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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:

An update from Heather (from July 18...apologies from Andy for the delay)
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 04:24:30 PM

Apologies for the delay in this going out to all of you but Andy was away and didn't realize he needed to push a button to make it go out  (and btw, Andy is now back and will be sending out an update of his own in the next few days as well):


Hello fellow backers, adoptees!  This is Heather May,  EoC's Marketing/PR Rep.

I hope this message finds you well.   I wanted to share a quick update with you on the games/art progression.  

Our art team is busy working away on the game cards, along with customs, and we appreciate your patience through that process.   Andy has been traveling this month, and I have been overseeing things while he has been gone.   I know there is lots more to come, and an even more in depth game update coming soon, once we finish a few minor finishing touches.  All in all we are on track and will notify you when your card is ready.   I have sent emails separately to a few people I still need pictures from.   Aside from that, please feel free to reach out to me (Heather) if you have any questions separately. 😃

I hope each of you has the best day, and again we here at Envelopes of Cash appreciate all your support!   We still have several game copies and a few additional cards up for grabs.   You can visit our website at envelopesofcash.com on a desktop and purchase one or the other through PayPal.   Please continue to spread the word, and share with your friends.  Thank you!

All the best,
Heather May
Marketing/PR  
[email protected]

Had some great feedback, decided to break up the tips
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 04:58:26 PM

Thanks to the dozen or so of you who gave very thoughtful feedback.  Most of you keyed in on the idea that it was important to separate the big picture game conceptual overview from the strategic "how should I be be thinking about winning?" from the newbie tactical question of "gosh, on my first turn of my first play, what the heck should I do?" and so I have taken that advice to heart and essentially split up the four paragraphs I previewed for you earlier this week and combined them with a pre-existing introduction to the game.  So how at the start of the rule book you'll be presented with a bit of an orientation guide to the game's thesis, with a little bit of the big picture how to think about what it takes to win.  It's inspired a bit by rulebooks by the designer Amabel Holland, who makes sure her readers know her political stand on the topics she's modeling lest there be any confusion as to where she stands on issues.  So right after the iconography glossary, you'll be presented with the following game abstract:

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Welcome to Envelopes of Cash. This a real board game designed for people who love board games, not a political statement disguised as a game. But it is also tackling (see what we did there?) a serious topic in a way we hope you will find to be enjoyable even while we also hope it proves thought provoking.  Above all, this is not “just” a game about sports.


Through a quirk of history and a heavy dose of propaganda, college athletes have long been denied the economic right to compete for the full value of their labor, leading to the ridiculous situation in which the most valuable laborers in America’s second most popular sport, college football, are not supposed to be paid. But of course, just because they aren’t supposed to be paid doesn’t mean they don’t get paid, and this game is designed to let you take a shot at managing this theatre of the absurd where officially no one is getting paid, and while everyone insists that they follow that rule, everyone else is handing out the game’s eponymous “Envelopes of Cash” like candy.


You will try to score more points than your opponents by balancing a variety of scoring mechanisms.  During the game itself, you can score points by paying for the cards you draft each turn (drafting is free, but to actually use the cards, you have to pay their cost in EC ). You’ll also be moving your Bus around the country, recruiting athletes.  Thematically, this recruiting is the heart of the game and every time you recruit an athlete you potentially score points three ways.  When you sign a Recruit, you’ll immediately score points based on the quality of the athlete, measured in *. Each Recruit you land will also contribute to the two major end-of-game scoring mechanisms: points for each unique position you recruit and points for depth of recruiting success in one particular region of the country.  


There are a few other ways to get points, but the heart of the game is (a) putting the cards you draft into play for points, so you can then use the benefits those cards provide, and (b) moving around the country to recruit athletes to score points in multiple ways. You’ll be taking advantage of the amateur system to maximize your own reward and sharing mere scraps with the athletes you recruit, but hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game, right?

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This is followed immediately by a more standard "object of the game" paragraph and a high-level overview of how the game plays out:

Players take on the roles of Head Coaches at major college football programs, earning high salaries to exploit unpaid labor. To do so they must marshal all of the tools available to them, including donations from boosters ($BB or “booster bucks”), envelopes full of cash and other impermissible payments ([EC] or ECs, these come in six different colors to pay for different regional recruits) and marketing campaigns, all to maximize Recruiting Points (known as *). 

