After the Fog

Following more than two years in development, James Ernest’s territory-control game After the Fog is ready for a public beta. We are fairly confident that the game has “strong bones,” but there are still many components and moving parts to refine. So we need fresh players to help us balance the components and the rules.

About the Game

After the Fog is a territory-control game with airships, engine-building, and resource management. The game is rated for 2 to 6 players, and takes roughly 60-90 minutes to play.

Players start the game with one airship and a single base of operations. They explore the board, collecting resources, capturing territory, and upgrading their airships. Final scoring is based on several factors, including lands you control, ships you’ve built, items you have bought, and battles you have won.

About the Universe

James Ernest created the Dew Point universe as a fantasy setting for fiction and games. It is a world of roughly Renaissance-level technology, with heavier air and lighter materials that make airships a common form of transportation. The world is plagued by an ever-rising fog, which has separated cultures and power centers as it chokes low-lying cities out of existence.

You can read more about the Dew Point universe on World Anvil.

How to Play the Game

You can now print your own copy of After the Fog, using the files below. You can also visit the workshop at Tabletop Simulator, and play if online (like we do!). Be sure to check back from time to time, as the rules and components are always changing.

• After The Fog Rules (Version 9.5.4, 11/22/21)

• Game Cards PDF (Updated 4/22/21)

• Map Boards PDF (Updated 11/22/21)

• Character Placards PDF (Posted 3/28/21)

• City Placards PDF (Posted 3/28/21)

• After the Fog Workshop on Tabletop Simulator

Printing Your Own Copy: The game includes several different kinds of boards, and several decks of cards. We recommend using card sleeves for the deck, since (along with the rule book) those are the components that change most often. For help in creating your Print-and-Play version, check out James Ernest’s videos on making cards and boards.

• Making Game Boards Video

• Making Cards (Three Ways) Video

About the TTS Version: You will notice that we’ve used existing fantasy minis instead of airships in the online version, so the “rat” is your green ship, the “bear” is your brown ship, and so on. Most of the card art is cartoonish clip art, because that stuff is free. However, the lovely art on the character placards was created for this beta by Nate Taylor. (We also used some of them in Pirate’s Bluff.)

Next Steps

We expect this game to be in open beta for quite some time. It’s hard to get a regular game night going these days, and the usual in-person resources like local game stores and conventions are not available. But starting whenever game nights and conventions can happen again, we’ll be playing After the Fog every chance we get!

Eventually, we hope this game will become a beautiful retail product. We’ve submitted to game publishers already, but they generally agree that the game still needs work of some kind. And this is why your feedback is so valuable. So, if you enjoy messing about with games that are still not quite finished, we hope you’ll help us improve After the Fog.

Thanks!