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Update 13: Spotlight on Forteller Narration!
over 2 years ago – Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 12:29:02 AM

[tl;dr- Forteller narration sample and spotlight]

Brief weekend update here, friends. We want to take some time to shine our spotlight on Forteller Games and the absolutely incredible work they do in board game audio narration. 

We are partnering with Forteller Games to provide audio narration for every folio intro and story card in the game. The goal is to provide gaming groups with the ability to just sit back and listen as you progress in the game and make your choices, rather than making one person the designated reader (Personally, I'm happy to do it, but I know not every game group has a Risa in it). Forteller utilizes professional voice actors, original music composition, and sound effects to do more than just read cards to you. They're providing a full immersive experience.

From their Marketing Rockstar Nicolle the Troll:

"Your Tabletop, Our Stage!

Forteller provides an epic storytelling experience with professional voice actors, ambient music, and sound effects. You will enhance Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall's adventures with premium narrations and decision branching.

Is it required?

Absolutely not! Forteller narration are optional experiences! We use the term "frictionless technology" as a cornerstone of what we do.  This means, we aim to build amazing technology that doesn't interfere with the social gathering of playing a boardgame together.

How to level up your gameplay?

Download our app to immerse yourself into the world of Atios with Forteller! Learn more at https://www.fortellergames.com and join our Forfolk Discord community to share your stories with us! We want to listen to you too!"

If you back our Premium Collection pledge level you'll already receive the Forteller narration, but you can also get it as an add-on. And if you're on the fence, I highly recommend listening to their audio narration sample of the intro for Quest 1. Gives me chills every time.

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Quick reminder, you have a few more hours to vote on the best way to distract a monster in update 11, and we'll have the winning sketch and continuing story in tomorrow's update.

Be sure to use some of today to take care of yourself. And if you do that by playing a game, let us know which one it is! 

Cheers!

Risa Petrone

Community Manager

Update 12: New Seeker Standees!
over 2 years ago – Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 06:35:50 AM

[tl;dr- New Seeker Standee Sketches, Highlights from AMA with Art Team]

/// NEW SEEKER STANDEE POSES

Big shoutout to backer Dale Bartholomew Cooper for asking this question originally. “I’m wondering if your team has considered changing the standee art for the Seekers to match their “action stances” (i.e. those dynamic illustrations of them that we see in the “Meet the Seekers Crew” section). Don’t get me wrong, I love the current art on the standees and it should absolutely be used in the game.”

We brought this idea to the art team and they went, “uhhh heck yeah!!” So this past week they’ve been working on the first sketches of new Seeker poses for the acrylic standees!

They’re all in different stages of finality, which also gives you a peek into the general art process.

The original query said we should make it a poll to see how the community felt, but I’m gonna be honest here, once the team started sketching, we knew action poses were the way to go. So we’re sorry to say, no poll, but excited to say that this suggestion REALLY resonated with us, and truly helped make the game better. These are the moments when we are reminded why Kickstarter is so awesome. And I know I said this last week, but the fact that we have such a great community is why we get such great suggestions like this.

Now if you love the original standee art, don’t worry. That artwork will remain on the character sheets.

/// AMA RECAP WITH OUR ART TEAM

Yesterday we had a wonderful AMA with our art team in our Discord server! They dropped these action pose sketches, and some other fun concept art for elves and orcs. Here are a few of our favorite questions and answers (edited for brevity and clarity):

Q: Do you have a favorite stage of character design? Like the brainstorming, clothes, adding details etc?

Kate: As an Art Director, I love ideation sketches and seeing all the crazy ideas! But I often struggle at this stage myself when I'm the artist. I'm definitely the adding-details type of person and finding visual themes that tie everything together.

Sandra: For me it’s also character/style explorations and sketches, just trying to get that vibe/personality of the character right and finding shapes that would serve the idea best is extremely fun!

Q: I'm curious about which part of creating the visuals for the whole game was the most pleasant for you, and which turned out to be the most difficult.

Ines: In my case I've had two, three moments like that! The most pleasant is always the concept stage. I really enjoyed creating this specific asset you'll be able to find in the game - a pamphlet that welcomes you to the big city of Din'Lux (there'll be three pamphlets for three districts, actually!). Kate was awesome to let me take the wheel on guiding the vision here. The idea was to create a piece of work that'd be "pulled out of Atios", and that involved deciding on little details such as: what is the art movement like in Din'Lux; how do they print their press?; how do they advertise stuff? I even went ahead and wrote myself a little document that'd specify material culture in Atios (what kinda ink they use, where do they get it...). It just lets me sleep better, heh. Cuz the most difficult part of creating the visuals is always putting everything together and technical details.

Sandra was the one to illustrate and adorn the whole thing and turn my concepts + research into a wonderful piece of work

Sandra: For me personally, one of the most pleasant parts was designing characters; townsfolk npcs were especially fun to do because of the variety of designs and personalities! Surprisingly for me, I had a lot of fun illustrating pamphlets which would feature various places to visit in the game. Most difficult for me were probably quest folios, it was challenging to implement elements that would suggest what the quest is about without spoiling much and put all that into a nice enough composition.

Q: Throughout the design process for the project, have you learned any lessons for yourselves and ideas to make whole process smoother?

Kate: Absolutely! My background is in video games and this is actually my first board game. I've learned a lot about print, visibility, and importance of tactile feedback from game elements. And I've learned at Gen Con that the board game community is absolutely fantastic and they're the nicest people.

Ines: My hard-way learned lesson is to LET people know that a helping hand is welcome, and that they're absolutely there to share the workload. This team made me realize that being a part of it means we're ACTUALLY a team. I know it might sound silly but... the smoothest process came from talking with others and making sure that we know each other's needs a little bit better

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Short and sweet Saturday update! Remember you can still vote on the best method to distract a monster over in Update 11. We’ll be tallying the votes Sunday evening. Have a wonderful Saturday night!

Cheers!

Risa Petrone

Community Manager

Update 11- It's the Weekend!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 10, 2022 at 01:19:06 PM

[tl;dr- Clarification on the 48-hour Mapbook offer, Designer Discussion by Kevin Wilson, AMA with the Art team in our Discord today, and a new Conundrum.]

/// 48-HOUR BACKER MAPBOOK PROMO

Just a super fast update since we had a few questions about the 48-hour mapbook promo. If your backer number is 1334 or lower, you backed in the first 48 hours and you’ll be getting the digital mapbook automatically. If you’ve added it onto your pledge, you can go ahead and remove it (or maybe add something else on instead?). If you forget before the campaign is over, we’ll credit your account.

/// DESIGNER DISCUSSION- MOVEMENT

As we were leading up to this campaign, Kevin Wilson has been writing Designer Discussions talking about different aspects of the game design. This week he surprised us with a bonus discussion about movement in combat, and how to make the most of a small combat space. My favorite quote from this discussion: “it’s strategically a knife fight in a phone booth - your movements matter a lot, but your options are limited enough that you don’t spend forever overthinking them." Getting a sneak peek into his brain really is fascinating.

And if you’re interested in his development of other aspects of the game, you can also read about the destiny bag, how the difficulty builds on itself.  and how to maximize the cooperative experience.

/// THE WINNING CONUNDRUM- ZIP, ZIP, ZIP

I think we saw this one coming early. Though I have to admit, I was kind of hoping for cargo snail. The good news is that we happen to have plenty of concept art for Clementine, the cargo snail that pulls Luca’s Tea Wagon (a location you might be familiar with if you watched yesterday’s episode of the Kinfire Playthrough series). So you might get to see a bit more anyway.

Let’s continue the story we’ve started together. When last we left our Seekers…

CONUNDRUM 3: A QUICK TRIP

The sun is setting just as Valora throws a rope over the zip-line. She is giddy with excitement. “Are you all ready?!”

Roland shakes his head, his face a little green. “Perhaps I’ll just meet you there.”

Asha pushes him from behind. “Oh, no you don’t. Come on, it’s not that bad.”

“There's the city wall." Valora points. "It’s not far. And look at Naz—she’s not afraid.”

Naz straps herself in. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“It’s not fear that’s keeping me from it.” Roland puts a hand to his gurgling stomach. “It’s those venison burgers.”

Khor puts up a finger. “Wait…I do believe we’re missing someone.”

They all turn back to the camp. Feyn stands there alone, rubbing the back of his neck. He slowly makes his way to the cable and reaches up, his hands shaking.

“Feyn, are you afraid of heights?" Asha asks.

Feyn grins sheepishly and a few of them try not to laugh. Khor reaches out to pat Feyn’s back. “We all have our struggles that we have to overcome.”

Valora and Asha push themselves off the tree, launching across the zip-line. “Woo-hoo!” Their cries of joy echo through the dusk-lit valley. The others follow close behind.

They nearly reach the other side when the cable suddenly snaps. They tumble through the air. Moments later, back on their feet, they find themselves in a darkened forest…

In the interest of not making our art team and story writer work on the weekend, we’ll leave this conundrum up for voting until Sunday evening and reveal the winner on Monday when we’re back in the “office”. Just like last week, I’ll be dropping brief updates over the weekend, and of course if we crush another stretch goal we’ll reveal the next one and celebrate together! But the updates will be a little more brief.

/// AMA TONIGHT WITH OUR ART TEAM

Our art team is REALLY excited about this AMA everybody. Our graphic designer, Ines, is also a fantastic artist, and they drew a delightful little piece with themself, senior illustrator Sandra, and our intrepid art director Kate Redesiuk! (Which one is which? You’ll have to guess).

You can hop on into our Discord at any time and start asking questions in the #ask-me-anything channel. We can’t wait! If you miss it, we’ll have some of our favorite questions recapped in tomorrow’s update.

—

That’s it for today! We’ll have some cool stuff for you over the weekend, and you can vote all weekend long on how you’re gonna handle that conundrum!

Artistically,

Risa Petrone

Community Manager

Update 10: Art, Art, and MORE Art!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 09, 2022 at 10:12:42 AM

[tl;dr: More Art stretch goal unlocked, new Conundrum to vote on, Kinfire Playthrough episode 3, and Ruel Gaviola livestream tonight]

Seekers! Feels like we just announced our new stretch goals and we’ve already unlocked one of them! This is incredible! Now the memory cards that travel with you through the story will have gorgeous, memorable art to go with them! I don’t have a sample yet because well, the art team still has to draw it all, but we are VERY excited about reaching this particular milestone.

/// THE WINNING CONUNDRUM- WHAT ARE WE EATING?

Yes, our art team is committed to drawing the winning vote each day (they’re super excited for some of the conundrums coming up). Feyn and Valora got their char-grilled burgers, so they each get one Kinfire token. Remember, whichever Seeker has the most Kinfire tokens at the end of next week will get whatever’s in Khor’s gift box from Update 9.

And now we go on to today’s conundrum: Travel.

A FINE MEAL

Valora collapses onto the ground, letting her head rest on a log. “Wow, Khor. That was delicious.”

“Yes, indeed,” Roland says, patting his stomach. “While I myself was in the mood for a fine sausage, that venison burger really did hit the spot.”

Khor stops scrubbing their pan long enough to bow in gratitude.

“Did you hear that sound?” Asha appears from behind a nearby tree, their hand resting on the hilt of their dagger. “What is that?”

Naz yawns. “Relax. It’s just Feyn over there snoring.” They all turn to where Feyn has fallen asleep in a patch of tall grass.

“Yes, I’m afraid he ate more than his fair share,” Khor says. "But Asha, you haven't taken a single bite of yours."

Asha looks down at the sandwich in their other hand. They grimace and take a small taste. Khor watches expectantly as Asha nods and smiles tightly. Satisfied, Khor goes back to cleaning up.

As soon as Khor’s back is turned, Asha’s face sours. They spit the burger behind the tree and toss the remains into the bushes as Valora giggles. “Ugh—venison.”

A howl sounds off in the distance and Naz looks up at the darkening sky. “How late is it? Get up, everyone! We need to get back to the city.”

Same deal as yesterday, comment below with your chosen method of transportation (or the Seeker you want to see get the Kinfire) and the winner will be revealed in tomorrow’s update.

/// KINFIRE PLAYTHROUGH SERIES- EPISODE 3

The next episode of the Kinfire Playthrough Series just went live on YouTube! Join Chrissy Costanza, Brian David Gilbert, Krystina Arielle, and Ryan Verniere as they finish Quest 2, reach the town of Vinna, and get to go shopping!

If I can give you a little behind-the-scenes info from the set: Krystina was a last-minute lifesaver who didn’t have time to play the game before the day we were shooting. When you’re watching these episodes, you’re watching her learn Kinfire Chronicles in real-time. And to see the difference in her as a player in episode 1 versus episode 3 (which is really just Quest 1 to the end of Quest 2) is mind-boggling. Her confidence skyrockets, she becomes more vocal at the table, and her smile is contagious. That’s the kind of experience we were looking for when we set out to make this game. These four came to set knowing of each other- Krystina and Brian joked about being on some of the same shows (Dimension 20, Um Actually) but never on the same episode- and they left as 4 very real friends.

Unfortunately, this will also be this particular group of Seekers’ last episode. The exciting news is that starting with the next episode, we’ll be joined by a brand-new group of Seekers who are going to pick up where they left off, and start with Quest 3! If you’ve been following the updates, you already know who they are, but if you haven’t, I’m not spoiling it.

/// RUEL GAVIOLA LIVESTREAM TONIGHT

Don’t forget that Ruel Gaviola is livestreaming on Twitch TONIGHT at 10pmET/7pmPT. He’ll be streaming the unlocked sidequest The Stranger, so if you’re curious about it, now’s your chance to check it out! And if you want to know more about The Stranger, you can check Update 4 for some spoiler art (of course hidden behind links).

—

One last thing! We heard your comments about Betty and how unfair it was for her to lose her job as our Kickstarter proofreader. So we’re happy to announce that Betty has been rehired as our head of HR! This should go well.

We’ll check back in with you all tomorrow to see how the Seekers got back home, and to celebrate our Friday AMA! Remember you can start asking questions in the Discord now, the art team just won’t start answering them until tomorrow at 4pmET/1pmPT.

Cheers!

Risa Petrone

Community Manager

Update 9: A Bit of a Conundrum
over 2 years ago – Thu, Sep 08, 2022 at 02:59:48 AM

[tl;dr- 48-Hr Digital Mapbook check-in, updated sleeve count, community play along with special prize]

I’m sure you’re all already aware of this but WE JUST PASSED $200K!! The happy dance we all did in our team meeting was truly a sight to behold, next time I’ll make sure we record it. We’re thrilled to see that we’re maintaining momentum as we hit the middle of the campaign, and we’re so grateful to all of you for everything you’re doing. I’m noticing backers hopping into comments and answering questions about pledge levels, gameplay, components, and even the webcomic! You all make my job a joy, so thank you 💜

/// FREE DIGITAL MAPBOOK (FIRST 48 HR PROMO)

ICYMI- We offered a promo for all who backed in the first 48 hours- they would get the Digital Mapbook add-on ($20) for free. Well, if your backer number is 1334 or lower, you backed us in time! (To check your backer number on desktop, go to your profile picture in the top right corner, click “Activity,” then “Backed Projects,” then the blue plus sign on the right side of this campaign, and scroll to the bottom.)

