Envelopes of Cash: The College Football Recruiting Game
Created by Envelopes of Cash by Andy Schwarz
A Euro-style board game where players use impermissible payments to recruit elite college football athletes to maximize star points.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
It's the Final (?) Countdown. DooDooDoDoo. And an Unboxing Sequence. And BGA update.
11 months ago
– Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 04:47:29 PM
Ok, so first a quick digital update: The Alpha test is going great and already the team of testers has played a dozen or two full games, squashed multiple bugs and we are slowly getting to the point where you could reasonable expect to finish a game without serious bug interruption. it's not quite ready for the public alpha in my view, but it's getting there Those of you who still want to join the private alpha, just email envelopesofcash.com with your BGA username (or click here to first get a BGA username: https://boardgamearena.com/?h=3ld8 ).
In terms of the physical game you have all paid for, we do have a timeline for completion once again. I received two emails from Gameland this week. One assured me that other than the boards, everything else is finished, tested, and ready to ship -- even the boxes. Here are some photos to show what it all looks like:
Closed Box
Open Box with everything except the Board
Open Box without all those plastic storage bags
Both rulebooks
Two packs of 60 cards each
Bag of Dice and Bag of Bus Holders
Front side of all 3 punchboards
So, other than the game board , this is exactly what your delivered game will look like. These are the fully manufactured versions, not prototypes. All we need now is for the board itself and the individual player boards to be finished in their re-manufacture and they will be ready to ship.
And hence we are in what appears to be the final countdown. And we have an actual number to assign to how long we have to wait for completion and a no-later-than date for transpacific shipping. On Tuesday, I received the following from Gameland (my bolding for emphasis):
All the accessories except the game board and player boards have been fully produced.The game board and player boards will take 20 days to complete production, then Our QC staff will conduct a thorough inspection to ensure the goods meet our high standards before shipment.
Once the goods pass the inspection, we will send you pictures of mass production for your confirmation and arrange shipment.If all goes well, the mass production will be shipped before the end of July.
Obviously, "before the end of July" doesn't sound soon, but I think, unlike past dates, this one is going to stick. And of course, that is shipping to our warehouse in Ohio; it will still need to then get shipped out individually tro each of you. Which means August. /sigh
At least in the meantime, there is a really great substitute for in-person EoC, which is online EoC. So if these photos excited you only to be disappointed by the timeline, see the first paragraph of this note for the best way to get your EoC fix before the tail-end of summer.
ABC,
Andy
p.s. On Friday & Saturday I will be at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH. If you will be there, ping me and I will thank you in person for supporting EoC.
A doubleplusgood update from Andy
11 months ago
– Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 06:43:54 AM
First, I am happy to report that Gameland has gotten back to me about the redesigned bord artwork and we have passed the team’s review. To quote Cecilia, my new representative at Gameland:
“The New design is great. I will send you the E-proof file for your confirmation this week.”
So while we are not quite back to where we were when shipping was a week away, I believe they will re-manufacture the boards next week once I approve the photo of the prototype. I *really* hope this means you’ll have the games before the Week Zero games of the 2023 CFB season are played, and I know that’s so much later than even seemed possible, but this is all in the hands of the folks in China, and then after that, in hands of the the folks in Cleveland who will be getting the games from China to the US and then fulfilling your orders (including for those of you outside the USA). Whenever I have a step in the process (like approving the E-proof next week), I do my best to act within 24 hours to keep the process going forward. Beyond that I am in the same boat as y’all in terms of just patiently waiting for our games to arrive.
BUT… I do have an alternative for anyone itching to play right now, which is that the alpha test of the digital version of the game is now up on Boardgame Arena (BGA) and if you are reading this, you are eligible to join the private access group. This way, if you’d like to try the game out even before the physical release, you can. To play you will need an account on BGA and also an invitation from me to the private alpha test. To make an account you can use this link: https://boardgamearena.com/?h=3ld8
The BGA alpha is, in fact, still at the alpha test phase, so there are some errors of implementation and other bugs still. But it’s pretty cool nonetheless. And the design team is very responsive to my emails about bugs so I expect the quality to improve fairly rapidly. Even with the bugs that exist, you can totally play a full game now; the bugs are mostly about display or slight rules misinterpretations.
Envelopes of Cash in action on BGA
So, ping me if you want to play and also send all your positive vibes to the folks in Ningbo to get our games onto ships in June if possible or July at the latest!
ABC,
Andy
Hiccup Averted, Shipping Delayed to Accomodate.
11 months ago
– Fri, Jun 02, 2023 at 05:21:02 PM
On Monday I got an unhappy email from Gameland. Despite the IBIWISI (I'll Believe It When I See It) claim that production would be finished in May, during the quality control process a problem had arisen that would delay things into June. This is why I always says IBIWISI when people give me vague promises about completion of projects. Disappointed understates how I felt when I got the email, but the silver lining is that a less quality-conscious manufacturer could have just shipped the games and left you all to deal with the consequences of the problem, which only emerge after repeated folding/unfolding of the board. What was happening is that state and recruit areas very close to the colds were fraying in an unacceptable way, as you can see from this video showing the production issue: https://youtu.be/5bF7CiWZc9Q
Thankfully, Rese was available for a very quick revision to the map. Once Gameland let us know their needed fix, which was to move a total of five states away from the center folds of the board, Rese quickly edited the map, working with me to ensure none of the connections change in their distance from each other, but to ensure nothing went down the "equator" of the map on the left side, or down the "prime meridian" anywhere from top to bottom. And voila, here is what we can up with:
Revied Map to Avoid the Folds
Those blue and red lines are for production purposes -- they will not show up on your boards -- they show the printer where to make the cuts for the dual-layered board. But if you compare to the older map, you will see NorCal, Nevada/Utah, and Missouri/Arkansas moved a little bit north, Colorado/New Mexico moved a little south, and Oklahoma shifted southeast to get out of the dead center double-fold area. It will be a little cramped to move from Oklahoma to Dallas given there are 2 spaces in between, but this was preferable to scrapping the map and redoing it complete, or to sending you a short shelf-life product.
Eagle-eyed inspectors might ask why Tennessee was allowed to remain "on the equator" and the answer is that the board only folds on three of the four parts of the crossing lines. The fourth is a full cut, and because Tennessee is cleanly bisected by the cut, there is no wear-and-tear on the edge. So Rocky Top is safe where it is.
Gameland has acknowledged they have the new files and will verify that this fixes the problem, hopefully on Monday and we will get back on track for shipping soon. Soon is the best I can offer right now, but as always I will keep you in the loop until the game is in your hands.
But for some good news, though a bit sad to me too, the digital implementation of EoC on Board Game Arena (BGA), which does not need to deal with silly things like cardboard folds. (Sad b/c I hoped the physical game would be shipped far before the alpha test of the digital began.) But the good part is that the developers of the digital game have asked me for a list of friends to help with the very early alpha test of the game of BGA. If this interests you, shoot me an email at [email protected] and let me know your BGA account name. If you don't have an account, you can get one here: https://boardgamearena.com/?h=3ld8. Either way, once you have a user name, send it to me and you will get on the friends and family list.
My hope is the physical game is in everyone's hands before the official digital launch of the final product, but in the meantime, I hope this early alpha access helps whet your appetite for the real thing.
Have a good weekend and ABC,
Andy
Some more photos and a video of the game board
12 months ago
– Tue, May 16, 2023 at 06:06:54 PM
We are inching our way to completion a la the late stages of Zeno's paradox. I've been told I should get my air-shipped copies for QA review next week, though I am in full IBWISI* mode. That said, progress is definitely progressing. And thus for your visual enjoyment, here are the front and backs of the Recruiting Boards, Head Coaches, and all of the game's tokens, all of which will come on punchboard, as shown below:
* I'll Believe It When I See It.
Booster Bucks and State Value tokens, plus green EoCs and the Starting Player chain.
EoCs, Player Tokens, Recruit Tokens, Head Coaches, and the Player Aid
Recruiting Boards, +100/+200 tokens, Whistles, Buses and more EoCs.
All four sets of Player ats and Calendars (distorted due to my poor photo-aggregation)
And finally, to enhance the experience, here is a video they sent to me, to which I have added 1 minute and 14 seconds of kickass music.
Status Update: One Year since we funded & White Box photos
about 1 year ago
– Thu, May 04, 2023 at 10:49:41 AM
Happy Star Wars Day to you all. It also happens to be my 56th birthday. Yay! It also happens to be the one-year anniversary of the close of the Envelopes of Cash Kickstarter. The last of these is a bittersweet sort of occasion, because of course I hoped that by the time we got one year out, you would all be in possession of your games. Alas, not quite.
Earlier this week was another holiday across most of the world, known as International Workers Day, on May 1. It is the equivalent of the US's Labor Day, but of course the USA couldn't possibly recognize labor on a day designated for this by Karl Marx and that ilk, so we aimed for 4 months later. I bring this up because, not surprisingly, China still makes a big deal out of the May 1 celebrations in honor of labor, and so the good folks at Gameland had a week off from work. In advance of that week off, they sent me photos of what are known as "White Box" prototypes, which is essentially many of the game's components in a not-yet-fancy box, simply to show that it all fits together properly. I am pretty sure they were hoping that would make me so excited that I didn't notice that the promised April 30 deadline was now moving to mid-May. But I rolled with it and I do hope that new deadline, only about 2 weeks away, will stick.
Inshallah!
I did meet the CEO of Gameland and much of his team at the Game Manufacturers Association Expo in Reno, Nevada, where I spent two days learning about the industry (and playing a few games too). I was invited by Dave, my US-based rep, to have dinner with them. It was a lovely evening of cultural exchange. I even spoke (via a video app) with Mia, my China-based representative, and so I hope now that we are all friends, the final stages of the process will proceed expeditiously.
But for now, all I can really offer you all are the photos they sent me, which will give you a feel for how the box will look when you open and unpack it. So without further ado, here's what the game looks like as of late April:
