Day 2: Sidequests, Stretch Goals and Playthroughs, oh my!
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 05:34:44 AM
[TL;DR - First stretch goal is unlocked, details on the 2nd stretch goal & our first sidequest, and episode 2 of the Kinfire Playthrough is out now!]
Hello again Seekers!
Day 2 of our campaign and we are FLYING along like a little mothling. Everybody loves the clicky-clack sound of tokens in a bag being shuffled around, and now you get to experience that with our unlocked plastic destiny chits! Each time you stress about what chit you’re going to pull (“please not #5, that’s an insta-loss for us!”), you can get a little serotonin from the click-clack sounds. As a treat.
Another exciting treat is episode 2 of our Kinfire Playthrough Series! If you followed our socials before launch you might already be familiar with this, but we had 2 incredible groups of tabletop and gaming folks come together and play through a couple quests of the game so you can get an idea of what it plays like. Quests 1 and 2 are being played by Chrissy Costanza (Twitch, Against the Current), Brian David Gilbert (Polygon, The Altogether), Krystina Arielle (Star Wars: The High Republic, Dimension 20), and Ryan Verniere (Blackbirds TTRPG, Riot Games). If you want to start at the beginning, we have a playlist here.
Normally for updates I’ll be giving you some quick recaps, and a bit about where we’re headed, but because we’re about to venture into Side Quest City (not an actual in-game location), I’m going to go a little more in-depth. For context, we set out to create an epic campaign experience in the 15-quest main story (~20 hours of total gameplay). What happened is that we invested so much into the world-building that there were many additional stories and gameplay experiences that we wanted to add.
With this stretch goal, we're adding to both the Board Game and the Premium Collection. In the Board game, you're getting an extra quest that comes with a unique enemy, new quest adventure, new quest battle, 1 new unique map, and some extra rewards. For Premium backers, you'll also receive an additional acrylic standee, automatically.
And now I’m passing it over to some other members of the team to give you some first-hand insight into the sidequest experience, its development, and the world of Atios. Of course, if you’d rather be unspoiled for all of this and experience it for the first time when opening the box, this concludes your Day 2 Update!
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Kevin Wilson (Game Designer):
Each of the quests in Kinfire Chronicles is crafted to be a unique experience, from the adventuring portion to the combat. Ash and Bramble, our first sidequest, is unlocked in the town of Vinna, where the players find themselves after Quest 2. Mika, an alchemist who lived there, has been killed and his lab destroyed; his research stolen. A friend of his, a dwarf named Hoyt Belgar, has asked you to track down the thieves, avenge Mika's death, and retrieve his friend's stolen work before it's lost forever. As this is the setup for the quest, it doesn’t represent much of a spoiler.
Ash and Bramble is something of a murder mystery, and it uses its memory cards in a fun way to remind players of the clues they’ve found so far. Eventually, they have to decide on a culprit based on the information they’ve gathered, and that sets up the battle.
Another cool feature of the quest is that it includes the first use of a new card type - Allies. Often, we wanted to have some small game effect tied to a card you couldn’t attack, or a smaller, simpler enemy that didn’t need an entire enemy sheet, and Allies fill that gap. Ally cards can have one or more of the enemy destiny chits tied to them, so an ally might trigger when the 7 is drawn from the bag, or they might just be a permanent passive effect during the fight. In Ash and Bramble, without spoiling TOO much, the Ally card serves as living scenery for the epic conflict you’ll face. But if you’re impatient and want to see what that Ally card looks like, click to see a prototype of it here.
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Katarzyna “Kate” Redesiuk (Art Director)
Kate being an artist delivered their update in image form. Spoiler alert: you will see what the enemy looks like.
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Cathy Bock (Story Editor)
While the world of Atios is populated with a variety of unique peoples and creatures, the elves take center stage in Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall. The city of Din’Lux, where much of the game takes place, was once their great capital city.
Though they look similar to humans, physiologically the elves of Atios are quite different. Their bodies, for instance, are severely sensitive to sunlight. Long ago, elves were exclusively nocturnal and lived mostly underground. In fact, a large, unseen portion of Din’Lux is made up of underground caverns, temples, and tunnels. The elves have adapted to daylight by developing magically-enhanced clothing and charms that protect their delicate skin. They wear masks over their faces when they venture outside and some have even taken to always wearing masks in the company of other people. These masks started out as merely functional, but they eventually evolved into ornate statements of individual fashion. Each elven mask is as unique as the person wearing it, and you can learn a lot about how an elf wishes to be seen by the design and colors of their mask.
When developing Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall, we were inspired by high fantasy settings and creatures, but we wanted to provide a unique feel to the peoples of Atios. Our amazing art director here at Incredible Dream, Katarzyna Redesiuk, brought to life a unique and diverse vision of elves in this world. Every character, whether they be elf or dwarf or revenant, was given painstaking consideration–from their clothing to their accessories to their physical features. Asha, a playable elven character in the game, has a prosthetic hand and wears a mask far more simple and inconspicuous than most other elves (she is a rogue after all). In contrast, Hierophant Selen, an elven NPC, has a more regal appearance, with an elaborate mask that suits her position as leader of the Temple of Ziva.
Culturally, the elves of Atios tend to be highly religious and ceremonial. Most of them worship the goddess Ziva, whom they claim is the creator of all of Atios. She is said to have gifted the elves with the Holy Flame as protection against calamity. This flame, which lights the Great Lighthouse, is made of kinfire, a powerful source of magical energy. A long and tedious war–known as the Great War–was fought over the possession of kinfire. Ten years before the game begins, the war was at its height when the Darkness—a mystical storm-like force that transforms everything it touches—suddenly struck Atios. The Great Lighthouse of Din’Lux and its magical kinfire glow, was the only protection. The elven leader, Hierophant Selen, allowed refugees from the surrounding areas to flood into the city. Now, peoples of all kinds roam the crowded streets while the Darkness rages outside the city walls. In Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall, everyone–elves, dwarves, orcs, humans, and revenants–must learn to work together if they have any hope of surviving the Starless Nights. Din'Lux, once an elven city, is now a city for all.
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That’s all for today folks! If there’s something else you want to learn more about, let us know in the comments!
Cheers,
Risa Petrone
Community Manager
