Tabletop Games

Luke

7 days ago

Make Buttons & Bugs coop friendly pleeeeease :)

Make Buttons & Bugs coop pleeeeease :) My wife and I love the Gloomhaven world but it can be a big evening time commitment and often we decide not to play it when we really want to simply because we only have an hour. Button and Bugs coop seems like it wouldn't take much work to add an add-on for coop and we would totally pay a little extra $ for a shortened Gloomhaven experience

RPG Poll Day 21: You move into your final number, a song about a promising young Vermling imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. They lament for years of a wasted life in the face of heartless guards. [Influence check: Base [3] plus modifier [3], results in [6].] It's not quite soulful enough to incite violence, but by the end of it, everyone is yelling at the guards, telling them they need to take their garbage elsewhere. They throw up their hands, saying, "Eh, it wasn't that big of a deal anyway. Certainly not worth this trouble." And they walk off. It looks like you've found a new home in the Brown Door, and it's patrons love you.

PROJECT UPDATE

Cephalofair Games

CREATOR

about 17 hours ago

Project Update: Final day!

Good day! And the final day of the campaign! This has truly been a unique experience for all of us at Cephalofair Games, and I hope you had a good time with the Gloomhaven Grand Festival. Whether you watched a lot of streams, or worked out the puzzles, voted in the polls, or just backed for $1 and moved on, I hope you enjoyed doing so, and will continue to have a good time when you receive what you pledged for.

So just how will we go from running this grand festival to delivering you your stuff? Well, it will be a process, but a process that we are very familiar with. Once the campaign ends, we're going to transition to an update every other week on Fridays, just to keep you abreast of the goings on as we move through completing the various projects. Initially, these will probably focus on Buttons & Bugs, as that is the first thing we are working on getting out the door (in addition to the Frosthaven reprint and playsurface books). And then we'll move on from there!

So you can expect the next update for this project to arrive July 28, and then we will also be working on opening up the pledge manager some time the week following that. If I'm being totally honest, we all need a bit of vacation after this. It was an intense experience preparing for this thing and then running it, and now we've got a long road ahead of us. But we'll get it done!

All that's left now is to give you a recap of yesterday's streams and tell you what's coming up for today, so let's get to it.

Bright and early yesterday morning, Drew, Dennis, and I got together for a final Gloomhaven: Second Edition play, and even though we were tackling one of the most notoriously hard scenarios in the game, it went pretty well! Of course, the new version of the scenario was a little easier, but it was still no joke.

Then, after a Fireside Chat with Price, we had a great RPG stream with the Good Time Society showing off the digital features of Hero Lab and Roll20.

And we finished the night off by completing the final scenario of Gloomhaven Digital with Brambeard Gaming, where I rode my high from playing Squid Face well in the earlier stream to just absolutely losing my mind and tanking it. Good times.

And today? Well, we decided to close things out by just rerunning all four gameplay videos of the Old School RPG. We started at 6am PST, and it will be running up until 4pm PST, when Price, Ruel, and I will hop on one last stream to play some Buttons & Bugs, chat, and watch that final number go up. If you're looking for a place to share in the excitement of those final hours, this will be where it's at!

And that's it! I will say it once again that it has been an experience writing these updates for you everyday. And while I'm looking forward to getting my life back, I also just want to thank everyone once again for joining us for this festival and participating in whatever way you did. I won't catch you tomorrow, but I will catch you next Friday, the 28th, for a post-vacation run-down of where we're at. Until then!

310 votes

Roman

about 14 hours ago

Thank you, Cephalofair!

This was a very engaging campaign with lots of cool walkthroughs and amazing commentary - I really enjoyed a lot of them, especially Old School series. I wanted to thank the Cephalofair team for: 1. Presenting a new major RPG way of playing Gloomhaven, which will make this game last for a very, very long time and engage people of all skills and talents to role play and open a new way of playing boardgames for themselves, which is very different from a "common" way of playing previous Gloomhaven games. 2. Sharing a Gloomhaven 2.0 edition, which implemented so many cool changes, that I've sold my 1.0 copy and backed the new version after careful analysis. 3. For allowing people, who couldn't afford it back then, to participate in getting a masterpiece of Frosthaven with all necessary add-ons, which I very much appreciate. 4. For developing Bugs and Buttons games for a community, who would rather play "simple and fast" boardgames, compared to heavy campaign driven games like Gloomhaven and Frosthaven. 5. Releasing tons of interesting miniatures for collectors and people who just have this amazing plastic addiction ;) 6. Engaging and supporting newcomers by replying to their requests on a timely manner 7. My personal thanks for making it possible to ship your games to Ukraine with a fair shipping price, while a lot of other game developers are ignoring the needs of board gamers in my country or just put unrealistic shipping fees. Thank you for creating this humble community around yourself, and stay safe!

