A Look at the Miniature Tray and New Art
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jun 06, 2022 at 03:55:27 PM

Hey guys! We have a quick update for you today, but we had some new stuff we just got in that we wanted to show you. We won't keep you for long this time since the last one was such an immense mega-update, but hopefully it'll be a cool diversion for a few minutes. Let's dive in!

Miniature Box Plastic Trays

We recently received the final test sample of the Miniature Box plastic trays and wanted to show them off to you. Now, these are 3D printed samples, so they are NOT made of the same materials as the ones you will receive in the actual product. Specifically, the final ones will have transparent plastic covers and black plastic trays. 

With that out of the way, though, let's take a look! We'll start with the wanderer tray, which features the wanderers, their malformations, and their specific terrors - as well as some colored plastic bases for the player minis.

Next, let's move on to the tray with the remaining terrors, as well as the abominations! Amazingly, they fit all of these into a single tray!

And last but not least, we have the final boss tray. Now, I want to stress that all of these trays are the same size.  I mention this because the boss tray seemed small to me in this picture for some reason, but it's actually the opposite: the tray's the same size, but the minis in it are just that big.

Now, here are all three trays stacked together with a ruler beside them. Yes, it is showing that this stack is 20cm (7.87 in) high. 

All told, the trays are about 310x310mm (12.2 inches) in length and width, and 200mm in height (7.87 inches), so this is going to be a pretty darn big box. And once again, this is just the core game minis! All told, there are 54 miniatures in this box, with each and every one being a unique sculpt.

Some New Art

Lastly, we have some new art to show you from Catherine's world! There won't be anything accompanying these images such as story content or whatever, so just sit back and enjoy. 

Okay, that's it for this update! We'll be back before too long with more DoM goodness, but until then, I hope you're doing well and staying safe. Have a great week!

Solo Update, Breaking Down Legacies, & the Current State of DoM
almost 3 years ago – Wed, May 04, 2022 at 08:57:04 PM

Hi guys! I hope you all have been having a good month and that you're staying safe no matter where you are. It certainly feels like it's been another tough one for many worldwide, but I hope you're doing as well as you can regardless of what's going on around you. 

For this update, we have several gameplay updates for you, from expanding on the legacy elements of finales and abominations to new developments with solo play. We also have a small update/statement about the state of DoM. A word of caution: this one's long, so settle in. 

The Current State of DoM 

I firstly wanted to clear the air a bit over what I think some people might be feeling about this game, so here's a breakdown of a couple of points. 

1. Is DoM in trouble? In short, no. Dawn of Madness is not in trouble. We are making consistent, constant progress on it, and it continues to take shape more and more every week. We are furthermore not in financial straights or in danger of not delivering this project. You will get this game, and we hope it will be an experience you'll never forget when you do play it. 

2. Why hasn't the game shipped yet? As mentioned last year, we had to delay the game due to a variety of factors (which we'll get into more of below.) At that time, we moved our target ship date from October 2021 to October 2022. We would have loved to ship DoM by its original targeted date, but it proved not to be feasible for the reasons listed in the next point. 

3. Why was it delayed? Our initial timeline didn't (and couldn't) take into account the major changes that we promised backers we would make during the campaign. These were not minor changes, but sweeping reworkings of most of DoM's core systems. This was the direct result of backer feedback, and the game is significantly better for the changes made to it. Because of them, the game is swifter, leaner, and more enjoyable, with mechanics that bolster the experience rather than get in the way of it. 

However, these things took a lot of time to work out so that you didn't end up with a half-baked game only good for the miniatures. Our timeline also didn't account for a global, years-long pandemic or other factors that we've had to contend with, including sickness and maternity leave. (Remember, we're not a big corporation like some companies, so when one person is out, we all feel it.) 

We have also held ourselves and our partners to the highest level of quality we're able to achieve. We see this game as a work of art and a true labor of love. So, when a story wasn't working, we rewrote it. When a game mechanic didn't flow right, we went back to the drawing board. This also doesn't mention the hundreds of pieces of art that we've commissioned (or are still commissioning) for this game. My writing of the stories has also taken longer than we initially projected (partially because of the aforementioned rewrites, but for other reasons, too.) 

