Seize the Bean - A Light-Hearted Deck Builder about Berlin!

Update #51 Corrections
over 3 years ago – Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 06:39:48 AM

Hi everyone! Sorry we’re writing you again so soon, but there were a couple errors in Update #51 we need to clear up.

First off, when we shared the Expansion Rulebook, we invited backers to send feedback our way. Unfortunately, there was a typo in the deadline: We’re accepting feedback until the end of this month, August 31st, not until the end of September. That would be a terrible idea!

We also forgot to mention that the public version of the Expansion Rulebook is missing pages 48-51. These are the solo scenarios, and they’re not included yet because we noticed a few last minute edits to this section, but did not want to delay sharing the rulebook just for them. We’ll share them with you in the final public version after receiving and implementing your feedback.

We also made the silly mistake of mistyping our support email, which is, of course, [email protected] - please ignore the typo in the last update and use this corrected one.

On the topic of support, we have successfully hired our new support panda! Now we finally have a person primarily dedicated to support again. As noted in the last update, we’ll be onboarding them next week and you can expect to see faster response times once this is done.

That’s it, see you at our Twitch stream tonight at 21:00 CEST / 12:00 PDT / 15:00 EDT!

Expansion Rulebook Live, Translation Update & Potential New Support Panda
over 3 years ago – Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 11:17:51 PM

Hello everybody, hope you’re doing well. We have another big update for you, so let’s get right to it!

 First of all, what the heck is this Expansion Rulebook? Easy answer: This is the new name of the previously-named Variant Rulebook. We renamed it because people kept getting confused about what this rulebook actually contains, and we’re hoping the new name makes it clearer.

The short explanation is that the Expansion Rulebook contains the equivalent of several expansions. Since we’ve now finished it to the point where we can share it with you, we’ll skip the long explanations and instead invite you to have a look yourself at http://expansions.seizethebean.com.

Once again, we’d love to hear your feedback. This is possible without causing further delays because we’re still waiting for translated files anyway. So, if you have any input or see typos, please feel free to email us at [email protected]. We’ll stop accepting feedback after September 30th to give our translators time to implement it, so don’t wait too long!

(Important Note: Pages 48-51 were excluded as there is a final edit to make the Solo Scenarios before we want to unveil them to you all. It's nothing major, but we didn't want to release them knowing they would change, and we also did not want to delay the reveal of the Expansion Rulebook. Thanks for your understanding!)

We have not yet submitted the Expansion Rulebook, so the English files don’t look different yet:

We’re starting to see some of that beautiful green in the language files though:

Please continue to email us at [email protected] if you have any questions or issues with your pledge. We know we’ve been super slow to respond, but we’ve just completed interviews with a potential new Customer Support Panda. Later this week we’ll know for sure whether they join us, so if all goes well, response times should start going down. Thank you, everyone, who has waited while we try to get on top of this inbox and we are sorry for any inconveniences or stress it has caused.

Many people have been asking to play the expansion content, solo mode, 5-6 player mode, or other variants. Now that the Expansion Rulebook is publicly available, we’ll release all of that in our next TTS mod update. Until then, please keep playing the base game on the existing mod and don’t be shy to join us on our Discord server to meet, organize games, and chat.

Thanks to everybody who has watched our streams these past weeks! In case you missed it, we’ve been streaming Seize the Bean on our Twitch channel. So if you’re itching to see actual gameplay, come join us there every Thursday at 21:00 CEST / 12:00 PDT / 15:00 EDT.

In case you can’t make it to the live stream, the past streams are available on Twitch for up to two weeks. We’re also planning to upload the videos to our YouTube channel. Once they’re up we’ll let you all know.

The next update will be in two weeks, so it’ll be a shorter one.

Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to check out the Expansion Rulebook, send us your feedback, and enjoy all the digital content. See you soon! 

All English Files in Proofing, TTS Mod Updated & New Streaming Schedule
almost 4 years ago – Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 07:39:12 PM

Hello everybody, hopefully this update finds you well and you haven’t been waiting too impatiently. It’s another long one, and we’ve got some exciting news about the TTS Mod today. But first, progress reports!

We shared last time that most of the English files were submitted and getting approved by the factory. We’re happy to report that for the most part, these approvals have come in:

You might notice that the Main Rulebook is still waiting for approval. The export we sent was actually quite large and the factory helped give us advice on a better way to prepare the diagrams in it. That’s done and we’re just waiting on approval now.

(Shout out to Emma and Tyler at Panda for their wonderful printing expertise!)

Now, let’s talk about that final unsubmitted English file...

In the last update, we explained that once our wonderful graphic designer, Janna, was done implementing our feedback, the Variant Rulebook would enter the proofing stage. Since then, she’s been hard at work and has, in fact, finished! So the Variant Rulebook is officially in the final proofing stage before completion. Once the team is done finding typos, we’ll release the final file for backers to look at and also pass the final text changes on to our translators.

Speaking of which:

We realize that on the images above, it looks like our translators have just been slacking off since there were hardly any status changes. We can assure you that could not be further from the truth. We’re in close contact with all of our translators, and quite confident that by the next update, many of these entries will be a satisfying green color. Actually, a number of files are just days away from that, as some translated text is already finalized and we’re in the middle of adding it to the print files.

As mentioned in the last update, we’ve been working on an update to the mod on Tabletop Simulator. This update reflects the final version of Seize the Bean, and it’s now publicly available! Here’s what’s included in the mod:

• 2 - 4 player support
  
• Kreuzberg District
  
• Updated game pieces and cards
  

Of course, you know this is much less than what will be included in the box. However, we thought it better to give you this now than make you wait longer for the whole, modular thing. (See, we’re learning!)

Over time, we’ll be adding 5-6 player support, solo mode, the remaining Customer Groups and all other Variants; more on that below. We can’t make any promises on when exactly those things will come, as staying on top of the language files remains our first priority so we can start printing as soon as possible.

Until then, check out the new TTS mod with the rulebook at http://rulebook.seizethebean.com. And please join us for chatting and gameplay on our Discord server.

Once upon a time, Quality Beast was very active in making videos and streaming, especially from events. Now that Seize the Bean is so close to completion and we will occasionally have some room to breathe, we would like to pick that up again. We’re currently aiming for a weekly schedule, although we may adapt this in the future.

Of course, for many of our first streams, we’ll be playing Seize the Bean on the new TTS mod, showing off the final, polished gameplay. Join us next week, on Thursday, July 30th on our Twitch channel. We'll announce a streaming time closer to the event as we're still trying to find the best time for most regions. (Feel free to give us your input here, if you have an opinion or advice!)

If you can’t make it, you’ll be able to check out the video afterwards on our YouTube Channel.

As a final note, we would like to remind everyone that we’ve decided to not give any more estimates when Seize the Bean will arrive at your doorstep until all files are with the factory. It’s not worth the risk of there being more unexpected hurdles, leading to more delays and everybody being disappointed again. We’ve learnt the hard way that on this first, enormous project, it’s really difficult for us to know what’s coming.

We read all the comments, check as many messages as fast as we can, and even stay up to date on BGG. And what we’ve heard loud and clear from many of you is that you are tired of vague wording and false promises. We never intended these things and what we’re trying to do now is simply be real and share the truth: we’ll know the delivery date once we begin printing and can give you an accurate and realistic estimate. Your continued patience and trust means everything to us.

Thank you for reading this update. We hope you’ll enjoy the new mod, and we’ll be back with another update soon, either on the 2-week schedule for a mini-update or the monthly schedule for a large one

Only 1 English File Left, Translation Progress & TTS Update
almost 4 years ago – Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 10:24:19 PM

Hey everyone, it’s been an intense time for us here at Quality Beast, and that’s without even looking at world news! So here’s what we accomplished... (and strap in, this isn't a mini-update by any means!) 

The main English rulebook is done and uploaded. You read that right, it’s done. Done done. Not touching it anymore done. Submitted to the manufacturer done. You can admire it in all its glory as a downloadable PDF. Thank you so much for your patience, input, patience, feedback, and patience throughout the many iterations of this rulebook. 

Despite this victory we haven’t paused working even for a second to celebrate. Instead, we finished the big layout feedback round for the Variant Rulebook. This means once our graphic designer has implemented all the feedback we’ll be in the proofing stage, which is the last step before we can call this file done and share it with you all. (More importantly that will mark the 100% completion point for the English game!) This “big layout feedback” task involved some major layout reworking, so it has been an enormous bottleneck for us, and we’re extremely excited to have finally finished it. You can read Update #43 to learn more about the contents of the Variant Rulebook in case you’re wondering why it’s so important. (Hint: it’s not really just “variants” and this was probably a sub-par naming choice.)

Just for fun, here are a few, work-in progress, sneak preview screenshots of the Variant Rulebook:

Many of you have rightfully asked for more clarity on what is left to do, so we have also created a Print File Progress diagram for you. Here it is: 

As you can see, all the English files but one are submitted, and most of those are approved by the factory.

Let’s take a look at the language files as well:

You can also see that there is still quite some work left on the language files, and very few have been submitted to the factory. Most are in the proofing phase, which means the translation teams are putting on the finishing touches.

We will also have some time for updating the Tabletop Simulator mod now that we’re out of the big Variant Rulebook bottleneck. Actually, one team member (Remi, one of our developers) got a bit excited and pulled some extra hours to put together 3D sculpts which act as “bags” to draw tokens from:

The next steps are to add the cards, and then test the mod before release. We’re hoping to accomplish this within the next couple days, so we could share the updated mod at the end of next week. However, if the factory needs us to adjust the print files, or we need to work on language files, that will be prioritized and might push back the TTS timeline. But assuming nothing gets in the way, we’re very excited to share with you the final version of the game next week. So even while we’re still working on print files, you can finally play!

That’s it for this mini-update, we hope you enjoyed it. See you in the next one, and happy gaming! 

Mini-Update for Early June
almost 4 years ago – Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 12:22:21 AM

Hey everyone, as we enter into June we are wrapping up the English version of the game and beginning to wrap up the language versions too. Finally, a real end in sight!  

Due to the nature of the proofing work we are doing right now, the team is incredibly focused. We don’t want to have come this far to overlook something before sending the files to print. At the same time, we know you all need and deserve a new, estimated delivery date more than ever. You have been more than patient and endlessly trusting of us with your continued belief in this project. We also know that taking our time with proper and clear communication is increasingly important to you as well.

Given these facts, we want to postpone this mini-update so we can finish up the back-and-forth proofing process with our factory, and then take our time writing a clear and concise update that informs you exactly where we are and what is left to do. We will give more details in the next mini-update, but currently a large majority of the English files have been approved by the factory (meaning they are print-ready). We are also now receiving estimations from each translation team how much more time they need to finish completely. We need these estimates to set a print date with the factory. With that date, we can finally predict a realistic delivery date!

Thank you all for understanding, and apologies if you felt this update was unnecessary, but we wanted to stay in touch with you even if it’s just to say “we’ll write more later”. We’ve done that before in the comments but many backers noted they are not active there and didn’t see the notice.

Stay safe until the next update everyone!