#agiegames

[agiegames]

A Way Back Home is our forthcoming title to be released next year. It follows the story that we started with Zura. This little fella was used as a kind of scout in Zura, and we will try and make the abilities you can use in A Way Back Home closely to the counterparts in Zura.

Reception was overwhelmingly positive in Essen Spiel 24 which makes us super excited to get this out to you in 2025. We are planning to Kickstart this in late March/early April, so please stay tuned for more info.

[agiegames]

We are now fully in play test mode for Madame Kamila's expansion to Violet and the Grumpy Nisse. We wanted to share some of the contents with you, most notably the tarot cards and how they work.

Thematically, the expansion introduces Madame Kamila. She is a fortune teller with ulterior motives, who proposes a card reading to Violet as they encounter outside the village. Violet agrees, so, at the start of the game, once the game is set up, Violet draws a random Tarot Card, and the card she draws determines what kind of support she will receive from Ordep's helpers. The image above is a sample card, but the art is not yet final.

Each tarot has a story behind it, and will reflect Violet's personality and how Ordep's Helpers are willing to assist her in finding her way to Ordep. In the base game, Ordep's helpers were a source of light, helping Violet navigate faster in the dark. Seeing them in the distance beyond the reach of her lantern's light, she would immediately know what direction to walk, without losing any time, saving her some precious lamp oil this way. This type of help will still be possible in the expansion if Violet draws the Tarot Card "Path of Light".

However, if Violet draws the card "Path of Trust", Ordep's Helpers will be assisting in a completely different way:

Violet will have a few additional cards that relate to the "Path of Trust" (same size as the ones from the base game).

She will have to randomly draw one of these cards for this game.

These cards will have 4 slots on them, on which Violet will place one helper if she wins the trick leading up to them.

Each slot, will give Violet a bonus action she will be able to immediately activate. So, each card will have 4 bonus actions on it (one per slot), and these bonus actions come in different combinations on each of the cards, from which only one is drawn after revealing the "Path of Trust" Tarot Card.

The catch is, that Violet only very rarely actually wins over all of the Helpers, so when she does win one, she will need to Trust, that she makes the best choice for that moment, since each bonus action is taken to the detriment of another not being taken later on, when she might needed real hard!

As you see, with the card "Path of Trust", there are additional components that will come into play. Not every Tarot card will be like this though. I think that finding out about how each Tarot changes the kind of help that Violet can gain on the way will be a core aspect of the expansion.

Kind regards, Pedro.

[agiegames]

Our beloved 2-player trick taking game, is getting an expansion in 2025. The title is "Violet and the meddlings of Madame Kamila", and introduces Madame Kamila, a fortune teller with ulterior motives. She draws young Violet into her manipulative charm. After Violet agrees to a card reading, the tarot she will draw, will also determine the fate of her journey through the night!

[agiegames]

Sometimes, when developing a new game, we find that changing its title brings up a lot of new ideas that can help steer the game in a different, often better direction. The title dictates the theme of the game and with a change of theme comes a change in character motivation.

So whilst the game system doesn't really change, the fact that characters within the newly created world act on different motivations, raises new question that help figure out new solutions to the problems we had been stuck on with the previous theme.

Our latest experiment in titles was to change the working title "The Haunting of Carrickfergus Castle" to a new working title: "Too many Kisses & Too many Hugs".

A first tentative art direction lools like so:

Tentative visual concept

[agiegames]

The town of Carrickfergus

We are now working on our new title for next year. We actually have got 2 lined up but 1 is advancing faster than the other and taking up more of our attention because of that. The new game will take us to the town of Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland.... and is going to be spooky!

We will update soon with more details!

[agiegames]

A Way Back Home was super well received in Essen Spiel 2024. We've received a lot of positive feedback, but also loads of ideas to improve the gaming experience. We listen and we will make it the best game it can be!

[agiegames]

Kickstarter now live. Please share, spread, support!