Bad Lands: Curse of the Skinwalker - Kickstarter now EU-Friendly!

[Necros]

Kickstarter has been launched! Here is the campaign URL:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gangfightgames/bad-lands-curse-of-the-skinwalker  




Bad Lands is a Co-Op Western Horror Survival Game where you play the roles of rival gang members turned town defenders, forced to put their differences aside to fight off a vicious onslaught of Skinwalkers (were-beasts) and many other folklore creatures.

Curse of the Skinwalker is the first game, focusing on werewolves and other were-things, along with other corrupted animals like Jackalopes or Chupacabras.  We do have other separate-but-compatible games planned for other themes, this is just the first.

The game is fast and fun and easy to learn. It plays similar to other survival games like Zombicide, you can use the heroes right out of the box for a quick game, or build your own heroes, adventures and campaigns totally from scratch and earn fame and fortune RPG-style.



The game shares many similar rules with our skirmish game, Blackwater Gulch. You can use any BWG miniatures in your games if you wish, since we'll have downloadable Hero Cards for every BWG character, or you can use them for your own custom heroes. There are no miniatures in Bad Lands though, we will be using cardstock pawns similar to games like Pathfinder to keep the prices way down. We will do miniatures later on though, but first we need to get the core game funded. We're planning to launch the game on Kickstarter on February 1st if all goes well. We're working on the "how to play" video and hope to have that done in a few days to a week or so.

We've been working on this game for the last 2 years now and are really excited to see it all finally coming together! So, head on over to our website to check it out! You can see some more pictures and also download the preview rulebook. Or leave a reply or PM with any questions

http://www.gangfightgames.com/badlands/

[Necros]

Little update, we finished the preliminary loot cards now. The design my change slightly in the end, once we are finished drawing up all the stat icons. For now, I placed each of the core loot cards here in this PDF

http://www.gangfightgames.com/badlands/downloads/BadLandsSampleLootCards.pdf

Gray cards are uncommon, there will be multiple copies of each making up almost half of the 64-card deck. Green cards are uncommon, blue are rare, purple are infamous and orange is legendary. You'll only be able to get Legendary cards in the core boxed game(s). Later on when we do all new stand-alone games, each one will have a different legendary item.

Beast Packs will have 10 extra loot cards too... 4 commons, 3 uncommon, 2 rare and 1 infamous. There will be some repeats for common items but each new beast pack will have a few new loot cards too that don't come in the core box.

The first beast pack we're planning is Werebulls, they'll have an Alpha Skinwalker Bison, 2 Skinwalker Bulls and 3 Hodag minions. That will be the first stretch goal and an add-on item, and each goal will also add a new bonus hero and/or monster to the core game too

[Necros]

Hey folks

Our Kickstarter preview page is up, we’re planning to hit the launch button on Feb 1st.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gangfightgames/1965724351?token=8a0cdb41

We still have to add some more graphical menus, and finish the how to play video, and we’re still waiting for a few more art pieces to come in (I think the werebison is my favorite ). Also as soon as the campaign launches we’ll add update #1 to act as a menu listing all of the Blackwater Gulch gangs and solo minis with photos. Since there’s a lot we thought it would clutter up the main page too much. Throughout the campaign we’ll also be posting updates with hero & monster bios and fluff.

Stay tuned

[Necros]

Just got some new art to share. First, here's a standard werewolf. The one I've been showing is the Alpha version, this one will be a Fiend, which is what we call the the regular mid-level beasts.



Next up, here's a standard Werecat.



And here's the standard wererat. At first I wanted them to be "wild west skaven" but after some thought I prefer this look, but the alpha version will be much meaner. The Wererat beast pack will be the 2nd stretch goal.



And last is the first demon in the game, the Jersey Devil. I think i'm going to name him the "Barrens Devil", since New Jersey is pretty far from "out west" .. but it's a local legend and I wanted to include it, since it's still a folklore creature. He will be the Bonus Beast that gets added to the core game if we hit the 2nd stretch goal, and he'll be a boss level monster.



I should have some more to share in a couple days

[Necros]

Next batch of artwork is done!

First we have the colorized Alpha Werecat



Next here is the standard Werebat



And a standard Werebear



Next. here is the Alpha Werebison, who will be the boss in the Werebull beast pack that will be for the first stretch goal



And last, here is the Sasquatch, who will be a bonus fiend. We’ll add 2 of them into the core game if we make it to the Werebull stretch goal. I was going for an “evil chewbacca” kind of look with him



All of these will be getting colorized in a few weeks. Next on the list will be to get the video finished. I’ve been having trouble with my camera but I think I finally got it all captured onto my PC now, so it’s just a matter of editing 45 minutes of me droning on about different rules into a quick 5 minute video

[Necros]

The "how to play" video is finished. It came out to 12 minutes which is about twice as long as I was hoping, but considering it was about an hour to begin with I guess that's not too bad I just did the first few turns of the game then jumped to the end to show how to figure out who wins if it's a single game, or how much XP you'd earn if it was a campaign game.

This was just mean to show the basic mechanics so I just used 2 heroes to speed it up. Most games will use 4 heroes and have twice as many beasts spawning, so the fights will be a lot more challenging.

[CptJake]

Ty to use bigger dice for the next video. Maybe lighter plastic stands, the dark ones make it difficult to see where the figures are on the boards at the angle of the video.  (maybe just edge the stands in white for the heroes and another color for the monters?)

Looks good so far.

I know you'll eventually want to get figures for all the characters/monsters.  Will you eventually release a 2nd Edition box with figures?   And an 'upgrade
 set for folks who get the 1st Edition?

[Necros]

Good ideas The final game will have larger plain white dice but I actually don't have any. I have dozens of different kinds of dice, none of them are plain When I get the final copy of the game I'll set up a day where I can film some friends playing it and get closeups and edit it properly. These are all print on demand components from The Game Crafter, the final version will be much higher quality.

If I ever did an all new version with minis it would be a mega 2nd edition that would happen many years from now. What I am hoping to do is get minis sculpted as a "beast faction" for Blackwater Gulch, and do a BWG 2.0 rulebook. So, both games would be compatible with each other, it's just Bad Lands will be an adventure board game and Blackwater Gulch will be a skirmish battle game, both with the same combat rules just different play styles. I also have plans for other full separate-but-compatible Bad Lands games, the next will have an undead theme with Wendigos and voodoo zombies, and the 3rd will be more like a dungeon (gold mine) crawler theme with Tommyknockers as the main enemy, they're basically like goblins or morlocks.

So I was planning to keep Bad Lands as a brand with the cardstock style pawns and tokens, and keep all the miniatures under the Blackwater Gulch brand, but both will be compatible. Kind of like Dust Tactics & Dust Warfare.

[axabrax]

I would be super interested in miniatures of the weird creatures.

[Necros]

So would I

Like I said I'll definitely be doing miniatures for them at some point. The sculpting and mold prices are going to be pretty steep though with so many different beasts, I decided to start with the board game that would be a lower initial investment, and then I plan to use the profits from that to put toward the sculpts and future Bad Lands stuff too. Between getting a good sculptor, molds made, pro painting, etc, the costs come out to at least $1000 per mini.

I could have done a KS for the minis, but these days I don't think a campaign with just a couple greens like my first one for BWG will be successful, you really need to show all the sculpts ahead of time. So it's a big investment and I feel like if I'm doing all that I may as well skip KS and their fees and just go straight to retail with the minis. So if all goes well I hope to start getting some beast sculpts done this spring or summer

[The Gray Ghost]

those miniatures would be cool, I'd buy some

[Necros]

Kickstarter has been launched! Here is the campaign URL:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gangfightgames/bad-lands-curse-of-the-skinwalker   

[CptJake]

Pledged.

 

[Necros]

Thanks

[Necros]

Today's update:


Howdy pardners! 

Wow, we’re off to a great start. Thank you all for your support so far! We need help spreading the word, there are so many gaming sites out there, I’ll never be able to find them all. Please share this project with all of your friends or post a link on your favorite forums or facebook or anywhere you can

Throughout the course of the campaign I’ll be posting updates with some of the game’s background, hero & villain bios and other aspects of the game. So let's start with the two different ways to play.

The “default” way to play is Survival Mode. This is the co-op rules that were shown in the How to Play video, where your Heroes are suddenly caught in the middle of a beast assault. All Heroes hail from rival gangs in the town of Blackwater Gulch, but they are forced to work together if they want to survive the night. Still, each Hero wants to come out on top, and the one who scores the most kills and scores the most loot will win. Combat is easier in Survival Mode, the beasts are easier to kill, but there are a whole lot of them and if you allow them to swarm around your Hero, they will rip you to shreds real quick. Also, since the enemies attack automatically, it's quite easy (and fun) to play solo games too.

The second way to play is Adventure Mode. In this mode, one player will become the Overlord or Game Master, we just call him the Villain Player. He will set up the board, place the objectives and control all of the beasts, while all other players will control the Heroes. The combat rules change slightly, unlike Survival Mode where Heroes can automatically wound their enemies, in Adventure Mode the Villain player will roll to hit and make saving throws the same way Heroes do. This makes the beasts much more powerful, so there won’t be as many. The Villain player builds his beast back based on the amount of Heroes in the game. First he chooses one Boss like an Alpha Skinwalker. Then he can select 2 fiends like normal Skinwalkers, or 3 Minions for each Hero in the adventure.

Both game modes can be played as a single game, or they can be linked together into ongoing campaigns. I'll go more into detail on the campaigns next time

Thanks again for your help!

More to come...