Progress Update: Onward and Upward
Hey folks! It’s been a little while, so we wanted to give an update regarding what we’ve been working on.
After finishing the Collector, we went heads-down with design and product adjustments based on what we learned out of July’s Kickstarter attempt. We will need to balance and polish things before updating the TTS preview, but the results are really promising:
Goal #1: Emphasize “One and Done” Play
Quite a bit of the feedback indicated a fatigue or indifference with campaign/progression games: the struggles of getting a consistent group together, a sense of “I can’t get my money’s worth if I don’t finish it,” and having too many unfinished campaign games already.
With a host of large and small changes, we’re pushing the experience toward single session play, which the game was already suited toward. It sets up in five minutes, gives an intense and puzzly coop experience in under an hour, and packs up again in another five. Quick to teach, no obligation to keep a consistent campaign going, primed for solo play, and easy to pick back up if left unplayed for a while.
To that end, we’ve done the following:
Player Deck “Shuffle Build”: Deck construction (and progression) has been replaced with a “shuffle-build” environment. Basically, you combine any 1 character (1-3 cards) with any 1 specialty (7-9 cards) and mash them together to create your deck.
The largest change here is that characters now also now have printed skills outside their deck (i.e., unique action point abilities) that form their core identity (along with their cards).
We’re also expanding the cast of characters (and meeples!) to give more variety. Sam’s been working on this, and the results are pretty darn good (please keep in mind that this is work in progress and not all of these may end up in the core game):
Pick Any Leviathan: This was present before, but the region and story structure pushed a sense of obligation into the mix. It’s best and simplest for players to choose the one they think looks coolest on a given day.
“Forage” and Mushrooms Replace Examine: Without progression, insight as a collectible resource isn’t needed, and so the Examine action isn’t needed either. That said, every map is much more interesting if there are incentives to step outside of obvious paths.
Instead of insight markers, each map has a random set of facedown “forage tokens” (mushrooms!). Each mushroom has a minor skill effect, usable anytime once collected. When a climber enters the associated space, they pick it up and flip it over to see what they got.
These have been fun in every single test. It’s not major, but there’s a constant lure of “I don’t know what that is, but I want it,” and the commitment required to get one is usually at minimum offset by whatever you get. See below (though ignore the neon mushrooms and white squares; that’s just placeholder for testing purposes):
Goal #2: Increase Replay Value and long-term appeal
Replayability was a potential concern from a lot of people, and in addition there were many who wondered if the game would feel repetitive or lose appeal after a certain number of plays.
Here’s what we’re doing to improve that:
“Flat Rage”: Instead of each threat card being labeled 1 - 5 and enraging in the same order every time, the rage track indicates the quantity of cards enraged for the “round.” Basically, when you tick up to rage 2, the first 2 cards drawn will be enraged. At rage 3, the first 3, and so on.
This is the biggest change mentioned so far. It really shakes up the flow of individual sessions, and replaying leviathans produces much different experience than before.
The rage effects being front loaded to the round creates an interesting ebb and flow to the pressures thrown at the climbers through the threat deck.
This does entail a pretty big change to how the threat board and the cards themselves are presented. Cards would (in theory) be dealt into a row at the start of each round, and they would be double-ended and rotated so that the enraged/normal side would be upright as appropriate.
Here’s (sort of) an idea. Just imagine that the enraged half of All-Seeing there is rotated so that it’s upright, aaaaand further imagine that the rest of the card backs/fronts properly support being double-ended ;-)
“Shuffle Build”: Mentioning this again because it serves to bolster replay value. Done correctly, every character + specialty combination is a unique experience with its own layers of strategy, which can then be further applied against each leviathan’s individual eccentricities.
The increased character count also means more potential combos!
Leviathan Design: Our scenario development is now all about leviathans with dynamic sub-objectives or other pressures (think Avalanche, Watcher, and Collector). Not only does this push each leviathan further apart in terms of experience, it will make them inherently more interesting to revisit.
Foraging: A minor thing, but randomized little bonuses (mushrooms!) throughout the map will add a touch of spice to each repeat play on a leviathan.
Difficulty Settings: Currently, difficulty functions as before, but its value is strengthened by the focus on one-off play. Especially when paired with the “flat rage” system, playing on Expert is quite a different experience than playing on Normal.
What’s next?
You might imagine that the changes have made card and leviathan balance a little wonky, so we’ll be playtesting for a while to tighten things up. During that, we’ll be making the necessary adjustments to graphic design, presentation, and user interface so that it’s all functional and intuitive.
When that’s finished, we’ll update our public TTS preview so that anyone can try out the improvements. Until then, feel free to drop by the Discord channel, etc. to ask questions, to join playtesting, or to let us know what you think!
