Fixes/Suggestions, Fast Play Mode, Faction and Ship Design Raffle
over 2 years ago – Fri, Nov 17, 2023 at 11:58:15 AM

Hello Admirals! We've got several exciting updates since you least heard from us. Talking points of the update in order:

1. Fixes and Suggestions
   
2. Holiday Sale - KS Backers get a special bonus discount.
   
3. New game variant that speeds up gameplay and increases player engagement significantly.
   
4. I’m placing an order for a large OS map (could be used for any RPG game) for anyone interested in a group order.
   
5. New Sea Monster Scenario inbound, prepping for an event in December that you’ll have access to
   
6. Raffle to design your own faction and ship type
   

Fixes and suggestions

Fix - Don’t use 1st player token for 2 player games

Reasoning - It was always intended to have a 2 player game be small jabs back and forth, not 1 player going twice. The first player token was intended to only apply to 3 and 4 player games.

Fix - Bootleggers Expedition, place tokens in the Bootleggers faction box to draw from instead of on the table. 

Reasoning - A couple of the Expedition tokens are miss tinted from the manufacture which resulted in a slight coloration difference. This allows the player to have an unfair advantage when drawing from the table. Placing the tokens in the faction box removes this issue.

Suggestion - Reduce base coin cost when seizing an island to zero. No coin cost unless paying to offset ships defending the island.

Reasoning - Allows a player to still pursue island victory after losing one in the early game. Also allows players to do more of the fun actions in the game when coin is no longer spent on islands, such as faction abilities or firing ships.

Suggestion - If an attacked ship would get a broadside “Free return fire” shot but it is blocked by a ship in front of the attacking ship. Roll for the free return fire and apply it to the nearest enemy ship blocking the attacking ship.

Reasoning - Having a ship in front of the ship should protect the ship but lend itself to being damaged in the act of protecting. 1st edition rules gives both ships (the protector and the attacker) an invulnerability to a free return fire which does not thematically make sense.

Sale

We’ll be running our first “sale” this holiday season on our website. Civilians will get a small % off but Admirals (Kickstarter backers) get an exclusive discount through the holiday season, use the code “KSBD” at checkout to knock 15% off the total price and free shipping should automatically tag along. If free shipping doesn’t tag along, add code “freesailing” and you should be golden. Visit www.NeverBoardGames.com to check it out. 

Fast Play Game Variant

-We have been running a new variant at game events that allows up to 12+ people to play in 2 - 2.5 hours. This new mode keeps people engaged for a lot of reasons, but one in particular is players get the opportunity to fire cannons throughout the round, rather than just their turn. Rules for it are here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NftqBJA4blNJK5g9IpeGHXXqv5qqOyHb?usp=sharing . This ruleset can be played with any player count but is a lot of fun at 8+.

Large Group Board (Banner)

Alternate game board to host a large group (12-16 players) - Going to place an order early December, if you’d like to order a banner, email me at [email protected] otherwise it will be uploaded to the F&M booklet QR code for you to print out anytime. The above picture is a very low quality banner but you get the gist of what it would look like and the size. 

New Game Mode & Where to find other missions

Sea monsters are always a fun addition to naval games. We will be running a large group Sea Serpent Hunt in the first week of December. A preliminary rules document is uploaded right now but we’ll be refining it as we approach the event. After the event, a fully realized game mode including a sea monster will be available. You can find this Sea Serpent hunt here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NftqBJA4blNJK5g9IpeGHXXqv5qqOyHb?usp=sharing

We will typically mention the addition of a new mission or mode on our social media page. If you are not following it already, check it out here: Never Board Games Social Media Page

Raffle for designing faction and ship type

We are running events at cons, game stores, and other locations. These events provide the winners with a metal O.S coin which goes towards a raffle we will run mid 2024. The winner of this raffle will get to design their own faction and ship type and we will pay for the art cost and production cost to send the faction card and ship tokens to the winner.

If you would like an event to run near you, email me at [email protected] with your interest and location and we can get the ball rolling. 

