Welcome to Update Month!
over 6 years ago – Tue, Oct 03, 2017 at 11:23:03 PM

Greetings, most patient Kickstarter Backers!

Christopher here to let you know that things are moving at high speeds here at the GTG HQ! I was looking at all the things we’re finishing up and getting to the printer, and I was blown away. So I said to myself, “Self, you’re going to have to write a HUGE update at the start of November to recap all of the things that happened in October.” I didn’t like the sound of that. “That’ll take over a day to write, and entirely too long to read!” I argued with myself. “No one wants to read an update that long! It’s like listening to a podcast that takes over three hours. No one wants that!” With a grumble, I admitted that I might have a point. “Well then, old boy, you’ll have to have some other system to let people know what’s going on. This once a month update deal just isn’t going to cut it!”

So, to keep the first Tuesday of November from being a horrendous slog for me - and more importantly for all of you - October is Update Month. What does that mean? Well, I’ll tell you!

Every Tuesday this month, I will be posting an update here with information about our process and images of stuff we’ve made.

That will keep you more in the loop than ever before, and also cut down on the ridiculous length of updates that we would otherwise be forced to endure. Whew!

We know that you’re all eager to get all this stuff - we are, too! We’re also very much wanting to give you detailed timeline information, and over this month’s updates, we’ll be able to dial in on that as we complete the rest of the products and get information back from the printer. One of the purposes of the weekly updates is to give you all the information we have, pretty much as soon as we get it!

Today is the first Tuesday of October, so Update Month starts here!

Ultimate Collector’s Case Content

In last month’s update, I showed off the Ultimate Collector’s Case, and wow does it look good! However, many of you asked about what comes inside that case. Turns out, there’s a lot in there! Brace yourselves… lots of images incoming.

First things first, we’ve got the Comparisons booklet!

So much information!

Next up, the dividers. These are REALLY nice. We’ve got dividers for heroes…

...dividers for villains (which look different based on whether they are for standard villains or Vengeance-style villains…

...dividers for environments…

...and even dividers for the OblivAeon event itself!

Besides looking great, these dividers are also super sturdy! They’re made of thick punchboard instead of cardstock, much like the material our tokens are made out of.

Speaking of tokens:

Two sheets of these fancy tokens! They cover each of the damage types and also provide Nemesis icons, for keeping track of who is particularly upset with who in these conflicts.

Finally, the Ultimate Collector’s Case would not be complete without foam blocks!

Oh, and Guise, I suppose. He’s in there, too.

Requested Card Backs

For some reason, there have been an assortment of requests in the comments to see card backs for decks from the OblivAeon set. As a result, I will be ending each of these updates with a smattering of deck backs! Like these!

In Closing!

I hope you’re looking forward to this month’s updates as much as I am! I’m genuinely excited to share all sorts of stuff with you. To focus on getting stuff ready for you ASAP, I won’t be actively doing Q&A in the comments this week, but if there’s a thing you all very much want, tell me in the comments - I am reading all of them! Even the grumpy ones! Heck, I’m happy to have you all here. Without each and everyone one of you, we cannot hope to save the Multiverse!

See you next week!

Post Gen Con and PAX, and some photographs!
over 6 years ago – Tue, Sep 05, 2017 at 10:55:38 PM

Whew!

The past month has been EXHAUSTING. Since I posted the last update, we had a VERY productive Gen Con, and then I just got back from PAX West yesterday! Lots of things to cover in this update, so let’s get to it!

Gen Con

Gen Con was an amazing show. Biggest Gen Con ever, and we could really tell. The vast crowds took over every inch of the convention center, and a lot of people came to see what we were doing. We sold out of both Spirit Island and Lazer Ryderz, and also sold a ton of Fate of the Elder Gods. We had demos and full-length games of all of those games and more, including the Sentinel Comics RPG and Sentinels of the Multiverse: OblivAeon.

Many of you who made it out for Gen Con got to see OblivAeon in all his fury and horror, and it was pretty awesome. Most games wrapped up within the two-hour window, even though it was a first play through for everyone there, and each game played very differently, showcasing different missions, rewards, and Scions. A few games even ended up in success on the part of the heroes! Most impressive, indeed.

On Saturday, we had two major Sentinels related events. Saturday morning, we had the traditional GTG Costume Contest, and people really went all out this year! We had a ton of fantastic heroes and villains show up, including such stand out hits as picture perfect Wraith and Writhe, a terribly creepy Green Grosser, and a Dark Watch Harpy who spent hours sewing a feathered cape that turned out more awesome and far more complex than the version from the game! Everyone did an amazing job. More so than ever, we were so overwhelmed by just how amazing and wonderful you all are.

Look at all these amazing heroes and villains! At that front row tiny Tachyon!

That afternoon, we recorded a live episode of The Letters Page as a panel in front of an impressive audience. We completely filled that room, to the point of having a significant portion of the audience sitting on tables against the back wall and standing on the sides. That panel was more than we could have even hoped for. Rather than me trying to go into more detail, you can watch it yourself!

All told, Gen Con was a hit show, with Spirit Island, Lazer Ryderz, Fate of the Elder Gods, the Sentinel Comics RPG, and OblivAeon all shining equally brightly. Something for everyone!

PAX

I was at PAX West this year, but GTG didn’t have an official presence. I was mostly there because I’d done a series of talks at the game developer conference right before that show called PAX Dev. However, while at PAX West, I spent a lot of time in the tabletop freeplay area showing off Spirit Island, the Sentinel Comics RPG, and OblivAeon. If you’re interested in Sentinel Comics RPG stuff, you can look forward to a play-through I did with Aaron and Quinten of the Boards Alive podcast, which they should be posting sometime in October, I believe.

Part of the reason we didn’t have a presence at PAX West this year is that we’re going to have a huge presence at PAX Unplugged! It’s the first PAX Unplugged ever, and we’re excited to make the most of it. We hope to see you there!

Photographs of Things!

Let’s get down to business! OblivAeon is going VERY well. The sessions that came out of Gen Con and PAX made me extremely confident in this game. So things are coming to a point of finality within the development, and should be going off to the printer very soon here. Good news, all around. We recently received these photos from the factory where everything is being printed!

It’s happening!

Can you tell what's in those pictures? Here, I’ll make it easier. We got something notable in the mail last week while I was away that should clear it up…

It’s real!

So beautiful!

We’re excited to get our hands on this, as you can imagine, and even more excited to send them to you! We only received one, just to test out the packaging system to make sure they can survive transit. The rest we’ll get in a cargo container. More on that when we get details from the port!

Thanks for bearing with us, everyone! I look forward to OblivAeon looming large in the not-too-distant future!

-Christopher

Gen Con on the Horizon! Letters Page Cross-Over!
almost 7 years ago – Wed, Aug 02, 2017 at 01:01:41 AM

Hello, friends!

Sorry about this not going out earlier in the morning - I wanted to get final files for each of the cards I’ll be showing off later in this update, so that took a bit of extra time. Not to worry! It’s still Tuesday, and this update is worth it!

Gen Con

In a few weeks, we’ll be at Gen Con! *cue panic*

It’s the 50th Gen Con, so it’s a bigger celebration than ever before, and Greater Than Games is one of the proud sponsors this year! It’s all really very exciting. If you’re at Gen Con, come check out our Booth (#1343) and our demo room as well (#134)! We’ve also got a bunch of panels and events up on the Gen Con schedule, including everything from a general State of Greater Than Games panel, to specific panels about how things work in the industry, a costume contest, and even a live recording of The Letters Page!

Letters Page Cross-Over

Speaking of The Letters Page, what the heck do I mean by “Cross-Over”? I’ve used it twice now - once in the title of this update and again in the header above - so I must mean something by it, right? Good news! I do!