Having said that, we are currently a few months over our deadline - not one or two years, as I've heard a couple of people suggest. To be clear, we will be at least a year overdue, as we stated previously. (And I realize we had a long lead time, to begin with.) But this game is coming, and it is growing closer every day.

4. What is our current timeline? We are still currently pushing for October 2022. Will we make it? Well, we still have a lot of ground to cover by that point, and we're working hard to make up for lost time. But if we don't, the delay will not be an outlandish amount longer - likely a few months at the most.

5. How can I get ahold of you? I feel really bad that I haven't been able to hang out more in the comments or on social media, and I'm going to try to be more active in both. Having said that, if you have an issue, the best way to contact us is via email. You can reach us at [email protected] and [email protected], or you can reach me specifically at [email protected]. This is far better than Kickstarter messages or comments, and also than social media. I am going to try to be more active in the community, and I truly regret that I haven't been more so. (I miss the days of the Deep Madness Reprint campaign where I could reply to every comment.) But regardless, email remains the best way to reach us. 

Part of the reason for the lack of communication in other channels is, frankly, we're working as hard as we can to catch up on this game so that we can get it out to you as quickly as possible. It's not that we don't want to chat with you guys in these places - it's just that our resources are stretched thin at the moment as we work to get this game completed for you. Thanks for your understanding on this. 

I hope that this has helped to allay concerns some backers have been feeling. This project is not trapped in development hell. It is not hopelessly troubled or broken, nor is it vaporware. Honestly, this is a game I am extremely proud of, and it's one I very much hope you enjoy when you receive it.

Now let's switch gears, and talk about something I think will make a lot of people happy.

Solo Mode Makes a Comeback

I'll admit, that headline is slightly misleading, as solo mode never really left: you just needed to do it with four wanderers instead of one.  Also, this new version is quite different from the original implementation. Still, I hope that this will serve as a good compromise for solo players who don't want to use four wanderers, or for multiplayer games that don't want to worry about managing extras.

To be perfectly clear, we still recommend playing with four wanderers for the best experience. However, if you're dead-set against doing so, we have just finished testing a new system that will allow you to pair down the number of wanderers in play. Without further ado, let's introduce the support cards!

The support cards will fill the gap left by not playing with four wanderers, allowing the game to be played with either two or three wanderers now rather than all four. Want to play solo with only two wanderers? Just add the "2 Wanderers" support cards into the game, and you'll be good to go. Want to play a single wanderer each in a two or three-player game? Just add the "2 Wanderers" or "3 Wanderers" support cards into the game and you may do precisely that.

The support cards offer wanderers various free actions during each game round. These cards will be refreshed every round, leading to different free actions that will be available each time. Furthermore, they belong to all of the wanderers rather than any specific one. Consequently, players will have to plan how to use them as a team. (Assuming you're not going solo, of course.) 

You may be wondering, if we can do games with two wanderers, then why not scale all the way back to one? Well, honestly, there are just too many parts of DoM that require interactions between multiple wanderers. It would be mighty tough to save a wanderer from the jaws of death if there isn't another one to do it. There are even endings where one kind of wanderer or the other will be essentially impotent until later on in a finale, relying on either the other wanderers or the central one to carry the load for potentially several rounds - often while the weaker ones are being hunted by something nasty. As long as there is one other wanderer present, though, and both have more actions in a game, then it will still work. 

(There's actually one other reason, too, though it's strictly a meta/story reason: there are two kinds of encounters in the game, called Reality Shards and Explorations. Reality Shards are from the central wanderer's viewpoint, while Explorations aren't. While any wanderer can do any encounter, it would be a little strange to have an outsider's perspective if there are none present. Once again, this isn't an actual gameplay thing, but just about consistency.)

Now, let's get into the legacy stuff, starting with a refresher on game stages.

Breaking Down the Stages

As we've mentioned before, games of DoM are separated into two distinct stages: the wanderer stage and the finale stage. The wanderer stage is where the meat of the game is. Here wanderers will explore the world, fight abominations and other monsters, and build toward one of four particular endings. (Though, it's no guarantee that there will be an ending if you do poorly enough. This can happen if you have died three times already and all of your malformations are on the board. If you die again with all of them still alive and kicking, you'll lose instantly.) 

