FINAL DAY!!! Spede Pasanen Makes the News; Final Wild Card Inventor Revealed!
almost 4 years ago – Thu, May 14, 2020 at 01:16:49 AM

TL;DR: Steampunk Rally Fusion makes the news in Finland! The final Promo Pack slot goes to Leonardo da Vinci; see Mr. Cuddington's art below! Pledging closes at 4:30 PM Mountain Time tomorrow (Thursday, May 14th).

First to break the story was Finnish newspaper Iltalehti, celebrating the victory of Spede Pasanen and his inclusion in Steampunk Rally Fusion with a news article devoted to us! According to Google Translate, they agree that "The cartoon character created for the game looks very apt." Other Finnish news sites Ilta-Sanomat and Helsingin Sanomat have since posted articles about it too, and the social media posts from all three sites (and Roxley's as well) have been abuzz with likes, shares, and inside jokes and references from Pasanen's films and shows.

We're going to have to update Spede's biography! While it appears that only 10 of the 50+ patent applications he filed were successful, we can now report that his designs include a type of record player, a device for measuring the distance of ski jumps, a wind-powered boat, and a garbage bag holder which is still available in Finnish stores today. Torille! (To the market!)

Taking the final Wild Card position in the Promo Pack with 220 of the 408 votes cast on Boardgamegeek is the original Renaissance man himself, Leonardo da Vinci! Here's a breakdown of how the other competitors did:

Team Roxley would like to thank you all once more for your participation, submissions, and votes! We wanted to give the fans a voice in the creation of the promo pack, and we're very grateful to everyone who contributed. Here are some highlights from the survey:

* A total of 173 nominations were submitted.
 * Leonardo da Vinci was the most commonly submitted name, with 9 entries!
 * Some popular submissions we weren't able to include (this time...) included Alfred Nobel, Archimedes, Cornelius Drebbel, Hero of Alexandria, Howard Hughes, and Stephen Hawking.
 * 5 nominations were suggested that are already in the game.
 * Several living persons were nominated (again, not this time), including Adam Savage, Elon Musk, and Michio Kaku.
 * Several authors and artists were nominated, including Jules Verne and Mary Shelley. Alexander Hamilton was submitted. Chocolatier Jean Neuhaus (inventor of the praline) was nominated. Gary Gygax and George Lucas were both on the list!
 * Team Roxley already had a shortlist of inventors we wanted to consider for future opportunities, should they arise... that shortlist has now become much, MUCH longer!

Auguste Piccard (1884-1962) 

In order to gather experimental evidence for his friend Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, in 1931 Piccard and his assistant, Paul Kipfer ascended to a record height of 51,793 feet, to measure cosmic radiation in the stratosphere. To accomplish this feat, he and his brother Jean Felix Piccard designed a pressurized rigid gondola. After an accidental takeoff, it began to leak during the ascent but was plugged successfully with cotton waste and Vaseline. After managing to avoid inhaling spilled mercury, the pair nearly ran out of oxygen before a crash landing on a glacier near the Austrian village of Obergurgl, now a popular resort because of the incident. The Swiss physicist would go on to make 25 more balloon flights, later adapting his pressurized gondola design into bathyscaphes that would revolutionize deep-sea exploration. His appearance and name served respectively as the inspiration for Cuthbert Calculus in the Tintin comics and Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard. 

Further upgrades to the bathyscaphe vessel would make it capable of surviving travel through time and space, back to before the Martian War...

Q. What happens if I miss the pledge deadline (4:30 Mountain Time, Thursday, May 14th)?

A. Preorders will go live in our pledge manager a couple of weeks after the campaign ends. All content from the Kickstarter will still be available, and preorders placed before fulfillment begins will ship at the same time as regular pledges, but we will no longer be able to offer the same pricing to Preorder customers that we are offering you during the campaign.

Our final update during the campaign will be tomorrow - Thursday, May 14, 2020, after which we will continue to update backers regularly until the campaign is fulfilled.

Thank you once again, to all of you, for your continued support, participation, and positivity.

Keep rollin' NINES!

Team Roxley

Your Votes Have Determined a WINNER! Time Lapse Video From Mr. Cuddington. Vote Now for the Wild Card Inventor!
almost 4 years ago – Tue, May 12, 2020 at 12:16:27 AM

TL;DR: The winner of the Promo Pack Final is Spede Pasanen! See Mr. Cuddington's time lapse video of his art creation below. Vote for your favorite Wild Card now on BoardGameGeek!