You might have heard that Adam and I do this podcast called “The Letters Page”. It’s a 90ish minute weekly podcast about the lore of Sentinel Comics! I know, I know - I’ve mentioned it a bunch. I’m just really excited about it. Still, there may be some of you that haven’t heard of it.

That said, I’m not here today to get you OblivAeon backers into The Letters Page. I’m here to show how OblivAeon answers a lot of the questions raised by The Letters Page!

We’ve gotten a lot of questions after each episode along the lines of, “Wait, when did that thing you just talked about happen?” Some of those things happened in the backstory of the card game. Others are minor events that happen in between the big stuff; connective tissue that doesn’t necessarily show up in the card game itself. However, a lot of the big stuff that happens at the end comes from the OblivAeon set, particularly in the Mission Deck.

For instance, in two episodes of the podcast - the Ra episode and The Ennead episode - we talked about Ra going to The Ennead with Anubis and convincing them to help in the fight against OblivAeon. That is a Mission you can take on in the card game!

When you successfully complete that Objective, you flip that card. Then, The Ennead are available to help you with one big punch!

So, this is what I mean by The Letters Page Cross-Over. The events of OblivAeon are crucial to the world of Sentinel Comics, so of course you’re going to get to play those events as part of the major conflict at the end of the Multiverse!

The heroes need extra firepower to deal with OblivAeon, the Scions, and the hordes of Aeon Men. As a result, Expatriette puts down her guns and goes to visit dear old mom, as discussed in the Expatriette episode.

The result of that conversation is that Citizen Dawn herself shows up to aid the heroes in their time of need, using her powers against OblivAeon's minions in a way that normally invokes great fear in the hearts of heroes everywhere.

Now, that Devastating Aurora is working for you!

Speaking of Expatriette, sometimes, you need a bit of additional firepower to take on reality’s greatest foe. Good things your friends K.N.Y.F.E. and Sky-Scraper are up for a bit of infiltration, as we talked about in the K.N.Y.F.E. episode and the F.I.L.T.E.R. episode.

And when they get back, they bring a present for their gun-toting ally.

Sorry for using two Expatriette related Missions, but I love the art payoffs on both of those. Plus, they're major stuff we've already covered on The Letters Page!

There are also some events will tie up loose ends and bring characters back from wherever/whenever they are into the primary canon timeline for the big end fight.

In the Chrono-Ranger episode, we talk about Jim getting stuck in Pompeii as Mount Vesuvius blows its top, and how he figured that was it for him…

But then a door opened in the fabric of reality, and the Chronoist saved the Chrono-Ranger!

Yes, we will even see new heroes from other realities and timelines joining in the fight against OblivAeon!

These events and so many more shape the end of the Multiverse, and OblivAeon will not just reveal that story - you are the heroes that will fight in that epic battle at the end of spacetime. And as those heroes, the OblivAeon event is your story.

What we talk about in The Letters Page comes from the (fictional) pages of Sentinel Comics, which is the same source material as all of Sentinels of the Multiverse. And that definitely includes this final OblivAeon expansion.

We look forward to seeing many of you at Gen Con! Keep on saving the Multiverse!

More Scions and a Comic Book reveal!
almost 7 years ago – Fri, Jul 07, 2017 at 12:09:42 AM

Happy July, backers of the Multiverse!

As promised, I have more Scions for your viewing pleasure! These each have a team of nemeses! (At least, on the front side of their Scion panels…)

Three More Scions

We’ll go from most familiar to least familiar!

The first Scion of OblivAeon is back! (OK OK, technically, the first Scion of OblivAeon in the card game is Cosmic Omnitron, but it didn’t even know that it was a Scion. Wasn’t really a true and proper Scion.) Progeny has been rebuilt by OblivAeon, and is no longer just a harbinger.

Progeny is still an elemental entity, but it also now hunts with purpose. It’s here to punish the heroes and keep them out of OblivAeon’s way. Progeny is back, and it promises even more destruction than its last visit!