Once you've reached enough points to activate a particular ending, you'll move into the finale stage. Accessing the finale stage means you're certain to get a resolution - though there's still no guarantee it will be a good one. This stage is where wanderers will fight one or more final bosses and unravel one of the potential threads laid out in the previous stage. There are legacy effects that apply at the end of both stages, which we'll discuss in the next section.

The Legacy of DoM

As we get into the "legacy effects" in DoM, let's define what we mean by legacy. DoM is NOT a legacy game in the commonly used sense. You won't destroy any cards, you won't put stickers on the game board, etc. Rather, "legacy" here refers to game effects that will follow wanderers from one session to another. Let's start with the legacy effects the abominations provide. 

At the end of the wanderer stage, wanderers will receive either a reward or a punishment based on if they did or did not kill the abomination. Here's a look at the back of Rage - Frenzy's abomination card, which highlights both the positive and negative effects: 

So, if wanderers kill the abomination, they will receive the following rewards:

• The abomination's punishment will be removed (if it was present from a previous game), and its family's lineage card will be deactivated. There'll be more about that below.
• Each wanderer will randomly draw a card from this abomination's legacy deck. These are cards with helpful abilities that you will keep for the foreseeable future. If you fight this abomination again and win the chance to draw another card, you can either choose the new card and discard your original one or keep the original and take three existence tokens instead. (In this case, you would need to spend the tokens in the finale, as existence tokens don't carry over from game to game. However, you could use them in the finale to unlock your own existence cards and upgrade your own abilities.)

And what happens if you don't kill the abomination? Well, then you'll be punished. Here's how:

• The abomination's unique punishment will activate by placing its lineage token on its family's lineage card. This punishment will then activate in every subsequent game until wanderers can deactivate it.
• If any wanderer in the game has this abomination's legacy card from a previous game, the wanderer must return the card to the box as further punishment.

Here's the Rage lineage card as an example:

You'll notice that this particular card has two abomination tokens on it. That's right: it could be possible to have more than one lineage effect active at a time. Theoretically, it would be possible to have all four activated at once if the wanderers were really on a bad streak. (The two sections are lit up to emphasize which abominations' effects are active. The actual card isn't like that.)

Of course, nothing stops you from leaving out this mechanic if you prefer to start each game with a clean slate. 

Abomination Legacy Cards

After wanderers gain legacy cards, they keep them and can use them for every subsequent game. (The only reason they would be removed would be if the wanderers failed in a subsequent game against that same abomination.) In other words, it represents (largely) permanent growth for a wanderer. Each abomination has its own legacy deck, with the cards differing quite a bit between abomination families. The difference isn't as massive between family members (they are related, after all), but they are still varied one from another. 

For example, let's look at the core game abominations: the Rages and the Masquerades. The Rages' cards focus on increasing HP, existence tokens, or sentience limits, while the Masquerades' cards emphasize domain resources. Think of it as harvesting power and energy that specifically relates to each abomination.

As mentioned above, a wanderer can only have one legacy card from any particular abomination. This is like being branded by that abomination, or perhaps being able to stomach only so much of its essence. Of course, as mentioned above, you can always trade in your current card for a different one if you defeat the same abomination again (or take those three extra existence tokens if you don't.) Apart from that, there is no other limit to how many legacy cards a wanderer can have. Go nuts slaughtering as many of those big nasties as you want.

Lastly, there are two types of legacy cards: passive ones and consumables. A passive card is always in effect and usually increases your maximum health or sentience limits. Consumables, meanwhile, can be spent to gain specific resources, such as existence tokens, domains, domain cards, etc. Having said that, they won't leave a wanderer's possession after being used. They won't be available for the rest of this game, but they will be available again in the next one. You can use multiple consumable legacy cards in a single game, but only one in a given game round. This adds another layer of strategy to the game after you've got a few games under your belt, forcing you to think about which card to use at what time.

