Seth is who helped make the killer Tabletop Simulator mod, along with helping with the Tabletopia mod).

Right now, our vision for this is two-fold:

• You'll be able to design and create a brand new spirit that would include its title, region,  as well as required ingredients/age/barrel, and spirit point amounts. Perhaps this is Rhum Agricole from the Americas, Slovovitz from Europe, or Arrack from Asia. You'll enter in the values and it will spit out a label and recipe that you will be able to print off and use in your game. While it won't have amazing artwork by Erik, it will have all iconography and formatting to blend in well with Distilled's presentation.
• Whether you decide to get creative with your own spirit inventions or not, you'll also have a chance to "mix and match" current spirit recipes in the game to create new recipe list combinations (perhaps  including that Slovovitz you just created!). Remember, we'll be including multiple curated "tasting flights" that you'll be able to choose from, but if you want to seek out new combinations of existing and/or created spirits, this will let you pursue that as well through "fan made flights". 

Now, this might all seem confusing, overwhelming, or just plain useless to you. That's okay! This is something that won't be available until the game is released next year, and will likely only be for those who want to dive deeper than the 15 spirit recipes included in the base game. For many of you, this won't pertain to your experience, but for some of you we hope that this is a game changer (literally...ha!).

For those who are excited about this, feel free to head over to BGG to start talking about what some of those spirit recipes might be! Who knows, maybe some of the best fan-made flights and spirits might end up in a future expansion or game ;) Note: this will be available to the entire Distilled community, since it will exist as a free, public website. This means it will support both physical and PnP versions of the game, and extend Distilled's mission of being accessible and inclusive even further around the world!

This last one isn't part of the stretch goal, but instead another response to you - our amazing fans, and is available now (and free!). One of our backers, Thomas, reached out to me about acquiring the Distilled "D", as he wanted to try etching it into a snifter. I thought that was a great idea, and the result was really cool (see below). We've had a few other Distillers asking about the file, so I'm happy to say that you can all now access the Distilled "D" file here: by downloading this file, you are agreeing that you will only download it for personal use. I can't wait to see what some of you come up with, and where the "D" will show up next!

Whew! Well, I hope that by reading through all of this, you see how thankful we are for each and every one of you, and your support for this project. We've tried to come up with these celebratory stretch goals in our final week as a way to show our appreciation for coming along on this amazing ride with us,  (that frankly is already out of this earth's atmosphere, way past the moon, and likely headed to Jupiter, Mars or some other distant planet!). 

Sláinte,

Dave

PS. Did you see that Distilled's Kickstarter campaign was ranked #1 by both the Dice Tower and Thinker Themer this week?

PPS. Earlier this week, a great article was written by Dan Hess of Quackalope, in which he pairs great spirits with game experiences. He wrote up a fantastic piece about Distilled. Follow this link to read the full article.

Distilled Flavor Votes are in! What's Best? 😋 What's Worst? 🤢
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 12:58:10 AM

The flavor votes are tallied and we have our top picks! 🏆 

As a reminder, we said that we will feature the Top 10 most popular flavors, as voted by you, in the game! A few things, by the numbers, before we dive deeper:

• Total number of participating voters: 1,399
• Total number of flavors voted on: 84 
• Most popular flavor: Caramel (1,021 votes, 72.8% of the votes)
• Least popular flavor: Tireburn (76 votes, 5.4% of the votes)

As you can see above, there was a fairly gradual slope from best to worst as it dwindled in popularity.  In looking through the results, it appears that people definitely leaned towards flavors that would taste good, rather than ones that might be funny,  or taste bad. And that's just fine - you voted with your preferences, and now we have some delicious flavors to add to Distilled! So, without delay, here are your top 10 flavors for Distilled, which we will be officially adding to the game:

 Top 10 Fan Voted Flavors for Distilled 🥇

• Caramel
• Oaky
• Orange Peel
• Maple
• Spicy
• Cherry
• Nutty
• Fruity
• Ginger
• Berries

But I'm sure you want to know how each and every flavor ranked, especially the bottom 10! At the end of this update, you are welcome to view the entire spreadsheet from the survey results. If any of you are stat and graph wizards, I welcome any sorts of visual presentations that communicates things in a better or more interesting way! So, what were the ickiest flavors of all, you ask? 

10 Least Popular Fan Voted Flavors for Distilled 🤮

•  Tireburn
• Glue
• Sports Bag
• Plastic
• Gravy
• Asparagus
• Marmite
• Band-aid
• Sweaty

I'll tell you right now, I probably will still be taking a few of these lower-ranked flavors and adding them to the Flavor deck. Remember, we have 40 in the base game, and an extra 8 more in the expansion, so we definitely have some room to have fun, since we have a handful of undesirable flavors in the deck! Most importantly, I want to see Erik draw things like Band-aid and Sports Bag! 🤣 (believe it or not, but "band-aid" is a positive flavor often attributed to a nice single malt!)

If you're curious to see how each flavor fared, head over to the master spreadsheet to dig a bit deeper (pro-tip, you can "File > Make a Copy" of it if you wanted to play around with it on your own).

Thanks again everyone, and hopefully I'll be in touch soon with another update!

Sláinte,

Dave