Fantastic Factories: Manufactions

BGG top 1000, questions, and promo highlights!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 05, 2020 at 09:22:12 PM

Hi Factory Fanatics!

We’ve reached over 2,500 backers! It’s so exciting to have all of you along for this campaign. Fantastic Factories has also just hit another incredible milestone that I couldn’t wait to share. It is now in the BoardGameGeek top 1000 games of all time! Given that more than 3000 games are released EACH YEAR alone makes this an incredible feat and one that I never dreamed that we would reach, and it’s all thanks to all of you and your support.

I wanted to post an update to answer some questions we’ve been getting as well as talk about what new promos we’re including in this Kickstarter.

One box to rule them all?

Some people have asked in the comments if we would consider offering a big box to hold the base and the expansion content. At this time, we don’t have plans to make a big box, but it turns out that all the expansion content does fit in the base game WITH the insert. Check out this video where we test this out:

https://youtu.be/aTC89bEMZ8s

Add-on only shipping and pledging for multiple bundles

We’ve updated the FAQ to clarify and explain how shipping works for pledges that are for add-ons only or for backers who want to pledge for multiple quantity or mixed pledge levels. Please take a look if you fall into one of these edge cases.

Promo cards

As a designer, promos are cool because I’m allowed to go a little outside the box and design cards that are a little more complex or wacky. As an artist, I can expand the visual vocabulary of Fantastic Factories and explore slightly different looks and styles. As a publisher, these specific promos are an awesome way to celebrate gaming culture and highlight what other incredible things other people are creating!

D.R.A.W. Studio

As some of you may have heard, after we completed our previous Kickstarter campaign, we partnered with Deep Water Games to help broaden our reach. They’ve been so successful that we’ve actually sold out of our entire first print run, meaning game stores won’t be able to get any more copies until this Kickstarter campaign fulfills!

D.R.A.W. Studio is a celebration of that partnership and an opportunity to highlight one of Deep Water’s upcoming game titles, MonsDRAWsity! In MonsDRAWsity, one player witnesses a sighting of a monster and must describe from memory and in detail what they saw, and the other players must do their best to sketch the creature and fill in the blanks! Deep Water is actually taking pre-orders for this game right now.

Mimic

Mimic might look oddly… familiar… to some people. Sometimes you just can’t seem to get the right cards to hire the right contractors. Mimic helps you out by copying the effect of any contractor in the marketplace!

Wood Workshop

What is a tabletop game without the tabletop? Wood Workshop is a promo card that features our friends over at Wyrmwood Gaming. They craft absolutely beautiful gaming accessories such as dice towers, dice trays, and even gaming furniture. In fact, they have a live Kickstarter campaign going on right now for gaming tables, starting as low as $300! I honestly had to double check the price, because I’ve seen their stuff at conventions and it is AMAZING.

Their current campaign features this really cool modular system that grows and evolves with you as your available living/gaming space grows. They’re customizable with a number of accessories like cup holders or a card shelf, and can be made in a variety of gorgeous woods as well (my favorite is either black walnut or purple heart).

Promo Factions

Metafactory Industries

Justin and I started Metafactory Games to publish Fantastic Factories. We thought it would be fun and appropriately meta to include a version of our company in the game. Its power is to copy other faction powers so it’s doubly meta.

BIG Pharma

BIG Pharma is a corporate faction that really rewards the usage of vitamins in a big way. Instead of changing the value of a die by 1, vitamins can now also change the value of a die by 2! The challenge here is that you don’t start the game with any way to gain vitamins. Luckily you get to see 9 blueprint cards and get 3 vitamins to start the game.

Media coverage

We’ve gotten some recent media coverage! Check out these overviews/previews from Dicebreaker and One Board Family

And last but not least, if you’re learning how to play Fantastic Factories or want to teach others, check out this how-to-play video from Tabletop Tolson. This is one of my absolute favorite videos.

Until next update

Thank you again for backing this game!

• Joseph
   

We are FUNDED!
over 3 years ago – Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 06:41:16 PM

What a rush! We’ve been down this road before, but I don’t think it will ever get old. I missed the exact moment, but I was told we were funded in just 9 minutes! And now we’re past $100k in just a few hours! We’re so grateful for all of you who have shown up on day one. Having a big push on the first few days helps create visibility for our Kickstarter campaign and ultimately allows us to get Fantastic Factories and the expansions into as many players’ hands as possible, which has always been Justin’s and my dream for the game.

Campaign updates

So what’s new and cool in Manufactions and Subterfuge? Throughout the next few weeks, we’ll be sending occasional updates to celebrate funding milestones and to share in-depth details about what makes these two expansions so special. We’ll also be doing a few livestreams here and there to showcase the gameplay and offer you an opportunity to come hang out and ask any questions.

Livestream tomorrow!

Speaking of livestreams, there will be one tomorrow! Tune around 11:30 AM Pacific on Tuesday to the Fantastic Factories’ Twitch Channel and watch Joseph, designer/artist for Fantastic Factories, play through a solo game or two using the new factions and cards from Manufactions.

Cards matter theme

Now that we’ve gotten the big stuff out of the way, I want to jump into the details around one of the sub-themes of Manufactions -- cards matter -- and how it takes Fantastic Factories to the next level.

Astute factory fanatics have always known that there are ways of converting blueprint cards into goods or other resources.

But Manufactions takes it a step further and explores all the different ways you can use different attributes of the cards (build cost, the tool symbol, and even the card type) to produce goods, resources, and even dice!

Deep into the game, it’s usually too late to build Training cards, but luckily with Academy you can discard them for points. With Drone and enough cards, you can reliably gain extra workers of the values you really care about. And if your opponent has Nexus in play, you might be a little more wary of leaving that Gear card in the marketplace up for grabs…

Not only do new factories care about cards, but some of the brand new corporate factions do as well!

But all this new stuff wouldn’t be any fun if we had to draw 1 card at a time using Research. Included within the Manufactions expansion are also numerous powerful ways of drawing the cards you need.

Thank you again!

Thank you all again for supporting Fantastic Factories! Let me know in the comments what you thought of this update and if there’s anything specific you want to learn more about in the expansions.

- Joseph