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Hi everyone!
I hope you are all well. As we head into the summer convention season, Iet's start with our recent Weekend at the Warehouse event.
Weekend at the Warehouse. I want to thank all of you who attended our Spring Weekend at the Warehouse just a few weeks ago.
Photos courtesy of Michael Arrighi, Tim Porter, and Patrick Mulvihill
We had about 100 gamers in attendance, as well as about a dozen designers and developers. It was great to meet some of you for the first time and to renew friendships and chat with many long-time team members and attendees. I know we come to this event to play games, but more and more as the years pass, I enjoy the "hanging out with old and new friends" part best, regardless of whether it's around a game board. Often, that "catching up with an old friend or getting to know a new one" happens over food! This time, I got to enjoy a private tri-tip dinner on Wednesday night with designers, developers, and office/warehouse staff, Saturday night "Street Taco Night" with all of the attendees, as well as several lunches and dinners with various team members.
I definitely saw several games this time that will be on our P500 list over the coming year. One is from one of our long-time designers, but a couple were from designers new to GMT (and one from a first-time designer). One of the aspects of the Weekend that I love is that it's an easy venue for new designers to come and show us their game face-to-face. So, Kai Jensen, Mark Simonitch, Rachel, and I got to see and play a few cool new games and enjoyed meeting and getting to know the designers.
Speaking of Rachel, she and I managed to squeeze out enough time to run come-and-go demos of the advance copy of Mr. President on three afternoons during the event. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun and said things like "it feels like the decisions the President would have to make," which made me feel like maybe I got it right, design-wise.
Running a demo using my designer advance copy of Mr. President!
Overall, as usual, this weekend was a tremendous time for enjoying our hobby together with our customers, looking at new games, and getting to do some team-building and strategic planning with our team members. If you joined us this time, thanks again for attending! You definitely made it a better event because you were there. And I hope many of you will join us October 12-15 for our next Weekend at the Warehouse.
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Mr. President PDF Books. We're now just two days from Charging for Mr. President (and several other games), with shipments set to begin June 5-10. So we've begun to post PDFs of the game's booklets online to help you get a head-start on how to play before your game arrives. We now have the following Booklets available for free download:
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New "Twilight Struggle Games" Series for Browsing and Auto-Ordering on our Website. With three "Twilight Struggle" brand titles now on our website (two in stock and one new to P500 today), we have added a new Series option on our site for "Twilight Struggle Games." This is useful for browsing but also for setting up Auto-Orders for any future games in this series.
To set up an auto-order for future titles in this (or any) series:
- Go to "My Account" on our website (top right of any page)
- Click the "Auto Orders" Tab
- Choose the series you want from the list and enter the quantity you'd like to auto-order
- Click the red "Update Auto Orders" tab at the bottom
IMPORTANT: Auto orders only work for orders for FUTURE games in a series that are not yet on the P500 list. For existing P500 titles, including the new ones announced today, you'll still need to order the game with a P500 order, as usual.
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Hey everyone, Kyle from Playdek here! I’m very excited let you know that Twilight Struggle: Red Sea will be coming to Steam on Wednesday, May 24th! To say thank you for all your support, it’ll be available at a discount of 10% off from 5/24-5/29, so you don’t want to miss out on that. We’ll also be running a limited time discount from now until May 29th on our entire GMT collection at 75% off...what a steal!!!
You can click on the links below to add Twilight Struggle: Red Sea to your Steam wishlist as well as purchase our discounted GMT games.
Red Sea will be available on mobile very soon, so stay posted on our social media for when we announce. Thank you for all your support! - Kyle
Wishlist TS: Red Sea on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1276130/Twilight_Struggle_Red_Sea/
Purchase our GMT games at 75% off:
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This Month's Box Back Sneak Peek. Here's this month's sneak peek at the final box back for our upcoming Sovereign of Discord. Enjoy!
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GMT One - Jason Carr. This month is a very special month for me, as my first game design is heading to P500. Jason Matthews has been an excellent design mentor and partner ever since I got to work with him on Twilight Struggle: Red Sea. I am very excited for our first collaboration on Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon. Unlike Red Sea, I am more than the solo designer for South Asian Monsoon, but I'm still bringing solo bots to the party.
