📨 Postal Wizards: Play in Months, not Years

We at CodeWizards believe that gaming is better together, and in that belief we want to ensure that all gamers can connect no matter the circumstance. That is why we are excited to announce a new branch of CodeWizards, PostalWizards!

Our Postal Wizards specialise in Play by Mail gaming experiences, a method of gaming where you play via registered mail. We take this idea and modernize it, using our experience in managing AAA titles and putting it to use in the ever-evolving world of table-top gaming.

How it works

Over the years, we’ve learned that a good foundation is the basis to a stable game. Which is why we provide sophisticated and robust infrastructure hosted in AWS that works hand-in-hand with our mail processing pipelines. Our implementation allows for more than just mailing lists; we can keep accurate track of rankings, match-by-match metrics, matchmaking systems, and more. Here is a simple diagram to show how our system works:

Combining our postal and cloud architecture, we offer the most robust and engaging play-by-mail experience to our clients.

Our Commitment to Player Safety

Part of our initiative to bring Play by Mail into the 21st century is to allow players to remain anonymous to each other. It comes as no shock that gaming has grown increasingly toxic over the years, and we believe a commitment to player safety is vitally important. Which is why all mail is sent to our central processing facility. This allows us to obfuscate the real address of players, so no individual can see where their opponent lives and deliver grief. 

Matchmaking

Games should take months, not years. That’s our philosophy for our matchmaking experience. Using our sophisticated Match Request Service, players can initiate matches from the comfort of their home, and pre-pay for their postage. We provide multiple options for users to play at their speed:

• Blitz: Utilizing Postal Wizards one-of-a-kind hybrid infrastructure, we support up to 48 hour matchmaking time*, allowing for intense postal gaming.
• Regular: Regular matches are your standard play by mail matches. These are sent via regular mail and must provide tracking information
• Snail: The classic match. Matches are sent with no tracking information, and Time Until Move statistics vary from 20 days to 2 months depending on season.

How it all works

Every player when signing up for play by mail has an account created for them. This account is tied to their PostalWizards ID, or PWID for short. When filling out their matchmaking request form online, a QR code is generated and placed on the bottom of the page. The user then signs the page with their handle, prints it, and sends it in the mail to our central processing location.

At our processing facility, we open the mail and scan the code, registering the match and pairing them with another player waiting in the pool. When two players are assigned, both players are sent a “MATCH FOUND” image, multiplayer rules and instructions, and the player who goes first receives a first turn card.

Observability

Good observability is vital in running a successful game, both virtual and physical. This is why we invested heavily into creating our own custom solutions to common “black holes” in the play by mail space. We like to call this “poTel” or Postal-Based Open Telemetry. 

poTel works by hooking directly into multiple postal providers’ APIs, our matchmaking services, our match databases, and our client databases to keep detailed track of our matches end-to-end. With this, we can correlate matches to shipping time, average time per move, and average delay in moves. We can also provide courier-isolated metrics on package loss, shipping times, and average matchmaking speed. 

However, not everything is in our control. Weather, flight delays, and strikes can also pose a threat to match stability. That’s why our PSOC (Postal Security Operations Centre) is monitoring Flight Delays, Weather changes, and Strike Conditions 24/7. Our team can raise alerts to keep you abreast of the latest changes in the shipping world.

Ranking

Competitiveness is essential to a thriving gaming community. That’s why integrated into our matchmaking systems is a robust ranking system. This system tracks all match results from a player, and assigns them a rank based on their performance in each match. Since players can have multiple matches open simultaneously, we tally all ELO changes and update our rankings every month. 

However, we’re also postal geeks, so while our ranking system uses a familiar bronze to diamond ranking system it doesn’t stop there. Our ranks are displayed as Stamps! These stamps are applied to every match card at the facility to denote the rank matchup of your matches!

When you are promoted or demoted, you will receive a letter denoting your new rank as well! 

To keep games moving, when playing Ranked, all players must be playing in the Blitz Category. This Category requires all players to use Priority shipping, and requires all players to send their moves within 3 days of receiving their opponent’s moves. Failure to do so will result in a warning, and a second failure during the match will result in a forfeit. 

Interested? Here’s how to start

If you’re interested in working with the Postal Wizards on your own physical game matchmaking, please send us your full game manual and all other relevant materials in print via second class recorded delivery.