Dark Souls at Salute

Last weekend I attended Salute 2016 with Marquee Models, as part of their boardgames demo team. I helped demo Zombicide Black Plague all day, but I did manage to sneak away from the table to make a few small purchases and try out Dark Souls.

The boardgame has been created by Steamforged Games Ltd, who have been working with Bandai Namco Entertainment to emulate the experience of the popular video game. I have not played the video game before, I am more of a Cake Mania or Katamari kind of a girl. The people around me playing the demo had played before, though, and they agreed that the boardgame captured the essence of the video game well, especially in the form of combat and the brutally hard nature of the game.

We played a quick demo of the game, jumping in at the deep end and confronting an end of level boss character; the dancer. It is a cooperative game (which is good as you need the back-up!) where you embark upon a perilous a dungeon exploration. Players take it in turn to move and attack. Each action you make depletes your stamina, which is shown on a nifty character card. You use a dry wipe pen to mark off the actions taken and to mark off your health when you are attacked. The stamina is on the left side of the card, and the health is on the right, but if they are all crossed off then you die! Luckily you can replenish health by drinking from your limited Estus Flask or replenish stamina by resting, so timing is a key element for survival.

The boss character we fought was controlled by a small deck of cards, all showing the boss's attack, movement, damage and where she will be vulnerable to attacks. These cards are reset once used up, and recycled, remaining in the same sequence so it is easier to predict the boss's actions. When the health was down to halfway on the boss things got crazy, an extra powerful card was added to the deck and it was shuffled to mess things up! I died fairly soon after that, and had to run back to my demo table before they sent out a search party. 

The kickstarter campaign for Dark Souls is launching today, you can check it out here.

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

Massive Darkness

Good news for folks who enjoy a good old dungeon crawl; there has been a new Kickstarter announced, coming out next year from the team that brought us Zombicide!  

The game, Massive Darkness, will encompass the experiences of a dungeon crawl RPG and include beautifully sculpted miniatures, like the ones created for the Zombicide games. 

In the tradition of a true RPG campaign, there will be an array of heroes to choose from, a class to decide upon and skills or traits to spend XP on. Then your heroes will be unleashed in the dark foreboding dungeon, to seek out their fortune and kill the monsters that lurk inside.

Massive Darkness uses the Zombicide system of gameplay, giving your designated DM or game master the chance to become a player rather than controlling the enemies and making the decisions. I doubt the game will be as sympathetic as my DM when I make bad choices, perhaps this is my time to stop with the bad decisions?

You can read more about it here. It is a while until it is released, but that is probably a good thing for our bank accounts! In the meantime, there is always Massmorra to look forward to this year, a dungeon crawling game published by Cool Minis Or Not and it looks fantastic. Being a huge Arcadia Quest fan, that game had to be backed on Kickstarter or there would have been trouble in my household.       

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx      

Interview with Jeff Dehut - Pocket Dungeon Quest

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Dehut, the creator of the dungeon crawling game Pocket Dungeon Quest. Jeff's background in graphic design and photography has helped steer him in his current roles as Game Designer, Artist and Animator - he is a busy man and is even busier since launching the first expansion to PDQ on Kickstarter, Don't Go Alone. Have a look at the interview below!     

When did you start working as a Games Designer? Did you start freelance or for a company?  

I started working in Games as an Artist and Animator for a small company who was just getting started in the industry. After about a year and a half they were really struggling and let a bunch of people in their App Dept go, I was one of them. So it was at that point that I started working freelance as a Game Designer and Artist.

Have you always had a passion for table top games?

Oh yes. I have always loved games of all kinds. I was probably more influenced by video games though. I had an original Gameboy and played Tetris quite often. I used to draw ideas I had for board games and video games in my sketchbooks.

How did you come up with the concept for PDQ?

The idea came from thinking about the differences between tabletop games and video games. Since I had just come from designing levels and characters for mobile games I wondered if it was possible to bring video game concepts to a tabletop. It turns out that you can, and it is very enjoyable in my opinion. Also, I have always loved fantasy, and I love drawing cute, cartoony characters. So naturally, when it came time to make a theme for my game that is the direction I chose.

'Don't Go Alone' is your first expansion for PDQ, tell us a little about it.

The whole idea behind Pocket Dungeon Quest is making a play on video game concepts and converting them to work on a tabletop. So, with Don’t Go Alone I wanted to continue that theme. What this expansion is all about is equipping the Heroes of PDQ with better Gear that will aid them as they crawl through the Dungeon in search of the three Relics. Don’t Go Alone also opens up some new gameplay mechanics which will allow me to expand the Pocket Dungeon Quest universe even more in future updates. I have a lot of ideas and I hope I get a chance to implement them!

Your illustrations for PDQ are great, did you have any artistic influences when you studied as a Graphic Designer that inspired you to create these images? 

Growing up I loved comic books and cartoons. Batman was my all-time favorite hero, so I was definitely influenced by those types of things. I wouldn’t really nail down a specific artist that I always looked to. I had a lot of really great teachers going through Highschool and College that really helped shape my technique and style. I think my education in Graphic Design really helped me to see my illustrations in their most simple forms and really brought out the cartoony aspects even more.

Do you have a favourite hero to play as in PDQ or a favourite monster?

I love playing PDQ with all of the Heroes for different reasons. My favorite Hero to draw is by far the Warrior, though the Archer is a close second. I love their costumes in particular and usually play around with drawing them in different ways. Haha, my favorite Monster is one that isn’t in the game…yet. He is coming in Don’t Go Alone as an added Monster Pack. He is a play on the Beholder from DnD and he’s just so cute!

What are your favourite games of all time?

Oh boy. There are so many. Tabletop games; Smallworld, Catan, 7 Wonders, Power Grid, King of Tokyo, then classics like Water Works, Chinese Checkers, many Playing Card games. As far as video games go; Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls games, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, and I could go on because I am always finding new games that are great for different reasons.

How was your experience at Gen Con 2015?

GenCon was amazing. I got to meet the team from AdMagic who are my manufacturers. They are a great bunch of cool people, and very helpful to someone just getting started in the Indie Board Game industry. I was demoing my game pretty much the whole time so I didn’t get to walk around and see too much, but what I did see was very impressive. Lots of great cosplay costumes, lots of great games, and just a bunch of great people having a good time playing great games.

If you had to go delving in a dungeon, what three items would you bring along, and why?

A torch to see by, a sword to swing at all those monsters, and a nice leather purse for all the precious gems I would find. (:

Jeff  Dehut

Thanks, Jeff! You can check out the Kickstarter for Don't Go Alone here

Interview with Brotherwise Games

In my early ventures into table top gaming last year I was introduced to Boss Monster; a dungeon-building card game that oozes references to 8-bit video games and other pop culture gems. Boss Monster was created by Brotherwise Games; an independent game publishers that was founded and brought to life by two brothers in the US, Chris and Johnny O'Neal. It was their mutual love of games that spurred them to their company and Boss Monster, perfecting it over time and then releasing it to be kickstarted back in 2013. I was fortunate enough to get my first interview for Tabletop Stop with the lovely guys at Brotherwise Games, and here it is! 

What were some of your first favourite board games?

We have very varied tastes, but we both got our start in gaming with D&D and some of the more fantasy-focused board games. Most of Chris's formative years were spent playing strategy games like Risk and Axis and Allies. Johnny was a big fan of HeroQuest and started playing Magic when he was in middle school.

What are some of your favourite games now?
 
Now we're quite partial to games like Seven Wonders, War of the Rings, Smallworld, and Ascension. But really we'll play just about anything. A friend recently introduced us to micro-games like Deep Sea Adventure. Loved 'em!


Your love of board games and video games led you both to creating Boss Monster. What things inspired you the most to create it?

Boss Monster evolved out of a very different game idea than what it currently looks like, so it had a LOT of influences. Originally a bidding game focused on popularity, it merged with another idea that used cards to build classic D&D-looking dungeon maps - thus the fantasy theme. After lots of play testing, and numerous failed attempts, Johnny finally hit on the bidding mechanic that currently drives the game: the construction of a dungeon with rooms that lure in particular heroes. As that game took form, Chris noticed the visual similarity to the old side-scrolling video games that we had loved so much as kids. After some more failed attempts at nailing the theme, Boss Monster morphed into its final form, a mix of retro gaming nostalgia and popular nerd culture. We could write a book listing all the nods and easter eggs in the game, but really it's more fun for our fans to find them on their own.

What did you find most challenging when setting up Brotherwise Games?

Setting up a gaming company is pretty easy, you just file with the Secretary of State and off you go. Getting a gaming company up and running is tough. The hardest thing was probably getting those first distributors to agree to carry Boss Monster and sell it to their retail customers. There was a lot of mistrust of Kickstarted games, and we had to offer a lot of reassurances and data suggesting that we were a good bet. After those first distributors got on board, the rest followed very quickly as stores began asking for Boss Monster.

The Kickstarter campaign for Boss Monster was a massive success, did you anticipate that it would be so popular?

Nope! We were very hopeful we'd make enough to produce a tiny print run of the game and be able to cross that particular goal off our bucket lists. We knew the game was fun and compelling, but we had no idea how big it would be, either on Kickstarter or in stores. We're so happy it was, however!


How important is Kickstarter in your business?

It's very possible that Boss Monster expansions going forward won't be launched on Kickstarter, but we absolutely have Kickstarter to thank for where we currently are as a business. Boss Monster NEVER would have happened without Kickstarter, and the same goes for Brotherwise Games. As family men who both had full-time jobs, we had put as much development money into Boss Monster as were able. We needed those Kickstarter backers to make our idea a reality. But the value of Kickstarter goes beyond those original starter funds. We also see the publicity boost that Kickstarter gives as a real boon to any game trying to get noticed on the market. For the new, non-Boss Monster titles that Brotherwise launches, Kickstarter (or some form of crowdfunding) is likely to be important tool in our toolkit.

Do you guys have a favourite Boss character in the game?

Chris is pretty partial to Cerebellus. Johnny loves the "cover" Bosses, King Croak and Porkus.

Brotherwise Games gives off the family unity vibe, do you believe that board games help bring families and friends together?

Without a doubt. In fact, we have to think that the huge growth that tabletop games have seen of the last five years reflects an overall tightness and comfort with the family unit. Families are playing together more than ever before. Different generations are hanging out more than they have in the last 20 years. Tabletop games offer a social experience like none other, certainly it's a far cry from the more anonymous virtual networks that video games create (not that that's bad, mind you). We LOVE hearing that families, partners, and friends are coming together over a night of Boss Monster.

Brotherwise Games

Torrance, CA

Thanks, guys! You can check out Brotherwise Games by clicking here

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx