August 8, 2019: Autoduel Weekly: Gen Con Report

We are back from Gen Con and several days of successful demo-ing. The games went well and finished as quickly as they were supposed to. There were good comments about the car models, even though the ones we had at the show are only HO scale and have the textured surface of 3D printing.

Questions Answered

• Are the Car Wars cards sleevable? Yes. We are using what is called "mini-European" format: 44 x 68 mm. Mayday, UltraPro, and Fantasy Flight, among others, sell card sleeves for this size. UltraPro (and maybe others) sell binder sheets that fit.

• Will there be a CW tournament next Gen Con? Maaaaaaaybe. There was a lot of interest and we'd like to do it, but we don't want to schedule it unless we are sure that we can do six or eight games at once with – if not actual copies of the game – at least accurate printer prototypes. And we don't know yet if August 2020 will be a safe commitment for that.

• How long does a game take? Our target is "30 minutes times number of players," and in playtest we are hitting that target. It would go even faster with pre-generated cars.

• When will the Kickstarter be? Probably before the end of the year. Whenever we start it, we want it to last more than a month, because fans have told us that they need big campaigns to overlap more than one paycheck. When it's about money management, we hear you . . . we are grateful for your support and we want to make it as easy as possible for you.

• How can I make sure not to miss the campaign? Follow our two Kickstarter accounts – Steve Jackson Games and Warehouse 23 – so Kickstarter will send you an email notification when the project is active and ready for you to join. We also recommend following Steve Jackson Games on both Facebook and Twitter. We share pics, videos, and information on both platforms, and following us will give you an even better chance of noticing when the project is live.

Next time: some closeup images of the current (very imperfect, but very cool) car miniatures!

-- Steve Jackson