We did it, guys. We survived 8 months without a Kingdom Death update! There’s a lot to unpack from the big Gen Con update, comments he made on Kickstarter, and interviews he gave on the show floor. Initially I was going to write up a big mega-post myself, but as it got longer and longer I took a cue from Adam and will be breaking it down into smaller bite-sized chunks/posts. Over the next week or two, I plan (hope?) to write posts about:
Wave 3’s status, expected delivery timeline, and Poots’ communication going forward (that’s this post)
A mini-review on Vignettes of Death: White Gigalion
The Gambler’s Chest Expansion – People of the Dream Feeder, new monsters, Philosophies of Death theorycrafting
Campaigns of Death – Overview and speculation on the five campaigns announced, new monsters, and potential other surprises hidden in that expansion
Wave 4 and Beyond – Not a lot of news about Wave 4, but a lot of speculation on what’s next for KD:M after this Kickstarter is fulfilled
The post-Gen Con update – Depending if and when Poots posts a post-Gen Con update, I might have a followup post(s) just about that!
INTERVIEWS WITH QUACKALOPE AND TWIST
To date, Quackalope and Twist have posted full interviews with Adam Poots from Gen Con. There’s a lot of cool stuff discussed in both of them, so I suggest if you have two hours to spare, sit down and give these a watch/listen. If not, I’ll try to hit the key points in my posts:
WAVE 3 TIMELINE AND COMMUNICATION
Let’s start with the biggest question on everybody’s mind: When are we actually going to get Wave 3 in our hands? The short answer is, unfortunately, probably not until Q1 2021. Yes, Adam said the game was delayed a year in the update, and I also initially interpreted that to mean a Summer 2020-ish release, but Adam clarified in the Twist interview that a Gen Con 2020 release would only be a six month delay, meaning a twelve month delay would be a late January/early February 2021 release if you take that literally. What Adam is saying is that he’s going to continue development and design of Wave 3 for another year, so printing and assembly of the games probably won’t start until this time next year. Ideally it will take about 6 months total to do that like it did for his previous initial print runs of 1.0 and 1.5, which would have production wrapping before Chinese New Year 2021. Add another month or two for the slow boat, loading it into warehouses, and getting it shipped out to backers, and we are probably looking at copies arriving on backers’ doorsteps around March 2021. It could go even longer if they don’t wrap by Chinese New Year, issues with customs, or any other changes being brought about in the current or future political climate.
They await… well, really anything new at this point.
I suspect that the main reason Adam has been so silent for the past eight months was that he was hoping to have design wrapped on Gambler’s Chest now and announce at Gen Con that production had started, but Gambler’s Chest still isn’t at a place yet that he’s 100% happy with. Adam acknowledges that Wave 3 is long overdue, and while he isn’t going to sacrifice quality or his vision to get it out faster, he is making this his #1 priority for the next year and finding ways to free up more of his time to focus on Wave 3. He has hired somebody in the office to manage some of the more logistical aspects of running the company so he can focus more on the creative side of things. He is deprioritizing content not in Wave 3. New sculpts and minis for the online store will be less frequent over the next year. He’s moving into a new office space with a door that closes, which may allow him to focus more on his own design work and not get as distracted by what other designers are working on for Wave 4 expansions.
I think Adam’s office is the room with the toilet…
Adam’s not delegating communication/PR to the new hire, but by freeing up some of his own time, he theoretically will also have more time to post updates and communicate with the backers and community. An example he gave Quackalope during the interview was that by delegating an issue with broken booth displays during transit to Gen Con, he was able to sit down and answer backer questions for a couple hours. He’s going to try a new strategy of focusing an update around a specific topic so that he can plan to write an update for that, prepare art and photos for that topic, etc. He has confirmed in the Twist and Quackalope interviews that there will still be a post-Gen Con Kickstarter update later in August. He had originally said earlier in July that the post-Gen Con update would be more focused on Wave 4 content, but I think it may just be a summary of the convention with links to interviews and pics of the booth. In late September we are going to get more of a design diary update on the current state of Encounter monsters. On Black Friday we will have another mega update with a focus on Wave 4 content (hence why I’m not sure if that’s still the focus of the post-Gen Con update).
Going forward into 2020, he has said that until Wave 3 is done, he will post quarterly, possibly more often if he has important news to share, and of course possibly less if he gets busy and changes his mind. If I had to guess, I predict the communication timeline to be:
Q1 2020 – Valentines Day? (historically, this is actually one of the more regular holidays he posts an update on, and is roughly 3 months past Black Friday)
Q2 2020 – Memorial Day? (while not something he has regularly done, but he has posted a Memorial Day update once before, and it’s a nice halfway-ish point between Valentines Day and Gen Con)
Q3 2020 – Gen Con
Q4 2020 – Black Friday
2021 – Probably more frequent smaller logistics updates as games start getting loaded onto the boats, then back to radio silence until Gen Con 2021
Granted, a promise of 4 updates in an entire year isn’t actually much better than what we got in 2018 (4 updates) or 2019 (3-4 updates it’s looking like), but at least they will be a little more focused and evenly spread out throughout the year.
Memorial Day is KD:M canon, clearly.
All-in-all, it’s a bummer that we are still a year and a half (at least) away from getting Wave 3 in our hands, but it’s good to see that Adam is finally in the right mindset to actually finish the project, and has made some level of commitment to communicate on a somewhat regular basis with backers (yes, we have heard similar promises in the past, and he already heavily caveats that he makes no promises). He also announced a ton of new and cool exciting stuff for Wave 3 that should hopefully make it worth the wait, and even stuff that we will get sooner than that!
Speaking of new content, next post will be about the Vignettes of Death: White Gigalion. I have it, I’ve fought it, and I can give you my thoughts what I think about it and Vignettes as a whole.
