Huge Shipping Price Reduction and Yomi Valerie & Geiger decks now available

The shipping prices at www.sirlingames.com to international customers are now massively cheaper. These shipping prices were calculated automatically through several carriers in order to give you the cheapest shipping price (and there was no markup, just the actual cost of shipping internationally). Something screwy happened over time though and these prices rose to prices much higher than the actual shipping costs. I don't know where where in the pipeline this problem occurred, but I've now replaced the entire backend calculation of shipping with another method.

Yesterday: shipping of 2 Yomi decks to Canada cost $36.56.
Today: that same shipping costs $5.86.

Valerie & Geiger Decks

The Valerie & Geiger decks are now available, both the physical and print-and-play version. You can get them here.

Valerie is Rook's artistic advisor at the Morningstar Sanctuary. She's a painter and while she has her ups and downs, that's all part of being creative. She has one blue eye and one green eye and she sees things differently. In gameplay, she's able to play chain combos out of order, which no other character can do. She can speed up her moves at times, and her super move lets her draw a card, which helps her keep the pressure up.

Geiger is Rook's scientific advisor at the Morningstar Sanctuary. He's a watchmaker and scientist who has a special interest in tinkering with time. Geiger may have made contact with an ancient race of beings "unstuck" in time, but we'll save that for the upcoming game, Codex. In Yomi, Geiger can use careful planning to set up huge combos with his Time Spirals.

You can also play these characters in the web version at www.fantasystrike.com and the iOS version too, which is now on both iPad and iPhone. And the Steam version is coming very soon! The physical versions ship worldwide from www.sirlingames.com.

Come to Fantasy Strike expo this June in San Francisco for a Yomi tournament, too! Registration prices go up tomorrow, so register now.

Yomi Coming to Steam

Yomi is coming to Steam in the next few weeks! (It's already on iOS, the web, and in physical form.)

Yomi is a fighting game in card form and it's the competitive card game you should be playing. Just like in a fighting game, you have to learn your character's strengths and weaknesses, read your opponents' tendencies, and land combos when you can. Yomi is highly balanced at the expert level, and it expresses the values of a fair competitive game. You always have a full strength deck on an even playfield with your opponents.

Yomi has 20 characters, each with their own unique abilities and playstyles, leading to a whopping 210 different matchups.

Tournament Stream on April 11th

To celebrate the upcoming Steam release of Yomi, we're having a tournament this weekend. If you’re new to Yomi & want to learn more, subscribe to SirlinGames on Twitch, and tune into our pre-release tournament stream this Saturday, April 11th! We’ll be doing live play-by-play of all the matches, so it’s a great chance to pick up on strategies and learn about the different characters. And if you’re a Yomi pro already, there are still spots open in the tournament so sign up now in this thread. (it’s open to web & iOS players too!)

Yomi on Steam

Yomi is packed with features.

  • Runs natively on Mac, PC, and Linux (new!)
  • Cross-platform play with players on iOS or the web
  • Cards have 4x the resolution as the web version!
  • Issue challenges to people on your Steam friend list
  • Play offline (vs bots) for the first time

Inscribed Cards

There's also a huge new feature called "inscribed cards." Every single Yomi card can be upgraded to an inscribed card that records your exploits! Whenever you use an inscribed card, it remembers a LOT of statistics about its fate. For example:

  • How often do you hit with Dragonheart?
  • Do your Stone Walls reflect a lot of damage?
  • How many cards do you get with Flagstone Tax?
  • How often do your Crash Bombs backfire?
  • And much, much more!

You can upgrade your cards even more with GOLD inscribed cards. These gold foils are sparkly and shiny. They have no gameplay advantage of course, because it wouldn't make sense to have a competitive game where some players had weaker cards, but wow are they stylish!

You get inscribed cards (and occasionally gold ones!) just from playing the game. You can also buy packs of them and even scrap unwanted cards into dust that you can use to craft any particular inscribed (or gold inscribed) card that you want.

Even More Features

The Steam version of Yomi has some more great features that we've had in the other versions for a while now.

  • Bots with two different difficulty settings
  • An endless Survival mode
  • A leaderboard system that lets you graduate through the student ranks, then compete in the master ranks. It gives the feeling of progression, but it's ultimately completely fair Elo behind the scenes.
  • Save and watch replays of your games.
  • Watch replays from any players, including the top players on the leaderboards!
  • Powerful EX versions of all characters

Every character has an overpowered EX version. The EX characters are not intended for competitive play, but they're really fun to mess around with. They all have new character cards with more powerful abilities, and a new rank of face cards called Destiny cards that give them a new special move of some sort. The destiny card are really flavorful too, letting each character do more of what they always wished they could. EX characters can also use the power up mechanic to get ANY cards from their deck, not just Aces.

