Terrors! And last call for pre-orders

In which we share all the exciting artwork of terrors, reveal the now-bigger meeples, and show you how it’s all going to be packed inside the box.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another newsletter. As before, I’m Jess, and I’m your narrator on this exciting update.

Show me the terrors!

Last time we showed you all the amazing characters. Well, these are the things they may find in the library… (Names at the end.)

Row by row, left to right (and then sometimes down a half-line), we have:

Fenrir the Wolf, Mari Lwyd, Anxiety

Grendal’s Mother, Minotaur, Jabberwock

Pit & the Pendulum, Dracula, Plague

Chupacabra, Reichenbach Falls

Kraken, Big Bad Wolf, Bunyip

Wormhole, Triffid, Martian Robot

Spider Webs, King in Yellow, Basilisk

Forest of Thorns, Jekyll & Hyde, Cerberus, Tornado

So what does the game look like?

Here are the latest photos of the game. We increased the size of the meeples slightly, as they seemed a touch lost with the bigger tiles. Here’s also a photo of how the game looks being packed up by our manufacturer, LongPack.

What’s next?

We’ll still working on the downloadable workshops, although we have been trying them out at libraries!

You can still pre-order Library Labyrinth, but only until the end of December 2022. It’s at GameFound here.

If you wanted to share some of the fabulous stuff happening on Library Labyrinth, these are the important links:

Samples, shipping, and what’s next

In which we apologise for the fact that the posts on this website have been delayed, and bring you all back up to speed.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another newsletter. As usual, I’m Jess, and I’m your narrator.

What have we missed?

Over the summer we finished the design work on Library Labyrinth and sent it off to the manufacturers. We’re now waiting for the sample to arrive. Fingers crossed there aren’t many changes we need to make.

The timetable still has finished copies of the game arriving at the start of March. Hopefully that means in time to take some to AireCon in mid-March! Copies will be posted out to backers as soon as possible.

Final characters and terrors…

Would you like to see the final art for the characters? Of course you would! Here they are… (Names at the end.)

Row by row, left to right, we have:

Ada Lovelace, Alice Ball, Alice in Wonderland, Amanirenas

Ana Neri, Anne of Green Gables, Athena

Bobbie, Britomart, Camilla, Ceridwen

Chevalier d’Eon, Cheng Yat Sao

Circe, Deborah, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Enheduanna

Eponine Thenardier, Frida Kahlo, Gordafarid

Gracia Mendes Nasi, Grainne Ni Mhaille, Harriet Tubman, Heidi

Helen Keller, Himiko

Hypatia, Ichiyo Higuchi, Jo March, Joan of Arc

Kaguya-hime, Khutulun, Lady of Shalott

Lorna Doone, Manuela Saenz, Maria Quiteria de Jesus, Marie Curie

Mary Seacole, Medusa

Mina Harker, Mulan, Nitocris, Nana Asmau

Noor Inayat Khan, Nzinga, Policarpa Salavarrieta

Pollyanna, Public Universal Friend, Queen of Sheba, Red Riding Hood

Sojourner Truth, Rhiannon

Scheherezade, Sophia Duleep Singh, Vasilisa Vasilyevna, Tirgatao

Wanthong, Truganini, Wang Xifeng, Zenobia

Next newsletter, we’ll share all the terrors…

What’s next?

Next month we’ll put the downloadable workshops online. We’ll also tell you how we are getting on with the bags and the postcards. (You can get both bags and postcards through GameFound here, as well as at AireCon and Games EXPO next year.)

Next month we will get on with the pledge manager, organise workshops, and start the final art for the characters.

If you wanted to share some of the fabulous stuff happening on Library Labyrinth, these are the important links:

Pledge manager and late pledges

In which we celebrate our victory over (sorry, I obviously mean ”with”) the pledge manager and think about the curse cards and reward cards!

Hello again! It’s lovely to see you back for another newsletter for Library Labyrinth. As always, I’m Jess, and I’m your narrator.