The winner is the Head Coach with the most * at the end of the game. The reward is victory, as well as a $1 million “retention bonus.” (Legal disclaimer: $1 million retention bonus sold separately)


After choosing some initial cards, players play exactly twelve turns corresponding to the months of the year, starting in March and ending on National Signing Day in February. Each of the twelve months runs as follows: 


  • Players draft cards they hope to be able to put into play and use.
  • This month’s Starting Player rolls 6 different colored dice which can determine if
  • players have won  $BB and  [EC] in “Vegas.” 
  • Players choose two of the six dice which determines when and how many [EC]  they earn.
  • Players use the [EC]  they receive in the current month and their accumulated $BB to 
  • Put previously selected cards into play, 
  •       Pay Runners to influence Recruits, 
  •       Move their Recruiting Bus around the country, 
  •       Launch a new Marketing Campaign, 
  •       Sign Recruits to their teams. 
  •       Players can also wager any unused [EC] in Vegas, to win [EC] and $BB for the following month.

These actions can earn players [EC] ,  $BB, and most importantly *.


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Then prior to teaching the details of each of the 9 specific actions a player can use each turn, the rules circle back to the big picture.  This is quite a ways after that intro section and it is a little bit overlapping with that intro section, but the hope is that the overlap helps tie the high level concept of the game given earlier now to a little more concrete explanation of what your goals are in the game itself:


The “Why” behind What You Can Do Each Turn

In Envelopes of Cash, you’re going to be trying to score more points than your opponents by balancing a variety of scoring mechanisms. As you read through the following rules, it may help you to have a sense of what it will take to win the game and why these actions will help you get there, so here are some of the main way you can accumulate *. In early games you should think of 100 * as a reasonable target but with experience, aiming for 200 is a more ambitious goal. During the game itself, you can score 1 to 6* by paying for the cards you draft each turn (drafting the cards itself is free, but to actually use the cards, you have to pay their cost in [EC]).  With the potential to score 12 cards over the course of a game, that could be 12-30* (or possibly more) by the end of the game.  Some cards will earn you end-of-game points as well, which might add another 10-20*, depending on your focus.


You’ll also be moving your bus around the country, recruiting athletes.  When you sign a Recruit, you’ll immediately score * based on the * value of the athlete. If you get, say, 10 athletes over the course of the game, you might expect to earn add another 30* to your score.  Because each Recruit you land will also contribute to the game’s two major end-of-game scoring mechanisms (for unique positions and regional depth), the recruit also helps you add to your end-of-game *.  The positional scoring values escalate as you approach the maximum of 32* for having all 8 positions and the regional * climb a little more slowly, but they do escalate as you approach the regional maximum of 10 recruits, which also lets you score 32*. In theory, all four players could land eight unique positions each, but it is impossible for all four players to max out four different regions, because to reach ten states in a single region, you need all of the border states adjacent to your region, which would prevent your neighbors from using those same states for their perfect ten at the same time.


There are a few other miscellaneous ways to get *, but with these major sources of points in mind, you’ll want to build a strategy around your card play and your recruiting.  How best to do that is part of the fun of learning the game, but the game is designed to be played differently from game to game, so often your best strategy will be to adjust to what the cards and dice give you. Above all, do not be afraid to take several short turns (especially early on) if those turns are tactically sound ways to set up a strong turn midway through the game. A strong turn, where your strategy comes together and lets you create a powerful engine that can power you through the rest of the game, can be very satisfying and may be the path to victory. 

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And then finally, after all of the actions are taught, and the player is left thinking, wow, that's a lot to assimilate, we provide the following tactical tips:


Ok, but what should you actually do on your first turn?

As for what, specifically, to do on your first turn, there are basically two schools of thought: you can either think long-term or try to jump out to a quick start. In the long-term play, you’ll take full value dice in the first half of the game, clustering your [EC] in July or August for a blowout month where you will put a lot of cards in play, and then, if possible, also move your Bus and do a lot of recruiting. In this case, turn one is simple - draft your first card assuming it won’t be in play until, say, August, take 5s and 6s for dice (at full value), and then on your turn, use your free Bus movement to reach the 2* Recruit in your home territory’s color if you can, so you can use your 1 pre-seeded [EC] to recruit him.  If you can’t reach a Recruit you can afford, then get as close as you can and send that [EC] to a nearby Recruit you can afford on by Runner so you can recruit him in April, or start using Vegas as a way to push [EC] into the future.  Before you end your turn, spend 1 $BB on marketing, then declare your turn done.


