MEET THE TEAM WEDNESDAY!
almost 6 years ago – Wed, May 30, 2018 at 04:22:59 PM

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Morning everyone! 

We're having a great week and we're back for Meet-the-Team Wednesday with another team interview. Take it away, Chris Stewart!

Q: Let’s start with the easy question, tell us a little about yourself. What is your background, and how did you get started in the hobby?

I’m a multi-provincial Canadian (meaning I’ve lived all over) who studied History until I was offered an opportunity to get into video games back in 1997. As for when I got started in the hobby as a whole? It’s a bit fuzzy. My entire childhood had games of all sorts – board, classic cards, RPGs, and console and PC gaming.

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I think the point I got started for real in the board game hobby was in junior high school, when I found my crowd, and that crowd happened to include my oldest friend Chris (depending on who’s talking, the other one is the Anti-Chris) whose family were very big gamers.

I keenly recall playing Hero’s Quest at their kitchen table. There were many others, but that one stands out.  

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Q: What is the first game you remember playing?  

That’s a hard one to answer. I remember being very young and playing the classic family games, like Monopoly, The Game of Life, and Clue, but I don’t know if I was really a gamer then.

I remember playing Risk a lot, but around the same time, I know I got obsessed with was Shogun, back when it was a Milton-Bradley game. All those little figures and the Japanese art themes, it was amazing. Let’s say that’s the first game I remember playing. We could split hairs over other games, but this one is THE one in my memories.

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Q: What was the first game that made you want to make games?  

This is a weird answer, but Dino Wars! (exclamation theirs, but I concur). It was a tabletop miniatures game published in Dragon Magazine back in, I wanna say 1990. 

It only took a couple of pages to explain and it was up to you to find yourself some little green army men, plastic dinosaurs, and a ruler. And that was it, you were playing a miniatures war game.

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And that was the first time I went, “Hang on, this is great fun, but also I could come up with something like this.” I knew all about wargames and RPGs and board games, but Dino Wars! being so stripped-down kind made the light bulb go off for me. 

I have a second answer for video games – that was Robosport, by Maxis. And I discovered it at around the same time as we were playing Dino Wars!, but in that case, it made me want to make games, but it didn’t seem attainable, as I wasn’t a programmer or artist.  

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Q: What was your first job in the game industry?  

It’s a boring one. I was a games tester and I spent ages testing a hockey game. Not even playing the game, rather I had to check the player models to make sure their jerseys had the right player numbers and names on them. Game testing lets you peek behind the curtains and learn a lot about production, but man, it’s not getting paid to have fun, like people assume.  

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Q: When and how did you join Kerberos, and what games have you worked on?  

Day one! And all of them!

Technically, the other founders left our previous employer to start plotting and coding and designing a couple of months before I did, as I had to wrap up at my prior job. But I’m the guy that set up and filed all the paperwork for the company, so technically I was physically closest to the action when Kerberos first formed.

Corporations are an area effect, right? Until you get into all the annual government filings, then it’s damage over time, amirite?

Hot-cha-cha! I’ll let myself out.

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Q: What does a day in the life of an Executive Producer look like? 

 A daily series of fires to put out. 

That’s actually misleading. It’s popular to call them fires, but a better description would be "Dynamic To-Do List". 

 Making games and running a company means lots and lots of people involved, both within the company and without, and they all have their tasks. While you can schedule and organize people within the company pretty easily, you can’t schedule the people OUTSIDE the company as tightly...and even with your own teams, things will come up, unanticipated problems appear. You help move things along for all of those people...while still taking care of your own To-Do List.

It sounds overwhelming,  and I think that may be why people like to call it "dealing with fires"...but "fire"  sounds like it's an emergency, and they’re not all emergencies. They’re mostly stuff that just has to get done.

Of course, I say all this as an executive producer that actually once had to LITERALLY PUT OUT A REAL FIRE AT WORK.

When it comes to specifically making a tabletop game? My To-Do List includes things like sourcing prototypes, talking to fulfillment companies and manufacturers, reaching out to government agencies that might be able to help in various ways, and generally taking care of the team however I can so that they can focus on their own work.

That’s the simplest way to describe it – it’s ticking things off a list as fast as you can so everyone else can keep moving forward.

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Q: How have your family (and/or friends) impacted your games over the years?

I mentioned my friend Chris above, who was my first gaming enabler. Once I joined the games  industry, I found even more like minds, in particular Martin and Arinn during my  Barking Dog years, who had regular gaming nights and included me in those. 

 As for my family, they always encouraged it, which is a big deal. I don’t think most parents see any value to gaming, other than (hopefully) it makes their kid happy, so they'll help by driving him around to find a particular RPG book or let him stay overnight at a friend's place so he can play Car Wars.

