Hail Good Armellians!
Just looping back here to let you all know that...
Alex Kain's Kickstarter for Armello: The Founding & The Fall, a premium hardcover omnibus of Armello novellas, is in its final hours!
The project was funded in less than three hours, and is just shy of being 300% funded as I write this now.
You have unlocked numerous stretch goals, making this book even more special than first advertised, including...
Printed colour endsheets.
Golden ribbon bookmark.
Eight art prints of the novella cover art.
The first ever written and never-before-released Armello short story, The Royal Cartographer. Detailing the fall of King Tau's homeland, his mysterious teacher, and how he came to find himself in the realm of Armello.
And we are closing in on the $85k stretch goal for printed page edges.
While the limited physical rewards we were able to contribute to the campaign went very quickly, there are a number of great goodies still up for grabs. Including a sticker pack and custom bookmark in the design of a physical Treasure Card from Armello. And a digital rewards pledge tier that includes everything from the previous tiers and...
The Armello Soundtrack
Series of wallpapers of the King's Murals (from the main menu) by LoG co-founder & creative director, Ty Carey.
PDF of the limited edition Armello Art Book.
This one is particularly special, IMO. We worked incredibly hard on the art book, and it features a foreword and many pieces from our friend and gigantic talent, Adam Duncan.
The 'Geek Dice' in-game dice.
Arguably the rarest dice in Armello. Previously only available to those who happened to meet a member of the LoG crew in-person. Yes, IRL.
Annnnnd... The Bandit Clan's 'Black Company' in-game Hero Skins!
Last made available over 10 years ago as an exclusive in our original Kickstarter campaign.
For more info and to pledge, visit the Kickstarter page now.
While there is less than 24 hours left, don't be concerned about missing out on these rewards as there will be late pledges available for some time, and we won't run out of the final goods that remain.
I have no doubt a number of you backed the campaign already, so on behalf of Alex and us here at LoG, thank you! We're so excited to support him in bringing his beloved Armello novellas into the real world with this incredible book that can take pride of place on your bookshelf. We can't tell you how heartwarming it is to see the love for the Armello IP over ten years since the game went live. We are so incredibly grateful that what started as our little out-of-ours indie project has blossomed into something so much bigger than we could have ever imagined.
<3 Trent & the LoG crew
FAQ
There were a lot of comments on the last post announcing this campaign, so I wanted to take the opportunity to address some of them here and provide some additional context in the hopes of clearing up any misconceptions some folks may have.
Are we going to fix the lore inconsistencies in the Hero Bios in-game?
Ooft, yeah this one strikes us right in the heart. We're aware of them. Checks and balances were missed during the v2.0 release due to the scale and complexity of that release (and the time surrounding it being quite hectic at the studio). Then, subsequently, due to the cost and time involved in fixing them, doing so never rose to the top of the priorities pile during the game's final couple of years. The classic game dev tale of there always being something more critical to tackle.
Not an excuse, it should never have occurred, and upon reflection we should have brute forced the fix into our schedule years ago. But at least there's an explanation for those of you who rightfully care about these things. As mentioned, the inconsistencies are something that break our hearts too, and for a studio who clearly cares so much about our worldbuilding, we're quite embarrassed about it tbh.
We would love to sweep back and fix them one day. Alex has graciously drafted resolutions to them (even though he was not responsible for them), but we are yet to assess the risk to the game's stability by introducing such a fix many years after the project's completion and we would need to find a time where we can divert attention from our current project. Thus, I can't promise anything at this point.
Rest assured, the new novella is going through a major conistency process, and we have even performed an edit pass on previous ones, mainly to catch spelling, punctuation, etc. We are working very hard to ensure this omnibus will be the definitive Armello bible for you Armello loreheads out there.
This Kickstarter is a blatant cash grab for LoG.
This Kickstarter isn't even being operated by League of Geeks. The original author of the Armello novellas, Alex Kain, approached me in 2023 because he had a dream of not only bringing them to life in a physical edition, but also completing the set by finding a way to justify him investing the time it would take to write a ~150 page Bandit Clan novella.
We were reticent at the time because we had two other projects about to be released, and were working with King of the Castle on their Kickstarter for the Armello Board Game, but when LoG entered hibernation in 2024 Alex approached me with the idea again, we discussed it, and Ty and myself chose to support him in his ambitions.