The reception to the Twilight Struggle: Red Sea bots has been gratifying; thank you all for the kind words. They were a lot of fun to make, and we're going to use them as the basis for the bots in South Asian Monsoon. Since Monsoon is a more complex game and has many more cards, I am planning to evolve the solo system further to handle the complexities of the game. Some of you might see where this is going: the end goal is a solo system that can also work for Twilight Struggle. Time will tell if that works out.
This month was exciting for other reasons too: the advance copies of CDG Solo System Pack #2 arrived, and everything looks wonderful. Print and play kits for that will come shortly, for those of you who are excited by craft projects or just want some of the playsheets. We also sent Sovereign of Discord to the printer, which features the same card-based bot play as the Tru'ng bots and Fall of Saigon. Joe Dewhurst and Kevin Crooks did a phenomenal job with the bots in Sovereign of Discord.
Finally, I know that you all hear from me every month, but GMT One consists of an amazing team of people that work on our games. Please take time to say thank you to these folks if you see them around the internet: Bruce Mansfield, Joe Dewhurst, and Kevin Crooks (COIN Series Bot Design and Development), Andrew Stead and Colin Parsons (Fields of Fire Series Developers), Joe Schmidt (Bot Design), Marco Poutré (Development Support), and Ken Kuhn (CDG Solo Design and Development, plus Bot Development). Without these guys, we would not be able to support solo play in so many wonderful games. ~ Jason
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Playtesters/Help Wanted! On an ongoing basis, we'll use this section to let you know which of our design teams currently need extra testers. If you are interested in helping out, please contact the team members for the game you are interested in at the links below. We greatly appreciate you helping us test our games and make them better! Thank you!
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Latest New/Updated VASSAL Mods and More - by Mark Benson (my thanks to Mark for compiling this information to help all of our online players - GB). It is now easier than ever to get started with VASSAL; go to the Vassal home page, click the blue button to download the software, install it, then download a module, and open it from your newly installed Vassal program. If you need more help, you might start with one of the more recent video tutorials, such as the first 6 or 7 minutes of this one by Charles Cabell which will take you through to your first install of a module and beyond.
Here's a list of new or updated VASSAL mods for GMT games over the past month or so:
For the most reliable experience, players should use the same Module and Vassal versions.
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Designer Interviews. We are privileged to work with and be supported by dozens of excellent content creators who help us by sharing information about our games and our company with their online audiences. Recently, several of those creators have published interviews with a number of our designers. We're listing them herein so you can have a one-stop reference to all the recent interviews.
Homo Ludens - Video interview with
-Stephen Rangazas, designer of The Guerrilla Generation
Mesa de Guerra - Video Interview with
-Francisco Gradaille, designer of Plantagenet [Spanish]
Pushing Cardboard - Podcast Interview with
-Designer Jerry White
El Wargamero Novato - interview with:
-Joe Dewhurst, designer of Resisting Revolution [English, Spanish]
The Players' Aid - interview with:
-Mark Simonitch, designer of North Africa '41
BoardGameItalia - Interview with
-Enrico Acerbi, Inferno co-deisgner [Italian]
Ardwulf's Lair - Video interview with:
-Mitchell Land, Designer of Next War: Iran
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Keep up with GMT Online
Virtually every day, we announce new information, show off upcoming products, or give you a peek under the hood of our new designs in our various online sites and forums. For those of you looking to keep up with us online, here is where you can find us. Drop in and start a conversation!
GMT Games Website
InsideGMT blog
Official GMT Games Facebook Group
GMT Facebook Page
GMT Twitter Feed
GMT on Instagram
GMT on BoardGameGeek
GMT YouTube Channel
GMT on ConsimWorld
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We are doing our best to segment this update so it's easier for you all to read. Here is what you'll find in the rest of today's update:
- P500 Additions
- Coming Events
- News You Can Use
- Digital Games
- InsideGMT
- Charging and Shipping Update
- Production Outlook
- Project Updates and Sample Art
- P500 Reprint Tracking
Thanks, as always, for your support of GMT Games! Enjoy the games! - Gene
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