Hey everyone, here's what's been going on lately.
While you can play for free or directly buy any character you want at fantasystrike.com, I just wanted to mention the "STAR member" subscription option that unlocks all characters in all our games. The reason I'm mentioning it is because as an extra perk beyond getting access to all characters, you also get access to the beta stuff we're working on so you can see it ahead of everyone else. Right now, that's the Yomi expansion and Flash Duel online.
The Yomi expansion is in ruleless mode right now, and it won't have rule enforcement for a while because we are changing abilities and stuff all the time. It doesn't have art either, though that will be rolling in over time. If you're interested in doing balance testing or contributing ideas to improve the Yomi expansion, you're welcome to do so. We have all 10 new decks set up right now! For Flash Duel online, the balance and gameplay is already finished, but you could contribute any usability or UI suggestions if you'd like, or tell us about any bugs you find by posting here. We have the 1v1 mode working with rules enforcement (yes!) and the other modes like 2v2 and the Dragon Raid are going up soon (for STAR members I mean, in the beta area).
There's also a beta tournament for Flash Duel starting in about 4 hours, by the way. I'm sure there will be others if you miss it, but if you're around then go for it.
Special thanks to pixel artist "BT" for doing 8-bit animations of movement and attacks for Flash Duel online. Very cool! (Pre-emptive note: those 8-bit animations are currently showing up blurry and slightly stretched in the game engine. We know and will fix that!)
There will be events for my games and demos too at the Game Salute booth at both GenCon and PAX Prime. You're encouraged to enter, and maybe even take pictures. If you'd like to help run events for any of my games, or to demo them, you can sign up here and get some bonuses from Game Salute for doing so.
There isn't much news here, but that's good actually. There a bunch of things could possibly delay the ship date, and so far we've avoided all those things. Still on track to ship as expected in September, though there are still more things out of my control that could delay it. Current status though: smooth sailing. When the ship date gets closer, you'll get an e-mail asking for your shipping address, so if you moved between when the kickstarter ended and now, don't worry, you can give your correct address when you get that e-mail in August or September.
Oh and about the randomizer cards that kickstarter supporters will get. They will also include 20 character cards so you can pick random characters too if you want. There was some question about whether these would be included or not, and it turns out they are.