You can play against AI that uses EX characters and you can unlock them to play in 1p modes. You can also directly buy them if you want them more quickly. We're also announcing the price of directly buying EX characters is now 80% off! They're just 99 cents rather than $5.

Stay Current

Sign up for the Sirlin Games newsletter to get all the latest news about our games, and to find out when the Yomi release date for Steam is announced!

Pandante Exhibition Stream Tonight

Tonight at 7pm (PDT) we'll stream an exhibition match of Pandante using the fan-made online version. Watch it and learn about the game and maybe we'll see some hype lying pandas!

Link to the stream: twitch.tv/sirlingames
Link to play the online version: pandante.com

If you'd like to actually participate as a player in the exhibition, show up for our pre-stream tests at 5:30pm and also stop by this chat room to tell us.

There's also only 3 days left on the Pandante kickstarter, so get in while you can.

Pandante Online

Pandante is now playable online for free at www.pandante.com. It runs instantly in your broswer and does not require a download. It supports 2-6 players, so try it out with your friends, or join the friendly players already hanging out there.

Pandante is a Panda-themed gambling game that's all about lying. Unlike most gambling games though, it's designed to be fun to play even without real money. There's no Panda-elimination, much less reason to fold than in poker, and a few simple abilities to spice things up. Best of all, you bet on a particular hand that you're claiming to have, but you're probably lying about it. If you win by lying, you win the greatest honor of all: the Golden Panda Coin.

This online version of Pandante is actually really free, and if you enjoy it then please support the kickstarter which is now in its last few days. The online version does not have any expansion content, but it's updated with all the 2nd Edition base set rules, thanks to the efforts of Xom, a Panda Hero.

Sirlin on Game Design, Ep 10: Flash Duel

We discuss the development of the revised printing of Flash Duel. Flash Duel is a simple and fast card game that in high level play ended up being bogged down by lengthy calculations. We talk about the design changes that address this as well as at least one tricky balance puzzle we faced.

At the time of this post, Flash Duel is on kickstarter right now. Please support it if you can.

Special guest garcia1000 discusses how to prepare for a tournament.

Hosts: David Sirlin, Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi & Sean "MrGPhantome" Washington

Yomi Rook and DeGrey decks now available

The Rook & DeGrey decks are now available, both the physical and print-and-play version. You can get them here.

Rook the stone golem is the organizer of the Fantasy Strike tournament. He's a powerful grappler, which means he has lots of throws including his devastating (but difficult to land) four Ace super throw.

Normally in Yomi, when your opponent blocks your normal attack, you get to draw a card. But Rook's defense mastery prevents that, so you might find yourself low on cards against him and wanting to block. That plays right into his plan of throwing you though. Rook is also special in all the game in that he's the only character with no dodges at all. He also has the most hit points in the game, and he's just so powerful that he doesn't even need dodges!

While Rook runs the Fantasy Strike tournament, it was DeGrey's idea in the first place. He's a long-time friend of Rook and crusader for truth and justice. Gameplay-wise, DeGrey is Rook's opposite in that he has the craziest Dodge around: a super dodge called Ghost Riposte that returns to his hand if he's not thrown. DeGrey also hits hard—really hard—and his Pilebunker is one of the most solid hits in the game. It requires a good read to land though.

You can also play these characters in the web version at www.fantasystrike.com and the iOS version too, which is now on both iPad and iPhone. The physical versions ship worldwide from www.sirlingames.com.

Come to Fantasy Strike expo this June in San Francisco for a Yomi tournament, too!

Fantasy Strike Expo 2015

Announcement!

The third Fantasy Strike Expo will take place June 5th-7th 2015 near the San Francisco airport. It's a tournament series and casual play event showcasing the Fantasy Strike tabletop games. Come compete, watch, and make new friends with other Fantasy Strikers. There's also a chance to try out Codex, still in development. Last year's event was really fun so don't miss out.

Registration link: www.fantasystrike.com/fsx

Location: Marriot Courtyard San Francisco Airport.
1050 Bayhill Drive, San Bruno, California 94066 USA.