We have actually licensed the Armello IP to Alex personally, so he can bring these books to life. This is entirely his operation. LoG is taking a tiny licensing fee. That's all. We have provided all merch at cost. We even waived the minimum guarantee that comes with standard licensing deals so Alex could afford to do this for you all. We are supporting him with mentorship, asset creation, some backer rewards, we allowed him to run it through our Kickstarter page, and I have continued my collaboration with him on ideating and editing his novellas, but that's it.
This is Alex's project born of pure passion for Armello and his love of contributing to it for all of you, and he is receiving almost all of the funds for the project.
The money LoG is likely to receive from this endeavour wouldn't even cover our team for one week.
The Board Game Kickstarter hasn't even shipped yet, and you're running another one?
Three things here.
The Board Game Kickstarter and Novella Kickstarter are being run by entirely different people and companies, under different licensing agreements.
King of the Castle's Board Game Kickstarter has been the unfortunate victim of circumstances completely out of their control. The same circumstances impacting the entire tabletop industry and every kickstarter within it; Trump's tariffs. Andre at KotC has been extremely communicative and transparent about the situation with their backer community, and the board game is in the final stages of fulfilment. As the licensor, we have complete faith in KotC and are wholly satisfied with how Andre has handled an absolute onslaught of curveballs since the board game kickstarter's launch. You can find all of KotC's updates here.
We consulted Andre at KotC about not running the Novella Kickstarter until they had shipped the board game, but due to the unpredictable situation caused by the tariffs and his confidence in the board game shipping very shortly, he gave Alex his full blessing to proceed.
Armello has wasted potential. Why not release more DLC or content for the game instead?
We hear this all the time. And it's heartbreaking. Because we wish it were true, and more than anything it demonstrates just how much you love this game and world, but believe me... I've been looking at the data for over a decade now. We have bled every last bit of financial potential of out of the Armello you all know and love on Steam (and other platforms).
Yes, the world and IP has plenty of potential in it - as the board game and novella kickstarters have proven - but the game no longer has any financial potential. That has been the case since 2019. It just doesn't sell enough copies. Sales began declining in 2018 and became unsustainable in 2019.
Everything we developed for the game post-Dragon Clan was developed at a financial loss. I have spoken numerous times about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that we continued to invest in this project, just to leave Armello in as best a state as we possibly could, knowing that we would never make that money back.
We supported this game for over half a decade and tried literally everything, Linux support, DRM free, Steam inventory, mobile free-to-play, crossplay, loot drops, cosmetic items, a worldwide physical retail release, Humble Bundles, Games with Gold, Steam Deck verification, and tonnes more stuff. Did we get some things wrong? Did we miss some opportunities? Is there a better way the game could have been managed for more financial gain or longevity? Of course. All of those are true, no doubt. I'm not claiming we got everything right.
But the fact remains, Armello has well reached the end of its financial potential, and that's okay. I know many of you wish it weren't true, and that it's hard to imagine because you would immediately buy a DLC were we to release it, but that doesn't mean enough people would. The fact is we had a great run that came to an end long ago.
Developing DLC or more content for Armello would be the literal equivalent of setting that same amount of money on fire. In fact, worse, because it would also take our attention and time away from other projects that would deliver an actual RoI.
Why don't you do a Kickstarter for a sequel or new content instead?
This is the same answer as above; because it wouldn't be financially viable. But a few people asked this, so here's the more specific answer.
Armello's original kickstarter, during the Kickstarter boom of 2013/2014 reached $200k USD. Armello cost over $2M to get to v1.0... in 2015. We spent ~$10M over the seven years we supported it, in order to make it the game it is today.
Kickstarters very very rarely fund videogames in their entirety. Even if we wanted to give it a shot and make an Armello sequel by raising funds via Kickstarter, after the campaign we would likely still need to raise >95% of the budget needed to complete the game. And the chance of that in the current fundraising market is effectively zero.
As for DLC, a Hero pack similar to the ones you know and love cost us between $300k-$500k, again, historically. Today it would be much more. We would never raise enough cash via Kickstarter to make another Armello DLC, and there is no publisher or financier on earth that would help fund or publish a DLC for a ten year old game of Armello's level of commercial success.
And again, we are not running these recent Kickstarters, we have simply licensed Armello to KotC and Alex. So it's not even a matter of us deciding to do this kickstarter instead of something else for Armello. That's a false equivalency.
When are you going to / Why didn't you make an Armello 2?
