COLONY Update: May 2026

Hello lovely readers!

Muir here once again, and it has been an exceedingly eventful (and frankly very stressful) month! Let’s get into it!

State of the Game

This month started with another playtest session at Deuces Wild Games, and my usual lab rats came in to torture my poor system (maybe I’m the lab rat in this scenario?). I’ve been in need of input for the Champion Creation systems for sometime now, especially since I’m extremely familiar with how to build Champions and Decks, but all we’ve provided so far has been pre-con Champions for you all to play. I laid out stacks of every card they could possibly add into their Deck, handed them packets of the Champion Creation rules, and let them go to town. It became evident that I needed to do a significant overhaul of mechanical explanations for the rules, which none of them were shy to point out (and thank heavens for that), and we had a lot of fun playing around with some of the optional and experimental rulesets. Overall, it was a good experience and we had a lot of fun. As a reminder to those of you who may be in the area, I host an open playtest on the first Saturday of every month at Deuces Wild Games in Show Low AZ, and all are welcome to join!

The rest of the month was spent in preparation, as I needed to refine a handful of mechanics for our Demo Day at Tucson Games & Gadgets, as well as finish some props for something we’re working on to promote the next demo expansion.

I have been in communication with Tucson Games & Gadgets for many years, and one of their regional managers has been a very gracious and accommodating friend of the project for some time now. He put me in contact with the store manager of their Tucson Mall location, and him and I got to work putting together a plan for me to come down and run a demo day as well as use their space for our promotional project. They have a breathtakingly cool store with loads of dedicated gaming and event spaces, and as small as our project is right now, we were given an absolute VIP treatment by them and their wonderful staff. For our demo day, they posted us up on a huge gaming table right in their main store space where I could lay out our amazing terrain board, six Champion sheets/decks, and still have space for my new Colony-themed GM screen *and* a small television to display our lore videos on. That television also came in clutch for being able to show new players our gameplay trailer from last year. Due to a communication hiccup, there wasn’t as much cross-promotion as TGG had originally intended. However, everyone who came by was enamored with the artwork, the game mechanics, and the setting, even if they didn’t have time to sit down and play. I was also prepared for just this occasion, as I had brought my usual slew of free posters with me (the ones with the QR code on them), and would hand them out to anybody who swung by the table. The store manager told me after the fact that he had never seen so many people walking around the store with posters for a game they had not come to the store to play, and many said they would have prioritized their visit toward giving our demo a try had they known beforehand. Overall, every person who came by and spoke with me was extremely excited and enthusiastic about the world, the setting, and the game.

And that’s not to mention the folks who did stick around to try the game. Our first visitor was actually a member of our Discord server, Dapper Dinosaur, who saw our announcement about the demo day and swung in to say hi and give it a try! While he couldn’t stick around too long, we did get a few hits in on each other in an Arena match and he seemed to like what he saw! Later in the day, we had a group of young men stroll through ogling at our game and artwork. They had something else they had planned to do that day, but promised to come back and give the game a try, and sure enough, they did! The four of them, myself, and a friend of mine sat down and played some Arena. They picked up the mechanics quickly, and we had a blast wailing on each other for about an hour before we decided to wrap up. I was, as per usual, the most banged up of all the Champions on the board, but I will never complain about my own game’s mechanics working well, even against myself.

Overall, it was an extremely fun weekend filled with wonderful opportunities and meeting lots of fun and amazing people. Thank you Tucson Games & Gadgets for having me, and I can’t wait to go back.

Song of Origins

Progress moves ever-onward for the Song of Origins. We have a handful of pieces left for Movement 7, which Charles has been steadily working through; Part 3 is shaping up to be the longest installment yet, and we hope to be able to bring it to you later this year.

And with that, I am out, fellas. Thank you all so much for being here, thank you for your support, and we hope you all have a safe month out there.

Cheers,

Isaac Muir