Sainome Colosseum R English Edition

Post-Campaign Update No. 17: Arrival
about 5 years ago – Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 08:00:20 PM

Good day Sainomers!

We hope you're all having a great weekend! We know we are! After all...Sainome Colosseum R has arrived at the fulfillment center! We weren't sure how things were going to turn out there for a minute, as our freight shipper not only struggled to communicate expectations and timelines clearly to us from the beginning, especially regarding customs, they held our palettes ransom into Friday afternoon, stating that a random (and seemingly arbitrary) freight fee needed to be paid before they would relinquish them to us.

Fortunately, everything is now straightened out, and two palettes of Sainome Colosseum & its assorted accessories are sitting pretty in the fulfillment center warehouse. We've been working with the fulfillment company to organize the process and logistics of picking and packing, but we don't expect this to be completed until early next week due to the freight shipment arriving so late yesterday.

Once we have talked with the fulfillment center in greater detail though, we will update you all on when the first shipments will be going out. So stay tuned!

Since release is nearly upon us, we do have a small favor to ask of all of you. While we are working with a distributor to get Sainome into as many stores as we can, we certainly know that we can only cover so much ground on our own. And so, we would like to pull upon all of you. In the comments section below, or through messaging us here (or on social media, for that matter), sound off with your favorite local game shops. We'd love to have Sainome sitting on the shelves of your FLGS, but to ensure that this happens, we need to know that said FLGS exists! Once we have a list compiled, we'll begin contacting each shop about the potentiality of stocking Sainome.

That will do it for today's update! Expect another update this coming week with more details on the shipping process.

Cheers,

Bradly & the LionWing Team

Post-Campaign Update No. 16: Character Spotlight Series: Villager A | The Legendary Hero
about 5 years ago – Sat, Mar 09, 2019 at 07:53:33 PM

 Hello Sainomers!

Welcome back to another post-campaign update! Today we'll be showing off the last of Sainome's core characters, Villager A/The Legendary Hero. Before we get to that, we just want to say that the game is set to arrive at our distributor's warehouse sometime in the next week or two. We're super excited for this obviously, and even more excited that such news means we're one step closer to shipping these babies out to you all! So, as soon as we get word on all of that, we'll post an update with what to expect regarding the shipping process.

Now, onto today's entry in our long-running Character Spotlight series!

So as we can see from the image above, Villager A is this character's Normal Form. At first glance, he doesn't appear to be all that powerful a character. After all, he has no specific damage ability or opponent-manipulation skill like many of the other Normal Form Heroes in the game. But that's what makes this character so unique! In this Form, he's all about pulling cards out of the discard pile that he's already played. This is meant to allow him to play powerful equipment cards without ever having to really lose them throughout the game, since he can always get them back. The drawback here, however, is the fact that players are stuck with only this skill for most the game, since he can't awaken until he's fairly low on life.

Fortunately, once Villager A awakens and becomes The Legendary Hero (which we just find hilarious), he's a wrecking machine. Without mincing words, The Legendary Hero is one of the best Awakened Form characters in the entire game, if not the best (in the hands of the right player, of course). He's got power and speed and completely ignores where equipment cards can be equipped. That's right, he can just attach all the best cards and not worry about aligning them with specific pips like every other character in the game! So, not only does he dish out extra damage per attack, but he can perform three actions EVERY TURN with basically an equipment list of his choosing. So I guess what we're saying here is: He's insanely good. The problem, of course, is that he can only be insanely good for so long, since, upon awakening, the player will only ever have, at max, 3 HP, maybe lower depending on the attack that got Villager A to the point that he could awaken. Thus, this character burns bright, sure--but he burns out fast, too.

And that, folks, is Villager A/The Legendary Hero! We hope you enjoyed this look at the character. We plan to release some more of these on the Kickstarter characters, so stay tuned!

Until next, Sainomers!

Bradly & the LionWing Team

Post-Campaign Update No. 15: Character Spotlight Series: Animated Armor | Puppeteer
about 5 years ago – Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 09:07:11 PM

Heyo, Sainomers!

Welcome back to another post-campaign update!

It’s been a while since we last posted a Character Spotlight entry, but today we remedy that. We had primarily run the series during Sainome’s campaign but have not talked much about the Heroes since. So, today we’ll be looking at one the most unique fighters in the game, the Animated Armor/Puppeteer. This specific character is what we’ve classified as a “moderately difficult” Hero to learn and play well, however, despite that classification, and due to her skills, she certainly leans more toward the complex side than the straightforward one.

With that being said, let’s just jump right in and start talking about the character’s intricacies.

Beginning with her Normal Form, we see that the Animated Armor only has one real skill to play around with, and that’s Iron Wall. Fortunately, if a character is going to have only one skill, Iron Wall is probably the one you want. As its description states, so long as the player is in Normal Form, they can only ever receive 1 damage from an attack. Iron Wall is a passive ability, which means it’s always in effect, so it essentially allows the player to really get a feel for their enemy’s play style before committing to one of their own. This is why Iron Wall is such a solid skill; it really lets the player watch what their opponent does without ever having to hurry into a strategy. That said, Iron Wall is nicely complemented by the Animated Armor’s awakening skill, Cast Off. Unlike some of the other characters in the game, the Animated Armor gets to decide when she’ll awaken, thus giving the player more control over the match a bit.

