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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:

Social Media Promotion Winners and Project Status
over 2 years ago – Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 09:06:51 PM

Social Media Promotion Winners

Over the weekend, we were able to confirm the last of the winners of the SKEPTICS social media promotion. Thank you to the over 800 people who followed our social media pages and/or signed up for the newsletter; we plan to provide updates about the current SKEPTICS project as well as teasers for upcoming games and expansions we have in the works. Newsletter subscribers will receive exclusive opportunities such as playtesting future games; be sure to sign up for the newsletter if you are interested.

Here are the winners of the Social Media Promotion:

  • Bryson C.
  • Eric. S.
  • Nina E.
  • Josh A.

Project Status

We are working to get everything setup within Backerkit so everyone can provide their shipping information and to allow for additional copies or the optional add-on dice to be added to their order. We will also have a pre-order store for anyone who missed the Kickstarter campaign and wanted a copy of the game; we will provide that link once it is ready.


For those who pledged at the Master Paranormal Investigator level during the campaign, Jon will be reaching out in the next two weeks to schedule those online gaming sessions. We want to wrap up everything with Backerkit and get a new manufacturer sample ordered first. Watch for those emails by the end of July.


Our goal is to have all of the edits done and a new sample ordered within two weeks; following that, we are targeting an early August to approve the manufacturer files so they can add SKEPTICS to their order queue. At that point, it is out of our hands for a while, but we plan to ping the manufacturer regularly to keep informed with the progress and will pass those details along. We have added a fair bit of slack into the projected schedule realizing all Kickstarter run into uncontrollable issues. Best case, I was overly pessimistic, and we ended up ahead of schedule.



Thank you all again for supporting our game. It means so much to have so many people believe in our game that has been Jon’s passion project for over six years. We talk almost every day, and I can you that he is super excited about getting this game into all of your hands. We hope you will continue to ping us on the Kickstarter page and social media throughout this process. Feel free to ask any questions or provide any comments you may have; we are able to respond fairly quickly in most cases.


~Brian


Newsletter Signup: https://usiakgames.com/

Post Campaign Update #1
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 12:43:43 PM

Quick POST-Campaign update:

Thank you again everyone for getting this game funded! It flew by way too fast!

As we move forward I want to send out regular updates on everything we do until you get this game in your hands! We won't bombard you with emails, and more just want to let you know that we are not going to be silent at all now that the Kickstarter has ended.

The next two weeks we will be focusing on final Edits of all the text in the game, and getting our Backerkit page set up. I want to get all files to the manufacturer by the end of July to produce one last sample copy, then onto full production! 

Thank you everyone!

Jon Usiak

We are FUNDED!!!!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Jul 08, 2021 at 10:32:00 PM

Hello everyone!

We just want to say WOW! Just WOW! 

We ran our first campaign of this game back in October but fell short due to the lack of audience and reach with marketing.  But this time we changed things up a bit, hired a marketing team, and BAM! We are funded at nearly 250%!

We are just so shocked and excited that this game has made it! We cannot express enough thanks to all our backers and all of your support. 

During the campaign we were sending out individual messages to each and every backer of the game to say thank you and to make it more personalized (sorry, we didn't message the $1 pledgers because they usually came back later).  But the last 3 days have been overwhelming with the amount of pledges coming in so it was difficult to keep up! But we do want to thank newcomers that did not get a message from us. We would not be here today without the fan support!

So now what? Well, we will have another update in the next week or so about the Backerkit finalizations.

We are also going over final edits and prepping files for the Manufacturer. We are hoping to have everything done by the end of July, as well as getting one last sample copy for a final look before this goes into post production.

In the meantime, we will keep everyone updated and thank you once again for everything and making this dream a Reality!