Cephalofair Games

CREATOR

about 17 hours ago

310 votes

The Story Engine: Lore Master's Deck

Copykttn

1 day ago

Do you want this added to the pledge manager?

If enough people request it, I was told the Outtakes & Oddities Expansion pdf from the Deck of Worlds would be added to the pledge manager. So like this post and/or comment to show them this is something we'd like the option for please!

RPG Poll Day 20: Dash takes center stage and shines, keeping the crowd engaged while you rest with some more simple music. At the end of the set, two city guards stand directly in front of the stage, beckoning to you. "We need to ask you some questions," one of them says.

Cephalofair Games

CREATOR

2 days ago

334 votes

PROJECT UPDATE

Cephalofair Games

CREATOR

3 days ago

Project Update: $4 million, 2 days left, and a Cragheart preview

Good day! And welcome once again to all the new backers! We have passed the $4 million mark, a full 200% funded, which is stupendous! Thank you to everyone for joining us on this journey!

We've got another smaller update today as we prepare for the last 48 hours. The project will end at 6pm PST on Wednesday, so we're getting ready for one last push!

No streams yesterday, but we have Jamie Daggers coming back on for one last miniature painting stream from 1-4pm PST today.

And, then of course, we have a new Cragheart puzzle at the bottom of the page. This will be the last puzzle of the campaign, rounding out the number to 12: two for each of the starting classes. In case you missed any of them, I've compiled them all into this folder for easy reference. Thank you to Drew and Dennis and all the play testers who helped create these puzzles. They were all very interesting, and also thanks to MadMullet for hosting the puzzle discussions on BGG every time!

Lastly for today, we have a Cragheart preview from Drew and Dennis. This is the last of the starting classes to highlight, but we'll have another locked class preview tomorrow. Here's the preview:

Today we’ll take a look at the updated Savvas Cragheart in Gloomhaven: Second Edition.

First let’s reflect on the Cragheart in the first edition.

The Cragheart was a burly sentient rock who could do a bit of everything. They could deal damage in melee, from range, and heal. They generally had pretty strong values on their abilities but were held back by their limited movement and poor initiative. Their most unique mechanic was the ability to manipulate the battlefield by placing, moving, and destroying obstacles.

So what did we want to address?

As with Silent Knife, this class required no broad changes. They had a number of lopsided level-up choices and had a stretch of levels where card after card was “top loss action, bottom move action”, which was a bit lacking in terms of variety. While they could deal effective melee and ranged damage, because their ranged damage was good enough, they had little reason to lean into the melee side of things, especially given that poor movement and initiative often make being a melee fighter more challenging. Finally, their obstacle theme really only took off after level 4.

So let’s see what changed with the Cragheart in Gloomhaven: Second Edition:

Note: Graphic Design on these cards is incomplete.

Effective obstacles sooner - When Gloomhaven: First Edition players think of the Cragheart, one of the first things to jump to mind will be playing around with obstacles. It was a shame to have such a fun and unique mechanic locked behind a higher level, so we added more effective tools sooner for those who want to manipulate the very earth beneath their feet.

Better melee support - While melee and ranged attack abilities were balanced against each other in the first edition, that often didn’t account for the added cost of going into melee, especially given that the Cragheart is anything but nimble. We increased the power level and payoff for melee attack abilities to make playing a more melee-oriented Cragheart appropriately rewarding.

We hope you enjoy this slightly more polished stone.

Thanks again to everyone for making this happening, and I'll catch you again tomorrow!

PROJECT UPDATE

Cephalofair Games

CREATOR

2 days ago

Project Update: Project in review

Good day! We're in the last 48 hours now! This campaign has lasted a full month at this point, and we've sent a lot of information your way over that time! I figured, instead of filling out an update with yet more information, it would be good to take a beat and provide you with an organized way to view all the valuable posts and videos from all those previous updates. So today, it is time for lists of links!