As always, reach out to me at [email protected] if you ever have any questions, I'll do my best to reply as soon as possible. 

Tim

Old Salt fulfillment is completed. The journey comes to a long awaited end.
about 3 years ago – Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 02:33:37 PM

We are done!!!!

It took longer than expected, we hit some snags, dealt with delays and explored a lot of unknown territory but we have officially completed fulfillment for Old Salt’s Kickstarter project! Pretty exciting! I believe I've shared the below picture before. But now that the project is entirely wrapped up, I wanted to include it one more time to show the progress from start to finish. 

Survey - So I can improve

If you can spare a few minutes of time, I would greatly appreciate it if you filled out this survey I made: https://questionpro.com/t/AUd8EZxEKh to get your thoughts on how I did with the project. If / when I do another Kickstarter, I want to do the best job I possibly can and if I missed the mark on this Kickstarter I want to know. If you loved your experience, I’d love to hear it. If you have grievances, let me know in the survey so I can improve on the next go around. After filling out the survey, it will have a link to Board Game Geek if you’d like to leave a rating on the game.

Overall, thank you so much for your patience throughout this project. I am eternally grateful to have had the best group of backers a creator could ask for. Thank you for your support and enthusiasm for Old Salt, it’s truly a great feeling to have gamers around the globe excited to get your game that started out as a passion project.

I sincerely hope you are enjoying Old Salt if you’ve had the opportunity to get a game in. If you haven’t yet, I hope it goes well, and please don’t hesitate to send me an email or message asking about any rule clarifications or questions that pop up. I would strongly advise against trying to learn it late at night. You can definitely play it at any hour of the day or night, but learning is tough when the brain wants to sleep.

Didn’t get your game?

If you did not receive your game, please send me an email. As far as I’m aware, every backer who completed the survey and paid for shipping has received their game. 

For everyone else: If you’d like to buy a copy as a gift or if a friend wants to buy it, you can point them to the pre order store: https://old-salt.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders which is what I'm using until Amazon is up. Amazon has been a nightmare to get going so no luck there yet. Ebay on the other hand took 20 minutes to get a listing up (Only for US customers). Some game stores have copies but by and large, I will be selling through Never Board Games rather than through FLGS'.

Game Fix

A game fix for the Bootleggers Expedition ability. Some units have a slight tint difference to the tokens so you can tell which tokens are treasure and which ones are not. An easy and quick fix for this is to empty out the Bootlegger faction box. Put the Expedition tokens in the box. Then randomly draw one when using the Expedition ability rather than flipping. This prevents the player from knowing which token they are drawing.

Expansions?

At this time, there are no plans for Old Salt expansions. The two main reasons for this are

1. Not enough demand to merit an expansion at this time.
   
2. Formations and Maneuvers booklet has a QR code that I will upload (as time allows) new content to. Most of that content will be player generated homebrew content such as custom ship types, new factions, new missions, new campaigns, new print and play boards (you could go to a local printer and print it off for like, 5 bucks). Until Old Salt sells out of available copies, there’s no good reason to make an expansion. Even if I sell out of copies, I might not run another print run of Old Salt because it’s pretty costly (duh, we all know this. But really, OS was expensive). This project cost about 30k and I only “made” ~18k from the Kickstarter after CC and KS fees were deducted. I’m also excluding the pre Kickstarter costs which were around 20k. I can't swing another 25 to 30k print run unless there is a solid demand for the game. 

A new expansion would likely have included 2 new factions, 2 sea monsters (kraken and eel on the board), 2 new ship types and likely a new board layout (introduce mechanics for large and small islands). But if I can upload these things onto the Formations and Maneuvers QR code, and have it immediately available to gamers, I’ll go that route. No need to spend another year and a half waiting for a product to arrive when we can just scan a QR code, print it out at home or at a local printer and be on with it.

Regarding this, a player is designing a giant mega board. Once that’s done, I’ll upload it so players can have a mega board if they wanted to use all the ships in the box to have a mega battle. If you’d like to make a faction, ship type, mission, campaign, you are more than welcome to.