When the player does decide to awaken, they are treated to the one controlling the walking armor, the Puppeteer. Like her Normal Form, the Puppeteer does not have many skills. In fact, she has a single attack/defense skill and then her de-awakening ability. But, really, she doesn’t need any more than that due to how strong Doppelganger can be. This skill allows her to mimic that of any other Hero in the game. This makes her a formidable foe for literally every fighter in the game; by using their own abilities against them, she can dish out whatever punishment she takes—punishment that she likely mitigated thanks to Iron Wall when. 

And then, of course, there’s Armorclad that like Cast Off allows the player to decide when they’ll drop back into Normal Form. One of this character’s best strategies is to spend an action to awaken and then immediately use Doppelganger. On the next turn, the player can use Doppelganger again and then use Armorclad in preparation for a strong defense against their opponent’s next attack thanks to the passive effects of Iron Wall. This essentially means that the only time to ever do any significant damage to her is on the turn after she awakens. This forces her opponents to focus their most lethal attacks into a single turn, one that she has ultimately dictated. As a result, the Animated Armor/Puppeteer is a great control class. In fact, she’s arguably the best in the game at that strategy. She’s not just about control though, as she can activate multiple pieces of equipment attached to her due to the double pips in both Forms.

So that’s the Animated Armor/Puppeteer! We hope you enjoyed this in-depth look at the character. We’ll be doing a Spotlight on the last official Hero in the game (Villager A/The Legendary Hero) next and then following up on that with looks at those customized/created by backers.

Until next, Sainomers!

Bradly & the LionWing Team

Post-Campaign Update No. 14: Leaving Port!
about 5 years ago – Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 12:17:40 AM

Ahoy Sainomers!

Bradly here, back with another Sainome Colosseum update! Today's post is one we've been waiting to write. It's with great excitement that we say Sainome has been packaged, put on the boat, and is scheduled to leave port on February 6th. Although the game was originally set to leave port tomorrow, January 31st, there was a slight hiccup that pushed the shipping date back a week. This glitch was due to the importer not being able to locate our US IRS tax ID/EIN, which resulted in our having to call the IRS and get paperwork faxed to the importer before they could clear the order for shipment. (I sat on hold for 73 minutes before finally talking to someone at the IRS about the issue; it was brutal.)

Once the importer received the paperwork, they were able to give us the go-ahead for shipping to the States, but because it took an entire day to get this sorted out through back-and-forth phone calls and emails, we missed the deadline for being able to ship out this week. This whole ordeal was a frustrating process, as we had done everything we were supposed to on our end, and yet we still had to jump through hoops to prove that we were a legal business entity. Mind you, LionWing has been an LLC since late 2017, so the fact that the importer somehow couldn't find our information in the IRS's system was nothing short of maddening.

Nevertheless, all is well now, and we only lost a week, which isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things. Thus, Sainome is set to arrive at our distributor on or before March 18, which means we're still tracking for our April delivery date! This is precisely why we padded our delivery date a bit; you just never know what might crop up when printing and importing physical goods.

So what's next, then? Well, our next update will be another entry in our Character Spotlight series. We'll be taking a look at the Animated Armor/Puppeteer, which is a super neat character that sort of plays by her own rules thanks to a unique skillset. We also plan to show off the awesome backer-created Heroes soon as well, so be on the lookout for those.

Furthermore, now that we have some mass production copies of the game, we will be demoing it in stores around the Cincinnati area! In fact, we are currently talking with a local comics and hobby shop called Up, Up, and Away to set up some demo time in their newest store. We're also reaching out to Three Brothers Games in northern Kentucky to set up some demo times there as well. We'll provide more on the specifics of these endeavors as they're confirmed. Hopefully, folks who live close to the area will be able to make it out for some early access playing. Once the game has been released proper, we'll also be running some tournaments in our area with pretty neat prizes. More on that though in the coming months.

Well, that'll do it for today's update!

Until next time, Sainomers!

Cheers,

Bradly & the LionWing Team

Post-Campaign Update No. 13: Mass Production is Done, BackerKit Lockdown
over 5 years ago – Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 01:08:30 AM

Heyo Sainomers!

We'd first like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Hopefully folks enjoyed their holidays; we know we did! We've been busy behind the scenes here at LionWing though, but fortunately, it's all paid off.

Today, we are happy to announce that mass production on Sainome Colosseum R is done, and packaging has begun. In fact, everything is set to leave China within the next two weeks! We received the three different versions of the game on Monday evening as a final production check (the base game, base game + stretch goals, base game + stretch goals + King character & playmat) in addition to the playmats, and upon looking through everything, we couldn't be happier with the final product. We may do an unboxing of one of the copies we have left over, so keep an eye out for that.

That brings us to our next point: since we're closing in on the ship-date, we have to lock down the BackerKit soon. Thus, next Friday, January 18, is the last day to lock in your order if you haven't already (the vast majority of you have, mind you). This will subsequently be the last day for pre-orders as well; so if you have any family or friends who are wanting to order the game and get the Kickstarter goodies with their purchase, tell them they have just seven days to do so!

That said, we've still got some time before the games get into your hands, so in the interim, we plan to publish some more Character Spotlights entries to show off the Heroes you all haven't seen yet. Be on the lookout for those soon!

Well, that will do it for today's post!

Until next time, Sainomers!

Bradly & the LionWing Team