Tell us about the pledge manager!

Well, we have finally got the pledge manager up and running. It was rather more difficult than we thought it would be, partly because I (Jess) managed to somehow insert all the countries of the world inside the UK in the shipping section. How I did this I do not know. But it has been fixed, and it works!

If you are a backer, and would like to pay for your shipping, then you can do that via GameFound. (Backers can also pay for shipping via this website, if they don’t want to open a GameFound account. More information in the survey going to all backers.) If you’d like to late pledge for Library Labyrinth then you can do that too!

The link for GameFound is here.

So, new cards…

One of the things Ive been working on is the disturbance cards. These are how the curse chooses the next tile to turn over. Playtesters were clear that the cards should each have the rules for what happened to the tile chosen. I’ve mocked up two versions and am asking people on Twitter and Facebook what they think.

I’ve also been re-drawing the reward cards. These currently look like this.

All thoughts welcome!

Printing updates

We have spoken with Long Pack, who will be printing the game. They are able to print using FSC certified materials. That means that the paper, card, and wood used in the game will have come from sustainable forests. It’s a really important step, and I am so glad they could do this for us. They will also place the meeples directly into the cloth bag, instead of using a little plastic baggie, and will use paper bands on the cards. The game itself will be sealed in skrinkwrap, but there will be none inside.

Games Expo

It was a lot of fun! As well as Library Labyrinth, we also had some Roll & Colour games, which are also available as part of a Library Labyrinth pledge.

What’s next?

We are putting together yet more artwork (by this point I can save the files in three different places as both jpegs and PDFs in my sleep). If you wanted to share some of the fabulous stuff happening on Library Labyrinth, these are the important links:

Library Labyrinth at UK Games Expo

In which we panic that we’re behind with the pledge manager (sorry) but on track with the game (hurrah), share some more example of artwork, and talk about UK Games Expo!

Hello again, and welcome back to another newsletter for Library Labyrinth. It’s been a while partly because of the rush to go to UK Games Expo. Hurrah, Expo! As always, I’m Jess, and I’m your narrator.

What’s happening at Expo?

Dissent Games will be there all weekend. (In fact, I’m leaving in about 30 minutes.) We’re on stand 2-482, which is in the second hall near the chill zone and the food. We’ll be demo-ing Library Labyrinth as well as selling Roll & Colour notepads and greetings cards and copies of Disarm the Base.

What about the pledge manager?

I am really sorry that we haven’t got GameFound up and running yet. I somewhat underestimated the amount of data I would need to put into it (especially things such as testing the PayPal links), and left it until the last minute. That’s entirely my foolishness. So you know, it’s currently about 40% done, and once we are back from UK Games Expo then that’s going to be my top game priority.

Art! More art!

We do indeed have some more art. I’m just going to share one, which is the Queen of Sheba. She is mentioned in several historical sources as an important figure, although it’s not clear where precisely she came from. Some suggest Egypt, others Ethiopia. We original dressed her in something tighter, but it was rightly pointed out that robes would have been loose and flowing. So here she is in gold and cream, as a powerful Queen.

What’s next?

We are looking to get Library Labyrinth printed by Long Pack, and I’m currently talking with them about the different sorts of packaging (to reduce plastic) and the cardboard they use. Fingers crossed the conversations all go well.

If you wanted to share some of the fabulous stuff happening on Library Labyrinth, these are the important links:

Sketching out the characters

In which we share the latest sketches and ask whether Harriet Tubman should be shown carrying a gun. Opinions very welcome.

Good evening everyone. Well, the Kickstarter made £33k in the end, which was absolutely FANTASTIC! As always, I’m Jess, and I’m your narrator.

What’s happened recently?

