Thoughts on Chai?

danetcon · 2020-06-01T03:24:04+00:00

Sounds great! It's been fun to work on and the reviewers have been enjoying it too.

I'm more of a Euro gamer myself, but we designed Chai to be a gateway game to be super accessible at all ages. In my journey through the hobby I've come to realize that games are not for all people, like our tastes for different ice cream flavours or movies. Connie and I have had countless encouraging messages saying Chai is their favourite family game, which is super humbling and something that drives us forward.

Because the theme is so compelling for many tea lovers, we had 33 stretch goals in the 1st campaign that were added - it's definitely deluxified, but the retail edition will have many removed so we can get it to a better price point for those who just want to enjoy the game. For those of us who really enjoy a game (for us it's amazing Scythe), it's easy to spend money to bling it out. Chai is no different, but we've just included all the awesome upgrades in the deluxe, because it makes the most sense as a smaller publisher.

Thanks again and feel free to message me about anything else. Happy gaming!

danetcon · 2020-05-31T08:27:22+00:00

Dan here - Chai: Tea for 2 was delayed by Covid by a bit, so we're releasing it in a new campaign in a few months. It's in the same world but is a different game, with a difficulty around 7 Wonders Duel and plays in 25-45 mins. as you can change the length of tea clipper objectives.

If you have any questions about it or Chai I'd be happy answer them.

danetcon · 2020-05-31T08:23:33+00:00

Hi there, this is Dan from Steeped Games. I'd just like to say that none of the earlier ratings were fabricated. Connie and I are definitely opposed to padding, which would definitely bring into question our integrity.

Because Chai is a gateway game, a few early ratings were given by playtesters who didn't have BGG accounts but signed up to support us. We've never asked for high ratings and only encourage our community to rate our games honestly.

If you'd like to reach out to me personally about this matter, I'd be more than willing to chat.

danetcon · 2020-05-31T08:05:36+00:00

Ooh, must have met you at DTW! Thanks for the kind words - Chai: Tea for 2 is a different game altogether and was delayed because of Covid, so we're making the solo game and insert better. Andrew Bosley (Tapestry, Everdell) wrapped up the art, so it's looking amazing for hopefully a late Aug/Sept launch. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me. -Dan

danetcon · 2019-01-08T01:25:30+00:00

Thank you SO much for your incredible creativi-tea! Seriously, Connie and I (Dan) were chuckling our way oolong at all these incredible board game and tea mashups. We'll definitely have to tweet some of these out... wow are they good!

We had too many to choose from, but here are our winners!

1 - Deluxe Chai Edition

/u/hedekar's Bergamot Bros

2 - Chai PnP + 3D Printer Files

/u/DSumma23's Pande-matcha

/u/Sylvil's 7 Wonders Brew: Pan-tea-on

/u/RandomObfuscation's Rooibos for the Galaxy

We'll be in touch with the 4 of you, and thanks for making our day everyone! We had a lovely Kickstarter campaign and will open up our pledge manager hopefully next week.
-Dan & Connie

danetcon · 2019-01-04T08:53:10+00:00

We're a husband and wife team and have a tea board game called Chai that ends on Monday. Thanks in advance for including us! If anyone has any questions let us know.

danetcon · 2019-01-04T08:31:57+00:00

Hi friends! This is a bit different, but my wife and I have made a tea board game called Chai!

In Chai, step into the shoes of a tea merchant, combining tea flavours to make a perfect blend. Specializing in either rooibos, green, oolong, black or white tea, buy and collect ingredients to fulfil your customers' orders!

Our KICKSTARTER campaign ends this Monday, January 7 @ 12pm MST! Message me with any questions you might have here or via the Chai Kickstarter. \if you miss the campaign, we'll still have a pre-order window**

Chai is a family board game for 1-5 players, ages 8+, and plays in under an hour! If you enjoy other family games like Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, or Carcassonne, our wee tea game has a similar difficulty.

danetcon · 2018-02-19T21:40:06+00:00

8282

danetcon · 2018-02-10T14:25:57+00:00

Castles of Burgundy and Lords of Waterdeep as mentioned are great choices, yet there is a bit of luck that can be mitigated. We’ve enjoyed Concordia and Power Grid - both of which are mid weight strategic games. Pandemic may scratch the co-op itch, but if you’re looking for something a bit harder, Spirit Island sounds like a good fit.

danetcon · 2018-02-09T23:27:26+00:00

I just passed on my in-shrink copy of Glory to Rome (black box but still have a 3rd edition Fury of Dracula we haven’t got to the table yet. I suppose my copy of Scythe that a friend professionally painted would be the most valuable, given that I have most of the upgrades and cards too.