The winner of our fan-submitted Promo Pack Qualifier, with over a thousand votes on Facebook, Twitter, and Boardgamegeek, is Spede Pasanen! CONGRATULATIONS to Kimmo Pasanen (apparently no relation) on being the first to submit his name!

Mr. Cuddington was unable to perform a live stream tonight after all, so they have instead provided us with another incredible time-lapse video of Spede Pasanen's creation:

One Space Remains!

As promised, the seven defeated inventor candidates are coming together for one final Heat to determine which will claim the last remaining space in the Promo Pack. Which one is your favorite? Vote NOW!

Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling (British, 1909-1990)

From an early age, Shilling was fascinated by all things mechanical, taking engines apart to see how they worked. She bought herself a motorbike at age 14 and would go on to customize and race them, defeating professional drivers. She worked as an electrical engineer and earned an Msc. from the University of Manchester, before becoming an aeronautical engineer during WWII, where her most famous invention, the RAE Restrictor, fixed a critical weakness in Hurricane and Spitfire fighter planes, directly influencing the outcome of World War II. Her future husband George Naylor also worked for the RAE, and anecdotes say she refused to marry him until he won the Brooklands Gold Star--a racing award she already had.

Chien-Shiung Wu (Chinese-American, 1912-1997)

Chien-Shiung Wu (Chinese: 吳健雄) was brilliant even at age 11, ranking 9th out of 10000 applicants for a prestigious school. She studied and taught math and physics before moving to the USA to attend Berkley & Caltech, where she studied electromagnetic radiation (and met her husband, physicist Luke Chia-Liu Yuan.) A lucrative job offer at Princeton attracted her to the East Coast, where she would go on to work on the Manhattan Project. In 1944, she was consulted to (and succeeded at) diagnosing a malfunction in one of Manhattan's first nuclear reactors. Her work led directly to today's Standard Model of particle physics, and her nicknames include "The First Lady of Physics", "The Chinese Madame Curie", and "The Queen of Nuclear Research". 

Frank J. Sprague (American, 1857-1934)

After high school, Sprague took what he thought was the entrance exam for West Point, but turned out to be for the U.S. Naval Academy. He scored the highest out of thirteen applicants and spent several years in the Navy designing inventions, including an inverted dynamo and an electric call-bell system that he installed on a Navy ship. In 1883, he left to work for Thomas Edison, using his mathematical methods to improve Edison’s work, before striking out on his own. He created a new motor that Edison called “The only practical motor available,” regenerative brakes, electric streetcars, and electric elevators. He became known as “The Father of Electric Traction,” and his work allowed cities to grow and develop in ways that shaped the modern world.

Karl & Bertha Benz (German, 1844-1929 & 1842-1944)

Despite early-career troubles, Karl Benz created many fundamentals of automotive technology, including carburetors, spark plugs, clutches, gear shifts, and radiators. He struggled financially, before calling in a ringer: investor Bertha Ringer, who would become his technical, financial, and life partner. The Benz Patent Motorcar, the world’s first practical automobile, was announced in 1885, and to prove its commercial value to him, Bertha illegally drove their teenaged sons an unprecedented 106KM (66 miles) to visit her mother, improvising incredible technical solutions to challenges along the way. Her journey is still celebrated today. Benz & Cie. would later become the largest automobile company on Earth, parent to today’s Mercedes-Benz.

Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519)

Famous for creating the Mona Lisa (and for having a Ninja Turtle named after him), da Vinci was the quintessential polymath of the Renaissance, whose many areas of interest included invention, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, paleontology, and cartography. He is revered for his technological ingenuity and conceptualized many inventions that would not become reality until long after his own death, including early flying machines, a type of armored fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, the adding machine, and the double hull.

Mary G. Ross (Cherokee-American, 1908-2008) 

Ross attended school in the Cherokee Nation capital of Tahlequah, training as a mathematician and taking every astronomy class she could find. She worked as a teacher and statistician before being hired by Lockheed during World War II, where she worked to solve design flaws in the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the first fighter plane to reach 400MPH (640KPH) in level flight. Lockheed sent her to UCLA after the war, then to the top-secret Skunk Works, where she worked on the Agena rocket project and early designs for interplanetary travel. She achieved many recognitions in life, but her true achievements remain unknown, as much of her work is still classified today. Her tombstone reads: “She reached for the stars.”