No huge Gen Con news this year or in the weeks leading up to it, but we had some new campaign games/expansions announced, and some updates on some games I’ve been looking forward to:
Kingdom Death: Monster Wave 3 Delayed To 2020
After 8 months of (near) silence, Adam posted a lengthy Kickstarter update right before Gen Con 2019 for Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5. Wave 3 (Gambler’s Chest and Campaigns of Death) is delayed another year to (summer?) 2020, but he’s adding a lot of cool stuff to it. I will be posting a much more in-depth article about the update and news/info that came out of Gen Con soon, I’m just waiting to see if any interviews with Adam get posted to YouTube in the next week or so.
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey Kickstarter Date Announced
Monkeys With Fire interviewed Marcin Welnicki, the creative director of Into the Unknown Studio, where he officially announced that Aeon Trespass: Odyssey will launch on Kickstarter September 9th. In the interview, Marcin talked about the lore and backstory behind the Aeon Trespass universe, gave a very high level overview of what the game is about and how player choice and narrative works in the game, previewed two new monsters, talked a bit of the Prelude experience (which will be incorporated at least partially into the main product), and more.
Marcin avoided talking about how combat works in the game, claiming that it is a “paradigm shift” for the genre that he doesn’t want to spoil quite yet. Marcin has promised to share more details about the game over the next month leading up to the Kickstarter, including a followup interview with Monkeys With Fire on August 22nd where he will demo combat for the first time. You can watch the full interview here:
Sankokushin: Five Sacrifices Announced
Axis Mundi Games announced their next game, Sankokushin: Five Sacrifices, which will be a story-driven cooperative campaign game set in a fictional medieval version of Japan. One half of the game is a dice and card-based dungeon crawler where players can customize their characters’ skills across 3 combat stances to fight AI controlled monsters that can learn and adapt to your strategies. Alternatively, players can try to be diplomatic with enemies when they feel fighting them isn’t the best option. The other half of the game is a city/hub management game where you will use resources gained in dungeon raids to build out your city. It’s by far their most ambitious design to date, and I’ll be keeping an eye on this one after seeing some of the interesting things they did with campaign progression and narrative in So Long, My World.
The Kickstarter for this project won’t launch until 2020 the earliest, I think they only announced it as early as they did was one of the characters in Sankokushin is a promotional cross-over character in the latest Middara Kickstarter. Axis Mundi Games has said they will post more details about the game over the coming months.
Fantasy Flight and Marvel Partner Up for Marvel Champions: The Card Game
Fantasy Flight Games announced Marvel Champions: The Card Game, a co-operative living card game where players take on the role of iconic Marvel super-heroes to fight super-villains. The core game is expected to come out in October 2019 and will have 5 heroes to play as and 3 villains to fight against. Fantasy Flight has promised that a single core set will have enough cards for up to 4 players to play with. A few more standalone heroes and villains will be released in the subsequent months, but in mid-2020 they will release the first campaign expansion. They didn’t go into details if campaigns will be cycles spread out across multiple monthly scenario packs, or just a single box purchase. I’m a fan of all of Fantasy Flight’s co-operative LCGs to date, so I will be keeping my eye out on this one, although I may not buy into it until some campaign content starts coming out for it.
Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated Announced (Again)
Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated was announced by Renegade Game Studios and Direwolf Digital. You heard me right, it was announced again, despite them originally announcing it at PAX 2018. This time there are some pictures, at least! C!L:AI is a standalone legacy adaptation of the push-your-luck deck-builder by the same name, with an additional thematic layer of a popular D&D podcast run by the Penny Arcade guys. From what little we have seen of pictures of components, it looks like you play at least part of the campaign on an open-world map as opposed to a dungeon. Don’t open that envelope with the “X” on it, double authentication required! The game will be hitting retail shortly in September.
Flamme Rouge: Grand Tour Announced
At the Dice Tower live show, Stronghold Games announced Flamme Rouge: Grand Tour, an expansion to the competitive bicycle racing game that allows players to play multi-stage campaigns/tours. It’s possible this is based on the free PnP Grand Tour expansion a fan of the game made a few years back. Campaigns can be as short as 3 games or as long as 21. The game will also come with new track tiles, special stages, and specialist riders that can be used in standalone and campaign games. I haven’t played Flamme Rouge, but it’s gotten good reviews, so it may be something I might check out in the future. Stronghold expects a mid-2020 release of this expansion.
Ongoing and Upcoming Kickstarters
Lots of Kickstarters running in parallel with or starting shortly after Gen Con:
Etherfields – A cooperative campaign-based narrative adventure “dream crawler” by Michael Oracz and Awaken Realms. It made my Top 10 most anticipated games list, and you can read more about it there. The Kickstarter has made over $3 million in funding, and has unlocked numerous free stretch goals, including two additional campaigns (there are even more campaigns as paid add-ons). The Kickstarter ends soon on Thursday, August 8th, and a base pledge is £75 (~$91).
Dice Throne Adventures – An expansion to Dice Throne that turns it from a competitve dueling game to a fully cooperative campaign-based dungeon crawler. While not a legacy game, sealed content will unlocknas you progress through the campaign, and beating the campaign will unlock new content that can be integrated into normal Dice Throne games. Being that this is an expansion, at least one 2-character pack of Dice Throne characters is required to play Dice Throne Adventures. The Kickstarter campaign has no stretch goals, but the Kickstarter edition does come with some free additional stuff not found in the retail edition. They are also offering a remastered version of all their Season 1 characters as part of this Kickstarter, and 2 new characters that can be purchased as a paid add-on. The Kickstarter ends soon on Thursday, August 8th, and a base pledge for this expansion is $69.
Trudvang Legends – A cooperative campaign-based narrative adventure using CMON’s new “legends system” to track persistent (but not permanent) changes from game to game, based on the Trudvang Chronicles RPG by RiotMinds. It also made my Top 10 most anticipated games list, and you can read mode about it there. Given it is a CMON product, the Kickstarter version comes with a number of free Kickstarter exclusive monsters, heroes, and sidequests as stretch goals (plus possibly the inclusion of a free non-exclusive Wildlands campaign). There are two additional campaign add-ons, one is a Kickstarter exclusive. The campaign has hit a bit of a funding wall at a little over $1 million dollars, so we’ll see how much further they unlock by the time it ends next Wednesday, August 14th. A base pledge is $100.
Sleeping Gods – A cooperative campaign-based narrative atlas book adventure by Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games. This is also on my Top 10 most anticipated games list. Kickstarter goes live this Tuesday, August 6th, price point will likely be $50-$60 for the base game, based on historical pricing for previous Red Raven projects. Given an expansion (Tides of Ruin) is already listed on BGG, it will likely be offered as a strech goal or addon during the Kickstarter.
Dawn of Madness – A cooperative campaign-based narrative survival horror game that is the standalone prequel to Deep Madness. The game claims to be inspired from video games like Silent Hill and the miniatures look crazy, so I’m looking forward to seeing more. There is a Kickstarter draft page up for it with more information, albeit not a ton. The Kickstarter may go live at the end of August, but I’m guessing will slip to September. They will likely have some sort of 24-hour early bird pledge, so keep an eye out for when a launch date is announced.
It has been 237 days since we have gotten an official Kickstarter update for Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5, which is… a while… to go without an update for a project. After a very lengthy update on Black Friday 2018 (where Adam said that Wave 3 and 4 of the Kickstarter were indefinitely delayed until he was happy with them), Adam went more-the-less completely radio silent for the first half of 2019. What little communication we got from him via Twitter and Kickstarter comments was that he was focused on getting Wave 3 content done, and the next official update would be in early August to coincide with Gen Con 2019.
The average gestation period of a hippo is 237 days, just saying.
To my and others’ pleasant surprise, Adam actually logged on to Kickstarter a couple of days ago and ended up answering a bunch of questions people had. While he didn’t get into any specifics had about the status of Wave 3 and 4, he did confirm that the big Gen Con update was coming and what we should expect in it, as well as answered a couple miscellaneous questions people had about upcoming expansions. I went through each of them and categorized/summarized them here, and thought I would share them for your reading pleasure:
THE BIG GEN CON UPDATE
The Gen Con update is going to go live either right before the KD:M team leaves for Gen Con, or on the floor from Gen Con. The update will have details on the status of Wave 3 and why it’s taking so long. Adam said the update will have updates on every single expansion in Wave 3 and Wave 4, which by my count is 17+ expansions, more if you also include promo and crossover content. The update may end up being so massive that he may split it into two separate updates. If that’s the case, the pre-Gen Con update would focus just on Wave 3 content (Gambler’s Chest and Campaigns of Death), and a second update in August after Gen Con would focus on Wave 4 (the 15+ other things).
Adam posted this picture as part of his anemic Kickstarter update the night before Gen Con 2018 opened.
At the very latest, we should expect the update by August 4, which is 18 days away (likely earlier), the wait is almost over!
WAVE 3
Adam was hoping to have Wave 3 printed and on boats by now, but it’s not. He will give more specific details in the big update.
The Gambler’s Chest has been expanded significantly beyond what was initially pitched. Advanced Kingdom Death: Monster tells a specific story about an advanced group of survivors, it sounds like it is its own story arc campaign, and it may not integrate with all expansion content. The Crimson Crocodile is 100% confirmed as a new Node 1 quarry monster that is part of Advanced Kingdom Death: Monster and comes in The Gambler’s Chest. The previously to-be-revealed monster encounter that comes in The Gambler’s Chest is still a thing and they are called Smog Stalkers.
Not a joke, like many people thought
The Strain System will track campaign-to-campaign changes on a meta layer sheet called a “death world”, so you can theoretically reset everything if you wanted to (no permanent changes like a legacy game). The Strain system allows Adam to release smaller content that is more meaningful. Changes introduced by a Strain milestone could be as small as a new fighting art to as big as a new campaign story arc.
Prediction: Unlocking Advanced Kingdom Death: Monster is a Strain milestone related to eating Black Lichen
Adam feels that both Gambler’s Chest and Campaigns of Death are must-haves, and set the stage for what’s to come. There is no plan to make 1.5 reprints of the original expansions, you will need to buy Campaigns of Death for the 1.5 updates to them.
WAVE 4
Wave 4 may get broken up into smaller waves, with some of the smaller expansions and promo content coming sooner. Some expansions are close to being done, while others have barely been started on. The Abyssal Woods is the furthest out, but Adam has promised that it and every other expansion will get made. The Abyssal Woods is the expansion he is most excited about. There have been no major overhauls to what was pitched for the Wave 4 expansions, Gambler’s Chest and Campaigns of Death were the biggest changes. They have gotten better at engineering for plastic production, so there may be additional models in some of the expansions.
Adam also answered some miscellaneous questions about some Wave 4 expansion stuff:
Campaigns of Death is not required for using Spidicules/Flower Knight/Dung Beetle Knight in the Abyssal Woods expansion
Super Saviors vs Perfect DBK takes place in a survivor’s dream, so it’s going to be more ridiculous than a standard showdown. Dung Beetle Knight does not integrate with this expansion in any way.
Parasite Queen is an optional encounter in the Screaming God expansion, but may end up becoming a final encounter
There is a story related to the Survivor Satan model in the Ivory Dragon expansion
THE FUTURE
Future projects beyond the 1.5 Kickstarter are not a top-priority for him at the moment. He might end up letting somebody else develop Kingdom Death: Titan (his deckbuilder) if and when that gets made. He might revisit The Lantern Festival at some point in the future (haha okay). No plans to make new dice variants. He wants to update the FAQ for the 1.0 expansions after Gen Con.