We all took a few days to let go of some of the relentless stress of the Kickstarter. This was my third Kickstarter (although two of them were very small) and it never ceases to amaze me just how much energy is sucked into the process…

April has also been a busy month. For me it’s busy because of the two weeks of school holidays (that’s two weeks of reduced childcare) and because my day job is in politics. The last month has seen several pieces of hugely controversial legislation go before Parliament. As I’m working directly on the Policing Bill and the Elections Bill for/with various charities and NGOs, there have been some very, very late nights. But enough about UK political process – back to games!

Yes, back to the sketches!

Sam has sketched out most of the characters now. Here’s a combination of all of the unfinished ones.

I wanted to draw out three to show you. Left to right below: the Queen of Sheba, Harriet Tubman, Ceridwen.

The Queen of Sheba appears in “Legends”. She’s referenced in multiple historic and religious texts, but no one is sure what she looked like. So in Library Labyrinth she’ll be drawn as a clearly African Queen, with rich robes.

Harriet Tubman will be drawn as a woman of action, in the prime of life. Many portraits have her as an elderly woman, and one of the cultural consultants we spoke to said that showing her as a younger woman was important. However, we have an important question — should she carry a gun? As a Brit, showing a gun feels strange, but of course Harriet Tubman was American… If you have opinions on this, we would love to hear them.

Ceridwen is a mythical sorceress from Welsh folk legends. I love this image of her stirring the cauldron. It’s so alive with expression.

What’s next?

We have also been comparing quotes from manufacturers and hope to choose one in the next week or so. And we have been preparing for UK Games Expo, which is the UK’s biggest board games convention. It’s one of the highlights of the board gaming year.

Next month we will get on with the pledge manager, organise workshops, and start the final art for the characters.

If you wanted to share some of the fabulous stuff happening on Library Labyrinth, these are the important links:

Workshops

In which we think a little about the workshops, and ask our Asian and Australian followers for suggestions on terrors…

Good morning everyone, and welcome back to another post! Our Kickstarter runs until next Thursday, and so far we have raised £27k. We have more than 850 backers, and frankly I’m a little bit tingly inside that so many people have trusted us to make them a game! As always, I’m Jess, and I’m your narrator.

Workshops

One of the things we are doing is running workshops. Click here for a list of all the workshops we will be offering. Some are for adults, such as the talk about the characters in Library Labyrinth or the exercise on our own strengths and fears. Others are for classes of children, including one where the children need to run around the room matching the cards they have in their hands with the monsters on the board — and, of course, they need to pair up with others to match all of the symbols.

We are offering these free to all state schools, public libraries, and community centres in the UK, and for a small donation to private schools and commercial venues. If you’re a board game cafe, for example, the donation may be a free meal in the cafe rather than a cash donation. If you want to sign up your school, or suggest a place to visit, please fill out the form at the top of the list of workshops page.

Terrors! Do we have some more terrors?

Oh yes, we have more terrors. Here are some absolutely brilliant drawings from Sam.

The horse’s skull is the Mari Lwyd (a tradition from Wales which is pretty spooky), and then to the right is plague and Cerberus (the dog who guards the underworld). On the bottom row, left to right: Fenrir the Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf, anxiety, and Grendal’s Mother. There are more terrible things to come…

When we’ve been looking at these, we have noticed one thing in particular — no Asian or Australian terrors. It would be great to change this. Does anyone have any suggestions? Please contact us, or say something on Twitter, or write in the comments!

What’s next?

We have three days until the end of the Kickstarter! It ends at 10pm UK time on 31 March. Anything you can do to help get the word out would be fabulous, and very very much appreciated. Here are the important links:

Solo mode for Library Labyrinth

In which we talk about the solo mode, especially the trolley-dash-monster-smash combination move. And AireCon, and two more pictures!

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the library! With 12 days left on the Kickstarter, we are now 160% funded. That’s just over £22k, and we are hoping it might reach as high as £30k by the end of March. As always, I’m Jess, part of the team, and your narrator.