In a quick-start play, you’ll want to draft cheap cards with benefits you can use during the game (or perhaps simply assume you’ll let your cards expire unplayed in six months), draft large-value dice but take them at half-value in March, and focus your [EC] on putting that first card you draft into play in March or April if you can (so you can start getting its benefits right away), or on recruiting the athletes you can reach using your free movement every month, moving further, if necessary with extra  [EC]. Instead of spending $BB on marketing, assume you will use $BB to send leftover [EC] by Runner, or else use Vegas strategically by betting on low values of the colors you really need for your next turn to recruit or pay for cards. In either strategy, if possible, always try to mix in some large full-value dice in later turns as you go along so that you don’t run out of steam in Q3 or Q4.


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To experienced gamers, this may seem like a lot of handholding, but a lot of the the backers of Envelopes of Cash are new to hobbyist games, and it is my hope these rules can help draw in newcomers to the hobby.  The game is not a classic "gateway game" in the sense of being easy to pickup and learn in ten minutes.  But it is, perhaps, a different sort of gateway in that the theme may be drawing in newcomers and my hope is by providing some guidance we can make the learning curve a little less steep.


As I believe I have mentioned, Melodi and I are off for our second honeymoon next Tuesday (a 25-day vacation in Europe) and so this week is a real scramble to get all sorts of things done.  One of my To Do's was this revision of the rules, so that Sean Kenny, our graphical consultant, can revise the formatting around the revised rules.  But that doesn't mean that when I get back from Europe in late July I can't further tweak the rules, so if you read this absolutely hate it, or even if you just have a suggestion for a small revision, please do reach out.  I can't promise I'll make your suggested changes but I will assess them with an open mind.


Back to work for me... six more days until I get to board a plane and then soon thereafter to breath some relaxing sea air,

Andy

p.s. the $BB, [EC], and * are all stand ins for graphical icons that I can't get tot show up in Kickstarter.



Credit Cards Run, a Small Art Update, and important Rulebook Feedback sought
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 06:33:41 PM

Hello all!


Credit Card Success: As you're probably aware if you added anything on to your purchase during the Late Pledge phase, Backerkit charged everyone for their purchases over the weekend, both add-ons to Kickstarter backers and also new purchasers by people who found us post-Kickstarter.  With a few temporary hiccups, all since resolved, everyone's cards were processed successfully.  So I thank you all for being a responsible and creditworthy bunch of backers.  There remain 8 of you who have paid for your games but have not yet given me your address, which is going to make it really hard to get you a game, but hopefully we'll get that sorted up during the summer,  and then one of you you has not provided credit card info for an add-on purchase, so at this point you're close to falling off of the purchase list.  Of course that too can always be remedied, until we sell out of the game, but to that end, we've now got 422 copies of the game paid for, so a sellout of the 500 unit order is looking more and more possible.


Quick Art Update: We are still not quite done with the non-card art stuff we need to do, but we're close.  We have a To Do list with boxes awaiting check-off, and the plan is to have them all done before I leave for vacation on June 28.  Then the illustrators will begin working on your portraits in earnest and Heather will be coordinating the correspondence between illustrators and adopters/sponsors while I am gone.


Rulebook Question: Okay, so now I would love some feedback regarding a rulebook question.  You can reply to this update or email us at [email protected].  The question is essentially: when reading the EoC rulebook for the first time would you prefer a broad strategic overview before you learn the detailed rules or after.  I have pasted 4 paragraphs of the rulebook below this discussion, which I currently have before I dive into the detailed explanation of the rules.  However, I've hired a rules consultant to help fine-tune things and he "strongly believe[s]" the guide should come after the rules have been taught.  I see validity to both sides of the argument.


His view is that until people know the rules, the strategic guidance is mostly gibberish -- what is all this "move your Bus" and "Play your cards" business.  My thinking is that prior to learning the nitty gritty of how to move your bus and play your cards, it's nice to have a sense of why you might want to do it.

As I sit here typing this, I can see a middle path, which is to split up the guide, providing the first 3 paragraphs before the rules, but the final one at the end, as the final one is much more tactical.


Anyway, here are the four paragraphs in question and if you could review them and let me know if you would prefer to read this prior to learning the detailed rules, after learning the detailed rules, or to have them split so the big picture paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 come first, and then the final paragraph comes after all the rules have been explained (perhaps with a header like "Ok... so what do I do on my first turn?") I would really appreciate your thoughts.