MISC
Adam acknowledged that he has been bad about updates and apologized for the lack of communication, but we’ve heard this all before, so don’t take this as any sort of promise we’re going to see more regular updates. For what it’s worth, he did log back on the following day and answer a few more questions.
WHAT DO I THINK?
I’m guessing that the update on Wave 3 will get posted the night of July 31, the night before Gen Con opens, so he can include a picture of the booth as part of the update. I do expect that he will split the update into two sections as he alluded to. I’m alright with that, as all I really care about at this point is the status of Wave 3. Given that he was hoping to have Wave 3 on boats by now, that gives me some sliver of hope that it may currently be at the printers and we might actually get it by the end of the year. I’m not holding my breath for any sort of release date announcement, but if he gives us some sort of status update as to where it is in production/assembly, that would give us some insight into when to expect to get it.
I’m not really sure what to expect in terms of gameplay and content details of the expansions, since Adam typically doesn’t spoil much in advance. He typically shows all the models in advance, so we should see renders/pictures of Atnas, Crimson Crocodile, Smog Stalkers, and any other monsters not yet revealed that are part of Wave 3. It would be nice to get some updated manifest of what is in The Gambler’s Chest and Campaigns of Death, since they have changed so much since the Kickstarter. It would also be great to get a high-level pitch of the changes being introduced to Spidicules, Dung Beetle Knight, Lion Knight, Dragon King, Slenderman, and Green Knight Armor, as he did with the other 6 expansions in the Black Friday update.
As for what’s beyond Wave 3, I fully expect it to get broken into smaller waves. I think this would be a good thing, as that means we may get some content sooner than we would if we had to wait until it’s all done. Specifically, I think it’s going to break up into 3 waves:
Wave 4 – This will be the promo/crossover content and expansions that don’t tie into the Inverted Mountain or Abyssal Woods campaigns. First Hero for sure will be part of this wave. I’m not sure if all of these would be part of this wave, but other candidates would be Screaming God, Ivory Dragon, Silver City, and Death Armor.
Wave 5 – Inverted Mountain, and all the associated expansions: Frogdog, Oblivion Mosquito, Nightmare Ram, Black Knight, Pariah, Red Witches, and Gryphon
Wave 6 – Abyssal Woods and Honeycomb Weaver
I’ll be sure to post my thoughts about the big Gen Con update and any other information we hear from the floor at Gen Con. We’ve waited so long, what’s another two weeks?
September, that month between Gen Con and Essen where we are so overwhelmed with all our new games to play that we have little time to hear about the news. Thankfully, you have me!
REVIEWS (OR RATHER, REVIEW)
Still working on being more frequent with reviews, but it was a busy month for both work and games! I did get one review done:
Not a lot of new releases this month, as most big titles either already came out at Gen Con in August, or are coming out in October at Essen SPIEL. But there are a couple to report on.
Ultimate Werewolf Legacy Designed by Ted Alspach and Rob Daviau Published by Bezier Games Players: 9-16 MSRP: $59.95
Ultimate Werewolf Legacy hit retail in early September after a couple hundred copies were sold early at Gen Con. Ultimate Werewolf Legacy is, as the title suggests, a legacy version of the classic social deduction game Werewolf, co-designed by Ted Alspach and Rob Daviau. Players take on the roles of villagers in a New England village in the late 17th century that is plagued by werewolves. Over the course of the 16-game campaign, aspects of the game will change based on the win-loss ratio of villagers from chapter to chapter, as well as story decisions that villagers must vote on. Due to the high player count, I don’t think I will ever get it played, but I did buy a copy and read through the diary to see how the campaign plays out and evolves. I may do spoiler-free writeup of that in the future.
Fallout: Wasteland Warfare Designed by James Sheahan Published by Modiphius Entertainment Players: 1-8 MSRP: $79.99
The core set and several expansions for Modiphius’s Fallout tabletop miniatures game finally hit retail in late September. The game can be played competitively or solo/co-op against an AI opponent, and can be played in a campaign mode where you build up a settlement from game to game. The base game comes with a scenario book including 5 scenarios that link together, but it feels like for the most part its up to the players to build out their own campaigns and storylines.
The second edition of Greenbrier’s Folklore: The Affliction was shipped out to Kickstarter backers this month (along with the second edition of the Dark Tales expansion), and should hit retail soon. Folklore is an DM-less “RPG in a box” boardgame in a gothic horror setting. Players take on the roles of flawed anti-heroes and villagers trying to stop the supernatural afflictions plaguing the land. The game is a hybrid of a pen-and-paper RPG game where you read through a story making choices and skill checks, and a tactical skirmish game for resolving fights in the story. The game comes with 6 stories that players can make choices in how it plays out, and characters can be leveled up and carried from story to story.
CLOUDSPIRE FIRST DETAILS RELEASED BY CHIP THEORY GAMES
Chip Theory Games have been teasing their next game, Cloudspire, for months (including sending all Too Many Bones: Undertow backers with a promo chip with the Kickstarter launch date on it). But up until very recently, little-to-nothing was known about the game aside from that it was going to be their take on tower defense games. Chip Theory finally gave us a little more of a peak behind the curtain this month in their blog.
Cloudspire is inspired heavily by tower defense video games, and can be played competitively, cooperatively, or solo. The game takes place in the floating realm of Ankar, featuring four unique factions that will have some degree of asymmetry among them. The solo mode will feature a narrative campaign broken into episodes that follow each of the factions, telling the story from multiple viewpoints.
Cloudspire will be coming to Kickstarter soon on October 16. Pricing details have not been announced yet, but they say this game is similar to Too Many Bones in its scope and depth, so it will probably be just as pricey.
