Another Kingmaker Milestone

I've handed over the redeveloped Kingmaker prototype to Gibsons Games down in Sutton. This marks a line-drawn-under-it moment in terms of development. Now, we enter into the production phase; some would say "at long last", but the gestation period for this was always going to be lengthy, because of the complexity of the task, and then because of the intervention of COVID. In fact, I will continue testing, particularly face-to-face and blind testing, because these have been difficult in COVID times, and it's a truism that you can never do enough testing. However, the objective of testing from now on is to smooth out any final wrinkles (Terrain Chart or Terrain Table, anyone?), and I do not expect any significant changes.

Here's a picture of the prototype to whet your appetite.

I should stress that this prototype does not have professional / final artwork or layout - that is all to come. Clockwise from the top board we have:

• Revised Kingmaker board (with regional movement, Prestige points, Royal cards, and so on)

• Guide to Kingmaking, Player Aids, rules for Revised, Classic, Options and Variants, Solo Challenge

• Cards for Victory Conditions, Royalty, Major Battle / Siege (for Prestige), Pre-set Factions, Cities, the Plantagenet Dukedoms (optional)

• Crown cards (81, including a few options and variants)

• Event cards (140, with quite a lot of options and variants - primarily from the original game and the AH expansion)

• Prestige Victory tile (sits in the Event deck and controls when Prestige Victory can be claimed)

• Royal pieces, Ship pieces, Besieged markers, King's Peace marker, Start Player marker, Stack and Faction markers for each player

• 2 d6 dice (for options)

• 7 sets of Noble pieces (1 set for each of 6 players, + 1 for the optional battle sub-system for Classic/Extended Classic)

• Battle board (for optional sub-system)

• Classic Kingmaker board (with Area movement)