Dark Souls™ - The Board Game

Four Kings and Darkroot Update
over 7 years ago – Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 11:34:17 PM

Hi Unkindled,

We’ve got another Mega Boss preview for you in today’s update as well as some information on the Darkroot Expansion. Monday’s update included some information on how we approached Mega Boss expansions, so we’ll open today with a brief overview of how we approached exploration expansions like the Darkroot Expansion.

In contrast to the Mega Boss expansions that introduce a separate phase to Dark Souls™: The Board Game, exploration expansions provide a wealth of new content leading up to those final showdowns. Each exploration expansion includes new enemy models, new encounter cards that put players in conflict with those enemies, new treasure cards, and one or more new bosses with their own behaviour cards, health dials, and loot drop treasure cards. The focus during development of an exploration encounter is not on a single standout experience but rather on how to seamlessly incorporate compelling new content into the broader experience of playing Dark Souls: The Board Game.

This has some obvious implications such as balancing the enemies and encounters against those in the core game, but it also has some less obvious implications. Adding a few new treasure cards, for example, might seem like a simple matter, but there are nuances to consider. Each exploration expansion’s additional treasure cards must have a comparable mix of card types relative to the core game. Additionally, we needed to adjust how the initial treasure deck is built in a way that would have minimal impact on the game’s setup time.

We’re very happy with how we’ve gotten all of the parts of the Exploration expansions to flow smoothly into the core game experience and are excited to see how players mix and match these expansions with the core game in order to tailor their own favourite Dark Souls: The Board Game experiences.
_____

The Four Kings encounter is one of the more distinct Mega Boss encounters since the party will eventually be facing multiple boss models at once. As in Dark Souls, the battle begins with just a single enemy combatant, but that quickly escalates. Each time one of the first two kings reaches the Heat Up point or is destroyed, the next king model is added to the battle until all four of them have entered the fight.

We kept the behaviour decks for each of the four kings very similar (just as these enemies have the same move set in Dark Souls), but we also added some subtle differences to keep things interesting. The third king, for example, has a little bit of added mobility whilst the fourth king has fewer weak arcs than his brethren. Let’s take a look at these royal pains.

_____

The most visually impressive aspect of the Darkroot Expansion is certainly the boss models. Sif and Artorias are both classified as Main Boss models, so players can choose to fight one of these new foes instead of facing the Dancer or Ornstein & Smough. Though we didn’t colour outside the lines as much with Main Boss fights as we did with Mega Bosses, we still made every effort to ensure they evoked the Dark Souls battles that inspired them. Sif, for example, is the only boss to have a “Cool Down” at the very end of the battle in addition to her “Heat Up” about midway through the fight, and Artorias has an aerial onslaught players won’t likely forget.

Let’s take a closer look at Sif, the Great Grey Wolf.

The other enemies in the Darkroot Expansion add their own new twists to encounters as well. From the inexorable advance of the sturdy Stone Knight to the manic charge attacks of the Scarecrows, Darkroot provides some great diversity to these battles and requires players to figure out new strategies for countering these foes.

Darkroot’s new treasure cards provide yet another new element for players to enjoy. A couple of our personal favourites are the Mannikin Claws with their double strike attack style and the Golden Ritual Spear with its innate long range Soul Arrow attack.
_____

So that’s The Four Kings and the Darkroot Expansion. We certainly hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look at these Add-Ons that can be found in your Backer Kit pledge manager. When next we meet, we’ll take a look at Kalameet, Vordt, and the Old Iron King.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

Gaping Dragon, Guardian Dragon and Asylum Demon Update
over 7 years ago – Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 10:36:36 PM

 Hi Unkindled,

Bit of admin to start. Apologies for the email that makes no sense to a good portion of you, it was intended to go out to those that have sent in messages to the Kickstarter messages rather than the support email given in the updates to try and reduce the amount of juggling the support team need to do across the two... But the system seems to have sent it out to literally everyone. Please disregard it unless you have a genuine query.
_____

Today’s update features plenty of new renders of the Gaping Dragon and Guardian Dragon along with gameplay overviews of these two Mega Bosses, as well as a gameplay overview of the Asylum Demon Mega Boss. We know you’re scrolling down to the delicious new renders rather than reading this sentence, but that’s okay. We’ll wait... ;-)

...Welcome back!