ASSASSIN’S CREED: BROTHERHOOD OF VENICE SNEAKING ONTO KICKSTARTER NOVEMBER 2018
Triton Noir is re-envisioning their stealth WW2 co-op V-Commandos in the Assassin’s Creed universe. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice is a simplified and streamlined adaptation of V-Commando’s stealth mechanics, focusing more on short range and melee combat. The game will feature a narrative campaign of 20 branching scenarios, including sealed envelopes that players will unlock over the campaign containing new content (not a legacy game, everything can be reset). Between scenarios, players can upgrade their equipment and headquarters. As inferred by the name of the game, this takes place roughly during the events of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and it is teased that Ezio will make an appearance in the story.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice will launch on Kickstarter in November 2018.
Gen Con feels so long ago, but it was actually less than a month ago. Sad, I know, but that means we have a lot of great games to play, and even more to get excited for in the future!
REVIEWS
This was the first month I started putting out reviews, be sure to check them out if you haven’t already!
Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame
Designed by Ignacy Trzewiczek, Przemysław Rymer, and Jakub Łapot
Published by Portal Games
Players: 1-5
MSRP: $50.00
Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame was the big Gen Con 2018 release from Portal Games, and hit retail shortly after. Detective is a cooperative mystery-solving game that requires players using the internet to research and solve aspects of the crimes. The game comes with five cases that are played in order to form a larger story. Initial buzz has been really positive, and I’m looking forward to trying this out myself.
The Rise of Queensdale
Designed by Inka Brand and Markus Brand
Published by Ravensburger and alea
Players: 2-4
MSRP: $80.00
The Rise of Queensdale is a Euro-style dice placement legacy game from Inka and Markus Brand. The game has been out in Germany since March, the English edition came out at Gen Con and is available in retail now. The legacy game is played across nine epochs, with each next epoch unlocking the first time a player has won 1, 2, 3, etc games. The campaign ends when a player has won 9 games, so a 4-player campaign could last as many as 33 games! Initial reviews have said games last about an hour and that the core gameplay is solid. It also comes with a tiny plunger!
Scythe: The Rise of Fenris
Designed by Ryan Lopez Vinaspre and Jamey Stegmaier
Published by Stonemaier Games
Players: 1-7
MSRP: $55.00
The final and largest expansion to Scythe, The Rise of Fenris, features 11 modules that can be added to Scythe, similar to what Tuscany did for Viticulture. Most importantly, the expansion also comes with an 8-episode narrative campaign that lets players unlock most of the modules over the course of the story and campaign. Some of the content comes in sealed boxes, but there is no permanent changes to components and the entire campaign can be replayed infinitely. The campaign includes an automa variant to support solo play. One of the modules not used in the campaign is a fully cooperative variant of Scythe.
Too Many Bones: Undertow
Designed by Adam Carlson and Josh J. Carlson
Published by Chip Theory Games
Players: 1-2
MSRP: $84.95
Too Many Bones: Undertow is a standalone expansion for Too Many Bones, the “dice-builder RPG” from Chip Theory Games. Undertow comes with a 3-game campaign mode that lets you build up your characters from game to game with campaign-specific rewards. The game comes with 2 new gearlocs, which you can use in the base game or bring in gearlocs from the base game or expansions to play with up to 4 players. Kickstarter backers are getting their copies now, and limited quantities are available for sale on Chip Theory Games’ webstore.
Too Many Bones: Age of Tyranny Designed by Adam Carlson and Josh J. Carlson Published by Chip Theory Games
Players: 1-4
MSRP: $24.95
Age of Tyranny is an expansion for the original Too Many Bones that links the 7 tyrants together into a campaign. The campaign plays different from Undertow’s, you can fight the tyrants in any order you want, and characters can gain scars that carry over from game to game. Kickstarter backers are getting their copies now, and limited quanities are available for sale on Chip Theory Games’ webstore.
Street Masters Kickstarter Bundle Designed by Adam Sadler and Brady Sadler Published by Blacklist Games Players: 1-4 MSRP: $109.00
Blacklist Games has opened up their webstore with a limited quantity of Street Masters Kickstarter bundles from their 2017 Kickstarter campaign, and are selling them at the same price as the original Kickstarter pledge level. The bundle comes with the core game, Legend of Oni Kickstarter-exclusive expansion, and all Kickstarter-exclusive stretch goals. It’s unknown if the upcoming October 2018 Kickstarter for the Street Masters: Aftershock expansion will have these available or not. Their online store has other expansion content available for sale as well.
MacGyver: The Escape Room Game Designed by Nicholas Cravotta and Rebecca Blaeu Published by Pressman Toy Corp Players: 1-4 MSRP: $29.99
MacGyver: The Escape Room Game is part of Target’s exclusive line of board games, and came out around Gen Con. It’s a series of five “escape room in a box” scenarios inspired by 1980’s MacGyver episodes. Scenarios are played in a specific order, as some tools unlocked in earlier scenarios are saved and reused in future scenarios.
Kingdom Death had a surprise mini-expansion release at Gen Con, Echoes of Death, which introduced four new challenge milestones that players can attempt to achieve in their campaigns. Achieving each of these milestones permanently adds a new fighting art to your game’s fighting arts deck for that campaign and all future campaigns. Poots is calling this new system the “strain system”, and hinted we may see more of this in future expansions. 2400 additional copies of Echoes of Death went on sale on Kingdom Death’s webstore later in August and sold out within an hour and a half.
Root: Riverfolk Expansion Designed by Cole Wehrle Published by Leder Games
Players: 1-6
MSRP: $40.00
I would be remiss not to mention the hotness of Gen Con 2018, Root by Cole Wehrle and Leder Games. The Riverfolk Expansion adds an AI opponent that players can play against in a solo, cooperative, and competitive mode. In solo/coop mode, there is also a campaign mode where the AI opponent gets gradually more difficult every time you win. It’s admittedly about as lazy of a campaign mode that you can tack onto a game, but Root is an amazing game, and this might just be a reason to get you to revisit this game multiple times. Kickstarter backers have received their copies of Root and The Riverfolk Expansion, the base game of Root is currently for sale on Leder Games’ webstore, but The Riverfolk Expansion is sold out.
