BackerKit Christmas Extension Update + Production Model Photographs + FAQ
almost 8 years ago – Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 11:20:00 PM

Hey unkindled,

A lot of you have been asking for the BackerKit Update due to it ending today - well, here it is!

BackerKit Christmas Extension

We have less than 10% of backers left to complete now on the Pledge Manager (BackerKit) which is amazing - thank you so much to all who have helped us at this stage. 

We have had quite a large amount of requests to extend the time for the Pledge Manager to be complete due to funds over the Christmas period....well we have listened, talked to our manufacturing partners and have managed to push the deadline to the 6th January 2017.

Hopefully this will give people a little more time to really get what items they want at the pretty amazing prices the Add-Ons are currently at for Kickstarter/Late Pledge Backers. 

If you have chosen to pay by card (not PayPal) it will not be charged now until the 6th January 2017 so feel free to log back in and amend your order if you want.

Production Models Photograph's

We got a pretty special box arrive at Steamforged HQ recently. It contained a set of production models that are exactly of the quality you will receive within the core set. Want a look?

We have been blown away by the quality our manufacturing partners have produced and we are pretty confident that these models will be some of the highest quality board game miniatures on the market next year.

We understand the Kickstarter process can feel long, tiresome and even difficult at times - but hopefully these images will re-ignite peoples anticipation for the core game that is now just over 3 months away from shipping! 

Frequently Asked Questions & Retailer BackerKit Update

We understandably get a lot of questions in regarding this project and we will always try to be as transparent as possible in answering them:

Retailer BackerKit - Where is it & When does it Launch?

We originally had the Retailer BackerKit launching today (7th December 2016) however we have listened to feedback and decided to change this. Due to the holiday period being massively busy for retailers we will launch the Retailer BackerKit on the 15th December 2016 and extend it into January.

I haven't yet filled my Pledge Manager (BackerKit) in - Have I still got time?

Yes! We have just extended the period until the 6th January 2017. 

What happens if I have not filled in my Pledge Manager (BackerKit) in by the 6th January 2017?

For backers who have not yet completed their Pledge Manager (less than 10% now) by the 6th January 2017 we will follow the procedure outlined on the Kickstarter page: "Any pledges confirmed after our pledge manager deadline window will be shipped from the UK hub at a later date" 

This would mean that you are unlikely to receive the product at the same time as people who have met the deadline.

Where is the video of the Livestream Playthrough you did recently?

We have had a good look at the livestream playthrough we did at SteamCon and have made the decision not to publish/conclude approval on this video. The reason behind this is quite simple - the stream quality is just not good enough. 

It is quite hard to make out card details and a lot of the quality of the models/assets we have created for this game are not highlighted. For us at Steamforged Games this boardgame really highlights our commitment to quality and it would not be right to have someones first impression of this product be a low quality stream recording of a final prototype version.

We understand that some of you will be upset by this news if you missed the livestream and for that we can only apologise. We will however be producing a fully edited HD video for the new year with all the final assets (like the models above). This is unlikely to be released before the end of the Pledge Manager.

When are the rest of the 3D model images being released?

As with any licensed product we need to respect the approval process of assets and as you can see from the photographs above Bandai Namco expect nothing but excellence from us. 

Although this does mean that at times you will have to wait for us to release new 3D model images, you can be sure that once they are approved they will hold up to the high standards the Dark Souls fan base expect.

As soon as we can share more 3D model images we will.

Thank you once again to everyone for supporting this project and making it a reality.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

Dark Souls: The Board Game Play Through Live on Twitch at 18:00GMT
almost 8 years ago – Fri, Nov 25, 2016 at 11:41:16 PM

Hello Unkindled,

We'll be going live tonight at 18:00GMT via Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/steamforged

We hope to see you in the comments section over there.

See you soon!

\[T]/

Traps Update
almost 8 years ago – Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 10:09:54 PM

 Hi Unkindled,

It’s a trap!

As many of our updates have shown, Dark Souls™: The Board Game has had a truly dynamic development process. Today, we’re going to look at the evolution of the element that saw the greatest range of change: traps! Traps were first introduced to the game as a stretch goal of 5 trap cards, which were quickly unlocked during the first week of the Kickstarter campaign. From then to now, we have thoroughly explored other possibilities like trap nodes and trap dice. But in the end, we found in the answer with the help of our backers. The trap token mechanic that many of you, the Backers, suggested was the foundation of the 20 trap tokens you’ll see in the final game.

So why did this mechanic have such an extensive development journey? Because traps faced a tall order. They not only had to work with other core mechanics we had developed, such as encounters and movement, but they also needed to deliver on theme. That meant contributing to the exploration experience while adding strategic depth—this is Dark Souls: The Board Game, after all.

Those earlier forms (cards, dice, and nodes) only introduced more problems. Some were too random. Others were too time-consuming. And then some didn’t mesh with the rest of the game mechanics. Trap tokens, however, delivered on all accounts. Let’s look at how they work to see exactly how they pull it off.

When an encounter is trapped, players will place random trap tokens face down on any nodes that are not spawn nodes, terrain nodes, or nodes adjacent to the doorways (known as entry nodes) during encounter setup. The first time a character moves onto one of these nodes, the trap token is flipped over. This is how players trigger traps. Note: Once flipped, the trap will not trigger again during the encounter. (And before the question gets asked, enemies do not trigger traps. We tried it and it was just too easy to abuse. It made traps something you were glad to see in an encounter rather than something you feared… which was obviously not their intent!)

11 of the 20 trap tokens have no effect, so there’s a slightly-better-than-50/50 chance that a trap token is perfectly safe… but… if it’s one of the other 9 trap tokens, the character will need to dodge the trap or suffer its damage (which ranges from 1 point of damage up to 3). This adds an additional layer of strategy to even a fairly straight forward encounter. Should the nimble Assassin dash through the trap nodes and attempt to dodge the consequences? Or should the party set up a defensive formation and force the enemies to come to them?

Win or lose, at the end of the encounter, the trap tokens are turned face down. After the party rests at the Bonfire, the players will want to remember as many of the trap tokens as they can for the next time they face that encounter. We wanted Dark Souls™: The Board Game to be a game where knowledge matters, and this trap mechanic does precisely that. Remembering a boss’s behaviour cards or the location of a deadly trap can spell the difference between victory and defeat.

Ultimately, this trap mechanic let us deliver on that tall order. They add another layer to consider while moving around the tiles, they promote the same ‘learn-as-you-go’ element that can be found throughout the game, and they provide another layer of strategy to your groups composition. Sure, you could just ignore the trap tokens entirely and avoid stepping on them… but what happens when a Grunt is standing on a trap token and the player activating has a Range 0 weapon, forcing them to stand on the same node as the shambling corpse to attack? Do you bite the bullet and gather that information for your party while hopefully taking down a Hollow in the process? Or do you hold off and take the brunt of the hit from the pursing undead because you have no dodge die to avoid what could be a gigantic swooping Pendulum blade?

This is the last update before SteamCon so we’ll take this opportunity to give you one last reminder about the staff playthrough of Dark Souls: The Board Game that is scheduled for the event. This playthrough will be livestreamed via Twitch on Friday the 25th of November at 6PM (GMT), so be sure to check it out if you can! Here’s the link: https://www.twitch.tv/steamforged.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

Campaign Play Update
almost 8 years ago – Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 10:19:46 PM

 Hi Unkindled,

As promised last week, our topic today is the campaign mode for Dark Souls™: The Board Game. When creating the campaign mode, we needed to make a system that was accessible regardless of which game components players own. It also needed to expand the game to an extended gameplay experience while still using the core game engine and the game’s components.

Setup
The campaign system uses discrete campaign progressions that are broken down into campaign scenarios. The first two campaigns, The First Journey and The Coiled Sword, are found in the core game, and plenty of additional campaigns are found throughout the game’s expansions. Each campaign consists of multiple scenarios that take the party from a bonfire through exploration to the scenario’s boss battle. In some cases, it may go from a Bonfire through 3 Exploration tiles, then through to a boss. For others, it may be Bonfire, 5 Exploration tiles and then a boss. This varies depending on the distances between the encounters within the video games.

The campaign sessions straight out of the core game box will take just a few game sessions to complete, but epic campaigns incorporating numerous expansions could become an ongoing game event that spans months. We’ll include campaign options within each expansion, but the possibilities are limited only by your gaming group’s imagination.

Sparks
One of the biggest differences between a standard game and a campaign game is the way Spark tokens work. Sparks do not fully replenish each time the party defeats a boss as they usually do. Instead, players can purchase additional Spark tokens from the Firekeeper. This moves campaign gameplay closer to the video game experience rather than a traditional board game experience. If you’re willing to grind through Hollows for long enough, you will eventually gain enough souls and sparks to overcome any challenge.

Progressing Through the Campaign
Rather than the game ending as soon as a main boss has been defeated as it works in a standard play through, scenarios continue through until all bosses in your chosen scenario have been defeated… Or until your party is defeated. (After all, no one’s forcing you to buy more sparks. Perhaps your group would prefer to push your luck instead!)

The length of these scenarios varies depending on the game components you have. Some are just 3 bosses long, while others can be 10+ bosses long with various Invader encounters along the way.

The Bonfire Tile
The cost of character progression in the campaign mode has been increased across the board to account for the extended game progression. Purchasing treasure from Blacksmith Andre and levelling up character stats costs more souls than it did before. Due to the increase in cost we’ve also added the ability to sell unwanted treasure back to Andre; however, once sold, equipment is discarded entirely and won’t be useable for the remainder of the scenario.

We’ve also added access to a ‘Tier 4’ stat upgrade for all characters. It costs a hefty 20 Souls to upgrade from Tier 3 to Tier 4, but it allows any character to equip any item in the game. So if you want the Fume Ultra Greatsword on an Assassin, you can make that happen in a campaign play through.

Dashing Through
We know being able to skip through encounters is something that’s been spoken about a lot throughout the Kickstarter campaign, and it was a perfect fit for campaign play. For campaign play, we’ve added the possibility for players to “dash through” encounters they have previously defeated. This addition means players wanting to ‘skip’ encounters they don’t feel prepared to fight (or feel no longer pose a worthy challenge!), they can… But they will gain no Soul tokens for doing so.

Example
So that’s the main mechanical differences—now for an example! Let’s look at the Dark Souls 3 content because it gives a good demonstration of the modular system.

So this is the Dark Souls 3 scenario that will come in the Core game:

Dark Souls 3: The Coiled Sword
High Wall of Lothric - Bonfire Tile
Level 1 Encounter
Level 1 Encounter
Level 1 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Winged Knight Mini-Boss
Undead Settlement - Bonfire Tile
Level 1 Encounter
Level 1 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Level 3 Encounter
Boreal Outrider Knight Mini-Boss
Tower on the Wall - Bonfire Tile
Level 2 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Level 3 Encounter
Level 3 Encounter
Level 3 Encounter
The Dancer Main Boss

If you were to also own the Vordt Mega Boss expansion, it would look more along the lines of this:

Dark Souls 3: The Guard Dog
High Wall of Lothric - Bonfire Tile
Level 1 Encounter
Level 1 Encounter
Level 1 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Winged Knight Mini-Boss
Tower on the Wall -Bonfire Tile
Level 1 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Level 2 Encounter
Vordt of the Boreal Valley Mega Boss
Undead Settlement - Bonfire Tile
Level 2 Encounter
Level 3 Encounter
Boreal Outrider Knight Mini-Boss
Vordt of the Boreal Valley - Bonfire Tile
Level 2 Encounter
Level 3 Encounter
Level 3 Encounter
The Dancer Main Boss

This is all the Dark Souls 3 content available within the Kickstarter campaign, but if we release more Dark Souls 3 content post Kickstarter, you can be sure that we’ll make campaign scenarios that include it!

Using this modular style of scenario generation, players have control over the length of their campaigns. That means you can tailor your campaigns to meet your gaming needs, controlling their length and picking the models you want to use. Most of the campaigns you’ll find in official Dark Souls™: The Board Game products will mirror the video games that inspired them, but you’re more than welcome to come up with your own ideas for unique campaign runs.

Consider the possibility of an Invader Gauntlet campaign through progressively more difficult encounters, populated by progressively difficult Invaders! Or consider an epic campaign that culminates in battles against two bosses at once when all other challenges lay defeated behind you!

We’re excited about the possibilities that abound within Dark Souls™: The Board Game, and we hope that you are, too.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

Kalameet, Old Iron King and Vordt Update
about 8 years ago – Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 10:43:52 PM

Hi Unkindled,

Today’s update will cover the Mega Boss expansions of Kalameet, Vordt, and the Old Iron King. But before jumping into each Mega Boss, we’d like to first explain some ideas and changes that came up during Dark Souls™: The Board Game development, focusing on bosses’ special abilities.

Those who have seen early videos of the Dancer encounter might not remember a special ability field on the Dancer’s boss stat card. Well, that’s because there wasn’t one! In fact, we began developing several different bosses before we decided to give each boss its own special ability. Some of these abilities have a much greater impact on the way the encounter plays out than others, but they all serve the same purpose – adding a bit of unique flavour to that particular boss encounter.

In cases like the Four Kings, the boss special ability field on their stat cards is what allows the entire encounter to function as intended, with new kings showing up repeatedly to ruin the characters’ day. In other cases, the ability is a bit more subtle, such as changing how the players modify the boss’s behaviour deck after the heat up point or even something as simple as immunity to the Frostbite and Stagger conditions.

As you start playing through the various bosses of Dark Souls: The Board Game, you’ll find these little differences on their cards make a big difference in the feel and flavour of their encounters. Each one should evoke the unique boss fight we all loved from the video game and give it new life on the tabletop.
_____

Black Dragon Kalameet is a visually imposing miniature, and we’re thrilled with how its miniature has turned out (“miniature” being a rather relative term when it comes to Kalameet who looks quite massive even on his 150mm base). In Dark Souls, players cannot even fight Kalameet until Hawkeye Gough injures the dragon with a massive arrow from his greatbow. Those who enter Kalameet’s canyon prior to this attack find themselves bathed in flame from the mighty beast.

Though it required us to take a bit of artistic license, we really wanted to capture that canyon-bathed-in-flame element of the Black Dragon Kalameet battle. So Kalameet’s behaviour deck can trigger him leaving the boss tile entirely, damaging any character standing on a huge swath of nodes, and then returning to a specified node on the tile to continue combat.

Another memorable element of the showdown with Kalameet is the brutality of his Calamity condition. When afflicted by this condition (which is unique to this mega boss battle), characters become vastly more vulnerable to harm. They’ll need to work together to protect marked members of the party and endeavour to bring down the black dragon before they fall to his vicious onslaught.

 _____

The battle with Vordt of the Boreal Valley is marked by an agility that belies his size. With massive, room-clearing charges, standing back a few paces from Vordt is hardly cause to feel safe, and his Dark Souls: The Board Game encounter is no different. Vordt has quite a few behaviour cards that take him across multiple nodes of the battlefield quickly. He’s far more difficult to corner than some of the other bosses you’ll face in the board game.

Additionally, Vordt’s battle is distinguished by the pairing of the frostbite and stagger conditions. Either one on its own poses a hindrance to how quickly characters can act and react, but both at once can truly hamstring a character’s efforts in battle. Combine these powerful debuffs with Vordt’s own innate speed, and players will need to puzzle out how to defeat a foe who can drastically outmanoeuvre them.
_____

Each Mega Boss expansion comes with its own tiles as well as the miniature, cards, health dial, etc. that players will need for the encounter. And we took full advantage of the Old Iron King’s unique tile sets. Because he doesn’t translate directly to a traditional dungeon crawl battle, his tiles are extra unique with just a few lava-bound nodes from which he assaults the party with fists and flame.

When the Old Iron King moves to a new node, he triggers a special “emerge” move on the next behaviour card drawn. Depending on the order of his behaviour cards, the Old Iron King could spend a whole turn simply moving to a new node, but this is where things get exciting and brutal. This would guarantee his next behaviour would include an emergent fiery assault that’s immediately followed by the card’s own attack or a move to a new node, setting up another emerge behaviour on the following turn!

_____

We’ve now taken a quick look at each of the 8 Add-On expansions in the Pledge Manager, but that’s by no means all the Dark Souls™: The Board Game information we have for you! In the following weeks, we’ll dig deeper into various mechanics of the game and our development journey.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/