---

Next, we finally officially put a name to an entity seen on the edges of the Multiverse! Voidsoul is a creature of haunting doubts, but if it feasts deeply enough, it can fully manifest into a terrifying form!

Can the heroes stop Voidsoul before it swallows their very essence? It seems unlikely - Voidsoul is hard to pin down, and harder to block out.

---

Eons ago, there was a cosmic entity of order and perfection. There is no one left that knows what it was called, but it is now simply known as Faultless. The twisted corruption that OblivAeon imbued this entity of order with has created a terrifying creature of madness and destruction!

If the heroes work together, they can save Faultless from its new self. But at what cost? Interacting with Faultless in its current state is too dangerous to undertake lightly…

---

Over the last few updates, you’ve gotten to see now NINE of the ten scions! But what about the last one? The one known to some as Tim Cosing? Well, their identity must remain a secret until you have the game in hand. All I can tell you now is that the name “Tim Cosing” will not be anywhere in the OblivAeon box - when OblivAeon arrives, you will learn that Scion’s true identity.

Comic Book Sneak Peek

Adam has done a TON of great art for OblivAeon, as I’ve been showing off here all year. The thing with the highest concentration of amazing art is the comic book that will be included in the box! It tells the story of the immediate lead-up to the OblivAeon conflict, moving right into the fight itself! We’re very excited to show off the final story of the Multiverse this way!

One of the pages of the comic depicts the Scion Aeon Master and waves of Aeon Men attacking Fort Adamant. Here’s that page (without any of the lettering that will be on the print version):

It’s a good thing that some newly powerful heroes are there to help!

Where are we now?

We’ve still got all of our collective noses to the proverbial grind-stones over here! Things are moving along rapidly; however, there is one thing that takes longer than everything else. And you can probably guess what it is!

The Ultimate Collector's Case is taking the factories a significant amount of time to assemble. Each one has to be hand-built to our exacting specifications. As a result, it won't be ready to ship for at least a few months. That meant that we have more time before we need to send the final OblivAeon files to the factory if we want them to be done at the same time (which we definitely do). 

With that in mind, we had made a decision to take advantage of that extra time to do additional internal testing and polishing of the OblivAeon scenario. We all want it to be amazing, and so we're taking that shot intentionally and carefully. That said, we're still well on track to receive the printed OblivAeon content this year.

A quick aside here: a few of you have expressed some unhappiness that the Ultimate Collector's Case is delaying the shipment. What you might not realize is that the vast majority of you did order the case! A significant super-majority, in fact! So, yes, the case is delaying things, but it's also giving us a chance to make everything as well done as possible.

We're excited to have this in hand ASAP, and even more excited to be able to send it to all of you! Bear with us, and know that it'll be worth it. Until then, keep on saving the Multiverse!

Just a quick update!
almost 7 years ago – Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 11:04:20 PM

Hey, folks!

Things are whirring at high speeds around here! I'm just popping in (on a FRIDAY?!) because I've gotten a few messages from you fine folks about this upcoming Tuesday's update. You all reminded me that it's a holiday here in the U.S. of A., and that in turn reminded me that I'm traveling on that day! Good thing you said something - I've been head down, nose to the grindstone a bit too much these days. Whew!

Anyway, as a result of holiday and traveling and such, I'm pushing that upcoming update back two days to the following Thursday. However! In that update, I'll have exiciting things to show you, including a bit of the OblivAeon comic book! Adam has been kicking art butt getting that finished, and it look glorious! Looking forward to sharing that with all of you.

For those of you who celebrate the Fourth of July, here's an art of the most American thing I could find: three Legacies fighting side-by-side!

For the rest of you, enjoy that badass picture of one of the phases of OblivAeon. He looks friendly!

-Christopher

P.S. Also! The Sentinels of the Multiverse video game is hugely on sale on Steam and mobile right now through next Tuesday! Check out all the info on that here. And Villains of the Multiverse just got added to the video game, too!