Are we there yet?
almost 4 years ago
– Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 04:03:27 PM
Hello! Today I want to talk about the scenario book, so let's get right to it. The main point of this update I want to express is that back when we were reevaluating the schedule to update the timeline to what it is currently (delivering Frosthaven in July), I budgeted about a month for me to get done all the work that I needed to do with the scenario book, and that has turned out to not be very accurate.
At this point, I don't know how much time I've invested in this scenario book - it feels like an eternity - and it is still maybe only half the amount of work that I need to get done on it, which has become pretty frustrating for me.
So let's talk a little bit about what has been done, where we are, what happens next, and where we go from there.
There are 138 total scenarios, which I have split into main campaign scenarios (0-64...yes, there is a scenario 0) and side scenarios (65-137). This split is helpful just in keeping me sane, but also because the vast majority of the side scenarios are guest designs. Overall, the side scenarios are also more complicated, and so I've tried to focus on them first for play testing purposes.
At this point, I have nailed down the special rules and map details of each of these side scenarios so that they can be play tested, but I have neglected all the flavor text. Most scenarios have some amount of flavor text written by the guest designer, but at the minimum, this will still need to be edited and cleaned up.
For the main campaign scenarios, things are a little less clear-cut. I have very bare-bones layouts for about half of them, and the other half have been fully laid out, with some subsection of that having the special rules text done so they can be play tested. The good news is that the story text for all of these scenarios has been written and is currently in the editing process.
So with all the scenarios taken as a whole, layouts are about 80% done, special rules text is about 66% done, flavor text is about 70% done, and play testing is, well, really just starting in earnest. I hope setting this all out in the open is an interesting read. At the very least, it is helpful for me talking all this through.
So what happens next? Play testers are play testing, which is good. I will be tackling the layouts and special rules of the main campaign scenarios next to get those numbers to 100%, and then I'll work on getting the story text of the side scenarios to a point where they can be edited.
But even all that is only part of the story. Because once all the content is complete, it still needs to be laid out in two separate 140+ page scenarios books, which will be a monumental task in itself. Josh has been working on a new scenario book design and putting a template together so that while I am working on layouts, I can at least make his job easier on the back end, but we are coming to terms with the fact that his job of laying all this out will not be easy at all.
You see, as you may already know, we are continuing with the Forgotten Circles format (though much updated and improved for usability) of having a front page for each scenario with the setup and initial information, and the rest of the information on future rooms and events broken up into sections in a separate section book. So each scenario needs a front page layout, and then a number of separate individual sections that will have some amount of text and map information, which will then need to be assembled like a jigsaw puzzle with all the other sections from other scenarios (and other various sources) into the section book. This took a long time to do with Forgotten Circles' 20 or so scenarios, so, you know, 138 will probably take more time.
It's just the sheer volume of content here is so intimidating, but all we can do is just keep working and power through it.
So without going on and on here, let's end by talking about what this means for the timeline. Obviously I've gone over my time budget on this monster of a scenario book, and also Josh is going to need more time than we budgeted to him, so, yeah... the answer is, I am not sure.
What I know is that we did set up a buffer in case I got my time estimations wrong. We wanted to get everything delivered next month before Chinese New Year, but it's not the end of the world if we get the books delivered after Chinese New Year at the end of February. Can we do that? Again, I'm not sure at this point. What we're going to do is keep working, and hopefully in a month or so, we'll have a much better idea of how long it will take to fully put this beast to bed.
Sound good? Okay, wish me luck, and I'll see you in the new year!
It's an update!
almost 4 years ago
– Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 12:02:46 AM
Hello! I've been trying for a while to come up with something to talk to you about in this update, but I'm having some trouble, so we're just going to jump out of the plane and see what happens!
I know I keep saying something along the lines of "There are loads of interesting stuff I still want to tell you about, but I'm not quite ready yet," and unfortunately that is still the case, so I'll say it again.
- We're working on more interesting perks, but that still needs play testing.
- Character card redesigns (both visual and mechanical) are coming but still in development.
- We've got an almost final component count, and so we're figuring out exactly how big this box is going to be.
- There's a rule book that will get shared at some point after it gets cleaned up, and a scenario book layout redesign that's also in the works.
- And I want to show you the punch-out scenario flow chart once we figure out what that will look like.
- Plus there's all the cool stuff I'm not going to tell you about, so there.
But at this point, we're just in the middle of making progress. The web store launch and Thanksgiving slowed things down a little bit last week, but everything is still moving forward.
So, well, yeah, not sure what else there is to say at the moment. No news is good news, right? We're all still alive, and so, having communicated that, I'm gonna go back behind this curtain here and keep on working.
I'll see you in two weeks, where I hope to have one of those exciting this I mentioned ready to share. Until then, have some cool summon art!
Play testing and the pledge manager
almost 4 years ago
– Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 06:06:08 PM
Hello! Two weeks seemed to have passed in a flash, and so it is time for another update. Yay! I hope everyone has been doing well in the meantime.
The first thing I'd like to address today is the timing of the pledge manager. We've been saying for a while that it will close around the end of the year, and now that the end of the year approaches, we've been getting some questions about the specifics of that.
So, while I still can't give you a specific date for when it will close, I am going to push it back a month. The pledge manager will be open through the end of the year and will close in mid-late January. Obviously this pandemic has gone on much longer than expected, and so we'd like to continue to give people as much time as possible to complete their pledge before we charge the cards.
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But speaking of the end of the year and Cephalofair merchandise (sorry, not my best transition), I did also want to briefly announce that the long-awaited Cephalofair web store is launching early next week, just in time for the holidays! While some leftover Gloomhaven addons from the Kickstarter will be available, we've also got a lot of other cool stuff like apparel and drinkware.
Before I talk it up too much, though, I do have to admit that we are only prepared for US sales at this point. There were complications too numerous to mention that we are still working through to get the store open worldwide, and that will happen in January.
I'll be sending out a newsletter (link to sign up) when it does launch next week, so keep an eye out for that if you are interested.
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Finally, let's talk a bit about Frosthaven! Today I just wanted to give a shout out to the amazing play testing efforts going on behind the scenes.
If you want to know a secret, some scenarios and character classes in the original Gloomhaven didn't really see a whole lot of play testing before it was released. When the game came out and players had a chance to dig into it, the general consensus was that it was pretty balanced, but there were definitely certain aspects - certain characters or scenarios - that broke when you really leaned into them. That resulted in a number of changes made in the second printing, which didn't sit particularly well with people who got the first printing.
So why am I bring this up? Well, I don't want it to happen again with Frosthaven, and the play testers are making sure of that. All 17 characters in Frosthaven have seen so, so much more play testing than any of the Gloomhaven characters, and I think the game will be significantly better for it. Even the starting six characters have changed significantly from the versions we shared at the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign (still keeping the same ideas and spirit, of course).
A few of the locked characters are still a little wobbly, and we've got a ways to go on scenario and item play testing, but I cannot thank this group of play testers enough for their thorough and consistent feedback, driven simply by a passion to make this game as great as possible. We're definitely getting there, and I think pretty soon we'll be ready to show you new versions of the starting characters with the new ability card layouts as well, and I am looking forward to when that day arrives!
For now, though, that is all I have to say. If you read that and thought, "Oh, man, I would like to play test Frosthaven," I will just say that we already have more people volunteering for play testing than I can handle at the moment, but if we do need more in the future, I will let you know.
See you in two weeks!
A change in update schedule
about 4 years ago
– Sun, Nov 08, 2020 at 09:47:32 PM
Hello! I have nothing to tell you!
I mean, there's only so many times I can tell you, "I am working on scenarios," before you get bored of me. And there certainly are more interesting game play elements to go into detail about, but if I do that every week, I will run out of things to talk about before too long.
So, the bottom line is that, with wave 1 fulfillment done, you don't really need to hear from me every week. Instead, effective immediately, we'll be moving to a schedule of releasing an update every other week. So after this update, the next update you'll receive will be in two weeks, on Nov. 20.
And that's really all I wanted to talk about. I did get less done this week than I had hoped because of certain political distractions, but we definitely don't need to get into that.
Also a new update for Gloomhaven Digital released earlier this week that is pretty sweet, so you can check that out if you got the digital game.
And, yeah...I guess I'll just go then? See you in two weeks!
Attacks on Frosthaven
about 4 years ago
– Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 01:59:04 AM
Hello! We don't have to talk about shipping this week! Yay! Instead, I thought I dedicate this update going into a little detail on how attack events in Frosthaven occur. During the Kickstarter, I talked about this a little, but we've refined the system quite a bit since then, so let's get into it!
Anyone familiar with Gloomhaven will know that city events are generally a source of something good (or at least interesting). But Frosthaven is a far less safe place, and often outside forces will attack. These special attack event cards will come up roughly 50% of the time in winter, but you should also expect one or two of them to occur over the course of each summer as well.
The front of the card will make clear in the text that it is an attack, but otherwise will look like any other event with a choice on how to deal with the situation on the front. You'll then make your choice and turn the card over to see something like this (very, very prototype) image:
You will have to resolve the attack either way, but your choice will modify the attack in some way. Each attack has a specific threat value and number of buildings targeted. For each building targeted, you will flip over a card from the Town Guard Modifier Deck (!), add (or subtract) the result from your defense value, and compare that to the threat value. If you meet or exceed it, the building is safe. Otherwise, it is damaged.
I know, I know, I used a lot of interesting word there that you probably want to know more about, so let's talk about them one at a time.
The Town Guard Modifier Deck is very similar to a character's attack modifier deck, except this is something that persists over the course of the entire campaign, as you find different (and secret) ways to add and remove cards from it, making it better over time. Just like an attack modifier deck, though, there's an automatic fail in there that you can't get rid of, just to make sure you're always on your toes. No matter how high your defense is, there's always a chance the attackers will get through and break something. In fact, it's worse than that, because if you draw this card, the targeted building will be wrecked! (I know, another new word!)
So let's talk about damaged and wrecked buildings next then. A damaged building isn't the end of the world. You will need to spend some resources to repair it immediately (depending on the building), or if you want to ignore it, you can lose some morale and the townspeople will fix it for you (oh, man, now I have to talk about morale, too...). If a building is wrecked, though, that's quite a bit worse. That will require more resources to repair, and it can't be done immediately. The building will have to spend a week in its wrecked state, meaning that you can't interact with it or get its benefits, and, depending on the building, it may instead have some negative effect like a continual loss of morale until you get it fixed.
So what exactly is morale? Well, you can kind of think of it like reputation from Gloomhaven. It is a value that is going to move up or down based on the results of certain events and scenarios. Unlike reputation, though, there is no innate benefit to having it go down. You want this to go up as much as possible. You'll get a bonus to your defense value the higher it is, and if Frosthaven ever bottoms out, well, very bad things happen. Don't do that.
So how else do you improve your defense value? Well, there are a number of buildings that will help with that, plus a number of events will provide options to improve your defense as well. You'll see it constantly growing over the course of the campaign, but each winter will bring new and more powerful attacks to compensate.
But it is not all doom and gloom, though! Each attack card has racial designation, represented by an icon in the lower right corner (the, umm, snowman in the example image). And when you resolve that race's storyline, you get to remove all those nasty attacks from your event decks. Of course, there will always be a number of neutral attacks that aren't affiliated with any of the three major races, so be sure to still keep those defenses up.
And I think that just about covers it. I hope all that info sounds interesting!
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In other news, its just more and more scenario work over here. Except for a few outliers, all the guest and contest designs have been implemented for play testing, so that is significant progress.
It has been a busy week, and I have to get back to the grind (after I grab some dinner), so I will talk to you again next week.
And remember to VOTE!