Next Kickstarter Project?

So no expansions for Old Salt. That being said, some of you are aware that I was making a game for a company and that company ended up cutting contracts across the board including mine. The game I was making was incredible and very well received by playtesters despite no art or graphic design. Personally, I loved the game and was pretty bummed when the contract got cut. But…since I didn’t get paid out, the game is mine to do with as I wish. It’s a semi cooperative game with some really thematic mechanics that bring the game to the next level. One day when I was procrastinating my to-do list, I spent a couple hours reskinning the shelved game to see if it would fit the Old Salt universe. It ended up fitting the universe surprisingly well and I think it will be an excellent addition to the Old Salt universe, eventually. It’ll need about ~20k in art and ~5-10k in graphic design so it’s nothing to get excited about at this moment. But eventually, it will likely be coming to Kickstarter.

Are there more updates?

At this point with fulfillment completed, there is no need for updates (As far as I'm aware at least). If I post another update, it might be calling your attention to some fix in the game if something broken is discovered. Or if I have another Old Salt universe project I’m putting together that I want to bring your attention to. But I promise I will not spam you. Overall, there are no more planned updates for this Kickstarter campaign.

What has Tim / Never Board Games been up to?

1. LittleCreatorsClub.com: I designed a curriculum and now teach kids how to make their own board game in after school clubs and summer camps in Iowa. The intent is to help steer kids away from consumerism and instead take a step towards being a lifelong creator, designer, and maker.
   
2. Drinks & Designs Similar to Little Creators Club but instead it’s for adults at breweries and wineries. They get drink tokens with their game kit and I teach an expedited version of Little Creators Club so they make a game in 2-3 hours instead of 8 weeks.
   
3. Corporate Coaching Game: A company in Iowa reached out to me to design a game for a new corporate program they were rolling out in order to personalize the experience to the user and to reinforce long term commitment to the program. It's a pretty simple game but the company and coaches that will be teaching the new program were absolutely thrilled with it and its applications to their material. It’s currently set to be a required element to the program. Woot.
   
4. ESL Game - I’m designing an English Second Language game to act as a teacher tool for an organization called TESOL. I’ll be pitching the game to the organization on April 19th and I am excited to show them the value this game can bring to their classrooms around the world. It highlights a lot of great skills like: public speaking, writing, and integrating keywords into a response.
   
5. Conference Game: I designed a game for a tech conference that had a board game theme. They were pretty excited about it until they realized they had to push back the board game conference theme a year. Looking forward to continuing development with them later this year.
   
6. Comedy Game - Less developed than the other games I mentioned above, but I’m progressing on a stand up comedy game that takes away the stress of going up on stage and keeps all the fun of comedy.

• I’m writing a novel. Eventually I want Little Creators Club to teach kids how to write short stories and in order to launch that program well, I need to practice writing and break down everything that goes into that process. Similar to how I was able to make the board game design curriculum after making my own game. I would also love to write a collection of journal entries from the perspective of legendary Old Salt admirals that were fortunate enough to recount their stories after epic naval battles. I think it’d be an awesome project to do, but I need practice before doing that. So this year I’m writing 3 books. One each trimester-ish.
  -First book is a simulation book where the server runs out of disk space and exploring everything that goes into that.  
  -Second book is going to be an “epic space opera” that adapts metaphors in the book of Revelation from the bible into the year ~2500.
  -Third book will be following the journey of a legendary hero who chooses to ascend into godhood and has to navigate the politics and ploys of gods and humans. 

It's been an incredible journey and I'm incredibly thankful to have you all as backers. I hope you enjoyed the experience and journey, despite the waiting and all that. Thank you so much for supporting the project, I couldn't (literally) have done it without you. Old Salt would not exist without you. Thanks for taking a chance on me as a first time creator. I know that's a big risk. You all are the best. That's all I have for this update. Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you ever need anything. Please take a few minutes to fill out that survey, it would mean a lot to me.  I hope you enjoy Old Salt and everything it offers! 

May the winds and the seas favor you well, Admirals. 

