Welcome to the Coffeemill Cafe
Sit down, relax, have a cup of joe, and catch up on the latest Coffeemill Games news.
General News, April 2025
General News, April 2025
Important Update: Launch Window Delay
As most of you may know, recent events in the U.S. have made the tabletop gaming landscpape both unnervingly uncertain and incredibly expensive. To cut things short, I really want people to play Trader’s Journey, but I don’t want to launch the game with a stupidly high price tag slapped onto it, if it can be avoided. Because of this, I’ve decided to delay launching Trader’s Journey for the time being, at least until the future of the industry settles into focus. BUT—with that being said, I’d like to use this time to polish Trader’s Journey into the best game that it can possibly be. That means: more Kickstarter exclusive cards and features, new game modes, and a brand-new mini-expansion that will be available as an add-on when we launch. Thank you for understanding, and remember to always keep a cup of coffee nearby.
- Your friend at Coffeemill, Tyler
Coffeemill Games as an LLC
As the school year begins to speed up, work on Trader’s Journey and Coffeemill Games has begun to slow down, as expected. However, there are still some major things happening! Coffeemill Games is now officially recognized as an LLC, meaning we’ll be able to bring you as many high quality games as possible without any issue. In other news, Trader’s Journey is still in the process of being quoted by a few different manufacturers! Right now, we have our eyes on: Whatz Games and Panda Game Manufacturing. If you have any other suggestions, please let us know! We’ll also be setting up some deals with fulfillment centers in the coming months, so stay tuned!
Now an official LLC!
Update: Coffemill Games on Social Media
Coffeemill Games can now be found on: TikTok (@coffeemill_games), Instagram (@coffeemillgames), Facebook (Coffeemill Games), Reddit (Ok-Faithlessness8120… we didn’t choose the name, lol), Bluesky (coffeemillgames.bsky.social), and BGG (in process). For BGG, we are currently working on getting some images sent in that accurately and professionally represent the game, so stay tuned!
Find Coffeemill on any of these platforms!
TRADER'S JOURNEY APRIL 2025 UPDATE
TRADER'S JOURNEY APRIL 2025 UPDATE
With the base game of Trader’s Journey just about wrapped up, our sights are now fully set on designing and creating artwork for our first mini-expansion: Critters & Curses!
In this bite-sized expansion, you’ll be able to ‘catch’ your own critters to fight for you against the new status effect, ‘CURSE,’ a unique status that forces players to roll a series of ‘unlucky’ dice depending on how cursed they are…but not every outcome is as unlucky as it seems!
Lean into the high risk, high reward gameplay of a curse-ridden trader, or fight back against the grueling new monsters of the land with all new cards of every type, including new journeys, dungeons, bosses, weapons, spells, and everything else in between!
And hey—if you want to reserve a copy of Critters & Curses for yourself, you can sign up to be a VIP Cafe Member for just $1, and get a list of other rewards as well!
Critters & Curses Mini Expansion
An Armor System Spiced Up
A new layer of depth to a basic armor system! This newest addition to Trader’s Journey has armor cards becoming more than just "damage reducers." Now, equipping 3 armors of the same set will grant a player a bonus specific to that set. This both gives more value to the armor cards themselves, and further incentivizes trade with other players to get the cards you want. Some armors will remain how they were before with no special abilities, and these will be called "basic" armor cards. What are your thoughts? How do you feel about this new system? Let us know!
A Dedicated Solo Player Mode
Instead of simply playing through the game alone, now you can fully immerse yourself in the world of Trader’s Journey by playing as an “Archivist,” a unique trader looking to document and piece together the many mysteries of the land of Arden. As an Archivist, you’ll use the Archivist Journal to jot down and keep track of your character (carried over multiple playthroughs), the enemies you’ve defeated, and the journeys you’ve completed.
When you finish a game, record your equipped cards in the journal or a separate sheet of paper--these will be kept. Then, gather the cards in your hand and combine the total prices of every card; these cards will be discarded, but the total price will determine how many coins your character starts the game with next playthrough.
Every single piece of artwork in the game is being redrawn to create a more cohesive (and better looking) game! In short, any rotated pieces of pixel art have been adjusted and / or resized to fit within the pixel grid of the background art. Some designs are also being completely overhauled. This is taking quite a bit of time (as there’s over 250 unique cards!), but has been incredibly rewarding and satisfying. Here’s a sneak peek at just a few of these upgrades:
Artwork Overhaul!
What we’ve been doing…
After making a few posts to reddit asking for some critique on our designs, we got some really valuable feedback on where to push the game next. So, here’s a brief list of minor changes to Trader’s Journey:
All card text fonts modified to mix both the pixelated fonts and serif fonts for a design that is both cohesive in theme, and more accessible. Fonts were also made larger across the board.
The official box art for the base game and its expansions have been updated and improved.
Journey cards are now less “wordy,” and offer more meaningful, lasting decisions and consequences. Some journeys have also been updated specifically to accomodate solo play better.
No more rotated pixels—anywhere.
Every card’s art piece will now be fixed to the background’s pixel grid and size, resulting in fewer mixed pixels, giving a more polished look and feel. This coincides with the artwork overhaul.
The game board was slightly modified to include a few unique trade rounds that incentivize different things, like spending or saving coins. Boss and final boss card cues have also been implemented.
Rules were slightly altered to suit the new armor card “set bonuses.”
Enemy, boss, and final boss cards recieved a color design upgrade.
Some enemies and bosses were replaced with new and more interesting designs. (Rest in peace: Cursed Bat, Tree Lurker, and Wizard’s Goblin—there may yet be a place for you all down the line…)
Various different tokens added to help keep track of: turns, who’s turn it is to attack first, and player actions.
A new 3rd weapon card type called “special attack” weapons. These weapons are rarer than normal weapons, and each special weapon has it’s own unique ability for players to use against their foes that can be stacked / synergized with other types of cards in the game!
All spell cards and all disposable item cards are now officially included in the action point system (instead of each card only requiring 1 action to play, which tended to lead to an overbalance of power rather quickly.). The action point costs for these cards now range from 1-3.