The Second Biggest Adrenaline Rush (or, What's in a Reimplementation?)
A couple days ago, we did one of my favorite things that we get to do (roughly once per year)—we released the cover art for a new project! There is always a real adrenaline rush whenever we send that art out into the world. Will people love it? Hate it? Miss it entirely? Second to actually launching a crowdfunding campaign, this is probably the biggest experiences that we get to do for a new project.
In this instance, the project in question was our new game, Excursions, designed by Ben Rosset with art by Ian O'Toole.
It's a gorgeous image. I know I'm biased because it's a product that my company is producing, based on art direction that I was present for and contributed to, but—my Lord—what a beaut! And, it seems, a whole bunch of people agreed with me. Within a few hours, all the images we've uploaded so far were at the top of the Hot Images on the BGG homepage; within a day, the game was on the BGG Hotness and has risen even further on that Hotness today. (Coincidentally, Galactic Cruise, which had dropped off the Hotness, made its way back, by virtue of the two games being connected.)
In just the few days since our Kickstarter preview page went live, over 3,000 people have elected to follow the campaign on Kickstarter, a feat that took us over a month to achieve whenever we launched the Galactic Cruise: Achievements preview last year.
It's been a truly amazing whirlwind of enthusiasm and support so far! Much of this is due to the pedigree of our designer, Ben, whose work on games such as Fromage, Formaggio, The Search for Planet X, and (my personal favorite of his, Excursions notwithstanding) First in Flight has garnered much praise and goodwill with gamers. His involvement in the project comes with something of a promise: this game, while it may look a lot like Galactic Cruise, is going to be something a little lighter, a little more approachable.
On the flip side, yet also working hand-in-hand in our favor, is the art of Ian O'Toole, whose illustration and graphic design has thrust him into the upper echelons of board game artists. We were so fortunate to work with him on Galactic Cruise, and we were thrilled to have him aboard for Excursions, as well. His art style and graphics really fosters the connection between this game and its big brother, ensuring fans that a lot of the DNA of Galactic Cruise will carry over.
It's in this exciting middle-ground, between lighter-than-GC and in-the-same-spirit-as-GC, that the magic of Excursions happens.
A lot of the buzz for Excursions is also likely due to the fact that we connected the two games via Reimplementation—that is, Galactic Cruise now says that it is reimplemented by Excursions, and Excursions reimplements Galactic Cruise. This was a decision that we deliberated on at length, as we had a bit of a hard time deciding what constitutes a reimplementation vs. a new game in the same universe. We ultimately decided that it qualifies, but I'm sure there will be no shortage of debate on where that fine line is.
What do you think? How close must two games be in order for one to be considered a reimplementation of the other? I'd love to hear what you all think!