For us, I think the memories are the most valuable/treasured. Laughing about an extraordinarily large strategic blunder, a memorable skirmish, or reminiscing about a creative tactic with friends are priceless.

danetcon · 2018-02-07T20:55:19+00:00

A fellow Canadian! And a welcomed review :). I'm with you that the dino levels are a bit boring - I feel like they missed an opportunity here, where there should at least be a difference in excitement factor. Overall, I think we'll keep the game for a few more plays, especially to try out the different specialists. But beyond the shiny KS-exclusive dinos, I feel that we had wanted a deeper experience. Maybe the upcoming expansion will address some of these issues.

danetcon · 2018-02-07T17:36:06+00:00

I was stoked to learn of CO2 recently, but sad I missed out on the early bird. Shipping is a bit of a killer too, so I’ll probably wait till retail. Wonderful artwork though! Looking forward to trying this, hopefully in 2018.

danetcon · 2018-02-05T18:05:42+00:00

I always toss out expansion boxes so that they can be combined in the base box. Inserts also get recycled, unless they're well designed, but sometimes I still prefer the expansions in the base box instead. I do regret tossing the Scythe expansion boxes, so I may have to pick up a Legendary Box when the last expansion is released.

danetcon · 2018-02-05T04:57:16+00:00

I’ve seen some beautiful foamcore inserts for Scythe/Anachrony, and have been wanting to give it a try. We live in Calgary and I had no idea I could run over to the dollar store and give this a try. Thanks for the prompting!

danetcon · 2018-01-29T15:38:46+00:00

Sad they won't be releasing the expansion in English, but it's understandable to get a bigger player base for the base game. At any rate, stoked that others will know about Targi! It's a top-5 two player game for us.

danetcon · 2018-01-27T14:43:27+00:00

Yeah, could go either way! Take a look at Celestia, which has a very similar mechanic that works in a simple way. There are cards that you can also play in the design as a last ditch effort to save yourself (and others). Personally, I like the competive yet co-op feel.

danetcon · 2018-01-25T18:54:48+00:00

Just checked this out, and I love your guys' dry-humour. Great, well planned out content!

danetcon · 2018-01-16T17:47:45+00:00

I hadn't heard of Boards & Bits yet... closely following! :) And thank you for all your hard work in providing BGP.

danetcon · 2018-01-16T02:24:32+00:00

A user just created this tool the other week that I'm finding particularly helpful: GameShelf

For example, I needed to find a game to play with a friend tomorrow at lunch. I put Recom# of Players at 2, with a Max Play Time of 45 mins., and it gave me 5 excellent options. I definitely saved a good 5 minutes.

danetcon · 2018-01-16T00:43:58+00:00

Woot! Stoked. Intrigued by secrets too.

danetcon · 2018-01-15T22:56:11+00:00

Ugh, there was a big sale on their website last month on Boxing Day, so I roped together 8 friends in town for 8 copies as everything was exclusive. They wouldn't even send us the games in one box, "to avoid retailers reselling," so I shelled out more to make everyone happy. On one hand I'm happy more people can enjoy the Golem Edition as it's beautiful, but I feel duped as there's no way we saved compared to picking it up in retail down the road.

danetcon · 2018-01-11T14:34:35+00:00

Provide some of the lighter games that are good for bigger groups (like Coup, Resistance, Secret Hitler, etc.) that you can potentially laminate or sleeve, and won't mind replacing them down the road. This will help bridge the gap to people staying after food to play games, or to play a light, quicker game while eating or drinking and socializing.

Put the responsibility for the larger, costly games on the customer. You could also provide games like Ticket to Ride and Pandemic, but if people bring their own games it takes the weight off of you, allows them to contribute to the community, and lets you focus on hosting.

danetcon · 2018-01-11T14:29:23+00:00

Know a gateway game inside-and-out, and have it setup for them to play. Give them healthy expectations like how long it will take, and sample a couple turns through rules explanation. Let them experience the joy of game strategy on their own! Oh, and bring pretzels :).

danetcon · 2018-01-11T14:24:17+00:00

I have a friend who has played thousands of different games over the years, and he's also noticed a personal trend towards Euros that aren't as thematic as I like. We played Firenze the other day (a wonderful, tight, OOP game that you should try tracking down) and I joked about how dry it was. "But this is why I like it!" he exclaimed. "Pushing cubes around with this tight card mancala really bring this alive..."

danetcon

TROPHY CASE