Jon Usiak and Brian Moats

Usiak Games and Designs

48 Hours Remaining!!!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Jul 07, 2021 at 05:15:46 AM

672 hours ago, this campaign began with Jon and I hoping we would attract enough interested gamers to help bring his vision for SKEPTICS to life. 18k is what we were hoping to raise by the two-week mark with the dream of unlocking a few stretch goals by the end of the campaign. By day 7, we hit our funding goal, and by day 14, you all helped us unlocked our last “planned” stretch goal at 26k. We later added in a final stretch goal increasing the quality of the cards, which you all helped us unlocked within days.

With 48 hours left in this campaign and almost 38k raised, let’s look at everything you have helped add to the game. As Kickstarter backers, you are getting everything we planned for the SKEPTICS base game and what will eventually become the first SKEPTICS Ghost expansion, which will be sold separately during the second print run. Currently, 658 paranormal investigators, 20 master paranormal investigators, and 14 FLGS are receiving the following with your pledge:

  • SKEPTICS Base game with 6 ghost, two maps, and all of the other components. All versions of the base game will now have the 310gsm black core cards with a linen finish, a tray that has been sized to fit everything we have currently and some future content, and the downloadable soundtrack. (MSRP: $60)
  • SKEPTICS Ghost Expansion 1: Two new ghost (Entity and TWiiNS) and the Story/campaign mode. (MSRP: $12~15)
  • SKEPTICS Promo Pack 1: 10 new cards that will only be part of this first print run and some special occasions in the future. (MSPR: Priceless!)

Because of my love of dice, we even opted for a late add-on option for optional extra sets of dice, which 65 of you have opted to add to your pledge. This add-on is available now and will be available in Backerkit as well.


The campaign is not over just yet; we are curious to see what happens during the last 48 hours. Again, we cannot express how much we appreciate your support for our first project, and we are excited to get this game into your hands as quick as possible.


We are already planning to start development on the first full expansion of SKEPTICS once we get the final print files into the hands of the manufacturer and that printing process begins. We expect this will be a 2022 Kickstarter campaign after this Kickstarter reaches your hands. We will be teasing this future content in our newsletter throughout its development so sign up if you are interested in learning about Usiak Games and Designs future plans.


Social Media and Email Promotion

As for our Social Media and Email promotion, we are going to draw the names of the winners later today, and we will be contacting those individuals. We hope to announce the winners (once they accept) by the end of the campaign. Here are the current totals for that promotion:

Thank you all again,

Jon and Brian

Usiak Games and Designs

New Online Investigation Available!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 03, 2021 at 12:07:57 AM

Congratulation investigators; thanks to your efforts over the last three weeks, we have discovered new rumors about an Entity and the “TWiiNS” ghost at a local museum; we are still working out the details of getting you on site to look into these rumors.


Additionally, 159 of you have looked into the Child Ghost at an online asylum called “Tabletop Simulator,” and another group has spent 666 hours at another called “Tabletopia.” Many of you have reported seeing a dark figure out of the corner of your eye and were left with an uncomfortable feeling. We ask that you return to these asylums to look into this potential haunting of a ghost we are calling “The Shadow.” I expect this investigation will be trickier than the Child Ghost so you may need to repeat your investigation to get a good feel for the differences. I expect each ghost we encounter will require new tactics to uncover their evidence.

You can find the addresses down below to begin the new investigation.


SKEPTICS Tabletopia (while in the waiting room, click the dropdown above the host’s seat to begin the Shadow investigation):

https://tabletopia.com/games/skeptics


SKEPTICS Tabletop Simulator Mod featuring the Shadow:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2497999258


SKEPTICS Tabletop Simulator Mod featuring the Child Ghost:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2350017514


While the recruitment campaign is down to 6 days, this is only the beginning of our journey together looking into rumors of the paranormal. Thank you for the support and let’s continue inviting fellow investigators to be part of this journey.


Thank you all,

Jon and Brian

Usiak Games and Designs


To be clear, this announcement is just for the new ghost available on Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator; the Shadow is included in the base game of SKEPTICS. I just wanted to have fun with the announcement.