Expansion Design Breakdown


As I always do after a gamejam I write a post about the project for my blog as a little reflection/summary of what I did. This time I thought I would share  it here too.  Original text can be found Here

Expansions

After finishing the Core Rules for Fade Beyond the Veil I wanted to just let it sit and rest for a while before I did anything else. But I just couldn't get the ideas out of my head.
I had a few other ideas that never made it into the game and I wanted to explore them to see if there was anything in the idea that could work.

Beasts Beyond the Veil
The first add-on is Beasts Beyond the Veil which was my attempt at making a beak-zine for the game. As with the printable weapon cards for the base game I wanted a little print at home zine for creating new enemies to use in your skirmish games. The core game has 11 enemies so a little variety is always nice. While designing the zine I would print it and use it to make a few enemies. The first set I made was a group of jungle based creatures including the Demonpede and my favourite the Spore Hulk. While others included a selection of ice creatures as few of the core rule creatures make use of the Chill tag.

As I had already created the creatures for myself I decided to type them up, make some artwork and release them as an additional pdf. This became of Vines and the Frozen Shore and contains 12 new creatures, 7 new tags and a little page of rules to add them to your skirmish games.

Revenant
Revenant was one of the class ideas that didn't quite fit with the core rules classes but was also one I really liked. The idea behind Revenant was ‘what if a character gets stronger each time they fade?’ in juxtaposition to the core classes which only get weaker.

Making all attacks stronger based on each marked Fade seemed like a bad idea so instead I gave Revenant a single Ability which would get stronger, Fiend Claw. As Revenant is designed as an all or nothing character I gave it a repeatable attack ability which costs life each time. Their final ability is Blood Feast, an ability that can deal monumental damage to foes, though at the cost of not only their own HP and the HP of the allies around them. This character isn't for playing nice with your friends, Revenant can get its allies killed and it's only goal is to kill.

The Revenant also has a Sickle as their standard Weapon. This is a short range weapon which has the Barbed Tag, meaning it can Bleed its foes. As this isn't on the Bound Artefact loot table in the core rules this add-on gives you the option to replace any Dagger with a Sickle when you are Unbinding.

For this Add-on I used a different format, instead of a printable zine I went for a mobile sized pdf. The idea is you just load it onto your phone and if you want to use this character you've got their reference right in your hand. I'm really happy with how it looks on a phone too, the dark colours and the purples really pop.

Unhallowed Eve
When Halloween rolled around I saw a sweet looking pumpkin headed resin miniature someone had painted on Instagram and thought it looked real cool. I decided to develop a similar creature as a little Halloween monster to add to Beast Beyond the Veil. After coming up with the idea for the Hallowed Reaper I decided it would be cooler to have a little scenario for it too. So I set about making Unhallowed Eve.

The scenario uses some classic Halloween/horror movie tropes. A cult, human sacrifice, creepy fields and a demonic monster which rises after the first act. Your job in this mission is to get out into the fields and save as many of the sacrifices as you can before the ritual is complete. After the third round ends the Unhallowed Reaper rises and you've got to take him on.

Instead of the standard events from the main game I decided this time would have different boss move sets and stats based on how well you've done. If you save most of the sacrifices then the boss is weak and sickly. Whereas failing to save them sees the Unhallow Reaper rising in his most powerful form.

After finishing the scenario I wanted to add a rules page covering the new keyword for the boss (Root) and decided that it would be fun if the player could get Root on their weapons as well. So instead of standard rewards from the core rules I built a new Trick or Treat table, giving new items, a few new keywords, and the possibility of some rather awful Trick Items. The new keywords are RootLuckyUnlucky and ImpImp is possibly my favourite as I find the risk of making a small 1 harm dealing Imp enemy every time you attack pretty hilarious. A bunch of bad rolls and you'll have an army of Imps flying around like a cloud of gnats.

 

I grabbed some super sculpey and green stuff and had a crack at making a model of the Unhallowed Reaper for use on the tabletop. You can see more images and other mini painting on my Instagram Here.

Future
Currently my plan for additional content is a winter themed scenario similar to Unhallowed Eve in December and potentially an add-on for a few extra rules that are knocking around in my head for Skirmish battles. Though if it seems like Fade Beyond the Veil is getting more interest that may change. (Or if I just get that itch to make some additional bits and pieces!) Thanks for reading and if you Do check out Fade Beyond the Veil please leave a review or let me know what you think!

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