NEW GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS
Machi Koro Legacy Designed by Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, and Masao Suganuma Published by Pandasaurus Games and IDW
Remember last month how I mentioned that Rob and JR were working on another legacy game? They announced at the Dice Tower Live event at Gen Con that it is Machi Koro Legacy, being published by Pandasaurus with a Spring 2019 release. The game is a 10-game legacy campaign that at the end of you will have a unique copy of Machi Koro that you can keep playing after the campaign is over. People were a little cynical online about its announcement, but Rob said that he only took this project up because he had a good idea for it. Rob mentions in an interview with Jason Levine that the storyline to Machi Koro Legacy is inspired by Japanese fairy tales and folklore, and is going to be cute, whimsical, and approachable for families to play.
Bloodborne: The Board Game Designed by Michael Shinall and Eric Lang Published by CMON Limited
Also announced at the Dice Tower Live was Bloodborne: The Board Game by Michael Sninall and Eric Lang. This is a separate game from the card game also published at CMON, and aimed towards a more “hardcore” audience. The game is a “really really hard” cooperative campaign game. Players are trying to hunt down the final boss, and must defeat other boss monsters along the way to gain insight of who/what the final boss is. Players will get to join one of the 6 covenants that will each have their own storylines, so the campaign can be replayed multiple times without getting stale. A campaign consists of up to 5 games (4 “dungeons” and the final boss fight), with each game lasting around 60-90 minutes. Bloodborne: The Board Game will go on Kickstarter in Q2/Q3 2019.
Fantasy Flight was teasing Discover: Lands Unknown previous to Gen Con, but it wasn’t until over a week after Gen Con that they officially announced it. Discover is a solo/cooperative survival and exploration game in which over the course of several scenarios are trying to survive and eventually be rescued. Discover: Lands Unknown is the second in their line of Unique games (Keyforge, announced at Gen Con, being the first). Each copy of Discover is unique from every other copy, your copy will have a unique combination of environments, characters, storylines, items, and enemies, making ever group’s experience unique. I’m always a sucker for procedurally-generated stuff, so this is on my wishlist for sure. Discover: Lands Unknown will release in Q4 2018 witCheck out the announcement trailer here.
Another legacy announced this month was Vampire: The Masquerade – Heritage, a light card game based in the RPG of the same name. The campaign starts in the 1300’s and ends in the 1990’s, with players taking on the role of ancient vampires trying to shape and influence historic events. Players will be able to recruit vampires into their clan, and turn mortals to vampires. All cards in the game come pre-sleeved (presumably with opaque backs), and you won’t know how a mortal will turn until you take the card out of the sleeve and flip it over to its vampire side. The game touts that it is quick-playing, 20-40 minutes, and supports 2-4 playes. Heritage will be demoed at Essen 2018, crowdfunded in early 2019, and released at Essen 2019.
Outlaws in a Strange Land
Designed by Stephen Gibson
Stephen is going to be publishing a new game in the Grimslingers universe called Outlaws in a Strange Land. Stephen has said this is a prequel of sorts to Grimslingers, and is a narrative-driven solo/cooperative adventure card game with deep character progression for 1-4 players. The game uses a companion app. At the moment the game will be independently published by Stephen, not Greenbrier Games. Look at that art!
Eagle Gryphon Games are creating a second edition of Defenders of the Realm. Richard Launius is adding a number of new elements to the 2010 game, including a campaign/story mode. EGG has slyly hinted there may be a legacy expansion as well. Defenders of the Realm 2nd Edition will launch on Kickstarter in early 2019, no release date estimate given yet.
BURGLE BROS LEGACY?
In an AMA thread on /r/boardgames, designer Tim Fowers confirmed that Burgle Bros Legacy is still something he is exploring: “We have put a lot of work into it, but no official announcement yet. I want to make it something special, so I’ve been workshopping a lot of ideas and trying to pare it down.”
FEEDBACK NEEDED FOR SEAL TEAM FLIX EXPANSION
SEAL Team Flix designers Mark Thomas and Pete Ruth are already starting to work on a sequel expansion, and are looking for feedback from players that have played the base game at least three times. Be sure to let them know what you think if you’ve played it!
July is always a big month for gaming news, as publishers want to drum up hype for their upcoming releases for sale and demo at Gen Con in August. This year has proved no exception, with a ton of really interesting news that will excite fans of campaign and narrative gaming!
NEW GAME RELEASES
A couple of campaign games have already hit retail this month before Gen Con (and I assume they will all be for sale there as well):
SEAL Team Flix
Designed by Peter C. Ruth II and Mark Thomas
Published by WizKids Players: 1-4
MSRP: $59.99
SEAL Team Flix is co-operative tactical dexterity game, a modern warfare “dungeon crawler” in which you flick disks to shoot enemies and perform other tasks. You know, another one of those. The game comes with a campaign mode with a branching mission structure (17 missions in the box, but you will only see 8 of them in a single campaign playthrough) that allows players to promote/level-up their characters from mission to mission.
Spy Club
Designed by Jason D. Kingsley and Randy Hoyt Published by Foxtrot Games and Renegade Game Studios Players: 2-4 (can be played solo as 2+ characters) MSRP: $45.00
Spy Club is a family-friendly co-operative set collection game about kid detectives trying to solve a crime in their neighborhood. It can be played as a standalone game, but the main draw is it’s “mosaic” campaign mode. At the end of each of the first 4 games in the 5-game campaign, you unlock 1 of 40 mini gameplay modules that get added into the next game(s) of the campaign. You’ll only see a fraction of the game’s content in a single campaign, and would need to play probably at least 10 campaigns to experience all the hidden content!