AireCon

Mill and I spent last weekend at AireCon, which is a convention in Yorkshire. Mill picked me up and we drove there — a good four hours plus from my place, and much further from Mill’s. But it was definitely worth it.

AireCon is a very friendly, informal convention. There is a lot of space given over to open gaming tables and big games such as Werewolf. We had a demo table for the weekend and were showing Library Labyrinth all weekend. By the end, my throat was very sore…and then after the weekend both Mill and I discovered that we had picked up covid. We’re fine, and both had spent the weekend wearing masks, but it is rather frustrating. Anyway, here are some photos of us at AireCon.

Mill also met Rodney of Watch It Played, and almost won an interactive game of Yogi involving betting on players (pure, amazing chaos!). We’ll be back next year!

What’s this about a dash smash something move?

Ah ha, the Trolley Dash Monster Smash move! Or terror smash. Naming is not quite fixed yet.

I’ve been playing the solo mode on Library Labyrinth in the last couple of days. In this version, you have a semi-sentient trolley companion. It’s a little library trolley which helps you in the library by keeping some of your books for you, or by checking out dark corners for hidden terrors. Mechanically it’s a) an additional hand of cards which you can go and get when you need, and b) a way to flip over floor tiles in two different sections of the board.

One of the things I’ve been testing is the idea that you and you trolley could combine skills. Every now and again you come across a sititution where you want to defeat a terror, but one of the cards you need is on the trolley. You could pick up an additional card, but that’s an extra move, plus you might not have space in your hand. You could move to the trolley, swap some of the cards around, and then go capture the terror, but that’s two extra moves. What if you could pick up your trolley as you moved, and then defeat the terror together?

Imagine it happening like this. You see the Big Bad Wolf on the far side of the library. You have Gordafarid in your hand — a Persian champion who delays an invading army long enough to change the outcome. On your trolley you can see Lorna Doone, the resilient heiress brought up by a band of thieves. If you combine Gordafarid’s strength with Lorna’s fairness and resourcefulness, you can capture the Big Bad Wolf. So you spring into action — rushing round a corner you leap on the trolley, pushing it round to the left, opening both books as you do so, whizzing along the corridor, smashing into the startled wolf and ta da! One monster captured.

It’s definitely being included in the solo rules. And maybe, just maybe, we might find a way to add the trolley into a two player variant.

Would you like to see the move in action? Of course you would!

You may have noticed that in that picture the grid doesn’t have all the tiles. There are no corners! I’ve found that for the solo game it works better if the grid is 21 rather than 25 tiles. You find everything more easily, and spend less time hunting for things.

What else is new?

In the last newsletter, the Kraken was not quite coloured in. It’s now complete, and we have it and the Pit & the Pendulum below. What do you think?

What’s next?

As we are in the middle of the mid-campaign slump (and still not 100%, what with covid), then anything you can do to help get the word out would be fabulous, and very very much appreciated. Here are the important links:

International Women’s Day

In which we talk about how it feels to be one week in to the Library Labyrinth kickstarter, and run through the women on the front of our box.

Good afternoon everyone! Well, we have been live on Kickstarter for a week, and are now 124% funded. (Hurrah!) As always, I’m Jess, part of the team, and your narrator.

Tell us about the Kickstarter!

We funded on Friday, which was fantastic. We are now just below £18,000 and have 23 days left to go — which means we may even get to 200%! Fingers crossed…

Our next stretch goal is at £18k, and it’s for some trickier curse cards. These will be cards to shuffle in to the disturbance deck which turn over TWO floor tiles instead of one. It makes it harder, as well as adding another slightly more random element into the game. Some of our playtesters wanted to have this more punishing option, so it’s (hopefully going to be) in the game!

We also have a couple more terrors to share, as well as a draft — here is Dracula, the Jabberwocky, and most of a Kraken. (Colour on the Kraken to follow.) I reckon the Jabberwocky and Dracula would get along, as they share the same toothy grimace.