Tim

Fulfillment mostly completed!
about 3 years ago – Wed, Mar 01, 2023 at 08:20:06 PM

Hello Admirals! February flew by and I apologize for not getting an update out yesterday. We have lots of good news and some fun things to talk about in this update. The main categories we will go over will be: remaining fulfillment, Naval Overhaul Kit info, first thoughts survey, suggestions and things to keep in mind when playing Old Salt.

In the next update, fulfillment should be entirely wrapped up and I’ll do a quick debrief on what projects I’m working on through Never Board Games and some other house keeping items.

First up! Remaining fulfillment. So! A lot of you have your game or your game + Naval Overhaul Kit. I sincerely hope you are enjoying it or are setting up a game night to take those ship tokens out on the high seas. Backers in the USA and Canada who filled out the backerkit survey and paid for shipping should have received their rewards by now. If you completed the survey and your card was charged for shipping and you have not received your copy, please send me an email or a DM on Kickstarter and I’ll follow up with you. I'm not sure what other Kickstarters experienced but we had a minimum of 91 orders get sent back and reshipped out. Which is a big reason why we have had such an extended fulfillment phase. A number of you had no tracking number and received the game. A larger number had tracking and it said delivered despite never showing up. Definitely fun...but it's mostly remedied now. 

For backers outside the North American continent, your games were shipped out yesterday from Hubtrotter through priority express (2-4 days to arrive to UK). It took weeks longer than I was expecting to sync up Hubtrotter and Ship Quest but we got it squared away and the games are on their way to the UK hub with Ship Quest. Once they arrive, as I am told, it will be a quick turn around to ship to the UK, EU and AU backers. To my EU, UK and Australia backers, I am very sorry for the delay in getting you your games. What I should have done (and will do on future projects) is air ship EU, UK and AU orders straight from the manufacturer in China to the UK hub right after production completed. Then ship those games to you from the UK hub. It is not a mistake I will make again if I ever have another project similar to Old Salt.

Naval Overhaul Kit - I’ve had a few people ask if the Naval Overhaul Kit is still available. To those unaware, the Naval Overhaul Kit (NOK) is an upgrade kit for select components in Old Salt. It basically makes the game look spectacular. Few pics below: 

Currently, yes there are NOK units still available. It is currently available on the Backerkit store for Old Salt. I manufactured 350 units of the Naval Overhaul Kit. I’m not sure what the current count is for remaining units, I would guess maybe 150. If you would like to purchase the NOK, I would suggest purchasing it sooner than later, not as a sales tactic, but because once they are gone, they are gone. Currently, I do not have any plans to do another print run. 

First thoughts survey - Next update when everyone has received their copy of the game, I’ll have a link to a first thoughts survey to get your thoughts on it along with some feedback on my plans for the QR code on the cover of the formations and maneuvers booklet. It’ll be 5 or less questions and help me understand what your thoughts are on what you received.

Suggestions when playing Old Salt -
Plastic Stands: A couple of updates ago I talked about the black plastic stands that hold the banners during a game (this pertains to base game so if you have NOK, you can skip). Those are stiff. If you are frustrated with how difficult it is to get the plastic stand to open up, go to my Dec. 31st update and watch that video clip. That is the easiest way to open the stand and also prevent the stand from clipping the edge of the banner and pulling off the coating.

If/When you run out of damage tokens: 2 player and 3 player standard mode games shouldn’t run out of damage tokens but a 4 player game it’s more likely. If this happens, just pull from an unoccupied area on the board to replenish as needed. Thematically, the wreckage has sunk to the ocean floor and is no longer an issue.

Every once in a while there can be major battles happening on all corners of the map. But once the dust settles and wreckage is everywhere, players realize their ships are across the map from each other and getting to the next battle can be a chore. There are two solutions to this and both solutions require all players to agree to it.

1. Have all map edges link to each other like the game Pac-man. Calculate firing distance as normal but the edge now loops to the other side. It can be tricky but very doable until everyone is back in the same area.
   