Sword & Sorcery: Arcane Portal
Designed by Simone Romano and Nunzio Surace
Published by Ares Games
Players: 1-5
MSRP: $49.90
Sword & Sorcery: Arcane Portal is the first expansion to Sword & Sorcery, a co-operative fantasy adventure dungeon crawler. Arcane Portal comes with a 4-scenario campaign that continues where players left off in the base game’s campaign. The scenarios can be played standalone, but a copy of the Sword & Sorcery base game is required to play this expansion.
NEW GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS
Sleeping Gods
Designed by Ryan Lauket
Published by Red Raven Games
Ryan Lauket of Red Raven Games added a new game to BGG’s database called Sleeping Gods, a 1-2 player atlas storybook campaign game. You play as the captain and crew of a steamship in the 1920’s exploring the seas and islands for 14 hidden totems of the gods so that you can return home. The game is played on an atlas where each page is a map, and moving off of one edge of a page will move you to another page of the atlas. Sounds very much like Near and Far meets The 7th Continent, so I am excited to hear more details about this game! It’s currently listed as a 2019 release on BGG.
Comanauts
Designed by Jerry Hawthorne
Published by Plaid Hat Games
Speaking of storybook games, Plaid Hat Games announced Comanauts by Jerry Hawthorne, the second title in their Adventure Book series. Brilliant inventor Dr. Martin Strobal has fallen into a coma, and you must enter his mind and face his inner demons so that he can wake up and stop one of his own inventions from destroying the world. The game is played across a co-operative campaign of 11 unique dreamscapes ranging from the wild west to sci-fi based on the cover art. The rules and components make reference to stickers placed on certain cards in the campaign, but it’s not being described as a legacy game. Comanauts is due to release in December with an MSRP of $69.95, and the rulebook is available for download now on Plaid Hat’s website.
Plaid Hat Games is stepping up their game this year, as they also announced Gen7: A Crossroads Game, the long-awaited sci-fi Crossroads followup to Dead of Winter. Gen7 is described as a “grand narrative game with multiple possibilities.” Players take on the roles of officers aboard an international colony ship to a distant star system. Things have been going well for the first six generations of humanity that have lived on this ark, but you are of course “lucky” generation number 7! A terrible mystery has emerged that threatens the entire mission, and the fate of humanity rests on the choices you make. This game is a semi-cooperative game for 3-4 players where everybody is trying to be the best officer on the ship and look out for their own crew, but also must work together to ensure the success of the mission and humanity. The game is played across a 7-episode campaign with a wildly branching narrative. The product page lists that it has 9 sealed envelopes in it, it’s not described as a legacy game. Given that there is a major mystery plotline to it, it’s not clear at this point if it’s replayable or not. No release date has been given, but it’s available for pre-order with an MSRP of $99.95. The rulebook is available for download now on Plaid Hat’s website, and will be demo’ed at Gen Con.
Trudvang Legends
Designed by Eric Lang, Guilherme Goulhart, and Fel Barros
Published by CMON Limited
CMON Limited announced they will be launching a Kickstarter campaign for Trudvang Legends by Eric Lang, Guilherme Goulhart, and Fel Barros. Trudvang Legends is a living world adventure book game based on the Trudvang Chronicles RPG, and is an epic saga told over the course of generations. Choices made by players will echo through future generations as well as the world itself. The press release refers to the board physically changing, but also says it’s infinitely replayable so it’s likely not permanent change. No details yet about whether this is a co-operative or competitive game. The Kickstarter is slated to launch in Q2 2019, likely a 2020 release.
Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles
Designed by Richard Amann, Thomas Vande Ginste, Viktor Peter, Wolf Plancke, and David Turczi
Published by Mindclash Games
Mindclash finally added a BGG game entry and details about their next Kickstarter project, Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles. Perseverance is a dice-drafting / dice-placement euro game about a group of castaways building a city and exploring on a mysterious island with dinosaurs. The game is played across a 5-episode campaign with evolving mechanics. They are very clear that there are no legacy or hidden/sealed elements to the game, and can be replayed infinitely. The official player count is 2-4, but designers have mentioned there being a solo mode. It is listed as a 2020 release on BGG, and last I had heard it would hit Kickstarter in Q4 2018.
Fire for Light Published by Greenbrier Games
Greenbrier Games teased in their July newsletter about an upcoming Kickstarter project for a “hybrid tabletop/app dark fantasy campaign set in a cartoon world.” It will be available for demo in the First Exposure Playtest Hall at Gen Con and Twist Gaming will do a preview of it 7/31 as part of their Twitch stream. No more information at this time, but it sounds promising!
Centauri Saga: Scorched Earth
Designed by Constantine Kevorque
Published by Vesuvius Media
Vesuvius Media announced that they are working on Centauri Saga: Scorched Earth, aka Season 2 of their expansions for Centauri Saga. I presume this takes place after the events of the first expansion (which I haven’t played yet), Centauri Saga: Abandoned, and it looks like the fight against the aliens has come back to our solar system. No confirmation yet if this is a legacy expansion like Abandoned, but it was confirmed that nothing from Season 1 is required to play Season 2. Also sounds like this is part 2 of a planned trilogy. They aren’t planning to bring this to Kickstarter until Summer 2019, which would likely make it a 2020 release as well.
Ares Games announced Sword & Sorcery: Ancient Chronicles, a new two-act cycle of games/expansions set it in the Sword & Sorcery universe, before the events of the Immortal Souls/Darkness Falls campaign. It sounds like it will be a standalone game and set of expansions, but they will provide crossover ability to swap in heroes and monsters from the first cycle. They will launch a Kickstarter campaign for it in Q4 2018, and will be releasing more information on their Facebook page throughout August and September leading up to it.
As part of their line of games set in the Talisman universe, Pegasus Spiele posted details on BGG about Talisman: Legendary Tales, a co-operative family-friendly adventure game. Players work together through a series of adventures to recover the five legendary Talismans that have been lost. Adventures must be played in a certain order to tell the story, but any other details about the campaign play are pretty scarce. A Talisman fansite really broke down all the details found on the back-of-the-box art. The game should be available for sale this week at Gen Con, where we should know more.
Adventure Island
Designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach
Published by Pegasus Spiele
Pegasus Spiele added a BGG entry for another title by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach, Adventure Island. There are no images of the game, and the only details to go on is the description. It’s a co-operative game where players are shipwrecked survivors on an island (hopefully without dinosaurs!). Players must work together to survive, explore the island, and eventually make their way home. The description implies the story is told across multiple play sessions, and that choices that players make influence the story and unlock new elements. They provide the standard disclaimer that the game is not a legacy game and is infinitely replayable. It’s supposedly going to be demo’ed at Gen Con this week, and is listed as a 2018 release, so likely an Essen 2018 release.
GLOOMHAVEN FORGOTTEN CIRCLES DELAYED TO DECEMBER
Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles, a “small” expansion containing a new character class and roughly 20 scenarios is taking a little longer than anticipated to finish developing, so they won’t be making an Essen release date. This is largely due to the fact that the scenarios in Forgotten Circles will be more complex than the typical “kill all the baddies” scenarios found in the base game. Scenarios will contain branching paths, “choose your own adventure” moments, puzzles, and alternate endings. It’s worth pointing out that the scenarios for Forgotten Circles are being designed by Marcel Cwertetschka, who wrote some of the side scenarios in the original game.
Cephalofair Games hopes to have it for sale in December, possibly January due to holiday delays, and will be running a pre-sale (not through Kickstarter) for people that want to guarantee a copy in the first print run. Sign up for his mailing list to be notified! Isaac Childres is working on a much larger expansion for Gloomhaven, but anticipates it could be years before it is released. That gives you plenty of time to finish the 150+ scenarios spread across the core game, solo scenarios, Forgotten Circles, Into the Unknown, and Capital Intrigue!
ROB DAVIAU TALKS BETRAYAL LEGACY AT DICE TOWER CON 2018
Rob Daviau was a keynote speaker at Dice Tower Con 2018, and was part of a number of panels regarding his past and upcoming titles. The Dice Tower was kind enough to film and host these videos on their YouTube channel. Rob gave a very in-depth preview of Betrayal Legacy in one talk, not spoiling anything about the game, primarily focusing just on the core mechanical differences between it and Betrayal at House on the Hill. It sounds like a lot of work went into unifying common terminology and information layouts for all of the scenarios, so there should be less rules ambiguities. Yay for good UX! Rob also hosted a Q&A panel on legacy games that JR Honeycutt sat in on the last half of as well. Rob mentions in the video that they are doing playtesting on Pandemic Legacy: Season 3 (Matt Leacock also had an open call for playtesters at Gen Con 2018, slots were quickly filled), and that Rob and JR are working on an original legacy game that is expected to release in 2019.
PANDEMIC LEGACY: SEASON 2 AT SPIEL DES JAHRES 2018
Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 won a Sonderpries (“special prize”) at Spiel Des Jahres 2018. This is the first special award to be given out since they added additional award categories in 2011.
Ten years after the release of the base game, the “Pandemic” family is growing larger. And how! Already with Season 1, Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau opened the gateway to a fascinating game world; with this perfect sequel they have topped even themselves. “Pandemic Legacy – Season 2”, the best version of “Pandemic” so far, is the yardstick against which all future legacy games must measure themselves. The jury would like to honour this extraordinary achievement by this designer duo with this special award.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 is the fourth campaign/narrative game to be nominated for a Spiel des Jahres, and the second to win an award. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 and T.I.M.E. Stories were nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2016 (both lost to Isle of Skye), and Legends of Andor won Spiel des Jahres in 2013.
OVERTURN KICKSTARTER OVERTURNED
There was a pretty major Kickstarter scandal in July regarding a campaign for Overturn by Foxtale Games. Overturn: Rising Sands is (was?) a campaign-based co-operative adventure game set in a Middle Eastern fantasy setting, developed and designed by people from Pakistan. The game had initially gotten over $375,000 CAD in funding when it initially launched, as there seemed to be a lot of interesting in the setting, as well as the low price point for the amount of content offered in the core game. Backers slowly started to trickle out over the ongoing weeks due to lack of real gameplay details from the publisher/designer, and doubts that the publisher could deliver on what had been promised. When they finally posted an alpha rulebook, a backer was quick to realize that the rulebook at been largely plagiarized from Massive Darkness’s rulebook. This launched an internet vigilante mob that uncovered that several other details of the campaign and company were copy-pasted from other Kickstarter campaigns and company bios. The fox tale in their company logo is believed to have been stolen from the Mozilla Firefox logo. More details about the accusations can be found in this article.
A lot of backers were quick to accuse Foxtale of being a scam, and unfortunately I think some of these accusations were motivated because the designers were from Pakistan. I would like to think that these guys were genuine in their desire to produce this game, but did not do the necessary prep work for a game and Kickstarter campaign of such scale, and cut a lot of corners that ultimately lost them the trust of their backers. At the end of the day, getting this project cancelled now probably saved a lot of backers and the creators a lot of headaches down the road.
GEN CON 2018 THIS WEEK!
Gen Con 2018 starts this week on August 2nd, and I fully expect there will still be a few more surprise announcements coming. Fantasy Flight Games is giving their In-Flight Report on Wednesday 8/1 at 7:00 PM EST, so expect to hear a number of new titles announced there. Maybe we’ll find out what this is about?
I’m going to try to squeeze in a Top 5 To Try and Top 5 To Buy list for Gen Con before it starts, and will do a special post-Gen Con news wrap up next week.
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There was a pretty major Kickstarter scandal in July regarding a campaign for Overturn by Foxtale Games. 
The Campaign Log 