Stretch Goal #10
over 1 year ago – Sun, Jul 31, 2022 at 07:11:41 AM

Lunarians!

It's that time again, another stretch goal has fallen! The Valkyrie expansion now has three extra structure cards in the form of Wormhole, Taven (does it look familiar to anyone?), and Ark. This increases the variety of Valkyrie cards that can show up in the game, as you'll now never see them all in the same game, even at five players.

We are now down to the final three stretch goals! I've set this next one quite high compared to the last few since tomorrow we're going to hit the final 48 hours of the project! At that point, Kickstarter sends an automated alert to everyone who clicked "Remind me" on the project page, and at the time of writing, there are over 12,000 people on that list. We're hoping that a decent number of them will decide to pledge, giving us a final boost in numbers at the end. Exciting times for sure.

Our next stretch goal is a very nice quality of life upgrade for the Deluxe edition only:

These sturdy two-part boxes, printed inside and out, will be the same size as the ones we did for Streets, and there will be three of them. They'll store all the tokens neatly when the game is packed away, and they double as component trays during play, with handy reference icons inside to tell you what goes where. I mean, you technically could put your rovers in the biomass tray, but you're not a monster, right?

And that is the end of this update. See you again at 6800 backers (I hope!).

Take care, and play games.

Dave

Stretch Goal #9 // The Battle of Champions!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 03:51:35 AM

Lunarians,

It would appear that I made the last stretch goal too easy because it seems mere moments ago I was hunched over this very laptop writing the previous update! Not that I'm complaining. Well anyway, the next stretch goal will be a little tougher, and after that, we have just three goals left. The promised deluxe upgrades are some of the coolest additions so we've held them back for the final push, but I'm sure you'll enjoy them.

So, as of today, we are the proud future owners of a game with fancy cardboard dividers that now feature cool artwork! 

Here is some of said new art hot off Haakon's desk. The birthday potato is so sad, but I love it.

And for our next goal, let's have more Valkyrie cards!

The Battle of Champions!

For a bit of fun, how many backers do you think we'll end the campaign on?

Post your answers in the main comments under my sticky comment, and once we know the answer we'll send the winner a Sinister Fish goodie bag. One guess per backer, and we'll accept answers until 21:00 GMT on Saturday, so you have roughly 48 hours from when this update went live!

That's all, folks. Talk to you soon!

Take care, and play games.

Dave

Stretch Goal #8 // Solo Mode Playthrough
almost 2 years ago – Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 05:08:57 AM

Lunarians!

Wow, I'm struggling to keep up here - our 5800 backer stretch goal is now but (Moon) dust under our (Moon) boots. New backers, we salute you!

We've unlocked the final two of our bonus Expedition and Reputation cards, which are now included with the Valkyrie expansion for every backer...

The "Established" gold reputation card rewards the first player who gets six grey structures in their base and gives them a hefty end-game bonus of ten hearts. However, its "when claimed" effect forces that player to assimilate two structures in their base, although that could be more of a help than a hindrance.

The new Era 3 Reputation card "Stockpiling Expedition" triggers a contest for resource majority, with the player holding the card gaining one heart for each resource type they have the most of. A resource-rich player could get some easy hearts in Era 3 if this card is in play. It's also worth remembering that the player holding an Expedition card decides when it goes off during their turn, so it is possible to maximise the gain from Stockpiling Expedition by taking actions that generate resources before triggering it.

For our ninth stretch goal, we have an upgrade to the retail and deluxe versions of the game: artwork on all the divider cards, which would otherwise just have text on them. Expect a healthy dose of Haakon's gentle wit to crop up in these illustrations, which will add even more flavour to his slightly skewed but no less adorable vision of life on the Moon!

Solo Mode Playthrough

For those of you who missed it last night, here is Nick's full solo playthrough of Moon's solo mode! 

As we said previously, it is mostly finished but there may be a few more tweaks before it goes to print. You can see the draft rules here.

The Bit At The End

That's it, we're all out of update for today, but there will be another if and when we get to 6000 backers! Can we do it by this time tomorrow?

Take care, and play games!

Dave

Stretch Goal #7 // Solo Mode
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 05:45:34 PM

Lunarians!

Our Moon mission forges ever onward, and we've hit our seventh stretch goal! Once again, we're extremely grateful to all the new backers who made this possible, and because of them, every backer will now receive five glorious colour-printed Valkyrie spacecraft tokens!

But we can't stop at that, let's shoot for the final pair of bonus Expedition and Reputation cards. Just to make it a bit spicy, we'll keep them secret until they're unlocked...

Moon Solo Mode

Nick & Haakon have been working hard to refine the single-player mode, and they're confident that it's about 99% done. We know quite a few of you have been waiting for news about this, and we thank you for your patience! Here is the latest draft of the solo rules, please note this is still a work in progress and obviously will get a graphic design makeover before we publish.

Nick will live-stream a full teach & playthrough of the solo mode today at 18:00 GMT, during which you're welcome to ask questions via the comments section of whatever platform you're watching on. You can get an alert for it reminder about the stream on our YouTube page, and we'll include the recording in our next update and on the campaign page if you missed it live.

In the meantime here's Nick to tell us more about how Moon's solo mode works...

"There’s a new countess in town… meet GURPS!

GURPS (General Universal Robotic Profit System) has seen some changes over development, but what we have ended up with is a system that attempts to replicate how you'd play the game with other humans. There are of course a few changes and concessions to reduce upkeep and set-up time, but it’s fair to say that Haakon has worked his designer magic here once again.

For setup, you will deal out four hands of six cards each. Each hand will have its own Expedition card. On your turn, you take the next hand sequentially and play a turn as normal before placing that hand back on the table. Then you resolve GURPS' turn. After you have played four cards (one from each deck) GURPS will discard one of the hands including the Expedition card. You then play your last three cards from the remaining decks, taking turns with GURPS as normal.

GURPS will build structures from its own deck of cards. After your turn, you draw the top card, which will either be blue or yellow, and place it on GURPS’ base. The card will have a point value and an action. GURPS will take the action immediately, and gain any points printed on the card at the end of the game. GURPS does compete for Flags and Rovers but takes no Resources. You can park your rovers on its structures for the usual benefits though!

The system is still being tweaked and assessed for difficulty, but it creates a low upkeep solo mode that feels like playing the multiplayer game as much as possible. You can still explore the multiple paths to popularity and be competitive. We think you will enjoy it a lot!"

The Bit at the End

OK, that's enough excitement for one day. We are into our final week now, and there are still plenty of stretch goals left to unlock, including some of the juiciest ones because we like to save the best until last! Thanks for joining us, and we'll speak again soon.

Take care, and play games,

Dave

Stretch Goal #6!
almost 2 years ago – Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 02:27:29 AM

Lunarians!

A belated update today I'm afraid, but an update nonetheless, and once again I am delighted that we have stretch goal business to take care of! Huge thanks go out to all the new backers who have joined us since our last goal was met. We hope you enjoy your time up here on the Moon with us. There's not much atmosphere, but we have plenty of potatoes (they're kind of a recurring theme on Moon's food-related cards!).

At 5200 backers, we unlocked the "Tryhard" silver Reputation card, which will be included in the Valkyrie expansion for every backer.

The first player with 20 or more hearts who claims this card gets a not insignificant reward of three rovers. These go a long way toward breaking ties for flag rewards and represent an excellent opportunity to gather resources or borrow flags from other bases. Whatever your strategy, three extra rovers are not to be sniffed at.

So, I'll just say it - new cards are awesome, but they're probably not the most exciting extras when we drip them out one at a time. With that in mind, there will be no more single-card stretch goals. Things are going to get a bit spicier now we're into the second half of the campaign.

Here's what we're aiming for next:

If we hit this goal, every wooden Valkyrie token gets a lick of paint - this will most likely take the form of heat transfer printing on both sides of the tokens, as we've done before with the Developments tokens in Villagers, and the deluxe meeples for Streets.

That's all from me for now, other than to tell you we are finally going to focus on the Moon solo mode early next week, with videos from Nick who will teach the rules and do a full playthrough. We're sorry to have kept you all waiting for that.

We'll speak again soon!

Take care, and play games.

Dave