We've said many times we would love to return to the world of Armello in a future videogame. But when we do manage to do that, it won't take the form of the game you know and love. It will be a different genre, experience, game, whatever, set in the world of Armello.
We achieved our goal of "bringing tabletop adventures to life" with Armello, and we are incredibly proud of what we all built together. If we were to return to Armello we would want to tackle a new, and different concept within that same world.
As to why we aren't working on it now, or haven't previously, that's simply because we have other ideas and concepts we wanted to bring to life. We love Armello, but it is not our only love and interest as creators, and no amount of financial incentive would change that fact.
Can we get X content, Y feature, etc, in-game?
No. Sorry. Armello's development phase ended over three years ago. The studio has been focused on other projects for multiple years now. You can read the final update that I made in July 2022 here.
We still offer support for critical issues we are able to address (as demonstrated with the recent Unity vulnerability patch) and rotating the dice seasons. And while we're on that topic, fwiw Luke (our tech director) and myself personally program those every six weeks. They're not automated.
Why are the Bandit Clan skins being offered as a reward in this campaign? Weren't they exclusive to the original campaign?
Yes. They were. That campaign concluded almost 11 years ago. And even though they are the most requested item from the community they have remained exclusive to the original backers all these years.
We wanted to find a way to further support Alex as the campaign came to a close and both the Bandit Clan Hero Skins and the Geek Dice have been requested numerous times during the campaign. So we figured, another Kickstarter ten years after the first is perhaps the best reason we'll get to give folks a second chance at getting their hands on these skins, even if just for a short window in time.
And it will help contribute to a better end product for the campaign and all of you, and mean more money in our good friend Alex's pocket for his hard work on this campaign.
"The original Armello Kickstarter was a disaster and many backers never even saw their art books."
Literally not true. Not even in the slightest. We have recently been made aware of one (!!) instance of an art book not making it to its final destination, and that will and can be easily remedied. Even after all these years.
Though admittedly it did take us a while to get all the physical goods out, the original Kickstarter for the videogame overdelivered in almost every measure. You can find our post from June 2021 measuring it all here.
I have X question about the details/logistics of the Kickstarter campaign.
Great. We'll answer what we can, but really... just ask Alex! It's his campaign, remember? You can chat to him over on the campaign page here.
I think you guys should do some kind of D&D/TTRPG thing with Armello.
So do we, pal. So. Do. We.
In closing..
We love that you love Armello. We love Armello too. We're very proud of the game and have high hopes (and intentions) of returning to this beloved world of ours in videogame form again at some point.
Though I won't lie, it's heartbreaking to hear the cynicism towards LoG and our team that has begun to bubble up in this community lately. We supported the game for over seven years, with over 27 free major updates, across multiple platforms. I know we all wish there could be more clans, more cards, more modes, or that every bug be squashed, etc, etc, but unfortunately development has concluded and it will remain that way. Often in game development a project reaches its conclusion outside of our control and that's where it must remain. Regardless of all of our best wishes, attempts, and intentions.
We know that just like the majority of experiences on the internet, the particularly unkind folks are the silent minority and that most players old and new continue to have fun within Armello (the game is currently 92% positive in recent reviews on Steam). Even those who do have frustrations with the game, valid or not, we read them knowing they arise from the sheer love and passion you all hold for this game. And also, importantly, that the vast majority of you are truly delighful people, and so rest assured we will continue to find new and interesting ways for you to experience the world of Armello outside of the game, until that day we decide to revisit it in videogame form.
And yes, Luke and I will keep rolling out the dice season rotations, no matter how many folks somehow reliably freak out that we're not announcing a new Clan instead.
Thanks again for all of your support folks. Truly. It really does mean the world to us. We do receive all of your positive reviews, messages, emails and posts here on the forums and it means a lot.
I know many of the answers I've provided above won't be fun to hear, and maybe even hard to believe, but transparency and honesty about the situation for Armello 10 years post-launch is just about all we can offer at this stage.
Now, to bring it back to the matter at hand... Alex has initiated, planned, and run an amazing Kickstarter campaign for you all, so if you want to support an independent creator utilsing their craft and talent for pure good, there is perhaps no better place you could put your money right now than Alex's Kickstarter campaign. Not to mention the final version of the book is going to be seriously impressive, Ty and Alex have really gone overboard on the design for this thing. Oh, and and the Bandit Clan novella absolutely slaps. I'm editing Alex's great work on it right now.
Pledge over here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leagueofgeeks/armello-the-founding-and-the-fall