Art Upgrade!
about 7 years ago
– Sat, Jan 26, 2019 at 02:29:11 AM
Hello Heroes!
You are still unlocking stretch goals! The Iron Maiden really packs a punch. Now we have 4 female Heroes in the game.
We have added the SSGs to the “What’s in the Box” graphic. Combined you have half the cards already! The BGG goal will be complete very soon (perhaps before I type this!) and the Facebook goal is beginning to take off. It would be great if backers could share the language specific Facebook posts in language specific game groups, pages and forums.
We need three more BGG fans to finish this!
We have 580 Facebook shares and it’s increasing rapidly now.
We are showing you two Locked Stretch Goals today. Don’t get used to it!
The first is a great game aid, summary cards to remind you of rules that are not already on the ID Sheets and other components. There will be two different summaries, one for the Witch Master and one for the Heroes.
Shortly after that, we will extend the Legion of Darkness with another creature, the Explotar. Guess what he does!
I want to close this update with the best message so far! We have really enjoyed the interaction with our backers here and on BGG. It really helps to guide us in the right direction, but this suggestion was exceptional. Backer Locusta posted this change to the Disciple ID Cards:
We think this is absolutely great and we will do something along these lines. Locusta, please PM us with your name as we would like to add it to the “Special Thanks” section of the rule book.
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Retail, SGs, Videos
about 7 years ago
– Sat, Jan 26, 2019 at 02:27:46 AM
Welcome Witch Hunters!
The long updates this weekend did not leave room for our smaller announcements. Here’s a short round up.
The Linen Finish upgrade to the Dark Rituals: Malleus Maleficarum and Dark Rituals: The Cursed Fjord boxes has been unlocked. Linen Finish is slightly more durable and it has a matte finish, making the graphics easier to see. It looks and feels like quality.
The BGG stretch goal is going like wildfire! We should have made the thresholds higher, ha, ha, ha. With more than 250 fans, the Heroes have unlocked 4 new Loot Cards. Just one step to go. BGG is a great resource for gamers!
You can find our BGG page here.
The Witch Masters seem to have realized that you can share our Facebook post multiple times! The number of shares is increasing rapidly. We have a new pinned post highlighting the translations, and we are adding French, German and Spanish posts that can be shared too. We will total all the shares and they will all count towards the Facebook Social Stretch Goal. Feel free to share any of the language version announcement posts at the top of our Facebook page and we’ll take care of the rest.
DGG Facebook Posts
Come on Witch Masters, don’t let the Heroes run away with it.
The Iron Maiden is our next regular stretch goal. You’re half way there!
And we have added our third and final rules video to the front page. It covers rules that are specific for the Witches.
If you have questions about the rules covered in these three videos, please post them here or on BGG, if you think they will spark a long discussion. BGG is a great place to ask rules questions. There is more room for discussion, we can post images, and make edits if our statements are unclear. More importantly, they are easy to browse in the future: comments here are lost over time. I monitor the rules forum closely and will respond as soon as I can. We will post the one Round play-through next, so you can see how the rules fit together.
Finally, we have some news about our Retailer Program. We have received a great deal of interest from retailers and we will be creating a new pledge, Storm the Stores, especially for them. You’ll see this appear tomorrow, Tuesday, 22nd of January at 9 am EST (3 pm CET). Please contact [email protected] for full details, if you are a retailer and you are interested.
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Adding Witches
about 7 years ago
– Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 05:38:03 PM
Welcome Witch Masters!
Karakurt sat in the corner of her lair, enjoying a moment of contentment, gnawing on a leg bone. Yes, sometimes life could be really good. Her lair was nice and damp. Her mates’ leg bone was still juicy. Her babies skittered around the web-lined tunnel, too small to do any harm, but big enough for a sweet meal soon. Life has its moments.
A spiderling abruptly turned and ran towards her. Happy days! Her claw snapped out to pierce its abdomen. A succulent dessert would be the perfect end to the meal. As she raised the oozing creature to her mouth, she caught sight of a disturbance near the entrance to her web tunnel. It was not just this one spiderling that was running wild, the whole brood was acting up.
In the dim light, she finally saw it. A slight swirling disturbance in the air, slowly advancing towards her. Was some crazy witch attacking her, in her lovely home? The audacity! Then suddenly it gained pace, sweeping down the passage towards her. It cleared everything in its path, all the bones, bodies and babies disappearing into the swirling void. With nowhere to go and no time to think, Karakurt stared at the portal, venom dripping impotently from her fangs, as the Conjunction encompassed her.
Suddenly the pain was dreadful! Bright lights burned her eyes! Pleasant smells assaulted her nostrils! A dry warm breeze played across her sensilla hairs! She had never known such discomfort. What could be happening?
Dark Rituals: The Spider’s Brood is a Kickstarter Exclusive mini-expansion that contains everything you need to add a new Witch and her Minions to all your games:
· 7 highly detailed plastic miniatures
o 1 Karakurt
o 6 Brood
· Large Karakurt ID Sheet
· Brood ID Card
· Grimoire
· 5 Witchcraft Cards
As well as the miniatures, the expansion contains ID cards for the new Characters. Since Karakurt is a Witch, she will have one of the large ID Sheets with all her stats and powers, with plenty of room for some gruesome art. Instead of using the spells from the core game, she has 4 new spells on her own Grimoire. Together with five new Witchcraft cards, this will add variety and atmosphere to the game.
Karakurt and her Brood can be used in any Encounter. While we think it is more thematic to use these minis together, you can even use just Karakurt or just the Brood. We will give you complete instructions to balance your games, which will be as simple as adjusting the Witch Master’s Stamina pool.
One of the most gratifying elements of this project is seeing more than 50 first time Kickstarter backers! Thanks for supporting us. If you have never taken an Add-on before, it’s simple. Basically, in Kickstarter, you change your pledge total to be the total for all the rewards you want. Much later, in a Pledge Manager, you choose the individual products.
Start by clicking the blue “Manage your pledge” button. You will need to scroll down the front page to make this appear at the top.
Next, you click the “Change your pledge” button.
Finally, you can type in the new total. In this example, we started with a $100 pledge, so the total is $120. Then hit Continue.
Don’t worry, our experienced backers will help you out in the comments if you post questions. They are really friendly.
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We Need a Hero!
about 7 years ago
– Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 04:49:14 PM
Welcome Witch Masters!
Stretch Goals are falling like trees! Here are some notes on what you have and a little related game information.
Welcome Deep Madness backers! Our reimagining of Hysteria was unlocked as soon as Diemension Games announced our collaboration. Our Hysteria has these reactions:
Reaction: When a Hero moves away from the Hysteria, exhaust 1 Stamina to move to the Hero’s new Area.
Reaction: When a Hero ends its Activation in an Area with a Hysteria, exhaust 2 Stamina to cause the Hero 1 Wound.
Deep Madness players can explain why this is appropriate. :)
Early this morning, before I could get a coffee, you unlocked the Linen Finish upgrade to standard and mini cards (this is all the cards, but not the large sheets). Black core, linen finish is pretty much as good as it gets. The finish resists wear and helps stop reflections hiding the art. I am always conflicted when I get games with linen finish cards – normally I sleeve cards, but these feel so nice in your hands, I am always tempted not to.
Next, a new Hero! This sculpt was a hit when we revealed the banner! As well as the mini you get the ID Card, Alchemy Card and Weapon Card. More details in the game section below. Right now it’s locked, but there is a very good chance it will unlock overnight.
Just in case the Cutthroat does unlock, here's the next one: the Digital Customization Kit. More on this when it unlocks.
Back to Heroes. (Some of this information was shown in Update #9, but I’ll expand on it today.)
We had questions about how we differentiate between the 13 Heroes in the Attacking Hordes pledge. Some backers have asked if they have a unique power. Here's more info.
The differences start with their ID Sheet. On the left, you can see that the Stamina costs for the Heroes are different. They do have the same Actions, but they are easier or harder to do.
On the right, we can see the starting Attributes. Similarly, different Heroes will be better at some tasks than others.
Each Hero has different weapons. Sure, this is largely visual, most of the weapon variation is caused by Loot Card upgrades (see the rule book or a later update). Weapons do roll different dice, as indicated by the colored symbols. But one important difference is that some Heroes have ranged weapons and some do not.
Okay, I buried the lede. By far the greatest differences are in the Alchemy Books. These Hero-specific cards contain 8 Spells at different Alchemy levels, that can be unlocked as the Heroes advance their Alchemy skill in the game. I like to say they have 8 special powers, not 1. These spells are a mix of Actions and Reactions. There might be a little duplication of individual spells here and there, if you search for it, but each card as a whole is unique.
(Don’t forget, these are the original Alchemy Cards. You’ll get the upgraded Alchemy Sheet.)
I hope this gives some idea how the Heroes start off different from one another. Once the game starts, equipped loot, weapon upgrades and skill advancements separates them further.
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The Depths of Madness!
about 7 years ago
– Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 11:00:23 AM
Welcome Witch Masters!
We are pleased to announce our Deep Madness collaboration! Deep Madness is a truly immersive horror experience, highly intense with fast paced combat and deeply strategic challenges. It’s a tough game but we beat the first scenario! Diemension Games did spectacularly well on Kickstarter and we please to be working with them.
We are going to recreate their Hysteria in Dark Rituals. Better yet, you get it for free!
You do not need Deep Madness to field this Creature, as we are creating a miniature for it. Our artists took the Deep Madness Miniature as their inspiration and came up with this:
Here’s the ID card. If you play Deep Madness, we are sure that you can see the parallels. Basically the Witch Master can use Reactions to make the Hysteria follow a Hero around and cause a Wound automatically, with no Defense. It’s best if the Heroes stop what they are doing and just kill it.
Our Hysteria cannot Attack, but is pretty mobile and has the following special abilities:
Reaction: When a Hero moves away from the Hysteria, exhaust 1 Stamina to move to the Hero’s new Area.
Reaction: When a Hero ends it’s Activation in an Area with a Hysteria, exhaust 2 Stamina to cause the Hero 1 Wound.
The Hysteria will chase Heroes and Wound them automatically, with no Defense Roll. The Heroes need to deal with them quickly.
We hope to see some Deep Madness backers coming to look at Dark Rituals: Malleus Maleficarum. Please welcome them and help show them around!
If you are new here, these are the highlights:
· It’s also a dark horror game, but set in the Middle Ages.
· Dark Rituals is a One vs Many game: a single Witch Master plays against 1-4 Hero Players.
· There is a Solo mode which we will be describing later in the Campaign.
· In the middle of the Front Page, you can find a very quick game summary.
· Near the bottom of the Front Page, you’ll find 3 rules videos and a link to the rule book.
· We are printing translated versions of the game in French, German and Spanish.
Please ask any questions, our backers are very friendly!
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