Upshot is...if you have parents that let you indulge in gaming, never ever ever take them for granted!

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Q: Do you have different priorities as a creator,  now that you’re a Dad?

Kind of. I spend a lot of time actively looking at game rules and asking "Dad questions"  like, "Is this easy enough to teach a kid?", "What are they going to learn from it?", and "Is it fun for us to play together?"  

These are things you always ask when making a game, things you watch out for when demo-ing and play-testing with gamers outside the company...but now I find myself wondering about my own future,  and getting to play these games with my son.

He’s five, so currently he’s really into ignoring the rules of Mousetrap and inventing his own, which I choose to take as an encouraging sign.

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Q: Are you an avid board gamer? Do you have a favorite game you like to play?

I am an avid board gamer, but one who wishes they had more time to play. That’s both a Dad Thing and an Owning A Business thing – they both eat up a lot of spare time, so for the moment, I’m at the low point in my playing-board-games bell curve.

I can see more and more game time coming as my child gets older, though. I have that shelf that never stops filling with new games, which I understand is a symptom of being an avid gamer.

Q: Do you have a dream project for tabletop players? What’s a game you’d really love to make?

There is one and we actually started shaping it, but it’s some ways off yet. I wish I could say more, but I also don’t want to spill the beans. I am working on a Sword of the Stars version of Dutch Blitz. The world doesn’t need a SotS branded Dutch Blitz, but I’d like to see it and I’m absolutely fascinated with printing and manufacturing, so it’s kind of my own little project. It’s a day-dream project, let’s call it that.

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Q: What’s the next tabletop game in the pipeline for Kerberos fans?

It's called Sword of the Stars: CONTROL!

 It’s a card game about seizing planets. A great gaming night warm up – quick to learn, moves along at a nice clip, and gets everyone all amped up. The name of the game is also taking stuff from others while protecting your own stuff, so it has a lot of instant rivalry and soft grudges that are always fun. 

 Q: What do you enjoy most about making tabletop games?

Holding final product! I love playing our games and seeing others play them, but as I mentioned, I have a thing for how products get made. It’ll be a few months before I can hold the final published version of The Pit Board Game in my hands, but we had some demo copies made and they arrived last week, complete in boxes and shrink wrapped and I’ve never been happier. 

You can’t hold ideas until you publish them, then you can physically hold them and I love that.

80% FUNDED! ASK US ANYTHING!
almost 6 years ago – Tue, May 29, 2018 at 09:46:51 PM

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Wow! Big weekend, folks. Welcome back from your vacations and staycations, and thanks to everyone who played our games at GameX/Strategicon--we had a fantastic time and we appreciate those of you who joined our mailing list and have come on board to support our campaign. You guys rock. :)

Work continues behind the scenes at the Kerberos Tabletop Division. The Game Transport Pod and our weary demo team have returned safely from Los Angeles, and new reviewers are busy playing the prototypes and painting some minis.

In the mean time, it's Tuesday and time for TMI!

What's up with you guys? Any questions for us here at Kerberos?

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3D MONDAY - TOKENS AND COUNTERS! (almost 80% funded!)
almost 6 years ago – Mon, May 28, 2018 at 04:48:31 PM

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Morning everyone! It's time for another 3D Monday, and this morning we have something different: 3D terrain models and player aids! Our supporters with access to a 3D printer can experiment with 3D printable Turn Order Tokens, Open Door portals, and a Floor Counter ring which marks the level of the Floor that you're currently exploring. All for free on Thingiverse!

 In other news: our roving prototypes are currently in the hands of two more reviewers, one in Croatia and the other in New Jersey! It's fun to see a professional miniature painter working with our 3D printed minis for the first time as well.

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GAMEX/STRATEGICON

In other news--today is our last day at GameX Strategicon! Here's our schedule once again, for those seeing it for the first time.

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We'll be shipping out tonight and flying back to Vancouver, but in the mean time we'd love to see you at the table for some dice rolling. Still not too late to get some swag and sign up for our mailing list!

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To wrap things up--we are doing great so far, but we still need your help! Sharing the campaign and our updates to your social media and forums really helps.

Thank you all for your support. Go little game go!

LORE SATURDAY - OUR HEROES!
almost 6 years ago – Sat, May 26, 2018 at 11:23:38 PM

Greetings all! We are cruising toward 80% funded with two weeks to go and the team has a busy weekend planned, meeting brand new people and playing demos of our Sword of the Stars games in Los Angeles at the GameX/Strategicon convention.

 In fact, we're playing right now! Right this moment!

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If you live in the area, come on down and play with us. You can win some cool swag, sign up for our mailing list, be immortalized on camera, and get an advance demo of our cool board game and card game.

Here's the schedule, in case you missed it earlier. We'll be here all weekend!

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Beyond that, it's Lore Saturday and our Lead Writer has another juicy update about the world of the Pit. Take it away, Arinn!

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Today's question is a simple one: who are the Player Characters of the Pit Board Game? The minis have helmets on, which makes them a little anonymous--you mainly know them by their color-coded armor. They're labeled by their jobs and skill sets--a Scout, a Medic, an Engineer, a Marine.

But when you flip the card over, you can see the names and faces of the Characters in the original video game. Who are these people? What's their story? Why did they dive into the Pit? And more importantly... how do you role-play these Characters well?

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TOSHIKO HOSHINARA - THE SCOUT

Toshiko Hoshinara was one of three playable characters in the very first release of Sword of the Stars: The Pit. She's a highly trained operative with a focus on survival skills. She entered the Pit on a personal mission to find and rescue her twin sister, Tamiko, who had disappeared in the hectic days after the first outbreak of the plague on Arbuda IV.

Toshiko and Tamiko share an important bond, and there is some limited telepathic communication between the two sisters. Toshiko knows that her twin is alive and being held prisoner and subjected to fiendish medical experiments in the heart of the mountain. She will eliminate any obstacle that stands in her way.

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Toshiko also represents an important part of Sword of the Stars lore in general--she's a symbol of the Scout Corps, the branch of Sol Force that is dedicated to exploring and mapping the galaxy. Scouts are typically sent on reconnaissance and survey missions, diving deeply into unknown territory to bring back precious information. They're trained to move fast, see their enemies coming, break into sealed facilities and buildings, survey strange landscapes...and live to tell the tale.

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Toshiko's base skills and equipment--her high tech hunting knife, her auto pistol, her rations, flak jacket and ability to pick locks and find supplies and tools--are a reflection of her identity as a Scout. In other games set in the Sotsverse, every team will want a Scout--don't leave home without one!

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THEMBA MBALE - THE ENGINEER

Themba Mbale was also of the first playable characters of The Pit. He's a planetary Engineer, a gifted specialist in science and tech. He was assigned to Arbuda IV to support the colonists and help build their cities, aqueducts, roads, dams and power plants. As a scientist he was also interested in the geology and natural history of the planet, and he soon became friends with an older archaeologist who was investigating the original inhabitants of Arbuda IV--a species called Arbuda sapiens.

When his friend was killed by mysterious robotic assailants, Themba searched the surrounding area for clues and found the entrance to the Pit. He quickly realized that the death of his friend and the outbreak of the plague on Arbuda IV were linked--this alien facility was responsible somehow for both. Themba is determined to get to the bottom of things...and the answers lie below.

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So far as the Lore of the Sotsverse goes--Themba Mbale represents two important concepts for Sword of the Stars readers. One, he was born in a far-future version of Africa, and in the 25th century, the African continent is the richest and most technologically advanced region on Old Earth. Basically, Themba was from a place like Wakanda....long before most of the world had ever heard of Wakanda.  

His bright yellow armor also marks him as a member of the Civil Service, a branch of Sol Force which is devoted to building and maintaining the high-tech infrastructure of an interstellar empire. Anywhere that you find futuristic technology in human space, you will find the Engineers.

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If there is an generator that provides power to a starship, a life support system that pumps out a breathable atmosphere for a dome full of people, or a massive machine that chugs away night and day terraforming a hostile world...there will be men and women in yellow jumpsuits and armor. Tinkering in the guts of the leviathan. Doing math and taking names! Making! Things! Happen!

Engineers in the SotSverse are the people who design, build, repair, program, and hack the technology of tomorrow.

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When you look at Themba's skills and equipment, you see the things that a Engineer would take on a short hike. A knife and a gun, a repair kit, a med kit, some rations, and some minimal protective gear. His skills are typical of graduates from the Engineering academy--some Computer hacking, some Engineering, some picking of locks. But his Special Ability reflects the way that he shines as an individual--the speed at which he learns, acquiring new skills so fast that it almost seems like magic.

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TRAVIS HUDSON - THE MARINE

If you've ever seen a science fiction movie, you've probably already met Travis, or someone closely related. He's a brother to every Space Marine in every sci-fi creature feature ever made --and he knows it. Like most soldiers, he has a sense of humor and a firm sense of irony about his years in service, and the work he was trained to do. War is hell, and Sol Force doesn't train their Vac Force Marines to rescue puppies or help old ladies across the street. His job is to suit up, lock and load, and throw his body in the way of every Angry Alien with an Attitude Problem from here to Andromeda.

He tries to do the job with style.

Why did Travis Hudson enter the Pit? Well, technically...he owns it! When a Sol Force Marine retires from service, part of their discharge package is a land parcel on a new colony of their choice. Travis cashiered out of the Marines and settled down with a nice wild chunk of mountains on Arbuda IV, hoping to build his dream cabin with his girlfriend Tamiko and maybe settle down to spend the rest of his life raising kids and potatoes.

Then his camp site was attacked, and Tamiko was kidnapped, and when he suited up to go find her...he found something that looked a bit like this. The entrance to the Pit is technically on his land. Plus, Tamiko is down there somewhere, and when you date a Marine, you do NOT get kidnapped by aliens without some serious payback.

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So far as Sword of the Stars lore goes--the human military in the far future is divided into two major branches of service. There are Ground Pounders--men and women who are trained to fight in the atmosphere of a planet--and there are Vac Forces, who are trained to fight aboard ships and to storm stations, mining colonies, and moon bases with no atmosphere.

Travis is a Vac Forces Marine, which is why he wears red armor, and still has some of his old gear with him.

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When you look at the Player Character card for Travis, you can see some reflections of his training in the service. He still has his old Flak Jacket, which provides some protection. He has the Auto Rifle, which was probably useful for hunting rock rats and driving off moonbears, and a heavy blade for clearing brush (and shaving, when you're trying to look particularly manly). He still has the Med Patch that a Marine relies on in battle--instant healing, any time, anywhere. And he obviously stole a breaching charge on his way off the ship. You never know when you'll need to blow some stuff up!

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He also has basic Sniper and Combat Mastery skills, rare abilities which dial in his ability to dish out pain in battle. Combat Mastery 1 turns one of his miss dice into a hit--and Sniper Skill 1 means that one hit will always penetrate the target's armor, with no chance to roll defense against it. If he builds up those Skills further in the course of the game, Travis Hudson can turn into quite a human blender--especially if you put the right weapons in his hand, and feed him plenty of ammo.

In addition to his basic Skills, however, Travis Hudson is also just plain blessed with good luck. He survived his tours in combat with very few scars, and he can re-roll his Attack once per combat if he doesn't like the dice. That may not be enough to save him in the Pit, but it's a strong advantage, and a good Marine knows how to use that power well.

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ASTRYD JEMISIN - THE MEDIC

The last of our brave heroes is Astryd Jemisin. She was not a Playable Character in the original game--in fact, she was the last human character to be added to the game before the Osmium Edition, in the Healer Expansion.

Astryd is a Sol Force Medic. Her specialty training is in medicine and biology. Of all the human Characters associated with the Pit, she has the most reason to be there--she's part of the branch of service that battles the plague on Arbuda IV! As a Medic, her job is to keep people healthy, regardless of whether they are military or civilians--and curing a deadly plague on a human colony is exactly the kind of thing she is paid to do.

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In Lore terms? Astryd wears the white armor which is assigned to all support personnel in military service. Doctors, scientists, and combat mechanics all wear white dress uniforms and white protective suits when they are on the job, because white is the color of non-combatants.

Astryd is a highly specialized Character, with skills and equipment that reflect her role. She is combat trained, and has two weapons with very special properties--her melee weapon is a Shock Baton, which stuns organic targets and does extra damage to mechanical foes. Her range weapon is the Transfuser Pistol, an experimental device which can transfer health from one body to another--think of it as a vampire gun, and you won't go far wrong.

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She is well-trained in Medical Skill and highly intelligent, with some ability to forage supplies and use computers. But she really shines in her Special Ability, which allows her to roll to heal herself and her team mates once per round, restoring hit-points or chasing off negative health conditions like unconsciousness, poison, disease, stun, and radiation--all of which can have serious impacts on a player's ability to survive.

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Whew...that was quite an update! As you can see, there are some big ideas and big stories behind our little minis. We hope you've enjoyed this little peek into the great big universe of Sword of the Stars, and stay tuned for next week, when we'll start talking about...

MONSTERS.

In the meantime--thank you for your support! 

DESIGN FRIDAY - THE MONSTER TRACK! PLUS GAMEX SCHEDULE AND MORE!
almost 6 years ago – Fri, May 25, 2018 at 11:03:28 PM

 Greetings all! We have had a big surge in the last few days and we're now over 75% Funded! Thanks so much for your support so far.