Robert H. Goddard (American, 1882-1945)

Goddard began experiments as a child, and by age 16 had already caused an explosion in his house and built a failed flying machine. Reading H.G. Wells' "The War Of The Worlds" turned his interests to space, and he went on to become an engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor, with 214 patents to his name. He is credited with building the first liquid-fueled rocket and set record after record for altitude and speed. The press mocked him savagely, and the US military was very slow to take his ideas seriously, so he turned to work mainly in secrecy, but is now widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry.

NOTE: Neither Facebook nor Twitter will allow our polls to have seven options, so voting for this round will be conducted on Boardgamegeek.

Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972) 

Inspired as a young boy by Jules Verne, Sikorsky ignored his parents’ claims that such fanciful airships would probably never exist and created his own model, powered with a rubber band. A few years later he left the Naval Academy to pursue engineering and then a rekindled interest in aviation when his father told him about the Wright Flyer. His experiments with helicopter and aircraft design earned him the praise of Czar Nicholas II, which consequently earned him the enmity of the Bolshevik Revolutionaries. Leaving behind his wife and daughter, he fled to France where he built bombers for the Great War, and then to the United States. It was here that Sikorsky finally achieved his boyhood dream and created the first reliable helicopters. His subsequent models transported US presidents and made unprecedented ocean crossings. A devoutly religious man, Sikorsky believed that “our concerns sink into insignificance when compared with the eternal value of human personality.”

Q. Can we please please please have a Solo Mode?

A. Designer Orin Bishop has submitted Solo Mode rules for us to evaluate, and Team Roxley are evaluating and testing it, but it's too early to commit to its inclusion in the game. It is our firm policy as game creators that we do not want to release anything "half-baked", so while we have great faith in Orin as a designer, Solo Mode will have to go through the same rigorous testing and development that any other Roxley product would. If we are able to sign off on it prior to the rulebook being printed, we will be very happy to add it to the game as a bonus. If it is not yet ready by that time, we will continue development with the intention of providing the rules for Solo Mode on the game page at roxley.com.

Our next update will be Wednesday, May 13, 2020, when we will reveal the winner of the Wild Card race for the final spot in the promo pack!

Thank you once again, to all of you, for your continued support, participation, and positivity.

Keep rollin' NINES!

Team Roxley

New Coverage from the Undead Viking! Final Two Promo Pack Contenders!
almost 4 years ago – Sun, May 10, 2020 at 01:03:38 AM

TL;DR: Check out the Steampunk Rally Fusion Preview below from the Undead Viking! The Semi-Finals are finished, and the Promo Pack final will be between Spede Pasanen and Karl & Bertha Benz. Vote for your favorite on Facebook, Twitter, and Boardgamegeek!

Asima Chatterjee (1917-2006)

 After becoming the first woman in India to earn a Doctorate of Science in 1944, Chatterjee focused her love of botany into research on the chemical compounds of plants. She developed drug treatments for epilepsy and malaria, as well as vinca alkaloids, agents derived from the pink periwinkle plant that is used today in chemotherapy. In 1975 the Indian government awarded Chatterjee the Padma Bhushan award and she was appointed General President of the Indian Science Congress. Visiting other worlds can carry unexpected health risks, and Chatterjee’s methodical precision and expertise may prove invaluable to human and Martian alike.

Spede Pasanen and his fans have destroyed all competitors to date - but can he defeat the power couple behind the biggest automobile company of the century? It's Finland vs. Germany in the final heat of the Promo Pack qualifier! Vote NOW to support your favorite in the final!

Q. My favorite inventor lost the popular vote (or was not selected to race). :( Can you put them in any way?  

A. We've had a tremendous number of amazing, interesting, and diverse candidates submitted, and we're overjoyed with your enthusiasm and participation! One of the seven defeated racers will still get into the promo pack as a wild card, so you still have one more chance to vote in your favorite. As for the rest, you never know what might happen in the future; they will definitely be added to our shortlist, the next time we have the opportunity to create new promotional inventors.

Our next update will be Monday, May 9, 2020, when we will reveal the winner of the fan submissions for the promo pack and present the Wild Card candidates.

Thank you once again, to all of you, for your continued support, participation, and positivity.

Keep rollin' NINES!