Discuss Fantasy Strike Expo on the forums.

Tournaments

All tournaments will take place Saturday and Sunday June 6th and 7th. Tournament finals will take place on Sunday, June 7th.

Tabletop tournaments:

  • Yomi (2nd Edition)
  • Pandante (2nd Edition, kickstarter link here)
  • Flash Duel (revised printing, also at the kickstarter link above)

Codex

The Codex customizable card game will be playable the whole time, but especially on Friday. Codex is an RTS-themed card game that gives you a lot more flexibility of builds during a game than most other card games. Think of it like Warcraft 3 in card form.

Flowchart

Flowchart is a fighting card game that's nothing like Yomi, originally designed by Tim Fowers and adapted by David Sirlin. Try out a beta form at Fantasy Strike Expo.

    Who should come?

    Really anyone who enjoys these games should come, if possible. And it's not just about the games either, but rather the community of enthusiasts who create a great atmosphere.

    Note that this is not just a local event. It's located right next to the San Francisco International Airport to make traveling as easy as possible. There's even a free shuttle from the airport to the hotel. Last year we had several from Canada as well as Kasumi who came all the way from Japan!

    One reason to come would be if you're actually good at any of these games. You don't want to let some shmoe win do you? That said, all skill levels are welcome. Attending a tournament is usually quite a learning experience regardless of your skill or lack of it. Even if you don't enter any tournaments at all, plenty of casual play is encouraged as well. It's fun to be in an environment with like-minded people and to make new friends, so you might be interested in attending for the social aspects alone.

    3-Day Passes

    Keep in mind that three day passes are only available for early registration this year, which runs until April 30th. After that, only single day passes are available. Sign up now.

    Upgraded Components for Pandante and Flash Duel Kickstarter

    I’m going to make a change to the Pandante stretch goals that benefits all our backers.

    Pandante is such a great game that I want to put out the best version I possibly can components-wise, no matter what funding level we reach. Even if we only raise a portion of what’s needed to fully fund this print run, I’m willing to pay for the component upgrades that I think Pandante and Flash Duel should have. I’m hoping that eventually positive word of mouth about the games will make that a worthwhile choice.

    Golden Panda Coin. This coin is so hype! When you feel it in your hands, it has a coolness factor that makes you want to win it in the game. I didn’t know what the quality of the coin would be when we first started out, but now that I have physical samples and I can see how great it is, we just have to have it even if it costs me a lot.

    Also, it's huge. One player thought it should be called a gold medal, rather than a coin!

    • Pandante deluxe will have the 2” metal coin, no stretch goal for it, you just get it.
    • The $25 Pandante expansion will also have the same metal coin.

    There’s also Flash Duel. I’m pretty happy about the adjustments to the core system we’ve done. Removing the last-hits mechanic makes it simpler to explain and more focused on the back and forth part of the game that you’d hope was the emphasis anyway. Balance is in a better state now too. I want to follow that up with another component upgrade:

    Flash Duel will contain 21 character standups, rather than pawns. No stretch goal, you just get it.

    And there’s more. I want to thank all our kickstarter backers, I’m so grateful for their support. So I want to include the 3 extra Pandante casino cards for all kickstarter backers (not part of the retail products) at all levels. That means if you get the deluxe version, standard version, or the expansion, you’ll get these 3 extra casino cards. The extra cards are a bit crazier than the rest of the casinos, so I bet you’ll enjoy that.

    Your Help

    Would you like to help spread the joy of Pandante? I know a lot of you have the print-and-play version—hundreds of people downloaded it for free last weekend—so if you happen to play it, post your thoughts somewhere before the campaign ends. It could be on Boardgamegeek, or anywhere else. Let us know if you do!

    Here’s some great examples so far:

    Also, can you tweet some funny images (or clever text) about Pandas to #LyingPandas or #Pandante? I actually don’t know if that would help at all, but it would be fun and I was looking forward to laughing at some of them. ;)

    Summary

    Here’s the bottom line summary:

    • Pandante deluxe will have the 2” metal Panda Coin
    • Pandante expansion will have it too
    • Flash Duel will have 21 character standups rather than pawns
    • All pledge levels (of $25 or more) get the 3 extra Pandante casino cards, for backers only (not part of the retail product later)
    • You post your thoughts on the game somewhere, or tweet to #LyingPandas or #Pandante

    Thanks for your support everyone! (Pandante and Flash Duel kickstarter link.)