A Finale's Legacy

After the wanderers complete a finale stage, the central wanderer will gain a finale legacy card at its conclusion. If the central wanderer has a different finale legacy card from a previous game, that card will be replaced by the new one. (If you did better this time than in a previous game, this could be a very good thing. Or, if you did worse, then it could be a mediocre thing, too.) Only the central wanderer will receive a finale legacy card at the end of the game.

Note: The next two images will feature actual finale legacy cards. The spoilers on them are extremely minor, but if you want to go in completely blind, then don't read them too closely.

There isn't a typical concept of winning or losing once you get into the finale. No matter how everything unfolds, the story will reach a conclusion (for good or bad), and each possible ending will result in a different finale legacy card. This card will alter the central wanderer's sentience values, sometimes significantly. This reflects the change the wanderer has undergone throughout the game, for better or worse. Likewise, each card has one or more special game effects on the card that harken back to your ending. 

Some tie in closely with domain cards, too, as seen above. These are often domain cards that you will start each game with (or that will replace another one.) Each will have a caption on the back of the card from one of the finale's main characters, as well. 

Okay, that's it for this update. I know this was a long one, so props to those who got all the way through it. Thanks for sticking with us, my friend, and I'll talk to you again soon. 

Clippings from Catherine
about 3 years ago – Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 08:16:09 PM

Hey guys! This month we’re going to dive deeper into the story for our resident farmer and lover of greenery, Catherine Little. These will be more of a tiny sneak peek than anything (kind of like a movie trailer), but there may be mild spoilers. Having said that, these are clips taken completely out of context, so you shouldn’t have to worry too much.

Much of the team has been fighting sickness this month (including myself), but we’re back up and running now, continuing to make progress. Also, the Chinese New Year celebrations are coming up where most of China shuts down for several weeks, but we’re going to keep working through it so we can get this game out to you as soon as we can. (A number of our dev team members are in China, which is why I bring that up.)

Okay, without further ado, here are some of Catherine’s stories, along with some of her art!

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!

 Catherine’s Story Clippings

Night at the Homestead

Taking a deep breath, you decide to head upstairs and find a bed to hide in overnight. You feel your way to the staircase and slowly work your way up it, being careful not to miss a step –

A sound comes from behind the basement door. You freeze, your heart leaping into your throat. It sounds like something meaty and oozing is crawling up the basement staircase, its weighty flesh landing on each successive step with a wet thump. The sounds stop. And then you hear a knock. It comes once, twice.

You pause, unable to make yourself move. Then, mustering all of your courage, you creep back down the steps. You linger at the door, hesitating momentarily before, at last, reaching out and touching the handle. The door is locked. Nevertheless, as soon as your hand contacts the metal, the sounds stop.

Shaking your head, you turn away from the door to hurry the rest of the way up the stairs. As your hand reaches for the railing, however, you hear that sloppy, wet sliding sound again, followed by the thump. It’s not coming from the basement this time, though: it almost sounds like it’s on the staircase above you. Looking up, you scream.

In the sallow moonlight, you see a woman trying to stand to her feet. Her flesh bubbles on her bones, swelling into boils that pop and spray on the walls and stairs. Her face is a constantly shifting mass, the skin and muscles crawling across her skull. Sometimes you see the flash of her teeth, then the glint of her eyes. Always, though, there is the sickly glow glancing off her slick, churning flesh.

Pa and the Radio

Walking over to the left side of the room, you sit down in front of the wooden desk pressed to the wall and turn on the tall, rounded cathedral radio sitting on it. The cloth-covered speaker slits emit a static-laced whine as you start twisting the knobs. A signal is beginning to come through –

“Cathy, turn that blasted thing off,” a voice says behind you. “You know I can’t stand its warbling.”

You glance back over your shoulder at the rocker near the opposite wall. “I don’t think you get much of a say anymore, Pa,” you say. “Seeing as I’m carrying most of the weight around here nowadays. And it’s not like you’re gonna jump up and do anything about it.”

Your father sits in a rocking chair pressed against the wall behind you. The shotgun’s stock is still clamped between his legs, the end of the barrel leaning against his shoulder. The back of his skull reminds you a bit of a gaping exotic lily. Similarly, the wall behind his head looks like it’s been splattered by an eruption of flowers and foliage, while more leaves and vines fill his brainpan like a planter, drizzling down through his mouth onto his chest.

The Potted People

Walking past the cabinets, you come to numerous potted saplings. There’s something very odd about these trees, as well. You find yourself holding your breath as you lean in to examine them.

The trees have the rough forms of women. Their trunks are split like legs, their roots shaped like deformed feet. A thin, almost translucent ashen bark covers their branch-like arms and bodies. Their eyes are like dead knots in their warped faces; their mouths are gaping hollows. It’s difficult to be certain, but they all look eerily similar – almost like they represent the same person.

The trees around you shake as if a breeze blows overhead. That can’t be the case, though: The air is perfectly still. A sound arises from the saplings’ mouth-holes like a low moan. Your gaze snaps left and right, alarm swelling within you. And then the saplings move.

The trees’ limbs bend and snap in jerky, staccato bursts, their trunks twisting and contorting to the wet cracking of green wood. Their head-shapes turn jarringly toward you, their twig-fingers reaching.

Something else is crawling over the ceiling. You see its shadow blocking the sunlight that sifts through the windows above. It’s enormous. You begin to hyperventilate, your gaze drifting slowly upward. Your vision gets caught on the arboretum’s walls, though, as you see faces beading on them like massive drops of condensation. The faces stare at you as they slide down the surfaces, their features runny and inconstant. Are the walls starting to close in around you?

The thing above your head unleashes a booming howl, and you look up at last. An enormous woman’s face looms above you, its eye sockets teeming with swarms of squirming roots. You scream.

Seeds of Darkness

The dead man behind the desk shifts, his old bones cracking and parchment skin rustling. You jump, whirling toward him as he leans forward in his chair. “It did work, too,” he says, his voice a raspy whisper. “We just… didn’t expect what came next. We tried to escape through any means we could. But we… can’t… leave this place.”

Your mind erupts with pain. Gripping the sides of your skull, you scream at the same time the corpse does. It’s almost like the two of you are somehow linked. Perhaps that’s how you realize this is not a side effect of his disease: this is something more. Is it a curse? A punishment? Torture? Will it ever end?

The dead man’s head begins to boil, huge welts and cysts forming on his skull. His body cracks and snaps as it reforms into a new shape, bones piercing his skin and covering his eyes like staples. The corpse tries to scream again, but his cries are cut short by something forcing its way up his bulging throat. You gasp as you see what’s emerging from his esophagus. It’s a hand. No, several hands. A bouquet of arms pushes out between his lengthening teeth, wriggling and waving wetly in the air.

Okay, that’s it for this update! We’ll be back with another one next month. Have a great week, and I hope you’re staying well and doing well, wherever you happen to be in the world. Talk to you again soon!

Merry Christmas! Here's What's Been Going On!
about 3 years ago – Fri, Dec 24, 2021 at 02:33:56 AM

Hi, my friend! I hope you've been having a great holiday season. We have a short status update for you today - and this one is actually written mostly by Roger, our fearless leader, lead game designer, and all-around good guy. (I've edited it a bit and added a little, as you'll see below.) So, here's what's been going on recently both with DoM and DG in general. We'll start with the miniatures, which you already probably have a pretty good idea about if you saw our last couple of updates.

What's Been Happening with Dawn of Madness - Brought to You by Roger

1) Miniatures

This is always the busiest period of the year for the factories. Having said that, we've solved several minor issues with the "finalized" core game miniatures that we showed you in the last couple of updates. If you missed them, you can check the videos they contained either by looking at those updates or this YouTube playlist. We'll start producing them early next year before the finalized printed materials.

2) Gameplay Development

(A) Gameplay - Wanderer Stage

The gameplay testing for the Wanderer Stage has been making good progress. The main changes being made currently involve fitting Byron's new stories into the gameplay structure as they're completed while also providing him feedback on where we think the stories should go. This will be a continuous process until we finalize all the stories, but it's going really smoothly right now.

(B) Gameplay - Finale Stage

We are focusing on gameplay testing for several wanderers' Finale Stages, as well as finalizing the "legacy" parts of the game. (To emphasize, this is not a legacy game, but the earlier game sessions do have an impact on subsequent games based on the Finale Stage's results.) These Finale Stages aren't that complicated, so don't worry. However, they are all very dynamic and different from each other, with each one having very different goals and gameplay strategies. We'll show you more after we finalize this part, including some new game components, which hopefully will be before too much longer.