Team Roxley

Behind the Scenes of the Campaign Trailer! Mystery Inventor #2 REVEALED, with Time Lapse Video From Mr. Cuddington. Semi-Finals Voting Begins!
almost 4 years ago – Thu, May 07, 2020 at 10:52:34 PM

TL;DR: Watch the "Behind the Scenes" video of the Campaign Trailer video below. Mystery Inventor #2 has been found; see Mr. Cuddington's time-lapse creation of the concept art below! Mary G. Ross defeats Frank Sprague in Heat #4. Vote for the Semi-Finalist races now, on Facebook, Twitter, and Boardgamegeek!

Thomas Chretien is here, with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the campaign trailer's creation! From his first storyboard to the final cut, Thomas offers his commentary on the creation process, the experience of working with Mr. Cuddington, Gavan, and the rest of Team Roxley, and his thoughts on the final video:

 Meet The Creator!
 

Over the years, Thomas has directed various 2D, CG, and live-action short films. This is his first collaboration with Roxley. He co-directed the award-winning short film Le Gouffre as part of Lightning Boy Studio and is currently working on several projects including their upcoming animated show Dinomancers, and at least one Top Secret thing with us that we can’t tell you anything about yet. (Shhhh!)

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000)

A well-known star of the silver screen, between takes Lamarr, would return to her trailer and perform experiments using a set of lab equipment gifted to her by aviator and sometimes-lover Howard Hughes. She persuaded him to replace his boxy aircraft design with a more aerodynamic shape based on fish and birds, and he gave her command of his team of scientists, for whatever she might dream up. During WWII, she learned that Allied torpedoes could be sent off course by jamming their radio signal, and she designed a signal-hopping “spread spectrum” system that could send signals discreetly, creating a prototype with friend and musician George Antheil that successfully controlled a tiny player piano. After two decades of skepticism, the system was eventually adopted by the U.S. Navy, and the “spread spectrum” became instrumental in the telecommunications systems we use today for cellular phones, W-Fi, and Bluetooth. Likewise, Lamarr’s extensive filmography has traveled around the world, and perhaps to Mars as well...

Our congratulations go out to Pierre Davautour & David Funderbark for correctly deducing our second Mystery Inventor after only ONE clue was revealed... but beating them both to the finish line was backer Hockey Mask! (Paul's going to send you a DM soon about that!)

Mr. Cuddington has once again provided us with a fascinating time-lapse video of their creation of the initial concept art:

Mária Telkes (1900-1995)

Born and schooled in Budapest, her visit to a cousin in the US became extended when Telkes took up a biophysics job at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where she helped invent a photoelectric technique for recording brainwaves.  After researching energy conversion techniques at Westinghouse Electric (of Nikola Tesla fame) and MIT, Telkes was called upon during WWII to develop an evaporation system that gave countless troops access to potable water. Convenient enough to fit in standard-issue emergency kits, her method could be scaled up to service entire cities. After the war, she teamed up with architect Eleanor Raymond and sculptor Amelia Peabody to create the “Dover Sun House,” the first solar-powered home, which leveraged a principle similar to her evaporation kits by utilizing state changes with sodium sulfate (also known as sal mirabilis, “miraculous salt”). Her innovations in solar energy earned her the nickname "The Sun Queen," as well as many awards, though her first award was instead for saving a young girl trapped in a burning building. Telkes demonstrated the sun’s versatility in providing life-sustaining comforts for a cozy den--or the most daring and far-flung expeditions.

With Mary G. Ross' claiming 74% of the votes over Frank J. Sprague, we are officially entering the Semi-Finals, which will feature not one, but TWO races at the same time!

Semi-Final Heat A:
 

Semi-Final Heat B:
 

Q. Will we be able to add other Roxley games (Brass, Iron Clays, Dice Throne, etc.) in the pledge manager?

A. This can be difficult due to different fulfillment sources - but you don't need to wait for the pledge manager! Our other games can be ordered or preordered now at roxley.com. The Iron Clays & Spades can also be ordered now; they aren't yet listed on the website, but you can still use the Preorder link in the meantime. Fulfillment to original campaign backers is nearly finished in all zones except for the EU; orders placed now will ship as soon as they are done in your area.

Our next update will be Saturday, May 9, 2020, when we will reveal which two fan-submitted inventors are going to the final vote!

Thank you once again, to all of you, for your continued support, participation, and positivity.

Keep rollin' NINES!

 Team Roxley
 

Follow Roxley on BGG, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter; sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of our page and follow us right here on Kickstarter!