Today is Design Friday, so we have a Dev Diary from our Lead Designer and CEO, Martin Cirulis. We also have links to an Interview With Gaming Trend, a New Backer Level, and we'll re-post our Event Schedule at GameX/Strategicon this weekend. 

Hold onto your hats, here it comes!

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Hey folks! In today’s Dev Diary I thought I would talk about the process of refining a game design, and answer the immortal question:  how and why would you add a game mechanic while in the middle of development?

THE AUSTRALIA PROBLEM  

After a couple months of play testing on The Pit Board Game, things were going very well. The rules flowed. The monster and item systems were working perfectly in conjunction with the room cards. Weapon effect tuning was well underway. On the technical side, everything was going great…but in terms of actual gameplay, there was an emergent behavior that was starting to nag at me.  

A consistently winning strategy was starting to become apparent! The ideal of game design is that your systems should be robust and varied enough that they keep presenting the player with challenge. Players should have to adapt their strategies and tactics with every game. No designer really wants to hear someone talking about their game saying “just take over Australia and build up for several turns, and you win every time!”

 During testing on The Pit Board Game, I noticed that as we became “experienced” players, we were learning to ‘turtle up’ and always travel as a pack, exploring every single room and getting every piece of loot. While that often made for great fights and sometimes we were in danger of starving because of our slow pace, it was still far more often than not, the right answer to form a phalanx and march slowly forward like Roman soldiers making a shield wall.

PRESSURE POINTS  

I had identified a problem...but what to do about it? The first thought was that the game needed to offer more resistance to conservative gameplay, but implementing a solution was a trickier problem. The easiest answer would be to simply reduce the amount of food in the game, but this produced unpleasant results and very quickly reduced the game to “The Pit: Calorie Chasers!”

Going back to the original computer game, I saw that having too slow a pace while exploring the halls could sometimes mean that you got swarmed by enemies. Smart players knew when to be cautious and when to hustle.

Unfortunately, if you just throw instantly random monsters at the players in board game, you punish them for slow movement and it is clearly punishment: “Don’t go slow, or you die” is more of a commandment than a choice for your players.

Given that a hammer solution was too brutal to be interesting, I followed my own advice and stepped back again to ponder the core experience of The Pit. The right answer generally doesn't appear until you ask the right question, and in this case, The Pit was never just about monsters and treasure: the game is about tension. 

Tension happens when you need to make the right decisions based on what you actually see going on around you. And so the Wandering Monster Tracks was born! With one simple addition to the rules and a small change to the game board itself, players could clearly see the attention they were drawing ahead of time. They would see how monsters approach, searching for the Players as if they were animals prowling the corridors hunting for food, or robots patrolling the Pit, looking for intruders.

This mechanic adds monsters to the game in response to the time the players are taking as they explore the Floor. But rather than just being punishment, they now feel the mounting pressure directly, and they can make decisions that actually have an effect on the changing situation.

On one floor, the Turtle Formation might be a good idea to maximize your loot...but on another Floor, if you see three Moon Bears are trundling towards you and you only have 2 or 3 turns to get out of the way... splitting up the party and having one person grab the loot while another person tries to make it to the stairs suddenly seems like a better idea.

In this kind of game, ratcheting up the tension level is always the right idea. While a simple answer may not work straight away, you can take the core concept and make it much more interesting by adding a little detail.

In this case, the detail that was needed was to show the Players where a wandering monster was coming from, and it makes all the difference. It makes the game more challenging and unpredictable, and heads a problem with repetitious or predictable gameplay off at the pass.

Next Week: more about RECIPES!

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GAME EX/STRATEGICON!

Just quickly reposting our event schedule for Game X Strategicon this weekend, for gamers living in Southern California. Come on down to the Hilton and play a game with us! Chris and Forrest will be happy to meet you, and you get to see our cool prototypes of The Pit Board Game and Control!

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 We also have a team interview on Gaming Trend today with Martin Cirulis!Check it out!

Aaaand in very sneaky news...

We are adding another small Pledge Backer Level for those collectors who wanted BOTH the Completist Backer Pledge (The Base Game, the 3D Engineer Files, and all Stretch Goal Minis) AND a copy of The Sword of the Stars Premium Lore Book.

The Reader of the Stars Backer Level will include everything in the Completist Backer Pledge, PLUS a first edition Lore Book signed by the team. There are very few of these first edition books left, as only 200 were printed! We will not be able to offer any more during this campaign, as Arinn insists on saving a few for people who want to support Sword of the Stars: Control! later this summer.

Our last Lore Book pledge level with just the Base Game attached went so fast that all five copies were gone in 90 minutes, so...we're not even going to make a pledge graphic for these. We're just going to package up everything for $350 and thank you for your support.