AuZtralia is an adventure/exploration game for up to 4 players set in an alternate reality 1930s. The theme is inspired by Martin Wallace's game A Study in Emerald. It can be played competitively, or as a solo game or as a fully co-operative game.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Haiku Cthulhu - Spot on!
over 6 years ago
– Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 12:11:23 AM
A really Happy Weekend to all!
The sun is shining here, and we are rockin' and rollin' forward to our goal of the shiny metal Cthulhu in your game.
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Today's Quest (Day 20 of 24) is to write a Cthulhu themed Haiku.
If we get at least 40 posted to this BGG thread then the binoculars on the cover will gleam with spot UV varnish.
Haiku - a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.
Here is my contribution that got the ball rolling. At time of writing there are already 25 compositions on the Geek thread.
I wandered lonely
As a Zombie Dylan fan
Whack! Blood on the Tracks!
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Shipping prices for S E Asia
We have chosen to work with China Fulfil to send your games direct to you in SE Asia from China. The shipping charges are now listed on the KS page under Shipping Details.
In other news
Bill at Stronghold is helping us out with the box artwork and card backs etc. Here is a draft design for the 'game-in-play' image for the back of the box.
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I've just finished the rule book and it's gone to our partners for translation - WooHoo :)
Five days left! Keep spreading the word. You're doing great!
Amanda & Martin
$200k within sight now!
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 12:04:17 AM
WooHoo!
Passing $175k feels like a momentous step - we are on the way home now. I can see the Cthulhu's being polished and packaged in my sleep. Samples are currently winging their way to me from the manufacturer, so I will post pictures as soon as I get that beast in my shaking hands.
Thanks to Bill Bricker at Stronghold, we are cracking along with creating artwork for the new card decks. Here are the back designs for the Solo and Two-player variants.
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New Quest, Day 18
The Phosphate in the game is unlike the other resource types. Those are used to build your railways or spent to buy your equipment. The Phosphate when mined, gives you Gold and then Victory Points at the end. Moreover, there are only 7 of them in the game and the nature of the survey tiles means that usually only 4 or 5 appear on the board in a game. Today's Quest turns them from wooden disks to chunky lumps; also they are bigger than the coal and gold so they really stand out.
Other Quests achieved ... Six of the two-player variants have been unlocked. These will see players flipping farms, using each others' railways, vying to kill the first five Old Ones, and battling to keep all the points rather than sharing the loot. There are more to come.
Canada Local Pick up confirmed BoardGameBliss in Toronto is the pick up point: 50 Milner Ave, Unit C, Scarborough, ON M1S 3P8 (Right hand side of MDG Computer).
One week to go With just a week left, please help us ramp up the awareness of AuZtralia. You can help by
Thumbing our pictures on the Geek here (it helps keep us in the 'Hotness')
Talking to your friends when you're gaming on the weekend.
Thanks again for your amazing support. We couldn't do this without you.
Amanda & Martin
Day 15 and we're looking good!
over 6 years ago
– Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 01:01:26 PM
Quests Achieved
Great! We now have a full set of ten Solo objectives, and double-sided player boards to use with the Western map. These player boards give visual reminders of the rule changes.
New Quest
Now that we've secured all the ten Solo Objectives, the daily Quests are moving on to a set of cards that contain special two-player variants. There are ten in all, and they vary from small rule tweaks such as allowing unused resources to score points at the end to major adjustments such as the ability to jump on your opponents' railway to attack an Old One!
These variants can be played on either map, and can be mixed and matched by playing either one or two of the variants in a game. Here are the first two, in our Day 15 Quest.
We don't have any artwork to show yet, but James will be working on these soon.
In other news, Shut Up and Sit Down gave AuZtralia a shout in their news so hopefully, they'll be up for reviewing it at some stage. I can imagine Quinns wandering the streets of London dressed as a Shoggoth.
Please help spread the word by sharing the KS link with your friends in whatever way makes sense for you.
Shipping fees updated.
These are getting more definite as we've been working hard to optimise the shipping fees. The green figures are those we are confident won't change now. The KS page was updated today with this info:
See the FAQ on the campaign page for shipping charges for other language editions, and Local pick up options.
It's good to be back at the SchilMil HQ after a few days away. I continue to be amazed at all your support, thanks so much!
Amanda
WA Map secured! Onward to Cthulhu!
over 6 years ago
– Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 07:48:34 AM
Greetings from the tip of Southland, at the bottom of New Zealand.
It is the last day of my trip here. Meantime the Kickstarter rolls along and I am so happy to see that the Gold was achieved, and also the Western Australia map.
Here are some close-ups of the beautiful map that James created for us. If you didn't know that there were camels in Australia, James pointed out that " In 1840 "Harry", the first camel arrived in Australia. Now we have 750,000 of them."
. In case you missed it in an earlier update, this map invokes rules changes that specifically tighten the 2-player game experience, directly addressing the concerns Rahdo raised in his Final Thoughts video. The rule changes are:
The inland desert cannot be farmed AND the coastal areas can now take all three types of farm - so they are going to be in tight demand,
At the far end of the desert are some valuable places that when mined give extra Victory Points, if you are the first to get to them.
There are very few starting locations. Players are permitted to start their ports adjacent to each other.
. DAY 13 QUEST has just been posted. This Quest is the final one involving the deck of ten Solo Objective Cards.
. Soon we will be Questing for the deck of Two-Player Challenges, that will add even more variants to the game. As an ex-Transport Planner (London Underground), I am particularly fond of the Challenge that lets you use another players' railway tracks!
Thank you for your continued support of AuZtralia. We're only a small team here and you are providing inspiration and the means to make this happen!
Amanda
Name that hex! Group Buy! More Quests...
over 6 years ago
– Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 01:59:08 PM
Hi Intrepid explorers of the Outback!
. To avoid over saturating you, was planning to reduce updates to every other day... but we have news to impart now!
Group Buys
We've had lots of enquiries about this, and we want to get as many people playing AuZtralia as possible, so we have added a Group Buy pledge.
The details are:
NZ $345 for 6 sets
All 6 copies are the English edition
The carton is sent to a single address.
The new pledge is at the bottom of the pledge list. It'll work out cheaper on shipping when divvied up - but we haven't got all the info on that yet. We will know more about the shipping prices in a few days.
Place names for Western Australia
Martin selected the place names that appear on the first map. Now we need you to help us select place names for Western Australia.
The criteria is that they must be Indigenous place names and be located in the area below...
We will collect all the suggestions and Martin will have the final call. (I may influence this if the positioning becomes tricky re the artwork). Suggestions please in the comments to this update. Cut off date is Sunday 25th March 30th.
Daily Quests
We got the Iron! Thank you for helping push us over this funding target!
The next Quest is a Social one. Subscribe to the game on BGG if you haven't already done so. It will help us get the next two Solo Objective cards unlocked.
If you've already subscribed, you can help our 'Hotness' by thumbing these images:
