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SKEPTICS Board Game

Created by Usiak Games and Designs

SKEPTICS is a cooperative, dice rolling game, where players explore potentially haunted locations to prove the existence of ghosts. 1-4 players take on the role of Investigators gathering evidence of the paranormal. Investigators race against the clock exploring rooms and rolling dice to match icon sets to Search, Reveal, and Solve Clues. Each Clue will lead Investigators one step closer to revealing the Ghost. Environment Cards are drawn every hour, which may have hazards and conditions that will impede the Investigators’ progress. Investigators win if the existence of the Ghost can be proven in time, but Investigators fail if time runs out.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Larger SKEPTICS Game Board Prototype?
4 months ago – Fri, Nov 17, 2023 at 01:41:22 PM

Hello everyone,

We wanted to share some prototypes we are working on for the second print run of the game. First off, we are still hard at work at the expansion, but we realized our first print run stock won't last forever thanks to a recent rush of orders. Therefore, Jon has been working on something we discussed 2~3 months ago after we saw the prototype of the theater map..."what if the original board was bigger?"

Below you will see pictures of a larger prototype of the original game board we are considering. We put together a quick 2 question survey. If you would, we would love your input on it. It is limited because of the free survey monkey account. If you could, answer the questions on the survey and then you can add comments on this update for things not addressed there.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WF8VJZD

The original board stacked onto of the larger prototype

SKEPTICS for Halloween
over 1 year ago – Sat, Sep 17, 2022 at 05:33:39 AM

Hello everyone! 

For those who backed our campaign over a year ago, and received our game, we really hope you are enjoying playing! Feel free to post your spooky game-play experience on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/skepticsgame. 

HALLOWEEN Season

If you know of anyone looking for a spooky game to play for the upcoming Halloween season, and you think SKEPTICS would be a good fit for them, please direct them to our website at usiakgames.com to purchase a copy! We still have many Kickstarter versions of the game left to sell, but once they run out the expansions will be separated in future print runs. All Kickstarter versions of the game come with a free ten-card Promo pack. You can also order more dice on this site as well. Just fill out the form and let us know what you want!

SKEPTICS Expansion

We are currently working on the next expansion of the game, which the paper prototype has already been play-tested a few times. Pretty soon we will be getting the game up on Tabletop Simulator and will call upon people to help out! Since we are a two person team it might be a year or two before we finalize the game.  It won't take six years this time, but aiming for a late 2023 or 2024 Kickstarter. Having a full time job and other responsibilities limits how much time we can spend working on it. I personally do something for the expansion a few times a week though; whether is it building the game board, working on art, modifying rules, or playtesting. We will keep everyone updated as things unfold.


In the meantime we hope that you are enjoying your day, week, month, season! We would love to hear your thoughts and if you could help us spread the word about the game that would be Spooktacular!

Thank you!

Jon Usiak

Brian Moats

SKEPTICS Shipping Status - Complete?
over 1 year ago – Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 06:51:16 PM

Hello Everyone, 


We hope you are enjoying SKEPTICS. Based on the sampling of tracking numbers I have gone through and feedback from you all, I believe we have probably delivered all the games that were shipping in the first wave. The only games that are currently in the packaging or shipping status are those games for backers who recently reached out to pay for their shipping. 


There are still 24 backers who have credit with us from the Kickstarter but have not paid for their shipping or had their credit cards fail payment. As stated in a previous update, the games are still on hand for those backers and will be quickly shipped out once we get those final payments, which a few people have already reached out and resolved. We definitely understand emails get lost or hardships come up; reach out to us in either case to let us know how you would like to proceed with you order. 


If you haven't received your game yet, please reach out to us so we can determine if it is still in route to you or if you happen to be in the not shipped list. We have only had 1-2 people reach out to us in the last two weeks about entirely missing game, and in both cases, they were found with either a relative or neighbor. 


We have had about 10 replacement requests for either missing promo cards, noticeably damaged token, or a male/male rivet. All but three of these replacements have shipped out; those three will be going out tomorrow. 


We are very pleased on our end with how the campaign has been wrapping up, and the feedback has been overall very positive. We fully expect there will be a few people who end up not enjoying the game as much as expected, but that is certainly the case with all games. We hope you are enjoying the game, and we want to hear what you like, don't like, and any feedback you would like to give. 


Social Media Tags

If you take pictures or videos of your copy of SKEPTICS, please tag the SKEPTICS pages:

Facebook: @skepticsgame

Instagram: @usiakart

Youtube: Usiak Games and Designs (not sure you can tag on there, but that is the SKEPTICS Youtube page name)



Brian Moats and Jon Usiak

Usiak Games and Designs

SKEPTICS Weekend Update
over 1 year ago – Sun, Jul 10, 2022 at 04:28:20 AM

Hello everyone,

We just have a few things to share today. We hope you all are having a great weekend.


Current Orders

I believe at this point, over 85% of US/CA/MX backers have received their games from QML and probably about that same percentage around the rest of the world from SQ. I know some orders got stalled in the US last week due to the July 4th holiday, but from what I can tell, those orders have finally moved on and will be delivered early this week.


If you are having any issues with your orders, please reach out. I would expect we should be near 100% delivered by the end of next week (July 15th).


Replacements Parts

For those who have specifically reached out for replacement parts, I have the parts for US/CA customers all packed up and ready to ship out this week. For International Backers needing something larger than a token or wooden bit, I am working with ShipQuest to get those parts shipped from there because it will be much cheaper; a pack of the dice to AU was going to be $18 from the US. The SQ tickets are in; I am just waiting for the SQ customer service agent to reply. So I hope for those to go out sometime next week.


I will be sending out emails on Monday once those are handed over to USPS. If you don’t receive an email from me by Tuesday morning about your replacement part, reach out as I may have missed it. There have only been six part requests so far (all fairly minor except one very damaged clock) and two requests for replacements (two damaged box from one FLGS and one game that FedEx lost). Hopefully that means everyone is very happy with their games.


As we said in the last update, the clock and rivets are looser than what we expected, but they still play how we intended. This means, unless the rivet is damaged, missing, or incorrect, a rivet replacement will not address the looseness. Check the last update for a suggestion I have if you want a tighter clock hand for cheap.


New Orders

For those who may stumble upon this update or are friends of current backers, we are taking new orders now that all of the backer orders are shipped out. We are still working on the store front on our website, but we are currently taking orders via email and will send out formal estimates via PayPal and then formal invoices for final payment. We do know that Quartermaster will be on a short ordering break from July 18-21st while they are doing some inventorying and warehouse bookkeeping. New orders around that time will be delayed a few days.


You can find the details for ordering on our website: https://usiakgames.com/


Conventions

While we are unable to make it to the larger conventions due to costs at this time, I am planning to show off SKEPTICS at a few conventions that are local to me. If you happen to be in any of these areas and want to stop by and say hello, here is where SKEPTICS will be over the next 4 weeks:


  • CharCon 2022 in Charleston, West Virginia – July 15-17: https://www.charcon.org/
  • I have four scheduled demos at this convention and will be selling SKEPTICS through our FLGS.



I am constantly on the look out for other small weekend conventions within a couple hours of Morgantown, West Virginia; I will announce additional events as I sign up for them. Feel free to share any that you know around that distance, and I will see if it is something I can attend.


Unboxing and Reviews

We have seen a few nice unboxing videos and read some good reviews about SKEPTICS. I wanted to share the ones I am aware of so far:


Nerd Best Friends – A Podcast: https://youtu.be/ab2dMnNSvKY


Spydahs web: https://youtu.be/A73Zt1cDUL8


DoomPatrol on BGG: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2890649/first-play-impressions


If you have made any content for SKEPTICS, feel free to share it with us, and we will check it out and promote it.


Have a great weekend,

Brian Moats and Jon Usiak

Usiak Games and Designs

Jon on a Mini-Vacation, Replacement Parts, and Loose Clocks
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jul 06, 2022 at 10:43:06 PM

Hello everyone,


We have been so happy seeing so many wonderful posts about SKEPTICS within the Kickstarter comments, Facebook, Instagram, and on Board Game Geek. Keep them coming :)   


Jon Reduced Availability This Week

Jon is going to be online a little less this week/weekend as he is going to be spending time with his daughters and will be traveling some. He may not be responding as quickly as usual. If you need something a bit quicker, you can either post it here in the comments or send us a message on the Skeptics Facebook page (facebook.com/skepticsgame). I (Brian) get the notifications for public comments here and the Facebook page posts/direct messages and tend to respond pretty fast when I am awake. 


Replacement Parts

I received the boxes of spare parts and the few damaged copies of SKEPTICS on Saturday. I will be reaching out to the 4~5 people who reported having a manufacturing defect with a part within their copy of SKEPTICS and will be assisting with the replacement parts. 


Loose Clocks

One report we have heard from a few people is the clock/clock hand being loose on the clock. I have confirmed this with one of the copies I received. I did some measuring of the cardboard used in the final production vs our pre-final production are different thicknesses. The pre-production was 2.65mm per punchboard and the final everyone received was 2.25mm. When you put the clock and hand together, you end up with a .8mm difference, which is why the rivets feel loose when compared to our pre-production samples. The pre-production was supposed to be using the same materials as the final production copies, but something must have been swapped for some reason. We apologize that this change in manufacturing occurred, and it wasn't what we expected. 


However, we feel the clock is still entirely useable in the way we intended for it to be used: lying flat on the table. We never intended for it to be raised up, which is where we believe the issue would be most obvious. We do apologize for those who are less than satisfied with this issue. I have found a solution that hopefully those who want a tighter clock hand may be willing to accept. 


You can pick up small washers from any hardware store for less than $.50. If you get a .8~1mm plastic washer and place it on the of the clock between the rivet and back of the clock, it provides a tight connection and feels just like our pre-production copy. You can often get them in black so they won't even look out of place on the clock. We would simply send out washers to everyone to address this issue, but to be entirely honest, it is just not financially feasible to mail out that many small washers due to the shipping costs alone. 


We will absolutely send out replacement rivets that are the wrong size with a very noticeable gap where the rivet slides a large distance in the clock (those who may have accidently received a 6mm by mistake), rivets that are cracked, or rivets with wrong connectors (2 male pieces instead of 1 male/1 female). The replacement rivets we have will not address the loose clock issue unfortunately. 


Wrapping Things Up

Again, we hoping you are enjoying SKEPTICS as much as we enjoyed making it. Please keep telling us about your experiences and letting us know all of the questions you have. We are building out the FAQ section of the Usiak Games website. 


Thank you again for helping us make this dream a reality. We can't wait to tell you about our future projects later this year. 


Brian Moats and Jon Usiak 

Usiak Games and Designs