Wow sounds great. Anyone knows what the game is going to play like? (they mentinoed it's a board game) but what kind? Dundgeon Crawling?
There is a great introductory article that gives you some idea behind the game in Irregular magazine issue 2, transcript follows. It is well worth downloading the magazine as it has some great artwork, and two photos of the magnificent Gorm miniature, one of which I picked up at Salute (now assembled and at the top of my painting pile).
http://irregularmagazine.com/back-issues/
"There is one game above all other games, including board games, war games, card games - collectable or otherwise - and video games that has captured my attention like no other. That game is Warhammer Quest.
There I was, 13 years old and attending sleep away summer camp. Months prior to my attendance I had twisted my friends arm for $30 and split the game with him, knowing full well I would have to wait for my parental units to deliver the game to me on that fated “Parents Visit You at Camp” day. Most other campers got garbage like candy and snacks. But not me. For me, the greatest treasure of all was a humble post office box with what would become, in my mind, the greatest gaming experience of all time.
This of course lead to many flash-lit late nights of questing!
What was so special about Warhammer Quest that it consumed me so? Why was it so easy to drag some of my non-gamer friends into it? Why did we always just have to “go on one more quest” even as the room filled with that early morning blue light? At the time I just didn’t really think about it and I don’t think I was really prepared to answer those questions to myself until just about a year ago. I was working a nice high paying but reasonably brainless job. My gig just prior to it was with Atari games which was a very high stress insane experience filled with many crazy stories for some other time.
So anyway, there I am working away doing front end web coding, checking my slowly growing savings account and starting to look into real estate for myself in New York. When I started to do the maths about how long I’d have to work to afford a down payment on a humble $1.5 million brown stone, something deep inside me snapped. Somewhere between the grind of soul crushing day jobs, the absurd cost of being a home owner here in the city and, uh, Warhammer Quest, a little bit of madness sparkled in my brain. Suddenly I had those answers to those long forgotten questions I had once asked myself.
Obviously I had to make my own game. I had to make Kingdom Death.
So I’ll say it flat out right now - the goal of this project is not to walk away rich and grinning. The goal is to satisfy myself with the best possible gaming experience I can muster and learn about directing and managing a large project with a set budget. I really have no desire to create the next big thing. I find thoughts like that to be very distracting from the tasks at hand, which is just an epic amount of work! I am hoping to create a very boutique experience. Something that is very special and yes, perhaps a bit rare. But that’s certainly enough about me - let’s talk about the game!
Horror Fantasy
We place a huge premium on making sure we manage to capture the right flavour for the game world. In early world-building discussions this quickly led to the eradication of all demi-races. The focus is really on human beings, people living in some seriously crazy stuff and monsters. Simple monsters, glorious monsters and monsters so beyond what a human can understand even their mere mention can send someone into a dangerous seizure. Elves, dwarves, orcs - they just didn’t really fit into the bill of what was envisioned. I didn’t want the horror to get lost in the fantasy and end up with a “fantasy horror” game world instead!
No Game Master & The Death Token
In Kingdom Death, there is no game master. Flavour-wise it wouldn’t make sense to empower a human with the sole task of controlling the adventure, the dungeon and the monsters. At a very basic level, the game uses a story book and several decks of cards to determine what, where and whom the players are fighting. So every game is literally you and your friends against the system - against the harsh world that is Kingdom Death.
One of the game mechanics I feel quite adds to the “horror” feeling of game play, is the death token. The death token is just a simple counter that gets passed from one player to the next during game play. But it’s a bit like a loaded hot potato, as while holding the death token your character might gain access to some of his more powerful abilities - but you also might suddenly become the target of a trap someone triggered by accident. You’ll also be the one that has to grimly roll the attack dice for the monsters attacking all the players - including yourself. ..
And just so you know, it totally sucks when you kill yourself!
Death is Beautiful
In a gaming world that has less and less penalty for losing or death, myself and my gaming group found ourselves getting a bit bored. We wanted to make sure that every character you create is a wonderful experience consisting of many disorders, derangements, limb loss and finally - sweet release. The game is focused on survival, not becoming the most bad-ass monster-bashing hero in just a few games. There are even rules for wielding a weapon in your mouth in the event that your hands are both broken! Or missing... Or your character thinking they are missing! He he he!
Those that have gone before you
Now, I understand how frustrating it can be when your character gets devoured by the harvester and is reduced to a screaming face on the side of a titanic human head covered earthworm - its OK, though. In fact, we have a system in development that rewards you when your characters die. There will be certain unlocks and even special abilities you can only earn once you are several deaths into the game.
The Miniature Line
Currently we have around 30 unique miniatures slated for development. We hope this number will expand as we pick up steam though!
Community
Initially we wanted everything to be plastic, but the cost for that is just way too absurdly high. I can say proudly - and after much much research and work - that we may even be doing a few new things in the miniature-making arena. The White Speaker miniature was not sculpted with traditional methods. In fact she was designed in 3D and printed out on an absurdly high quality, and expensive, rapid prototyping machine. The resin casts are made from the master 3D print. Some miniatures in the line are made with this method, others are hand sculpted by just wonderful and amazing well established artists. The official scale is 35mm and I know that sounds big - but they are still about the size of the majority of most “28mm heroic” games. So there isn’t much of a worry about compatibility issues in case someone wants to pick up one of our miniatures to use as a hero elsewhere.
Not for the mass market
Yes, I know, I know. I am sorry but this game is simply not intended for a mass market audience. There are many themes and pieces of artwork that are far from suitable for children and we really just don’t want to feel held back. Also, I want to personally ensure that the quality of everything is extremely high and has more of a hand-made feeling that mass market products simply can’t achieve.
All the details are still being worked out, but it looks like the boxed game will have around 80 hand cast resin miniatures, 4 character books, the rule book, the story book and various decks of cards and tokens needed for game-play. The cost is not going to be small. It’s an adult game for mature gamers and their gaming groups. We might set up a multiple payment system, so you can grab 4 friends and just split the overall cost. Although it still will be cheaper then some of the more absurd Games Workshop bundles.
Only 100 copies of the game!
That’s right! We plan on producing just 100 copies of the game in full. This is of course just a step one but there is always the possibility that it is indeed the final step.
Lastly I’d like to thank the people here at Sheffield Irregulars, the kind people over at the Wamp forum and Mike McVey who has already come to my rescue on more then one occasion!
So if you’ve been hoping or looking for something really special that might just satisfy a long lost gaming itch, make sure to keep up to date with the developments of Kingdom Death. We want to make sure we take care of the people that support us and thus our private mailing list (which you can join at
www.kingdom-death.com) will always be the very first to hear news and be updated with product availability."
See also blog for other hints, first post at bottom of page:
http://poots.com/peoples/kingdomdeath/weblog/