The Mega Boss encounters from Dark Souls™: The Board Game are meant to reflect some of the most dangerous, memorable, and iconic battles from the Dark Souls™ video game franchise. When developing these particular encounters, we focused on bringing unique elements of each fight to life on the table top. This starts with unique tiles for each Mega Boss encounter and flows through to custom game mechanics that lend them the true flair and flavour of each Mega Boss. Each one could be described as its own game-within-a-game, and we’ve crafted each Mega Boss expansion to break the rules of our own game a bit to bring you these unique and memorable battles.
_____

Let’s start by taking a look at the Guardian Dragon. The first few turns of the Guardian Dragon battle in Dark Souls™: The Board Game feel fairly similar to other boss encounters. He breathes flame in different patterns, sweeps his tail at Characters who thought they were safe, and stomps down on players with his massive talons, but the Guardian Dragon’s Heat Up point occurs fairly early in the fight, and that’s when the true challenge begins.

Anyone who’s battled the Guardian Dragon in Dark Souls™ II remembers a key, recurring element of the fight – he flies out of reach, grasps onto the edge of his draconic cage, and bathes large portions of the battlefield in flame. This key element (and figuring out how to defeat the Guardian Dragon in spite of it) forms the core essence of this now memorable boss battle. And just look how well his model turned out!

_____

The Asylum Demon is an interesting Mega Boss. It’s huge, intimidating, and for many players, it was their first trial-by-fire introduction to the world of Dark Souls™ in the opening moments of Dark Souls™ I. To many veteran players, though, the Asylum Demon is not the thing of nightmares but rather a fond memory of wistful nostalgia.

For that reason, this Mega Boss has two separate game modes. You can fight against the Asylum Demon in a final, epic battle as a Mega Boss, but you can also choose to fight against him as a Mini Boss. Naturally, these two fights have drastically different difficulties, but it also lends the Asylum Demon an extra layer of versatility, giving your gaming group a new Mini Boss encounter as well as a new Mega Boss encounter.

He’s also got a “Wind-Up” mechanic for some of his boss behaviours wherein easy-to-dodge early behaviours are all replaced by brutal Heat Up cards after the Asylum Demon heats up. And on top of

that, his attacks have the potential to shatter nearby columns, showering adjacent Characters with shards of marble and inflicting additional damage!

_____

Last but by no means least, let’s take a look at the terrifying tooth-festooned Gaping Dragon. Few Dark Souls™ gamers will ever forget this monstrosity’s terrifying leaps, massive tail sweeps, or its maw-first eviscerating charges. This Mega Boss’s behaviour deck is packed with some of the highest-damage attacks in all of Dark Souls™: The Board Game, and players will need to work together with all their collective cunning to defeat this foe.

A key element of the board game adaptation of the Gaping Dragon is its Slithering Charge behaviour. Rather than simply being a card within the behaviour deck, this unique behaviour card is kept off to the side but can be triggered by multiple other behaviour cards. This maintains the constant fear of the otherwise-ponderous beast rapidly dashing forward to chomp through characters leaving nothing but ground meat in their place.

 _____

We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the first few Mega Bosses! We’ll be back in just a few short days to showcase the Four Kings Mega Boss expansion as well as Sif and Artorias from the Darkroot expansion. See you then!

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

Exploration Update
over 7 years ago – Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 10:01:31 PM

 Hi Unkindled,

The core of any good dungeon crawl board game is exploration. In Dark Souls: The Board Game, players explore tiles, battle enemies, collect loot, and level up their characters in order to fight increasingly difficult Encounters that culminate in an epic showdown with one of the infamous boss battles of the Dark Souls series. As you may remember, we released an article regarding Exploration while the campaign was running, but a lot has changed since then based on backer feedback, playtesting, and more playtesting. We’ll start with a list of what has changed, then dig into each change in greater detail.

So, the changes:
Encounter Deck Overhaul
The Fog Gate
The Number of Tiles Used During Exploration
Sparks
Player Death
Acquiring Souls
The Bonfire Tile and Spending Souls
Treasure

The Encounter Deck
As we were refining the core rules for the game, we found some rules that simply didn’t feel necessary; using an ‘Encounter Deck’ to explore tiles was one of these changes. Encounter cards are still a key element of the game, but they function in a much more fluid manner now. Previously, Encounter cards were added to a single deck and then drawn as players entered the tile. During playtesting, this immediately caused issues, such as facing difficult Encounters the first time players left the Bonfire tile or being unable to progress.

So what did we change? Encounter cards are now separated into 3 different Encounter Decks, which are sorted by level. So, all level 1 cards in one deck, all level 2 in another, and finally level 3 Encounters in another. These decks are to be placed face down. Boss cards have also been updated and now include information as to which level of Encounters are required to unlock a Boss fight. For example, the lower portion of the Gargoyle’s card shows that 3x level 1 Encounters and 1x level 2 Encounter lead up to this particular Boss fight. These Encounter cards are drawn from the respective decks and placed on the tiles with the difficulty increasing as players roam farther from the bonfire. This gives players a chance to gauge the difficulty of upcoming Encounters, so they can agonize over the decision of when to commit to the next battle and when to rest at the bonfire. Finally, the Fog Gate token is placed on the tile farthest from the Bonfire tile.

The Fog Gate
Once we’d added the possibility to lose the game (discussed later), we wanted to avoid putting players in a position where they could lose because of an unlucky Encounter Deck draw into a Boss. And the concept of the Fog Gate (another backer suggestion) introduced a great solution.

To face the Boss, you simply walk through the Fog Gate to the Boss room. And by placing the Fog Gate at the edge of the tile that’s farthest away from the Bonfire tile, you can explore and choose when to take on the Boss. So instead of randomly stumbling upon a Boss, you now get to plan ahead and choose when to take it on.

Number of Tiles Used
You may notice that only 4 Encounters were listed in our Gargoyle example, which is another change from what was initially announced. This is a result of our change to tile numbers! In our earliest playtesting, we started with 6 tiles for exploration, and then tried using 5, 4, and 3. As we playtested, we wanted to make sure fighting through Encounters didn’t bog down gameplay, especially when you have to fight back through an Encounter after a defeat. We needed to make sure this balance would be challenging yet fun. In the end, 4 Exploration tiles struck the right balance between exploration and advancement and were unique enough to stand apart from the set-piece Boss Encounters. Another small tile tweak is that you place the tiles when you set up the game rather than placing them as you play through. We recognized the building-as-you-go approach didn’t add to the Dark Souls experience, so we removed it. This was a huge focus of our playtesting; rules and mechanics needed to bring the Dark Souls video game experience to the board. Any that didn’t pull their weight simply had to go.

Sparks
Much like the Fog Gate, ‘Sparks’ were a Backer-suggested mechanic. And in early playtesting, we felt that something was missing: Tension! While losing is just getting too frustrated to continue in the world of Dark Souls, we knew we needed a mechanic to emphasize the importance of player decisions. A case of infinitely trying until you get bored or win just wouldn't cut it. So now when you run out of Sparks, there’s no more safety net. If a character dies at that point, you lose the game. Hello, tension!

In the simplest terms, Sparks function as your party’s lives. They can be used in two ways: either to allow the party to respawn after being defeated or to let the party rest at the bonfire. In either case, after using a Spark, the party gets to refill Estus flasks, regain Heroic Abilities, regain Luck (we’ll cover Luck later), and reset all Encounters.

The amount of Sparks a party has is determined by the number of players, and there is a nice, easy-to-follow table in the rulebook that tells you how many your party starts with. The general rule of thumb is the more players you have, the fewer Sparks you get.

Sparks are replenished upon killing Bosses, and when you down one of these big nasties with Sparks remaining, additional Souls are generated! Each remaining Spark earns the party 1 Soul per player. For example, a party of 3 players that kills a Boss with 2 Sparks remaining would gain 6 Souls in addition to the Boss-specific treasure that it drops.

Player Death
If any member of a party dies, the ENTIRE party is transported back to the Bonfire to rest, and a Spark is consumed. You still refill and regain everything and all Encounters reset.

When a Player Character dies and you’re forced to rest at the Bonfire, all Soul tokens in the Soul Cache are placed on the Node that the fallen Player Character was standing on. These Souls are retrieved when a Player Character moves onto the Node with the Souls. But if you or anyone in your party dies before these Souls have been retrieved, the Souls are discarded.

Acquiring Souls
Every time you defeat an Encounter, you gain 2 Souls per Player Character. In the video game, these numbers tend to go into the hundreds and thousands, but within a board game, those numbers just aren’t practical. These Souls can be spent in a few different ways, as explained below.

The Bonfire Tile
We needed another method for Characters to improve themselves by levelling up and acquiring gear that wasn’t attached directly to the Bonfire, and the additions of Blacksmith Andre and the Firekeeper let us do precisely that.

The Firekeeper is how you level up. Base Stats to Tier 1 costs 2 Souls, Tier 1 to Tier 2 costs 4 Souls… And you guessed it: Tier 2 to Tier 3 costs 8 Souls! Each stat is levelled up independently of each other, which means you could max out Strength for 14 Souls and leave your other stats at Base level. Generally, the stats you choose to level up will change from game to game. These decisions will typically depend on the treasure you’ve obtained, as different treasure will require different amounts of levelling up according to your class.

  You can also buy ‘Luck’ at the Firekeeper. Luck is a newer mechanic. Each Player gets one Luck token, which can be used to reroll ONE die. Luck can be regained by resting at the Bonfire or it can be purchased from the Firekeeper for 1 Soul in between Encounters. You can only ever have one Luck token so you can’t spend Souls for more than one of them.

Blacksmith Andre is your primary source of loot and equipment upgrades. Rather than Grunts dropping treasure, they drop Souls. These Souls can be used to buy ‘treasure flips’ from Andre, which cost 1 Soul per flip. Andre is also where you change your gear loadout and apply upgrades to equipment.

Treasure
Treasure is gained via ‘treasure flips’ for the most part. Treasure flips come from the treasure deck. This deck is initially formed during set up and consists of 60 ‘Common treasure cards’ ranging from various weapons, armours, spells, and upgrades.

Before you start playing a game, 5 class-specific starting treasure cards are added to this deck for each Character in your party. So, the treasure deck can range from 65 to 80 cards depending on the size of your party. The class-specific treasures focus on the unique flavour of each class. For example, the Knight has a class-specific treasure that will make him a tank that replies on Blocking, rather than Dodging. These class-specific treasure cards can be equipped by anyone, however. So, if you want to be a Block-based Assassin, you 100% can live that dream. It’ll just require taking a different level-up path than what you might usually expect from an Assassin, leaning more towards Strength rather than Dexterity. This is generally how treasure is handled throughout the game; however, some enemies do drop specific treasure, like Bosses. Each Boss in the game has between 2 and 4 unique Boss treasures that can only be obtained by killing a Boss. And after killing a Boss, 5 additional ‘Transposed Class Treasure Cards’ are added to the treasure deck. These generally represent more powerful equipment than what’s seen in the starting treasure cards.

_____

That’s a ‘brief’ rundown of the Exploration basics for Dark Souls: The Board Game! We’ll be streaming a staff play through of the game from Exploration to fighting the Titanite Demon Mini Boss on November 25th at 6PM (GMT) via https://www.twitch.tv/steamforged.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

Gameplay Update Schedule
over 7 years ago – Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 10:09:51 PM

 Hi Unkindled,

Below is a schedule for upcoming gameplay related updates. Once posted, Alex will be around in the comments for a few hours answering questions.

Friday 11/11 - 7PM (GMT) - Exploration Update
Monday 14/11 - 7PM (GMT) - Gaping Dragon, Guardian Dragon and Asylum Demon Update
Wednesday 16/11 - 7PM (GMT) - Four Kings and Darkroot Basin Update
Friday 18/11 - 1PM (GMT) - Kalameet, Old Iron King and Vordt Update
Monday 21/11 - 7PM (GMT) - Campaign Play Update
Wednesday 23/11 - 7PM (GMT) - Traps Update

The Exploration update will feature information concerning the exploration sections of the game from setup, how the Fog Gate functions, Sparks, Player Death, acquiring Souls, how you spend Souls at the Bonfire Tile and the treasure you can spend them on.

Each of next week’s updates will feature an explanation of the individual mechanics and show detailed renders of the front, rear and side of the Mega Bosses. Two of the Mega Boss models (Vordt and the Asylum Demon) are yet to be approved, so won’t feature renders. These renders will be put out once they have been approved.

The Campaign Play Update will cover the variation in rules between a Campaign and non-Campaign run as well as feature an example of a Campaign scenario and how a scenario can change depending on the components you have access to.

The Trap Update will quite simply cover the mechanics around Traps and how they have changed following feedback from the initial post regarding them.

Here are a few Mini Boss renders to keep you going until then!

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

BackerKit Surveys All Sent! FAQ's Answered
over 7 years ago – Wed, Nov 09, 2016 at 10:45:35 PM

Hello unkindled!

All BackerKit Pledge Manager surveys have now been sent out. 

If you do not receive your BackerKit invite within the next 24 hours, please input your email on the following form:

http://darksouls.backerkit.com/

If you are still having issues with BackerKit, please contact them via:

http://darksouls.backerkit.com/faq#contact-us

Over 50% of Backers have already completed their surveys which is quite incredible given they have only just been sent out - thank you again for your support in getting this done.

As expected, we have received lots of questions regarding the BackerKit, Shipping, Etc. so we have collated the common questions into an FAQ:

Does the shipping price cover both Wave 1 & 2 deliveries?

Yes!

You will not be charged again in October for the Wave 2 shipment.

Do I pay extra shipping for Add-On Models?

No!

Any Add-On Models (such as Mega Bosses) will be shipped combined with the Wave 2 shipment but do not increase the cost of shipping further.

How does shipping work?

We have teamed up with multiple different shipping partners around the world to allow for the successful delivery of this product. Depending on your territory Steamforged Games will ensure to get the product(s) to your hub (please see the main Kickstarter page for a list of hubs) and incur all costs associated with that from our manufacturing facilities. 

What this means in real terms is for example US backers will not have to pay import duties as the product will be shipped domestically in the country.

Once at the hub(s) products are then:

• taken from their arrival pallets and sorted
• stored if needed depending on arrival of other product(s)
• pick/packed
• placed into appropriate shipping boxes
• have the shipping details (address, etc.) attached
• delivery then confirmed and tracking numbers issued
• data fed into BackerKit
• customer informed via BackerKit of shipping details
• delivered to the customer

As you can appreciate, this is quite a large procedure when dealing with the number of backers we have globally. 

My shipping address will change between shipment of Wave 1 and 2 - what should I do about delivery?  

BackerKit will have implemented split ship options by March to allow you to update your shipping address in between shipments. All Backers will be notified of this, once this system is in place. However, to safeguard against any issues that may arise please email us at [email protected] with address change details (if you have them) so we can keep a record and manually change them after Wave 1 if needed.

How do I select Add-Ons?

Once you are logged into the BackerKit and have chosen your language version of the game, you should be presented with the following screen:

If you click 'View' under any Add-On it will present you with the options to add that product to the basket - for example in the image below we clicked the 'Mega Boss Expansions' view button:

From this page, you can then 'Add to Cart' any products you want. Some Add-On's have multiple options for you to choose from - like in the case above for the Mega Bosses. In this instance, you simply click the drop down bar and choose which Add-On you want, then press the 'Add to Cart'.

Once you have done this, when you return to the previous screen you will see on the right that the Add-On appears listed. In the case above, we added 'Black Dragon Kalameet'. Once you have finished selecting your Add-On's you can proceed to the next stages that confirm your shipping details and payment information.

Can I pay by PayPal?  

Yes you can, we’ve added this function into BackerKit. Please be aware payment will be taken immediately if you pay using PayPal.

When will I be charged?  

If paying by Credit/Debit Card You will be charged when the BackerKit closes, current date for this is the 7th of December. However, if you pay by PayPal payment will be taken immediately.

How does the voucher work? 

The voucher may be used against any future Dark Souls products purchased via the steamforged.com webstore. The voucher will be emailed out once Wave 2 ships. Our webstore (in 2017) will ship domestically from the US and the UK/EU. The voucher will be valid until December 31st 2018.

I haven't received a link to the pledge manager?  

If you do not receive your BackerKit invite within the next 24 hours, please input your email on the following form: http://darksouls.backerkit.com/

I can't answer the questions on the survey - it's already locked in. Help!  

Please contact BackerKit directly (http://darksouls.backerkit.com/faq#contact-us), they’ll help sort it all for you! Please be aware that BackerKit are a US company so will operate during US office hours.

When are Retail Backers being contacted?  

Retailers will be contacted soon now all non-retailer Backers have had their surveys. At this time, an email will be sent to clarify any queries we have had and explain about the process. Thank you for you patience regarding this.

Hopefully these FAQs will help answer some of the common questions we are getting.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/