MULTIPLE COPY DISCOUNT Extended! More Mystery Details, Heat #1 Results, & Two New Promo Contenders!
almost 4 years ago – Thu, May 07, 2020 at 06:03:12 PM

TL;DR: Additional games pledged for beyond the first are now 20% off! The Mystery Inventor is still not yet identified; more details below. Spede Pasanen DEFEATS Leonardo da Vinci in Heat #1! Vote for the winner of Heat #2 on Facebook and Twitter now. We are still accepting submissions for the Promo Pack.

Many of you have been asking us two related questions:

A) Can we pledge for a third (fourth, fifth, etc...) copy of the game, and still get 20% off the pledge price. 

B) If we want a single Atomic Edition and a single Fusion Deluxe, can I still get the second-copy 20% discount?

The answer to both questions now officially YES!

- All backers who pledge for at least the FUSION DELUXE pledge ($77 CAD/$55 USD/€51) during the campaign will have the option to add additional Deluxe Editions at 20% off.

- All backers who pledge for at least one ATOMIC DELUXE pledge ($105 CAD/$75 USD/€69) during the campaign will have the option to add additional Atomic Editions and/or Deluxe Editions at 20% off.

Final shipping costs for pledges of 3+ games will be calculated in the pledge manager after the campaign. Please note that each pledge must have a single backer's name and shipping address associated with it. Roxley is not able to split shipments to different destinations.

Carleton Ellis (1876-1941) 

Carleton Ellis specialized in the improvement of existing technology. Many firms were reluctant to allow him visiting access to their production facilities, but by the end of his career, he held a staggering 753 US patents on a wide variety of chemical formulas. These included reduced-knock gasoline, multiple methods for flameless combustion, soil-free hydroponics, fireproofing for airplane wings, longer-lasting housepaint, paint and varnish removers, unsaturated polyester, improved plastic polymers, and a more digestible version of margarine using vegetable oils instead of animal fats. A merchant marine tanker was named in his honor, and according to TIME Magazine’s eulogy, his inventions gave birth to more than 100,000 compounds. One of Ellis' 9 books, “The Chemistry of Synthetic Resin”, contained so many references that an author trying to update it suffered a nervous breakdown.

The Results Are In...

...and with an incredible 78% of the 1388 votes that were cast, SPEDE PASANEN has decisively defeated the legendary Leonardo da Vinci, to advance to the semi-finals! 

Heat #2 will feature two fantastic new competitors: Beatrice Shilling vs. Robert H. Goddard!

 Vote for your favorite now on FACEBOOK or TWITTER!

We need four more... and we have a tip:

After consultation with the game designer, Orin says he's finding the submitted inventors who were active during the core time period of the game are *tending* to be more inspiring to him. So you're still welcome to submit anyone you like, from any time in history... but if your candidate could have shaken hands with Nikola Tesla... (even if they might have had to travel a long way to do so!), they *might* give them a slight advantage.

Send us your next suggestion HERE! 

As of 3 PM MST, the identity of our first Mystery Inventor has still not been found! So we're going to give you a few more details [IN BRACKETS] to help you narrow it down!

 The Clues So Far:

- This inventor had to do much of his work anonymously [TO PROTECT HIM FROM ASSASSINS DURING THE COLD WAR] but was honored after his death, and they named something big and round after him. 

- This inventor has a strong connection to one of the characters [ONE OF THE PILOTS IN SUPER MOTHERLOAD] in another published Roxley game. 

One of Tuesday's guessers [KOEN VAN KUIK] had the wrong inventor... but was right about what was named after him!

If that's enough puzzle pieces for one of you - shout out your guess in the comments section, with the words FINAL ANSWER! We'll reveal our genius (and maybe YOUR genius) in the next update!

Q. Can We Get The Atomic Edition Cover As An Upgrade?

A. We're pleased to announce that YES, this is now being added! It requires a custom order, but we will now be offering a $5 Atomic box upgrade option in the pledge manager.

For our most up-to-date answers to your most common inquiries, we'll be regularly updating the Steampunk Rally Fusion FAQ page throughout the campaign. (And as always, our sincere thanks go out to the supporters who help each other out with answers to these in the comments section when we're AFK for the night.)

Our next update will be Sunday, May 3, 2020, when we will reveal the winner of Promo Pack Heat #2 and the competitors for Heat #3!

Thank you once again, to all of you, for your continued support, participation, and positivity.

Keep rollin' NINES!

Team Roxley

Follow Roxley on BGG, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter; sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of our page, and follow us right here on Kickstarter!