Keeps Weekly I: Victory at Last Laugh

Glad Tidings All!

Indeed, I am quite excited to deliver the first issue of the Keeps Weekly. Before we get into it, I want to thank each of you who signed up for this. I am no stranger to the swift disregard of bulk emails; it takes a true friend to be reading this right now. Elaina and I will do what we can to ensure this is a recurring letter that you are excited to unwrap instead of annoyed to receive. And I'll start by...starting already!

PROGRESS UPDATE

With the weeks and days to the Kickstarter launch (June 10th!!) ticking down, things are getting busy. I ordered 120 Preview copies of Keeps, which just arrived on my doorstep. We have been working to distribute these to the people best poised to help spread the word so that Keeps can hit the ground running on June 10th. The Count's share of our time is currently going towards promotion. If you think you could be one of these people, or have connections to one, send the Courier an email! Our best bet right now is a strong internet/viral presence.

I finally got the puzzles page up and running. Check it out to get a good feel for the game or to hone your skills in preparation for besting your enemies. Some of the puzzles came from rounds I played just last week! Really, they do help communicate the heart of our little game. Make sure to watch the How to Play video before attempting a puzzle. Otherwise, the "EASY" ones will be quite the opposite. The Keeps entry is live on Board Game Geek. It has a humble ONE fan (can you guess who?), but that number will soon surpass TWO. If you have a preview copy or have played before, please drop a review.

CARD SPOTLIGHT

In the Card Spotlight section of the Keeps Weekly, we'll pick a card from the deck and explore its mechanics and synergies. As we cover more cards, you will be better able to understand and even piece some of these together yourself. Awaiting you at the end are three puzzles (one easy, medium, and hard each) to test your wit.

This week, a new challenger approaches...

Last Laugh is a wily card. Normally, when a player ends the round, the win is immediately given to the player with the most coins. But when a player has Last Laugh in their keep, the round goes on for one more action—but only for that player!

Last Laugh's presence on the field exerts a potent pressure. If it is in your keep, you might find yourself ending the round even if you aren't winning! One well-thought action is often enough to rise straight to first. But in another player's keep, you are forced to think twice about ending the round. If you want to end the round, you can't just be winning—you need to be winning so fiercely that nothing your opponent could possibly do with their conclusive action, their Last Laugh, will change that.

The constant threat of being able to interfere at the last possible moment causes the round to play very differently. Consider how Last Laugh might synergize with the cards below:

Purity is a fickle little card worth an insane TEN coins, but only if you don't have any others. So you might goad people into thinking you are weak or behind, only to play Purity as your Last Laugh in the face of whichever unsuspecting player ended the round. But from the other angle, if another player has Purity in their keep and you have Last Laugh, they can rarely end the round under threat of your putting coins in their keep and rendering them impure.

Hocus Pocus turns the one action used to play it into two. Under normal play, this lets you surprise opponents with a longer turn than usual, which can be devastating. But playing Hocus Pocus as your Last Laugh unlocks a great number of microstrategies that rely on using two actions instead of just one. And all done at the ultimate moment, when no one else can meddle with your designs. I chose Last Laugh as the first card spotlight because it is one of my favorite cards in the deck; it has a satisfying and resounding finality that changes the round dynamic. I fear you might not be able to grasp the whole reason until you read more spotlights or get a copy of Keeps in your hand. But until then, see if you can't unravel the solution to these three Last Laugh-related puzzles:

EASY MEDIUM HARD

Remember to watch the tutorial before attempting these, lest they appear entirely inscrutable.

BLOG ACTIVITY

In case you haven't visited the Lore tab on our site, this section will share a quick blurb from some of our writings that we want to feature. The readings over there are brief, but writing them is not! If you keep up with the blog, kudos to you, and go ahead and skip this section.

For those of you who are good friends but are secretly scared that Keeps might be too thinky and boring, pore over On Player Interaction, which will put your doubts to rest.

For those of you who are bad friends and want nothing more than to tear your foes limb from limb (in a game of Keeps), On Difficulty and Decision Making will give you some insider information on the weaknesses of different Keeps players and how to exploit them.

For those of you who want to know how Elaina makes things look so good, Art Process reveals some early concept designs for the characters and cards.

And there's one about cats, too.

As things get even busier, we might not find as much time to write blog posts, but I will guarantee you at least one new post per week.

GIVEAWAY

Yes, it's what you all came here for. In each issue of the Keeps Weekly, we will be giving away one Keeps deck to a lucky (or talented) reader. All giveaways will end by the time the subsequent Keeps Weekly is released. The criteria to win will be different each week; sometimes a puzzle, sometimes a picture contest, sometimes a riddle.

This week is remarkable because we will be giving away a Preview Copy of the game, which means it is super special, and will go out as soon as a winner is determined. Entering this week's giveaway couldn't be easier: To win this week's giveaway, tell the Keeps Courier what it is about Keeps that you like the most so far. Make sure to use the subject "Giveaway 1".

The winner is entirely up to our discretion as our judgement is perfect and infallible. And we might use your responses in places. And a bunch of other legal jargon, I guess. Anyway, good luck guys!

IN CLOSING

I hope you enjoyed the first edition of the Keeps Weekly. I hate to do it, but we need your help in spreading our little game far and wide. Forward this email, share our site on your pages, whatever you like. If you have played it or seen it played yet, you know Keeps has the power to make the world a bit of a better place. Any role you guys play in that is invaluable, and not only to me.

And with that, I bid you farewell. Until next week,

David