Breaking the Law!
By writing this blog, I am probably breaking a law.
Not a federal law, mind you, or a state law. I'm not even violating an esoteric municipal law (and let me tell you, folks, there are some pretty wild local laws out there). No, the law I'm likely breaking is one that was set forth by T.K. King and seconded by myself and Dennis Northcott: until we launch Excursions on Kickstarter in three weeks, we don't need to be working on anything else other than Excursions. This means putting a pin in the other projects we're developing, including the several codenamed projects, so that we can wholly focus on the launch of this Kickstarter.
It's a good law, and a necessary one. There are a lot of things that go into this sort of undertaking!
First of all, there are content creators to coordinate with. Last month, we sent out 40 prototype copies of Excursions to a slate of content creators. Each of those creators had to make their content, rebox the prototype, and then mail that prototype to another content creator. This second set of content creators then has to do the same—make their content, rebox, mail it out; the third wave of creators will mail those copies back to us. Along the way, we have to reimburse shipping charges, ensure that copies are making it from Point A to Point B (and then on to Point C), and review early versions of the content that these creators are making.
Then there's the solo mode. Over the past several weeks, we've really been honing in on the solo experience for the game, striving for a balance between robustness and ease-of-play. There is seemingly no end of the things we have to consider as we design and refine the solo mode: is it challenging enough? too challenging? is replayability high enough? should there be 17 cards? 18? 100? and on and on and on. It's really, really close now, but if you're familiar with the way Kinson Key Games operates, you know that the space between "really, really close" and "finished" is a grueling road for us because we refuse to settle for anything less than excellent in every aspect of our product. This is simultaneously our deepest source of pride. . . and the bane of our existence.
Eh. C'est la vie.
Then there's the Kickstarter page itself, with all the text and graphics and so forth. Luckily, we are working with our good friend Adam Roark on the page (if you saw the massive GC box at PAX Unplugged last year, or the massive piece of GC artwork near the escalator at Origins this year, you know Adam's work), but we still have to check and critique things piece by piece to ensure that the whole page is as beautiful and excellent as it can be. On my end, personally, this means doing a whole lot of writing (and rewriting, and re-rewriting).
Of course, there are also correspondences that are happening all the time between us and the designer, Ben Rosset as we keep him updated on the goings-on; between us and the artist/graphic designer, Ian O'Toole as we endeavor to wrap up all the art for the game; and between us and Panda Game Manufacturing, who will be manufacturing the game, as we nail down components, materials, quantities, and such.
On top of all this, we also have podcasts to be guests on, a whirlwind flight to and from Florida to do a Live Play on the Dice Tower, a little game fair called SPIEL to attend, and some other in-person demos of the game to carry out.
But here's the thing: we love this job so much that, without this "law," we probably would have tried to juggle all the Excursions responsibilities and still tried to do our million other little things. I'm justifying this blog today because, as it turns out, it's mostly about Excursions—which, according to the KKG Law, is something I amallowed to work on!
It's about to be the busiest 3+ weeks of the year as we lead up to the Kickstarter launch of Excursions on October 6th, but I can't wait to put in the work!
***
Slightly unrelated story, but it ties in with the title of this post. . . .
Flashback to around this time last year, September 8, 2025, to be exact. It was the night before we launched Galactic Cruise: Achievements on Kickstarter, and I was a ball of nervous energy. I lay in bed that night with my eyes wide open, unable to sleep. Finally, I pulled myself up out of bed and made my way to the medicine cabinet. We had some melatonin in there. I'd never taken melatonin, but I knew it was a sleep aid—and I was in dire need of some aid for my sleep. I took whatever the recommended amount was (5 mg, maybe?) and laid back down. What followed was one of the most bizarre nights I've ever passed. I slept in odd little spurts, and when I dreamed, I dreamed in slow motion. When I wasn't asleep, it's like the world around me was in slow motion, so those 7-8 hours in bed felt more like 14-16 hours. When I got out of bed the next morning, I was energetic—but not in a good-night's-sleep sort of way, more in a two-energy-drink sort of way.
I dropped the kids off at their respective places, and then I headed to T.K.'s house for the launch. I tried listening to my normal Pandora station (an Americana station largely built around Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit), but my pulse was somehow too high to enjoy that kind of music. When adrenaline is high, one doesn't need violins and mandolins and acoustic guitars. I needed something to match the energy I felt inside of me. So, for the first time in my life, I switched to a heavy metal station and let the melodic stylings of Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Ozzy lead me to my destination. The song that was playing when I arrived at the "launch party" was Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law," a song that I now forever associate with Kickstarter launches.
Will I have a similar experience three weeks from now when we launch this newest project? It's hard to say, but I suspect that I'll never not be a bit of a wreck the night before. Will I discover a new genre of music to add to my increasingly-eclectic tastes? I think that's maybe a little less likely, but who knows? This could be the year that throat singing takes its place among the Americana-Grunge-Showtune-Metal-Punk-Hiphop lineup that I currently listen to.
Obey the law, kids.
