Update #33: It's All Coming Together

Note: This is a copy of Update #33 from my Kickstarter campaign.

This may be the most colorful photo we've ever posted of Emperor's New Clothes. Game Salute said they're still waiting on the actual boxes—apparently those have taken the longest—but they do have most everything else: the ROOS bits and the TROO bits, cards, tuckboxes, dice, boards, tiles, sand timers… Some of these components only come in the larger sets, so depending on which version you backed you'll be getting some combination of these. (And, of course, each copy of the game comes with the invisible fleece, which is up at the top of the photo.)

 And here's a closer look at the sticker sheet: all backers at the $5 and up level get one of these, even if you didn't get the game itself. The three logo stickers are for the front and sides of the box (if you want your box to have a logo) or, you know, you could put it on your bumper. The dice stickers are there in case you want to use real, visible numbers for the dice-rolling, but I encourage you to try it out without them at least once. There are also some wolf and sheep stickers that can be used to play The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Oh, and that sticker in the lower left is for you to write the age, number of players, and game length to put on the box—if you're designing your own game you can customize it to your liking!

 A Story from XOXO Fest 

While I know a story is a poor substitute for having the actual game in your hands, I hope it's at least an appropriate continuation of the campaign. At the end of September, I had the chance to participate in XOXO Fest's tabletop night. I took my prototype of Emperor's New Clothes, hoping I could persuade a few people to try it out despite the presence of other crowd-pleasers like Cards Against Humanity, Werewolf, Dungeon Roll, Story War, Relic Expedition, and Machine of Death. But I grabbed a table, set out my blank white components, and waited for somebody to take the bait.

Since I had a limited amount of time, I gave a very brief overview of the Kickstarter campaign to those who weren't familiar with it, telling them about the ROOS but then skipping to the explanation so we could sit down and play. Many people were quite open to the idea, and even if they didn't quite get what was going on at first, eventually they got the hang of it and were coming up with fun action cards on their own. I explained that the rules I use provide a structure within which you're free to improvise, but if you use my complete rules there are limits on what you can make up. The dice have specific possible faces; the role cards have pre-determined scoring rules; the resource cubes represent three specific things. However, you only have to use as much of my rule set as you need in order to improvise a game. If the group agrees to use fewer of my rules in order to allow for more rules of their own creation, that's part of the idea.

One of the people who was really excited about the idea of a completely improvised game was Sandy Weisz. He said he wanted to come back later and try that, and I said he would be welcome. In the meantime, I played two rounds with various festival attendees (including Henry Smith, the designer of Spaceteam!). When the second game concluded, I left to go to the bathroom, and came back to find this:

Sandy (standing) had gathered a group of eight players to try the "pure improv" mode. The explanation he gave was that the only rule of the game was that all the rules had to be consistent with each other. They then proceeded to play an elaborate game that involved traveling between locations using bizarre vehicles, all made up on the spot, and the game lasted about an hour. Sandy said that he and Martin McClellan (the guy in the hat) are actually considering developing their idea into a game.
When that game wrapped up, a group of spectators approached and asked what was going on. Sandy spoke up, giving them his one rule: make up a game and keep all the rules consistent. Then they sat down and played a completely different game. 

This one was a party game of some sort—they played cards and rolled dice, but every so often everyone had to touch their noses or the table, or both. (By the way, that's Chris Darden in the background playing Dungeon Roll.) And then when they were done, a third group came over and made up yet another game.

I'd had the idea that a set of blank components could inspire creative play, but this was really the first time I saw it in action, with so many people collaborating on impromptu game design. This is what I hope happens when you finally get your own copy: that it leads to these unpredictable, delightful experiences.