If you’re just joining us and want to get in on this deal, not to worry! We’ll also offer this deal to anyone who goes to kinfirechronicles.com and signs up for our newsletter. Thank you for backing us now, we’re glad you’re here!

/// UPDATE ON SLEEVE COUNT

Yesterday we announced that we’d reached our $195k goal and unlocked 125 card sleeves in the Premium Collection, in addition to achieving the bonus goal and upgrading all cards to black core with linen finish.

In running a Kickstarter campaign, you try hard to get every last detail right and sometimes a key detail manages to slip through the cracks. So unfortunately…

Jane fired Betty as campaign proof-reader and we updated the KS page. We unlocked 150 card sleeves (=25 sleeves per Seeker!). Thank you Benny6Toes for the catch and MinimalistCat for the convo!

For backers who have purchased the add on, you will receive 150 sleeves instead of 125 sleeves. Unfortunately, there is no way to update the title of an add on in Kickstarter’s platform after someone has backed it. So it will still say 125 until we figure out a workaround.

/// CONUNDRUMS, A COMMUNITY ADVENTURE

As you all ask more questions about gameplay (and keep them coming!), we started thinking about how we could show off more mechanics without spoiling anything. Game Designer Kevin Wilson and Story Editor Cathy Bock came up with a great way to showcase the Conundrum cards in the story in a way that feels fun but doesn’t spoil gameplay. So think of this as some free DLC. Let’s start by setting the scene:

A FRIENDLY WAGER

Guildmaster Leera strolls into the dining hall and drops a box onto the table. “Special delivery,” she says before walking away.

Khor pries open the lid and gasps. “It came!” they say. They turn the box for everyone to see. “Who wants to try it on first?”

Feyn laughs and smacks his mug down on the table. He grins at Asha, who turns away. “No way,” she says. “I am NOT wearing that.”

Valora puts a hand out to touch it. “It’s so cute! Where did you get this?”

“A kind tailor in the Nests owed me a favor,” Khor says.

Still laughing, Feyn stands up. “How about we have ourselves a friendly wager? The winner will get to wear this little number.” He motions to Khor’s box.

Roland shakes his head. Naz starts to walk away.

“What…are you all afraid of a little competition?” Feyn asks.

Naz stops in her tracks and turns around. “Fine,” she says. Everyone around the table shrugs and then finally agrees.

Feyn rubs his hands together. “Let the contest begin!”

—

Play along with us! The Seekers are off on an adventure and we need your input. Every weekday, we’ll be offering you a new story card with a conundrum. Vote on what the Seekers should do by replying in the comments (look carefully at the card and you’ll see what the Seekers want). We’ll announce the winning choice and progress the story the next day.

Each time a choice is made, one or more Seekers will receive a Kinfire token. At the end of the adventure (next Friday, September 16), the Seeker with the most Kinfire tokens will win whatever is in Khor’s box… and you all may win something special.

Let’s get started with today’s conundrum:

Comment on this update with the choice you want, or the Seeker you’d like to see successful. For example, I could comment either, “Brats with sauerkraut” or “Roland” (and yes, that is my vote). I’ll tally it up tomorrow morning and have the results for you by the next update.

More about the conundrum mechanic:

The adventure phase of Kinfire (told mostly over story cards) is filled with narrative mini-games and choices for the party. Some decisions are a true test of character–questions of philosophy, ethics, or deep reflections that try the souls of the Seekers. In these conundrums, if you and your companions choose the path that your Seeker agrees with the most, you’ll receive a kinfire token (k), a valuable resource representing your Seeker’s personal growth (think: XP). You can read exactly how adventuring and deck building works by checking out our rulebooks online.

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That’s it for today! Don’t forget about Ruel Gaviola’s stream tomorrow, and the AMA in our Discord on Friday. Can’t wait to see who comes out on top in this conundrum!

Thoughtfully,

Risa Petrone

Community Manager