Caveat:  if more than 2 of you reply, almost surely someone will prefer each option, and heck if more than 3 of you reply, I'll probably get additional options I didn't even ask, like inserting an interpretive dance or a link to a tone poem or rock opera on the subject.  So I don't mean to set you up for disappointment if the final rules don't follow your advice.  I just want to hear from the users what they think.


Okay, so here are the paragraphs in question (please not that the symbols did not paste in so I entered placeholders in brackets):


Before we get started, here are a few tips for your first game of Envelopes of Cash

In Envelopes of Cash, you’re going to be trying to score more points than your opponents by balancing a variety of scoring mechanisms.  During the game itself, you can score points by paying for the cards you draft each turn (drafting is free, but to actually use the cards, you have to pay their cost, in [EC symbol], and when you pay for them you immediately score their point value, which can range from 1 to 6 [star symbol] points.  With the potential to score 12 cards over the course of a game, that could be 12-30 [star symbol] (or possibly more) by the end of the game.  Some cards will earn you end-of-game points as well, which might add another 10-20 [star symbol], depending on your focus.


You’ll also be moving your bus around the country, recruiting athletes.  Thematically, this is the heart of the game and every time you recruit an athlete you potentially score points three ways.  When you sign a Recruit, you’ll immediately score points based on the quality of the athlete, measured in [star symbol]. If you get, say, 10 athletes over the course of the game, you might expect to earn add another 30 [star symbol] to your score.  Each Recruit you land will also contribute to the two major end-of-game scoring mechanisms.  First you will score more points for each unique position you recruit at least one of, and the values escalate as you approach the maximum of 32 points for having all 8 positions.  Second, you will score more points for each Recruit you get from whatever region of the country you’ve recruited from the most. (Note that Border States count for either region, at your choice).  If you manage to max out a region with 10 recruits, you can score 32 points this way too.  


There are a few other miscellaneous ways to get points, but that’s the heart of the game and that’s how you’ll be trying to win: taking the cards you draft and putting them into play for points, but also so you can use the benefits those cards provide, and then moving around the country to recruit athletes, to score points in multiple ways.  How best to do that is part of the fun of learning the game, but to give you some initial tips, the game is designed to be played differently from game to game, and often your best strategy will be to adjust your strategy to what the cards and dice give you. Above all, do not be afraid to take several short turns (especially early on) if those turns are tactically sound ways to set up a strong turn midway through the game. A strong turn, where your strategy comes together and lets you you create a powerful engine that can power you through the rest of the game, can be very satisfying. 


As for what, specifically, to do on your first turn, there are basically two schools of thought: you can either think long-term or try to jump out to a quick start. In the long-term play, you’ll take full value dice in the first half of the game, clustering your [EC symbol] in July or August for a blowout month where you will put a lot of cards in play, and then, if possible, also move your Bus and do a lot of recruiting. In this case, turn one is simple - draft your first card assuming it won’t be in play until, say, September, take 5s and 6s for dice (at full value), and then on your turn, use your free Bus movement, spend 1 [$BB symbol] on marketing, and declare your turn done. (If you’re using the 1 [EC symbol] per turn rule, either use that [EC symbol] to recruit, send it by Runner, or start using Vegas as a way to push [EC symbol] into the future). In a quick-start play, you’ll want to draft cheap cards with benefits you can use during the game (or perhaps simply assume you’ll let your cards expire unplayed in six months), draft large-value dice but take them at half-value in March, and focus your [EC symbol] on getting that first card if you can (so you can start getting its benefits right away), or on recruiting the athlete you can reach using your free movement, augmented if necessary with extra  [EC symbol]. Instead of spending [$BB symbol] on marketing, assume you use [$BB symbol] to send leftover  by Runner, or else use Vegas strategically by betting on low values of the colors you really need for next turn. In either strategy, if possible, always try to mix in some large full-value dice as you go along so that you don’t run out of steam in Q3 or Q4.

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So, this is your chance to let me know whether this sort of advice would help you before or after you learn how each detailed piece of the game works, or if a mix of the two would be best.  shoot us a note via the reply/comments or at [email protected].  


Thanks so much!

Andy 

Three Quick Follow Ups
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Jun 08, 2022 at 01:00:17 PM

I teased three items as "coming soon" in my last update and as they have now resolved themselves, I figured I'd let you know the scoop right away.


The Boardgamegeek.com How-To-Play Video is Posted

You can watch the very professionally made video by Nick Murphy explaining all of the rules of the game in under 12 minutes.

The URL for sharing is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu1-2-8G5fc, so share away!

This should soon appear on the Boardgamegeek page for the game as well.


EoC *will be* at Origins Game Fair

If you will be attending Origins 2022 this year, the ginormous board game event in Columbus, Ohio, please be sure to stop by the Gameland Booth (Booth 1045) on Thursday, June 9 (that's tomorrow as I write this) from 10am until around 1pm to see Friend of EoC, and company attorney, Ricky Volante giving demos of the game.  Ricky is the "other" face on the Foreign Royalty Alum card (he's standing is as the husband of the princess who is the actual alumna) and is also a one of the 4 faces featured on the National Pregame Show card.  Here's that latter card so you should be able to find him.


Ricky is third from the left

Please come by for a demonstration and if you know folks who will be at Origins, by all means encourage them to stop by as well.  I sent Ricky a bunch of business cards with the URL of the IndieGoGo website so he can Always be Crootin' while he's there.


EoC will *not* be going to Retail

I had a really good meeting with the retail distribution arm of FunAgain, the same folks who will be in charge of making sure the games get from Gameland's dropoff at the docks in Ningbo, China, to your doorstep.  Besides doing crowdfunding fulfillment, Funagain runs a few retail stores in Oregon, but their third line of business is helping small publishers get product into retailers all over the USA.  We talked about what it would take to get EoC into stores and after mulling it over, I've decided to make the 500 copies that you all have (mostly) already purchased the exclusive copies that will be produced, making this a limited edition.  The risk of expanding the production run and ending up with a lot more unsold units was high enough, and the costs needed to push those extra sales, both monetarily and also in terms of marketing effort (like my having to interact with humans on a one-on-one basis at conventions over 2022 and 2023) seemed to weigh against the effort, even though if we could get the sales up to 650 or so, we might have actually turned a profit.  Sometimes it's better to accept a moderate loss (and hey, a tax write off!) than to throw good money after bad and incur a bigger headache.  


If something radical changes between now and the end of the June, I can pivot and place a larger order, but with a high degree of certainty, y'all have purchased a very exclusive, limited edition, artisanal game so hold on to it for when it becomes a hot ticket on the resale market!


That's all for now.  I hope to share more artwork in the coming weeks and other updates as well.


Thanks,

Andy

Stretch Goal Artwork Update and assorted other good news.
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jun 06, 2022 at 04:56:17 PM

Nags

Before I get started, there are 23 of you who have not yet answered the Backerkit survey.  I have sent personal emails to each of you from my OSKR email address, and so please check your spam and see if there is something there from me.  In particular, there are 8 of you who have paid money for a game that do not even have a mailing address entered, and I hope you'll realize how hard it will be for me to get you your merchandise if you don't enter a shipping address.  The rest of the 23 are either missing a phone number or pledged less than the amount to buy a full game and you'll just need to decide if you want to add money to get a copy or not.  The Backerkit preorder system closes on June 15, which is 9 days from now.  Help me help you, please.


On to the fun!

Ok, enough nags, now on to the fun stuff!  I finally have some artwork to show y’all of the two sets of “placards” (as I’ve started referring to these card-shaped but thick cardboard game components that we successfully unlocked during the Kickstarter process). They will be the same 50mm x 75mm size as the game’s regular cards, but instead of being printed on cardstock, they will come on punchboards and be the thickness of game tokens. There will be six double-sided Head Coach placards (so 12 Head Coach “cards” but on double-sided token stock) and there will be eight single-sided Recruiting Board placards. Players will receive one of each at the start of the game if they choose to include these optional game elements.


Recruiting Boards

As I have mentioned in several updates, Recruiting Boards are designed to simulate each program’s specific goals for the upcoming recruiting season, emphasize the specific positions they need to fill out to meet their team’s needs. So, as an example, you might get RB3, and thus be tasked with recruiting these five Recruits:


In terms of game-play, the names and home town information is purely “flavor text” – all you care about is that this card tells you, before the game even starts, that in addition to the normal points you’ll score for recruiting as many on the 8 different football position groups as possible, you will also earn an additional 5 points at the end of the game if you get your Top 3 recruits: a DL, an OL, and an RB. But, if you manage to get 2DLs and 2 OLs, plus that RB, you’ll score 15 rather than 5.


Each Recruiting Board has a slightly different set of objectives, but they generally overlap a little, so, for example, RB7 asks you to get 2LBs, 2OLs, and a QB, so if the players in a game had both RB3 and RB7 active, there would be a bit more contention around the Offensive Linemen as both now would want to get 2 each.

Head Coaches

The other stretch goal opened up 12 Head Coach cards (on six double-sided placards), eight of which have actually been adopted by backers of the game. We’ve only just started working on these, but they will have the look of a regular card, only because they have no envelope cost and offer no point value, they’ll have less information on the face. Here’s what we’re thinking a typical Head Coach will look like:

This is still in the faceless mannikin format, but as I mentioned, most of the HCs have been adopted and Patriarch of the Program is one of them. I am not allowed to reveal backer information without permission, but RJ Young was kind enough to let me tell y’all that he adopted this card. So I need you all to squint hard and imagine the coach atop his loving players’ shoulders will look something like this:

I personally cannot wait to see what Miah and Rese cook up for this one.


How-to-Play Video coming soon

I have some other good news as well. A while back I made the decision that this game needed to have a well-done, professionally made “how to play” video and I shopped around for a while before deciding that the best combination of quality instruction and simple discoverability was to work with the people at Board Game Geek who make these videos. It should be out in a matter of days or a week or two at the most (fingers crossed), but Nick, of the Brothers Murph, will be the official explainer of how to play the game. I’ve not seen the work yet, but I’ve fielded several nuanced questions which tell me he’s really digging in to make sure he gets you the sort of video that lets you skip the rulebook and dive right in to your first game.

In case you are wondering, no, this was not cheap. And given the timing, I don’t expect this video to generate a lot of sales, since we are less than ten days away from closing the Pledge Manager for new purchases, etc. But it is my hope that the 400 or so copies of Envelopes of Cash that are sent out into the world this coming autumn will be much loved, and shared among friends, played online, talked about, and generally become a bit of a cult classic. Having a solid video that people can easily find which can teach the game so I am not constantly having to answer rules questions means I can achieve my game goals even if it increases our net losses a little bit. And maybe it will help us sell the last 99 copies.


To Retail or not to Retail

As it happens 99 is not an arbitrary number. As I type this, we have sold 401 copies of the game. I have spoken with the folks at FunAgain who handle retail fulfillment and they have told me that 99 copies is too few for them to try to place these in stores, so my next decision over the coming days is whether to stick with the 500 minimum print run, and aim to sell these 99 copies by word of mouth via the envelopesofcash.com website (which by the way, is now up and running, albeit without too much content), or to take one more entrepreneurial plunge and make another 100-150 copies beyond 500, to allow FunAgain to work on a retail placement of the game. I am going to have a meeting with them this week to figure out the cost of a retail campaign to see whether it looks like that risk would be worth it, as it could go a long way towards helping us hit the break even point if we could sell 600 copies rather than 401 or even 500.


To that end, of course another way for us to break even would be if more people adopted cards. For that, the deadline is quite soon; after June 15, we cannot add new people to the queue of artwork and still hope to meet our art deadline for the deck. So if you have been toying with adoption, or you know someone who might be interested, hesitate no longer.


Sample Poster

Some of you may know that my father was the inspiration for the Oil Baron Alum card – in essence, I adopted that card for him. Well, we used that card to test out the poster making process (every adoption comes with a free poster of the card you adopt) and I went down to visit my family in Austin this past weekend, so I was able to see the results. Better still, my dad had gotten it framed. Here he is with his poster and his card.

I think those of you who adopted cards will find it pretty fun to hang one of these in your game room or home office. Then again, I have some pretty odd stuff on my walls, so your results may vary!


EoC at Origins?

There is a small chance we will have a 2-hour demonstration table at Origins (the major game convention) in Columbus, Ohio at the end of this week. It will not be me hosting the demo, but if it happens I will alert you all and announce our celebrity demo host.  If you're going to be at Origins, can you let me know?



I’m looking forward to sharing more updates in the month of June and then, as a reminder to you all, being quiet in July as I take a 25-day vacation with Melodi where I will not be doing much, if any, work on the game, but Miah, Rese, and Heather (our PR/Marketing pro) will be minding the store and keeping the artwork moving forward.  So, until next time, please always be crootin’ (esp. if you’re recruiting people to buy Envelopes of Cash)!

Andy