So, how does it feel? Well, it feels a bit strange still. Running a Kickstarter takes a lot of energy. It’s a constant high-alert, always watching out for the next backers, checking where the funding has got to… While Mill, Ella, Sam and I are all enjoying the campaign, it will feel good to get to the end of March and be able to relax a little more.

Tell us something more…

Hmmmm. Would you like to know about the women on the front of the box?

On the left, towards the top of the picture, is Little Red Riding Hood. In the classic children’s folk story Red runs up against the Big Bad Wolf. In this game her skills include navigation and being a good shot.

At the bottom of the picture, on the far left, Cheng Yat Sao, aka Ching Shih. An amazingly successful pirate commander, she led a fleet of 400 ships (up to 60,000 pirates!) at the the height of her power in 1805. 

Next to her is Mary Seacole. She was a British-Jamaican nurse and businesswoman who set up the “British Hotel” behind the front lines in the Crimean War. Much of the current profession of nursing was set up by her. 

In the centre is Athena, the Greek goddess of war, wisdom, and the arts. She’s a good all-round character in Library Labyrinth, with a good spread of skills to capture those literary terrors and put them back in their books.

One to the right, holding the mirror, is Jo March. She’s one of the four sisters in Little Women, which has been popular ever since publication in 1868. Jo is hotheaded, passionate, and an excellent writer. 

Next to her is Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. One of the best-known children’s characters, she brings curiosity, kindness, and a tiny bit of magic…

To the far right on the bottom row is the Chevalier d’Eon. A French diplomat and spy, she lived the first half of her life as a man, and the second half as a woman. She died in 1810 after a life of intrigue. 

Towards the top right corner is Hypatia of Alexandria. A mathematician and philosopher, she was renowned during her lifetime as a great teacher. She was murdered in 415 after accusations of political interference. 

What’s coming up?

Mill and I will be at AireCon this coming weekend! It’s in Harrogate in Yorkshire (about half way up the UK, broadly in the middle) and we are hugely looking forward to it. We’ll report back from AireCon next week.

Exciting links

Anything you can do to help get the word out would be fabulous, and very very much appreciated. Here are the important links:

We are LIVE!

In which we share the news that we are live!

Good morning everyone! We are LIVE on Kickstarter this morning! As always, I’m Jess, part of the team, and your narrator!

Please share the news

Well, I have been feeling very nervous. I’m still very nervous, to be honest. The Kickstarter is live now, and seems to be going well…. can I get an “argh”, followed by a “wooohooo”, and then another “argh”?

If you’re able to to, please share this Twitter post or this FB post. Or any other social media! It would be a great help to us.

The game itself is looking absolutely gorgeous. I had a couple of nights away last week, and took these photos in the sunshine.

And we’ve had some brilliant comments on the game! Here are some of the quotes which are on the Kickstarter page.

So, we need to raise £14,200 in the next month. Fingers crossed…. I hope we do it.

What now?

Anything you can do to help get the word out would be fabulous, and very very much appreciated. Here are the important links:

Melodramatic videos and super speedy playthroughs

In which we get slightly silly with videos, sped up a playthrough, and share a couple of reviews.

Hello again, and welcome to the hype! Oh yes, Library Labyrinth is almost upon us. As always, I’m Jess, part of the team, and your narrator!

Just what HAVE we been doing??

I’m glad you asked. Mill has been on a cruise and I’ve booked myself into a retreat for a couple of days. Joking aside, we have been hard at work making over the top dramatic videos. What do you think?

And here is a super fast playthrough. We recorded a two player game, and then sped it up so that 30 minutes became two minutes.

The first few reviews are out. Here is Board’s Eye View.

And here is Boxed Meeples with five reasons to back it!

Next steps

As mentioned last week, we are rather nervous. Anything you can do to help get the word out would be fabulous. I reckon a good tweet to retweet is this one, and a good Facebook post to share is this one. Otherwise, here are the important links: