Join Me For a Live Stream!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 12:03:27 PM

Hey guys! I'm going to be live streaming starting at 2 pm PST today (just under one hour from now,) so come hang out!

There will be a couple of firsts in this live stream: first, I'll be doing it with my friend Jeff from Soundbooth Theater as we discuss the Shattered Seas audiobooks, and it should also be the very first stream where I successfully stream to both Facebook and YouTube at the same time! Woohoo! (It only took me something like two years to figure it out... LOL!)

So, this stream will mainly be focused on the new novel Deep Madness: Shattered Seas which just released (you can check it out here), but I'd love for you to stop by with your Dawn of Madness questions and comments anyway. 

Below are the two links. I hope you can come hang out for a little bit today!

Have a great day, Happy Holidays, and Merry Christmas!

The Abominations Rise - Part One
over 3 years ago – Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 02:43:56 AM

Hey, guys! We slipped a little in our faster update tempo, but we'll try to have the next one out sooner. Today, though, we thought it would be appropriate to talk to you about the big bad mini-bosses of Dawn of Madness: the horrific, writhing, mind-shattering monstrosities, the abominations. This is going to be the first of two updates about these things because there's a lot to cover and we don't want to go into UPDATE OVERLOAD MODE as we are prone to do. =) So, let's get into the abominations!

What They Were

What the abominations were isn't too far off from what they are now, actually. But, just as a refresher, the abominations are the mini-bosses for Dawn of Madness. They show up mainly in the wanderer/exploration part of a game (before the finale.) Previously, you had to kill the abomination in order to beat the game, but that is no longer the case - for reasons that will become obvious very soon.

The abomination has its own deck of confrontation cards, which determine how it will act and how you can attack it. In addition, they also have a deck of devour cards, some of which are unique to the particular abomination you're facing and some of which that are common to all abominations. Each abomination belongs to a "family" of four abominations, but each one is different in its own way.

Who They Are

There are two main ways the abominations have changed: how you attack them, and how they die. (Not to mention what happens after they die.) Before we get into those things, though, let's take a look at how the abominations work, and what they can do.

Just like with DoM's other monsters, each abomination has its own personality. These horrific creatures used to be wanderers in the Otherworld, after all, and, as such, they still manifest some of the characteristics of the person (or people) they used to be.

Let's take a look at two of the most important components for abominations: their sheet and confrontation cards. Below you'll see a breakdown of what each section on the sheet and card does, and then I'll explain a bit more.

Plainly, the abomination sheet is similar in many ways to the terror and malformation sheets, but there are a few key differences. Along the left-hand side, you'll find two boxes. The top one discusses how to get rid of devour tokens while this abomination is in play, and the lower one outlines some specific things that happen when a wanderer dies. Then, along the bottom, is the abomination's passive ability. (This can be positive or negative for wanderers.) Finally, to the right is its action sequence. This sequence is similar to DoM's other monsters, with one key difference: there is always one space that refers to the confrontation cards rather than showing a fixed ability.

The confrontation cards are what take the abominations' AI to another level. They are multi-function cards, and there is a wide variety of them. The top section of the card tells you what you have to roll when confronting the abomination, as well as the existence reward you will get for killing the abomination and any other effects that come into play. The lower section, meanwhile, shows this card's particular ability, as well as the mental capacity cost for that effect. But that's not all that this card does. In the lower right corner is a health icon with a number on it. This shows how much health an abomination may regenerate when this card is triggered after the abomination dies. And in the left-hand corner is how many devour tokens it can spawn on the board during the refresh phase. (We'll go over all of this in more detail below.)

While the abominations do still come in families of four, it's no longer required to play all of one family in a row. You can play a Rage in one game, then a Masquerade in the next. You still can play them all in a row, of course. It's just not a requirement. (Having said that, they do still have legacy effects, which we will cover in the next update.)

Each family has certain traits in common: for instance, every Rage uses venom - they just use it in very different ways. Frenzy likes to get up-close and personal, while Fury often works from a distance. Aggression, meanwhile, makes sure you keep your envenomed cards with aggressive vindictiveness. Each may have different ways to hurt you with envenomed cards, too. 

On the other hand, the Masquerades revel in manipulating wanderers and corrupting their domain resources. Masquerade Bliss, for instance, has a real penchant for faces. In fact, she will regularly work to convert all of a wanderer's domains into skull domains, then seize control of those domains in unique and nasty ways. (We'll have more about domains in a future update, too.) Masquerade Bliss does this by birthing an army of Bliss Babies that will scuttle across the board toward the nearest wanderers then burrow into their bodies and minds. They will next transmute into skull domains - before converting all of the wanderers' other domains into the same thing. 

Bliss has some very inventive ways to spread her brood, too, as seen in the confrontation cards below.

Now, I gave some of this away up above, but one thing that has changed is how wanderers attack abominations. Previously, the wanderers would gather existence tokens (or memory shards in their former life) to help the Central Wanderer use a resistance card - either hers or one of her malformations'. We changed this at the end of the campaign, though, when we announced that everyone would be able to gain and use resistance cards. Now, there is a resistance card on the back of every coda card - the little cards you get for completing encounters. Anyone can use them and you no longer have to pay existence to do so, but there's a catch: if you do, you can never again use the coda card effect on its opposite side. The card won't be discarded because you may need it when determining the finale, but it will then be otherwise useless. 

So, now any Wanderer can activate a resistance card to square up against the Abomination and the top card of its confrontation deck. Looking at the active confrontation card, you would roll your sentience dice according to the colors listed on the resistance card you used, tweaking the roll using the domain abilities available to you on your wanderer board. If your final results matched the icons shown on the confrontation card, then you would damage the abomination according to the confrontation card's instructions. Either way, though, you would flip over a new confrontation card.

But maybe you didn't just hurt the abomination - maybe you actually managed to kill it! Congratulations! You would then follow any effects mentioned that take place when you kill the abomination and remove it from the board. The thing is... it won't stay dead. (Nothing stays dead in the Otherworld for very long.) At the start of the next round, its mental capacity tracker goes right back up to its mental capacity limit. Then, when it is supposed to activate, it will spend 1 mental capacity to restore a bit of its health, as determined by the little heart icon in the bottom right of its confrontation cards. Once it has regenerated enough health, it will respawn on the board and continue its rampage afresh. The abomination's terror is never far away. The best you can manage is a short respite, so make that time count!

That's it for this update! We have more to tell you about abominations, though, so there will be a second update about this coming before long. In the meantime, though, to all of our friends in the US, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving, and to our friends in the rest of the world, have a great week and a wonderful start to the holiday season! Talk to you again soon!

Going Live Soon!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 01:17:27 AM

Hi guys! I just wanted to let you know that I will be going live soon. If you'd like to tune in, you can find it here:

The Malformations Emerge
over 3 years ago – Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 04:09:34 AM

Today is an update that I've been looking forward to for quite a while. It is the first stab in the faster update tempo that we're trying out, but, more importantly, it is one of my favorite revisions for the updated version of DoM: the malformations.

Who They Were

If you'll recall, in DoM, every wanderer had three alternate versions of his or herself: variations that grew increasingly worse as they progressed. This reflected the inner degradation, turmoil, and torture of the wanderers, and they were called the malformations. I think everyone loved the idea of the malformations, but not necessarily how they worked in practice. They would only show up in one particular chapter (or game), that being the one where their wanderer was the central one. We had a couple of different ideas as to what they would do and how they would do it (sometimes they would even help you to fight the abomination), but always they would, in some way, work to corrupt the central wanderer.

Who They Are

And now, we reach the current iteration of the game. So, what have the malformations become? Well, the basic idea of them corrupting the wanderers is still very much at the core of who they are, but some of the other specifics have changed. For starters, they're not out to help you anymore. But to really get into what they are, we first have to talk about wanderers dying.

A couple of updates ago, I revealed that you could now die three times and return to life, and it was only on your fourth death that you permanently faded away, and the game was lost. But that also doesn't mean there are no consequences to dying those first three times. Now, when you die, your consciousness fragments, splintering into increasingly dark, twisted pieces. Consequently, when you come back, it's not just you who comes back. You also bring a malformation with you. The first time you die would be the first, most normal malformation. Then the second would follow that, and then the final, most twisted malformation would come last.

This means a couple of things right off the bat: first, your malformations can now be in any chapter/game of DoM. And, next, if you're doing poorly enough, then every wanderers' malformations can now be on the board at the same time. How's that for horrifying?

It gets worse, though. You could let that malformation just hang out to hunt you in peace and turn your attention to other pressing things like encounters or the abomination. But, if you let it live, if you don't recapture that piece of your consciousness and restore it to yourself, then it will haunt you forever, and you will never be quite the same.

This is because, if you don't kill the malformation and reabsorb its essence into yourself, then you will gain a Withered status card, which will follow you from game to game and permanently damage one or more of your stats - unless you can find some way to get rid of it, which is no easy task.

Malformations function more like a regular terror now, in that they don't have a "deck" with three different levels/cards in it. (That didn't work very well when the malformations could be in any game, and they weren't as necessary once the malformations weren't attacking the abomination anymore.) That's not to say they're boring now: each will still function very much in its own way, with different actions depending on the situation. (They’ll just be a little easier to manage.) In fact, these malformations are more closely tied to their wanderers and are more dangerous than they've ever been before, which we'll get into below.

There are some very interesting things that tie a malformation to its wanderer now. It starts a little bit more subtly in the first form, as seen with the passive ability for the malformation above. (Essentially, it stops Emily from healing anyone.) But then you get to level three and things get really nasty:

This malformation actively devastates the wanderers who are trying to heal. Even worse, if wanderers are on world shards featuring certain sentience colors, she will suck you directly over to her and rip you to shreds with her giant shears and torture chair. And worst yet, if a wanderer is on the same world shard, she can just out-and-out kill her. Yikes.

Let's take a look at another example. This is Claude's third malformation:

This guy is actively trying to get Claude to commit suicide at the same time it does. It teleports around the board, trying to escape the wanderers while it systematically tries to kill itself - and Claude. What's more, if this thing succeeds, then Claude dies a fourth time - and the game is officially over. These things play for keeps.

In closing, I don't think this change means malformations won’t come out during the main game in other ways. I have no doubt they'll still materialize through encounters or events. But if they do, be sure to kill them before the game ends!

Finally, I still definitely expect malformations to show up in the endings in unique ways. All bets are off in the finales, so it's the perfect place to do something cool with them. (Such as having a wanderer devolve into them, slowly losing control as it happens.)

Twisted Fables

That's all the DoM news we have for this update. However, I also did want to let you know that Twisted Fables is live now on Kickstarter if you're interested. You can get the core game and one expansion for only $36. (Just as a reminder, this game will take very few resources from DoM development as it only needs to be manufactured and the miniatures tooled at this point. The design work is done.) You can check it out here.

Live Stream

Oh! One other thing! I'm planning to do a live stream this coming Saturday! I'm shooting for 1 pm PST, and I'm hoping to be on YouTube and Facebook. (Should all go according to plan.) It'll be focusing on Twisted Fables, but feel free to come on by with your DoM or DM discussions as well! I'll try to get a little update out with links if I can, but just keep an eye on our YT channel or Facebook otherwise. I'm going to try to start doing those on a semi-regular basis, so there will be more chances for us to connect.

Okay, that's it for this update! Talk to you guys again soon, and have a great week!

Discussing Some Criticisms and Questions
over 3 years ago – Fri, Oct 09, 2020 at 11:59:07 PM

Hey everyone! Over the last few updates, we’ve seen some criticism and questions of the game and the changes made to it, and we decided to go ahead and address all of this head-on in an open and frank discussion. We’re going to try to give you a better idea of how the game flows in this update, and also tell you why we implemented many of the changes we did.

This update is another long one. I apologize for that. As you’ll see at the end of this update, that is something we’re going to try to avoid in the future. But for this one, it was necessary. Hopefully, it can help some people out, and at the least, shine some light on a few of our thought processes. Let’s get into it.

 The Campaign vs. Now 

One criticism we’ve heard several times recently is that Dawn of Madness wasn’t an actual game during the campaign. Another major one (one that I very much empathize with) is that we’re cutting out people’s favorite features of the game and that it’s hardly the same game anymore. I want to try tackling these two criticisms first.

First of all, Dawn of Madness absolutely was a game during the campaign. Were there parts of it that we weren’t able to finish before the campaign? Yes. Absolutely. But it was a working game. Some would say we rushed it to Kickstarter. I honestly would agree with that, despite all of the delays running up to the launch. (I think the rest of the team would, as well.) But the ugly truth is, if we had waited any longer to launch it, we wouldn’t have been able to continue as a company. (I even floated the idea of pulling a Kingdom Death and running it into January, but we had bills due in January and couldn’t even do that.) So, we were basically forced to launch it then if we wanted to launch it (and our future games) at all.

So, yes, DoM was an actual game when we launched, but there were two problems with it: first of all, we didn’t do a great job of showcasing it (something that still weighs on me.) And, second, there were a lot of features that people just didn’t like. So, we promised you guys a sweeping revision of the game (some of those promises are still viewable on the campaign page.) While we certainly would have still made some changes if we had received largely positive feedback, it would have been nowhere near the overhaul that the game has undergone due to receiving the negative feedback. The changes that we have made are direct results or necessary byproducts of the changes we promised during the campaign.

Now, to be clear, we don’t regret any of these changes. We feel this is a superior game to the first version (which itself was actually just one in a long line of versions.) But I wanted to clarify why we made these changes: it was because of your feedback, not because there was no game there in the first place.

Another thing some have said is that we should have made it clear that DoM was very much a prototype when we launched it. But the thing is, we did. I even specifically mentioned it in the campaign video. In that video, I said that this was an old-school Kickstarter, where you weren’t just supporting a preorder but were actually making a significant difference in a game still taking shape. It has become clear this is no longer what people expect from a Kickstarter, and I very much doubt we will ever do something like this again. (Our next game, Twisted Fables, is almost completely finished, for instance.) But I digress.

In our last update, we got several questions about the change we made to solo play, so now I want to address a few of those.

 Questions About Solo Play 

Q: Is solo play still possible?

A: Absolutely. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough about that. Solo play has not gone away, nor will it. All that has changed is the recommended number of wanderers in a solo game.

Q: Have you abandoned solo gamers?

A: Definitely not. A big regret I have from the last update is saying we were working to make this the best multiplayer game we can. While it’s undoubtedly true, I think it also created the feeling that we had forsaken the idea of this as a solo game, which isn’t true.

Q: Would you personally buy Dawn of Madness strictly as a solo game after this change?

A: This is an entirely subjective answer, but, for me, personally, I would say yes. Unequivocally. Honestly, almost every game of DoM that I have played thus far has been by myself. Most of the team is in a different country from me, so there aren’t tons of opportunities for me to be a part of the regular game testing. Of those games I’ve played by myself, my favorite ones were those I played with multiple wanderers. In fact, I don’t think I would ever choose to play with just one wanderer if given a choice. But, as I said, this is pretty subjective, and I can understand that some might think I’m just saying this to make people feel better. (For the record, I’m not.) I completely appreciate the fact that this isn’t the preferred method of play for some people. (As an aside, I think it’s unfortunate that so many of the test games people videoed only played with one wanderer. It’s so much more engaging with more. Once again, though, just my opinion.)

Q: How many stories will you have to focus on when playing with multiple wanderers in a game?

A: Just one. In the previous version, you would have had to complete other wanderers’ memories, but in the current version, that is no longer an issue. Actually, you will get deeper into the central wanderer’s story than you ever would have with one wanderer because there will be more opportunities for encounters, and the varying strengths and weaknesses of the other wanderers will impact the story in cool and varying ways. It won’t detract from the central wanderer’s story at all. On the contrary, it will enhance it. (More on that below.)

Q: Will the components for multiple wanderers overwhelm the available playing area?

A: As I’ve said, I’ve played games with four wanderers, and I don’t think my dining table is much different from a standard table’s size. (Plus, that was in the previous version, which had significantly more components on the table. The new version has a much more consolidated footprint. Just the removal of the conscious realm and the other storybooks saves a lot of space.) In addition, you won’t use all of the components in one game. So, while the number of cards and tokens can seem overwhelming, you will only use a selection of them in any particular game. For those who own our previous game, Deep Madness, I can safely say that if you can fit it, then you should have no problem fitting Dawn of Madness.

Q: Won’t it be much more complicated with multiple wanderers?

A: I won’t deny there is undoubtedly a little added complexity. I suppose whether or not it’s too much will be up to you. However, I think that there are some grey areas that we haven’t been able to cover yet, which might aid you in making this decision for yourself. I will cover this more fully in the “Why Four Wanderers?” section below.

Q: Could you create an AI system for the other wanderers?

A: I’ll be candid here: it would be far easier to manage the other wanderers than to worry about an AI system. If you want to only focus on one wanderer and use the others in a strictly supportive manner, you can do that. And it would be much easier to do this than to worry about any sort of AI system.

Q: Can I really not play with one wanderer anymore?

A: As I said in the last update, while I don’t know if it will be officially supported, I see no reason why you couldn’t - with a couple of caveats. You will definitely lose some of the game’s flavor, and some workarounds will need to be implemented in certain places. I’ll see if it’s something that maybe I can work on with the team, but I can’t promise anything right now. Honestly, I kind of think you’ll end up wanting to just play with all four wanderers. But that’s only my opinion.

Why Four Wanderers? 

When the team initially started thinking about four wanderers, there was some skepticism about it. But, the longer it was considered, the more it made sense. It allowed us to do some things and count on things that we couldn’t otherwise.

When we had four wanderers guaranteed in a game, we could count on multiple wanderers being there to assist with encounters. They would be there to allow for interesting things to happen in finales. They would be there to offer assistance when it was necessary for intense situations. And, on top of that, we could ensure that every wanderer would be there in the finale’s ending.

That opened up new possibilities as well. Here are a few points regarding why we decided to go with four wanderers:

1. While DoM is a game heavily based on stories, its most unique feature is not uncovering a previously laid out story: it’s forging the central wanderer’s story during the game and finale. Different wanderers will develop the story in entirely different ways. Other wanderers are not just supporting the central wanderer: they are bringing their own unique contributions to the central wanderer’s story. Every choice they make could completely change the core of the plot and forge the central wanderer into a different character. This level of customization simply wouldn’t be possible with one wanderer.

For example, in Claude, the detective’s story, the same stories in Claude’s own eyes and the eyes of the other wanderers are different (for reasons we can’t share right now.) Players need to collect information from both perspectives to draw the whole picture. Also, because different wanderers have varied sentience strengths and weaknesses, they will lead the same encounter to different paths.  

2. The Otherworld in DoM is about several consciousnesses fusing together, which is a key concept of the Deep Madness world setting. This concept comes through in several ways, but one of the most lasting is the fact that the central wanderer’s finale will permanently affect every wanderer in the game. Each different ending of a specific finale (there are usually at least four of them - on top of the four different finales you get in the main game) will leave a permanent game effect on every wanderer in the game, which will be applied to all future games that wanderer plays in. This could be thought of as a “legacy” aspect of DoM - something we will discuss more in a future update. (And no, DoM is still not a legacy game. You will never destroy a card.) So, the overall experience is really about different wanderers affecting each other, their stories leaving an impact on one another even as they each help to shape those stories.    

3. More options mean more fun. The more choices you have in approaching a given situation, the more unique ways you’ll have of tackling it. Having multiple wanderers gives you that, with the ability to have one wanderer fend off the oncoming terror while another delves into an encounter. I can understand how some would feel having multiple wanderers would lower the feelings of isolation and claustrophobia, but this game will be plenty immersive and horrifying even with more wanderers to share the experience. And trust me, for reasons that will become clear when we get to the updates on malformations and abominations, you’ll really want more wanderers to help keep them at bay.    

4. Playing with four wanderers doesn’t require as much upkeep or thought as you may think it does. This is what we’ll spend the rest of this section on. As we’ve said several times, we have been working hard to streamline the rules and create a game experience that is smooth to play, so you can get lost in the horror and not the rules.

For the sake of this discussion, I will once again compare DoM to Deep Madness. I apologize if you haven’t played it and have no frame of reference, but, given that many of our backers backed both games, I ask that you roll with me on this. In Deep Madness, the investigators rotated every round. This made you rely on a great deal of strategy and planning, because if you set one investigator to do something important and then that investigator went last in the next turn, then you could be screwed. This was a feature for Deep Madness, not a bug. But for those worried about handling multiple wanderers in Dawn of Madness, I want to contrast it against Dawn’s mental capacity track. The mental capacity track is easy to figure out and predict, without the headaches of anyone rotating for no seemingly good reason. In our playtesting, once we got into the flow of things, everything became very natural. Choices became easy and quick.

Furthermore, managing individual wanderers is not the pain that I think some envision. A lot of the things that would have made those wanderers a chore to manage no longer exist or are very different in the current game. For instance, as we said in our last update, you no longer have to dive into memory encounters in order to upgrade your wanderer. The inner offerings (which are really a part of the new existence upgrade system now rather than a standalone thing - actually, I only call them that because that’s how we referred to them during the campaign) are far more streamlined than they were previously, with many of their abilities being unlocked through upgrading the wanderers throughout the game. (Meaning you don’t have to even think about them if you don’t want to most of the time. But, if you do want to delve in deeper, then they’re there for you and will certainly help you as you progress.) You will gain coda cards for each wanderer as you play through the game, but you would have collected coda cards anyway: It was that one wanderer would have had them versus several wanderers having them. The only other thing to worry about are domains - both the cards and the resources on your dashboard. But the cards are very straightforward, so shouldn’t serve as too much of a problem. Likewise, the resources are not terribly difficult to understand or manage.

Unfortunately, I can talk about this stuff until I’m blue in the face, but it will still all just be words. We’re hoping to get to the point where we have a polished prototype to show you soon so that you can see what we mean rather than just having to envision it for yourself.

Of course, I also realize that for some this update won’t overcome the glaring problem you see with the game. To you, I want to say that I don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped in something you no longer want anything to do with. You never have been, and we won’t start that now. We have not been trying to pull a fast one on you or hide important details from you until it’s too late: We’ve just been trying to make this the best game we can. Of course, I would love it if you gave the game a chance, but I also realize some might feel like that chance has already passed. And that’s fine. Having said that, if you need help managing your pledge, send an email to [email protected] and we’ll help you out as soon as we can.

Increased Update Tempo

We have been running into a couple of problems with relaying information for the revised game through updates. First of all, we haven’t been able to get information to people quickly enough to fill in gaps in a timely manner, which I think has left a hanging uncertainty over the game. Second, we’ve been trying to cram too much information into a single update (yes, I realize the irony of that statement, since this update was ludicrously long), leaving some feeling overwhelmed or like we’re trying to bury information that we want people to overlook deep in the update. (Or missing all of the cool stuff because of one negative point that overtakes everything else.) Third, I think there is a danger of people forgetting too much of how the game works or its terms over the long gulfs of time, resulting in some feeling disoriented and unsure about how the game functions.

As I mentioned earlier, ideally, we would have an updated prototype to show you that would answer most (or all) of people’s outstanding questions. But, until that’s ready, we’re going to give something else a try. We’re going to try to publish more frequent and shorter updates to try to get you more information in an easier-to-digest and quicker manner. I can’t guarantee how long this will go on for, or how good we’re going to be about it. But we’ll give it a try and see how it goes. So, expect the next update soon, and then the following one around two weeks after that.

Well, I know that this update hasn’t answered every question or criticism, but hopefully, it has helped somewhat. Have a great day, everyone, and we’ll talk to you again very soon.