Fireball Island - 80's Board Game, Reignited and Restored

Paper Cut!
over 6 years ago – Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 12:08:52 PM

Another great day for the campaign. Thank you all for continuing to support us.

There’s an old line by Mel Brooks to the effect of: When I get a paper cut, it’s a tragedy; when you get mowed down by a giant fireball, it’s a comedy. So when we thought about ways to enhance the game -- already hilarious with its cavalcade of fireballs -- we decided to take a more serious turn. Hence, the idea for injuries, our unlocked $700k stretch goal, was born.

Injuries are one of my favorite little mini-expansions in the Treasure Trove. If you get knocked over by a fireball, normally you have to lose a treasure. When injuries are added to the game, you get to choose: You can lose the treasure, or you can keep it and draw a random injury card. These injury cards range from wrenched ankles to a dislocated shoulder to the lowly paper cut. The effects themselves are varied. We’re still testing, but you can imagine: discarding cards, moving spaces, that sort of thing. In fact, some of them have “no effect, but kinda gross”. What I really like is that it adds a simple but often deliciously difficult choice for players to make. Sometimes, you might have a single red treasure you don’t mind giving up. But other times, you might need that red treasure to complete the matched set. Nothing here that slows the game down or burns the brain. But plenty of stuff people can chide you for later when your sprained hammy leaves you stranded on the island as the Hello-Copter takes off.

We unlocked a host a new cards for the Treasure Trove in addition to some injuries. We got our first legendary artifact, which I’ll talk about in a future update. And we unlocked some morer souvenirs. We also unlocked a couple more modules for the app. The Vul-Kar voice clips add some fun and humor to the game. We’re planning on two versions depending on your play style, ranging from “Who dares waketh me from my volcanic slumber!” to “Hope you brought some marshmallows, buddy!” And the token randomizer will show you where to put the various treasures at the start of the game to add some more variability.

You all keep rolling through these stretch goals, so let’s take a look at what we have coming up. More treasure for the Treasure Trove of course. But let’s take a closer look at that $1 million stretch goal. We wanted to do something special for such a significant milestone.

At $1 million, we’ll add a new play mode as a module to the app, a real-time mode we’re calling the “Fun Run”. In this mode, the app will use a soundtrack to randomly generate events the players need to deal with. We’re still plotting out the details, but we’re excited that the new mode will drive players to play quickly, which can generate a lot of zany hijinks in a physical game like Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar. The app gives us lots of interesting design space to really change the play experience. We know some folks don’t like the digital fun to get in their analog space, but we’ve had great success using the app to enhance the tabletop experience. Our experience with Stop Thief! shows that we can leverage the app to deliver a wholly unique and fun experience.

 Just a few more things to mention:

I’ve started populating the FAQ and will continue to add more questions over the next day or two. Why can’t I get the game in Tegucigalpa? You can’t seriously expect to get the game to us by November? If you’ve got a question, that’s a good place to start. You can always ask questions in the comments. We are regularly monitoring, but they are still coming so fast and furious, I’m sure we’ve missed a couple. If we missed yours, it’s not personal. Feel free to ask again or send me a direct message.

The Secret Cabal launched their own Kickstarter today. If you’re not familiar with them, they are a troupe of tabletop content creators, best known for their eponymous podcast. We regularly support content creators, because we greatly value what they do for the hobby, including bringing new folks into it. One of the best ways we can do that is by providing them with promotional content, and we’ve done just that. We have a special promo card we designed for them that you can only get through their podcast as part of a pack of promos. If you’re not inclined to back, that’s fine. We intentionally did it as a player power like the ones in the Last Adventurer so that it is not central to game play. If you’re inclined, please take a look and consider supporting them.

As always, like a good fireball, let’s keep rolling along. And thanks again for your support.

It's Vuvuzela Time!
over 6 years ago – Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 11:54:00 AM

I hit the “launch project” button. And now I have some idea of how Saul from Boca feels. You all knocked us over and burned through our funding goal like … well … like a fireball straight from the mouth of Vul-Kar. So, first things first:

We are deeply gratified at the response. Look, we knew Fireball Island was something special. We knew you all were going to come strong. We just didn’t know how epic it would be. So, we’re taking a moment here to catch our breath. It’s hard to believe we’ve got 29½ days to go.

So we’re funded. But we’ve also blown through a number of stretch goals. Let’s go over them:

• Box Upgrade: This adds that glossy spot UV coating to highlights on the box to really make the art pop. This game is going to look great on the shelf.
• Art Upgrade: Instead of the icons on the snapshot cards, each one will get its own illustration.
• Treasure Trove: We’ve added five new pairs of souvenirs to the expansion pack. We’ll talk a bit more about what souvenirs do soon and show off some examples.
• Font: Our Graphic Restoration Wizard, Jason, designed the sweet titling font you see on the cover. As one of our “fun” stretch goals, we’ll be releasing this font to you all. Use it for your Fireball Island party invitation or your next term paper. (Yes, Kirkman aka “Backer #1”, we know it’s a typeface.)

Coming up, at $500k, is the app. If you don’t know, we already have our own app. (Google Play / iOS App Store) If we hit this stretch goal, we’ll add a Fireball Island module to the app. This module will have a few features. For starters, we’ll be adding sounds to the experience. These might include some general jungle background noises, but also specific effects you can generate when you’re getting ready to do something in the game. We’ll also add a scoring module. Scoring is pretty straightforward, but this will automate the process and probably add in a fun winner screen to boot.

Like a good fireball, let’s keep rolling along. And thanks again for your support.