But before we get to that, I've gotta tell you about all the exciting stuff we've got planned for today.

First of, the dread time has come for Drew, Dennis, and I to play scenario 72, the most notorious scenario in the original Gloomhaven. Did it get better? Will we survive? We'll start playing at 8am PST, so you'll just have to watch to find out.

And then, as with every Tuesday, you can join me at 4pm PST for a Fireside Chat. I'll be talking with Price about running this campaign, and the next steps once the time is up.

Then right after that at 5pm PST, we have a very special extra RPG live play for you from Good Time Society! We really wanted to show off the slick functionality of the Gloomhaven RPG digital tools from Hero Lab and Roll20, so we brought GTS on board for another play featuring Josephine McAdam as the GM, and Lexi McQueen, Phill Correa, and Kate Elliott as the players.

And if that isn't enough, we've even got counter-programming for you. At 6pm PST, I'll be jumping on Twitch with Brambeard Gaming to (possibly?) finish our Gloomhaven Digital campaign.

Okay, on with the important info!

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs

We'll start off with our most popular offer, Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs. We announced this tiny solo version of Gloomhaven halfway through the campaign, and it was a big hit! Here are the best places to find out more about it:

The announcement trailer, of course, which I can't share often enough because I love it so much.
The Buttons & Bugs announcement, with basic info about the game.https://www.backerkit.com/c/cephalofair/gloomhaven/updates/1532#top (B&B announced)
A deeper look at Buttons & Bugs.
The Watch It Played gameplay stream.
And a playlist of our other designer playthroughs.

The Gloomhaven: Role Playing Game

Then we have the RPG! This has been a massive endeavor to translate Gloomhaven's rules and lore to an RPG, but it is definitely worth your time!

A Gallant Goblin playthrough!
A playlist of our Old School playthroughs with Isaac and his high school D&D group.
A playlist of our other sponsored plays, which includes Penny Arcade, Good Time Society, Pixel Circus and more!
A good beginning intro to the RPG.
A look at RPG character creation.
A look at running monsters for the RPG.
Guidelines for the GM.
A rundown of RPG character progression.
And finally, our announcement of digital tools for the RPG in partnership with Roll20 and Hero Lab.

Gloomhaven: Second Edition

And then out big game announcement last month, a complete rework of the game that started it all, Gloomhaven: Second Edition. This was helmed by Drew and Dennis, and they made sure to give you a plethora of information about it.

A marvelous playthrough with the Good Time Society.
Another great playthrough with Ella from the Dice Tower.
A Watch It Played playthrough (in two parts).
A whole lot of designer playthroughs with Drew and sometimes Dennis and/or me.
The official Gloomhaven: Second Edition announcement.
A full list of everything that has changed for the new edition.
A look at the faction reputation system.
A look at the main faction narrative.
And then a whole lot of character class spotlights.
- Bruiser
- Spellweaver
- Tinkerer
- Silent Knife
- Mindthief
- Cragheart
- Saw
- Angry Face
- Two Minis
- Three Spears
- Squid Face (which is brand new!)
And finally, two puzzles for each of the starting classes.

Miniatures of Gloomhaven

Our plethora of minis! Over 600 figures to replace all the monsters, bosses, and summons across all Gloomhaven and Frosthaven games.

A painting video from Ninjon.
A painting series from Tabletop Minions (parts one, two, three, four, five, and six)
A painting series from Jamie Daggers (parts one and two)
Announcing our partnership with Army Painter.
And an update with some painting tips.

Frosthaven

Finally, who could forget the reprint of Frosthaven, which is also available during the campaign? And possibly more exciting - the Frosthaven playsurface books!

A wonderful playthrough with Penny Arcade.
Another great playthrough from Pixel Circus.
A deeper look at the Frosthaven playsurface books.

Phew, that's a lot of stuff! And there's still more to come! Be sure to check out all the great streams we're kicking off today, and we'll see you tomorrow for the last day of the campaign!

334 votes

The Story Engine: Lore Master's Deck

Peter Chiykowski

CREATOR

3 days ago

500 Backers Share Our Project in the Final Week

For this achievement, we'll release a free PDF expansion of 60 outtake lore cards. Click below to visit our sharing portal with quick share buttons and further details.

Goal: 164 / 500

32%

We need 336 more to reach this goal.