2. Another option, spend 1 turn moving ships an agreed amount of tiles (6, 8, 10) to get the next battle underway sooner. This prevents spending 3 lame turns moving ships a few tiles.
   

Page 19 in the rulebook: Reading the room. This is my favorite part of Old Salt because the game can be scaled up or down depending on the group. I bring this up only as a reminder that this page exists and I’ll always suggest a group to tailor their game experience to their table. The items toward the bottom of the list on page 19 don’t necessarily make it harder or more difficult to play, but they do add in new elements that can be fun to explore.

Outside of all that, I don’t have anything else that needs to be in this update. To those who have their games, I sincerely hope you enjoy your experience with Old Salt. To those who haven’t yet received their games, soon the wait will be over and you can explore the high seas. I am sorry for the delay.

Next update I’ll go over projects I’m working on, include a link to first thoughts survey, and talk about homebrew and my hopes and dreams for it and how it relates to Old Salt. As always if you have any questions for me, send me a message or email at [email protected] or a dm on KS.

Cheers!

Tim

Another delay, likely the last, but one more delay.
about 3 years ago – Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 05:20:07 PM

As many of you know, Old Salt arrived at the fulfillment center in December of last month. It arrived during peak holiday season and near the very end of the month, but it was there. I was told Old Salt was in queue and that was true. What I didn’t realize was how long the queue would be and how long each position would take until the next in line would begin their fulfillment. That is our delay. Through research, counsel, and taking into account the state of the world, I expected 2 or 3 weeks of waiting. Unfortunately, we are still waiting.

Wednesday of last week (Jan 25th 2023) I was told there was 1 project ahead of Old Salt and as soon as it was completed we would begin shipping out orders to backers. I was not given an estimate for the remaining days until it was completed. I was holding out hope that it would begin before the end of the month so this Kickstarter update headline would read differently. Similar to most of the delays experienced in this project journey, I have no control over when they get to Old Salt but I have confirmation that we are next. As soon as the current project wraps up, Old Salt starts shipping out.

I am sorry for this delay, especially after the exciting update that I posted last month and the timeline I had told you to expect for the last 5 or 6 months. I have double checked with the fulfillment partner that they have everything they need in order to start shipping orders as soon as they can. I am re-learning that the most frustrating part of this Kickstarter journey is consistently being at the mercy of another’s schedule. I know each group I work with is working as efficiently as they can but this hurry up and wait game is tough. The next Kickstarter project I am associated with I will have 8 months of buffer built into the timeline instead of 4 months. To those interested in knowing the day this project actually begins fulfillment, I will make a facebook post on Old Salt’s page.

Outside of being told we are first in line, the only other notable thing to have happened this month is unboxing the master cartons and pallets of Old Salt units and Naval Overhaul Kits. I was told there was no visual damage to any of the boxes. Which is to be expected since I used double walled cartons but it’s nice that the inventory is in good shape. In the event you get a damaged copy, that will likely reflect on the carrier rather than manufacturer, freight, or fulfillment center.

That is all I have for the update. I was really hoping to see pictures of games being played and admirals sailing the seas, seizing islands and exploring awesome combinations with faction abilities and ship types. I am sorry again for this unexpected delay. I was so sure that we would be golden since the ocean freight arrived almost a week ahead of schedule. I’ll make a facebook post to Old Salt as soon as I get confirmation we have begun.

Thank you and may you sail the seas of Old Salt sooner than later, 

Tim

Last Leg of the Trip! In Fulfillment Queue
about 3 years ago – Sun, Jan 01, 2023 at 10:12:42 AM

Hello Admirals!

Happy New Year! And what a year it has been! The process of going from Kickstarter to fulfilling rewards has been quite the ordeal. Overall, it was a lot of hurry up and wait and I know from the backer perspective, that sums up a fair portion of the Kickstarter experience. Thank you for your patience as I worked through delays and hiccups. I firmly believe that I have the best backers on the platform. You are awesome. The wait is nearly over. This update focuses on 2 things. 1st item is a suggested way to use the plastic stands in Old Salt. This is definitely an odd thing to include in a Kickstarter update, but I found that using the plastic stands in a different way can risk damaging the punch board banner (scratches). The 2nd item highlights where Old Salt is at this current moment.

TL:DR, Open the stand’s clamp before placing the punchboard banner in, remove plastic stand going to the left or right. Part 2. Old Salt is at the fulfillment center, probably a week or two until they get to us, but we are waiting in queue to start shipping.

1st item: The plastic stand

The original plastic stands shattered when putting the banner into the slot. These stands work, but it can be a tight fit.  Sometimes players will brute force the banner into the stand which can scrape/scratch the punch board banner if the stand is used incorrectly. The punch board in Old Salt is 2.5mm thick which is thicker than most board games. To alleviate potential frustrations with the plastic stand or accidental scraping of the banner; I've included a video clip showing how I’d recommend you to use the plastic stands.

Overall: use two hands to open the clamp. Use one hand to hold clamp open. Use other hand to place banner in the open slot. 

Part two of 1st item: When removing the stand from the banner, remove to the left or right. Do not pull straight down as the clamp can clip the edge of the punch board and scratch it.

2nd item - Where is Old Salt?

Old Salt has made the journey from Gameland to RDD Freight to APPS Delivery services to the fulfillment center in Canada. There were some hiccups that I’ll briefly cover below but by and large, we are on  the verge of completing this project and wrapping up the Kickstarter. All we have left is shipping rewards! Woot!

Notable hiccups encountered: 

1. Paying tariffs/taxes/customs/duties after the boat landed was trickier than I expected. I was only made aware of a fee from my bank but both banks took out a fee which reduced the total amount RDD Freight received.  Initiailly when they didn't receive balance (because it came in at a reduced amount) I had a fear that I somehow sent a large sum of money to the wrong account and lost it forever. Luckily we just had to make another wire transfer to pay the remaining amount + the bank fee + the other bank fee + the currency conversion fee (lots of fees!) which was considerably less than resending the original balance haha.

Next hiccup was emphasizing the importance of scheduling the delivery with the fulfillment center. First delivery attempt failed during normal working hours. Still not sure what happened here, and don't want to blame either of the companies I worked with so I'm just chalking it up to "first time experience" errors.

Happy to say we are on the last leg of the journey! Since this is the last leg of the journey, I have a quick address reminder.

This is your last chance to verify your address. While most of you will not be able to modify your address, you can let me know if it is incorrect and I can adjust it accordingly. I would rather update an address at 2am than send a copy of Old Salt to your previous home address and then work out how to get the copy from a prior residence or get a new copy to the right person. To set proper expectations for everyone, in the event your reward is shipped to a backer’s prior address, a backer will have 2 options to get the reward they paid for.

1. The backer purchases what was shipped to their prior residence and pays the shipping cost.
2. The backer works with their prior residence to obtain their delivered reward.

To avoid any headaches or frustrations of the above, it is your responsibility to check and verify that your address is updated. If the address is not updated and you cannot edit it, send me an email at [email protected] or a direct message through Kickstarter and I’ll get you sorted. Backers have until January 3rd to verify their address and get in touch with me. After that, we risk the possibility the reward(s) have already shipped and you will be in option 1 or 2 from the above.

Thank you to all the backers who have reached out to me to update their address, I greatly appreciate it! To all of Old Salt's backers; I am incredibly thankful for you supporting this high seas adventure. Your patience during global delays and sheer excitement to dive into Old Salt has been wonderful. Through your support, I have used Old Salt as a springboard into other epic board game projects.

By the time we reach our next update, I imagine that a portion of backers will have received their reward or will be expecting it shortly. I will address any issues that may have arisen from fulfillment or just general issues that we come across. I will also briefly discuss the other board game projects I am working on so you can look forward to those if they seem up your alley. Currently no Kickstarter projects on the horizon, but pretty exciting board game projects nonetheless.

That's all for now. We start shipping soon and be careful of those plastic stands! 

May the seas favor you well, 

Tim