Nick here again to keep you updated on the latest at Hyacinth Games and Wreck-Age. We are endeavoring to ensure you are all informed as to what is going on with us in a much more transparent manner, so let’s talk about what took place last week.
The week began with a video that I put together showing off a lot of the development that has taken place in the last 2 years, and that paints a picture of what the next year will hopefully look like. I know when I watch it I get excited for the months ahead, and we hope it you do as well.
We ran an event at Brainstorm Comics here in Chicago to highlight a few of the developments in the rules, and see how people enjoyed them. We’ve made a lot of changes to the rules in the last 6 months or so based upon play testing and feedback from our friends and fans. If you’ve played any games using the Wreck-Age Quick Start Rules on our website or that you picked up at Adepticon, you may have noted that Fighting was a series of opposed rolls fought out across 3 back to back rounds. Feedback showed that this confused people and dragged out the game unnecessarily, so we re-wrote Fighting completely. The response to the changes has been two thumbs up, so that’s a step in the right direction we think.
One of the things people ask a lot about is how we intend to apply the fusion of RPG and skirmish war game elements. We played a scenario involving a 6 player crew trying to escape the clutches of their Stitchmen oppressors and a seventh person controlled the Stitchers. I acted as Narrator setting the scene with background and descriptions. The play group seemed to enjoy the flexibility of dragging fallen comrades, searching rooms for clues and weapons, stealing weapons from their enemies and using them against them. These bits of dramatic action add a lot of depth to the game and push the players into even greater feats of bravery and treachery than the dispassionate approach most war games take, and I feel that really sets us apart.
Another concept that made its debut last Thursday was Parlay. Parlay allows your players (and Narrator Characters as well) the ability to use their Renown to intimidate, seduce, and cajole. Parlay is an Action that uses a variable number of Action Points depending on the difficulty of a variety of common requests and demands. You can throw insults at your opponents to try and work them up into a blind rage so they attack you, or you can simply demand that they drop their weapon. The idea was to introduce a mechanic that allowed for those cinematic moments when the action pauses as the two sides reload weapons and try to catch their breath. One side yells out from behind cover and tries to convince the other to lay down their weapons, or even switch teams. Of course, we didn’t want to remove your control over your Player Character in these situations so we chose to differentiate between Player Characters, Characters, and Narrator Characters and create a designation called Free Will. Free Will prevents you from acting against your will with the character that represents you in the game. However, any other members of your crew or community who happen to be around, like henchmen, hired guns, and other additional characters you acquire along the way don’t necessarily have that loyalty. Life in Wreck-Age is about survival. What’s cool is, if you always wanted to have a, “Luke, I am your father!” moment in your games, Parlay allows for that to happen
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Last Thursday at Brainstorm was a great night because we got to see a bunch of our ideas implemented in the public eye and receive immediate feedback. Additionally, the scenario we played may be the basis for a “dungeon crawler” style board game down the line if we can get that far. Thank you to everyone who came out to check it out and support us. And thank you to Brainstorm for hosting.
Enough about mechanics though. People have been asking about the Reclaimers, and we just got the master back for the only one out of the four that arrived ready to cast. I’m hoping to sit down with a local sculptor this week to discuss the necessary changes to the other three.
This week we’re working on the rule book some more and starting to dig in to get ready for GenCon at the end of the summer. Hopefully next week we’ll be making an announcement about the long awaited Drifter and/or Stitcher box sets. As always, watch the Wreck-Age forum for up to the minute developments. http://www.wreck-age.net
-Nick, Matt, and Anton
Hyacinth Games
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