(C) Gameplay - Stories

The stories are the core part of Dawn of Madness. They are not random or disposable content forced into the game that can be easily glossed over. I like to think of them more like the stories in Silent Hill. Players will need to dig deep into the stories to get the true horror experience in a board game that we've talked about from the beginning. We're sticking close to this direction, and that's also the reason why it's quite difficult for us to show the game in public without significant spoilers. 

Byron has made great progress on the wanderers' stories. (Aw, shucks. - Byron) In our next update, we'll show you some segments from Catherine Little's story. These segments will all be on the story's surface, so they won't spoil too much. So, you can look forward to those next time.

Other Stuff We've Been Doing - Brought to You by Roger and Byron

(Byron's note: these are just newsy tidbits to show you some of the other stuff that's been going on at DG. If you're not interested in our other stuff, you don't have to keep reading this.)  

1) Twisted Fables Christmas Campaign on Gamefound

We ran a small campaign for Twisted Fables on Gamefound, testing that platform's waters with a condensed little campaign aimed at delivering many of the orders by Christmas. If you'd like to check out the campaign/pledge manager page, you can do so here.  (Though obviously we won't be able to get you your order by Christmas at this point if you decide to buy anything. =)

2) The Celestial Showcase 

We also participated in a board game convention in Beijing this month to show off our next game, Celestial. For those who aren't aware, Celestial has been in development as long as DoM has, and we're finally ready to start revealing more of it to the world. We also want to assure you that the dev team is currently in full swing on DoM, so don't fear about this project detracting from it. Furthermore, Celestial's development has taken place in lulls in DoM's production. In other words, when a team member didn't have anything actively to work on for DoM, then he or she would move instead to work on Celestial. 

Here is a new video King of Average made highlighting some of the miniatures. 

At its heart, Celestial is basically a skirmish game. However, it is still a board game as opposed to a war game or strictly miniature-centered game. It has three different game modes, though, which will offer something for everyone:

Epic Mode

(Competitive or Cooperative/Solo)

In Epic Mode, players (either 1 or 2 playing as a team) will experience Celestial's storyline through a series of scenarios. The players will control a preset team of units to fight against the scenario's adversaries, which are controlled either by another player (as the game master) or by the game’s AI. Each scenario has its own specific settings, rules, and goals.

Challenge Mode

(Cooperative/Solo Only)

Challenge Mode is similar to Epic Mode, except that players can customize their teams of units (rather than using a preset team) to fight through Epic Mode's scenarios. The game's AI controls the enemies at a higher level of difficulty.

Skirmish Mode

(Competitive Only)

In Skirmish Mode, two teams of players (with 1 or 2 players in each team) battle against each other, controlling a customized team of units on one of the game's included battlefields. Each battlefield has its own specific settings, rules, and goals.

Well, that's it for this update! We'll be back next month with another one, but, in the meantime, I hope you have a happy holiday season and a Merry Christmas! We're looking forward to this coming year and digging deeper into Dawn of Madness soon. We'll talk to you again shortly, my friend!

More Delicious Minis
about 3 years ago – Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 10:56:13 PM

Hey there, friend! If you are in the US, Happy Thanksgiving! And, if you're not in the US, I hope you have a great week, and that the upcoming holiday season is good to you! 

We're back in this update with the last of the wave one minis to show you. These are grouped into three new videos: The Terrors, The Rages, and The Masquerades. We hope you like them! Without further ado, let's jump into the videos. 

We'll start with the video for the standalone Terrors.

Next, let's take a look at the Rage abominations.

And last of all, let's see the Masquerade abominations.

We hope you liked this look at the finalized minis! As far as actual newsy stuff, we don't have much to share right now, apart from saying that we're still working away on the game. We should have some more good stuff for you next month, though. 

Well, as I mentioned above, I hope those of you in the US have a great Thanksgiving, I hope all of you get some great Black Friday deals, and I hope all of you stay safe and sane during this crazy time. We'll talk with you again soon!