There has been a long period of radio silence but we have finally come out of the shadow of the moon and re-instated contact with the Earth! We have been feverishly busy in the last year preparing to launch Orbit at the 2019 UK Games Expo, and we are now very close! We have teamed up with some experienced board game makers to produce a limited edition Orbit with some unique components. This isn’t the usual route for board games these days but after much discussion, we made the decision at the beginning of this year to focus on a small scale initial release. We love designing and making board games and wanted to get Orbit out as soon as possible, before considering the longer route of taking it into a full manufacture program. This does mean it may be your only chance to get a copy of Orbit!
So what’s happened in the development of the game? It remains 2-6 players but now with a single player variant as well. There are six individual space agencies each with three rockets, fuel and an astronaut and each with their own specific starting advantages. The boards and the spinners remain largely unchanged. Most of the last year has been spent playtesting the game, and the rules have been refined and tweaked for smoother gameplay. Whilst we were big fans of the circular board we hope the improved layout of the space tracker incorporated into the main board will make for smoother gameplay and a neater game area. Additionally, we have been adjusting artwork here and there to improve the visual clues and make decisions more intuitive.
We are now just putting the finishing touches on these first edition releases, which we will be taking to sell at the UK Games Expo on the 31st May-2nd June. We are going to be at stand 2-368 so please pop by and have a go! I hope you are as excited as we are about the launch of Orbit. Here are some sneak photos of the production components to get you even more excited. See you at the launch! Let’s hope for some clear skies and good weather, this launch window only comes round once a year (that’s once every six turns for those in the know!).