Follow up to card changes opinion request
over 2 years ago – Sun, Jan 07, 2024 at 09:24:14 AM

Hi folks,

Happy New Year!

thanks so much for all the responses on the previous update they raised some very useful points and we have tried to accommodate as many as we can.

I will respond to them on a comment by comment basis (grouping where sensible) so that hopefully I capture everything and people don't need to flip between the two updates.

Ryan Bird

All great updates.

I think Impale should be bold.

Also, the >=2 for the Party Basic Test... Would it be better if that information was in the line just above the chart (that says party basic test)? And I cannot help but wonder if that info needs a plus sign in it to indicate 2 above the requirement (like >=+2). Just saying >=2 can be interpreted as a roll of 2 (I know, but some people might interpret it that way). Maybe the plus is not really necessary since it is a rule reminder.

IG Response

Yes good point on the >=+2. We have played with the icon and changed it to incorporate this. We also tweaked the tick on the additional Party member to green.

This is the previously proposed one:

This is the revised icon:

On placement we looked at it but have rejected this suggestion Ryan because 1) It would generate another template for LU again and there are already a lot of those to manage. 2) I can see the argument for sure but all the other mods are in the space to the right of the card for every other card type so we would rather keep it there.

See below on formatting.

Vern Peterson

These are good ideas. I know I tend to be quite picky, but the text on two of the new cards seems to allow for more than one interpretation.

On the Fuldreh"n card

Impale: If your Melee Attack result is a (fail) then you must immediately make another Melee Attack with Disadvantage.

Question - what do I do if I roll a (fail) a second time do I make a third Melee Attack? I am pretty sure that is not the intent.

Lizardkin Hatchery

This is the first Barrier that I have seen that is a Party Basic Test. Since it is a Barrier, I get that the Party can choose to go through the Barrier or may ignore the Barrier and continue on. Saying that 'Each Hero may Test' sounds wrong. I know the 'may' is in reference to it being a Barrier, but if one Hero decides to attempt the 'test', all of the Heroes should have to attempt the test, they no long have the 'may' option. I don't have a better wording, but perhaps there is a better choice. Hopefully the rule book already addresses this situation.

IG Response

Impale - no indeed that is the intent. You need to keep making those Melee Attacks until you free yourself. If you are in a Party hopefully somebody can give you Advantage and help you free yourself, if playing Lonewolf you need to be extra wary. Deepsorrow most definitely ups the difficulty/lethality level from Caves and Sewers but remember there are lots of buffs to find which help you also. We just encourage you to be careful which Foes you fight and which ones you run away from. 

The Hatchery - yes this is a very good point. We kicked this about a fair bit and Morgan had the good idea of adding 'Optional' before the test status when used on Barriers. Note we have deliberately not used the same font on the word Optional so that it is really clear to people what is happening. 

Here is the revised card:

We will add extra clarity in the rulebook with the following addition: "If the Party wishes to resolve a Barrier that requires a Party Test then all Heroes must make the Test to resolve it."

Michael Boulton

I think all these changes will improve the cards, giving consistency and also making the game easier to understand. One point I would mention is that if you add symbols then it is important to ensure easyitis for new/casual players to find what they mean.

IG Response  - thanks, yep totally agree we will add these new icons into the appropriate part of the rulebook.

Adrian Teroux, Spectre376, Khula, Korric, Krododil Dundee

Comments from you all on consistency of formatting of keywords.

IG Response 

Some very good points here. And this is where we need to be careful that we don't make all the exsting cards date out of date by applying a new formatting scheme which if we could we would. Specifically what I mean is that yes Keywords should be in bold, no argument there, but we need to be clear that just because some words are in bold on existing cards (look at many of your Talent cards where we highlighted 'Disadvantage' or 'Other Hero' or similar) they are there for emphasis rather being a Keyword like Areten per se.

We think adopting a whole new formatting rule would best wait till Apprentice (if we are successful in that endeavour) but for now want to try and stick to:

italics = flavour text wherever possible. So please note the top most action on the Hatchery There must be... etc should have been in italics before and is now.

bold = A Keyword or a word of importance in the rules when using the cards, something that we want to emphasise so it is clear we are talking about a game term or Keyword proper.

bold italics  = We want to use this for Special Abilities (largely on the Foe cards), to make this distinct hence the treatment of Impale below on the card.

Talking of which, as I looked at this I noticed that the new Deepsorrow Foe cards use the same uppercase font on the Title bar as the other card types but that the Foes in the Caves and Sewers did not. If anything this just shows you that LU needs to iterate, we can not think of absolutely everything on day 1, but can always find simple ways to improve. The Foes from now on will be in the uppercase style shown below as will the reprinted Caves and Sewers cards. This is minor stuff though, we do not think they need to be replaced via an upgrade pack. 

Nakano

Sounds good ideas. Not sure if non-issue in printed cards, but the green highlight in Areten Shrine and Waterfall Climb looks a bit odd in ”may Test either” / ”One Hero may”.

Regarding Critical Success in Party Tests, wonder if all players could just throw their dice first (it will make game easier of course). Anyway this can be house ruled if we see it better/faster that way.

IG Response 

On the green highlight, I had to look properly to see what you mean. Yes it is one of those things that looks more pronounced in the digital version than the print (part of the RGB to CMYK process). This is partly why we have lifted all the lighting levels on the boxes in the reprint. The retailers did say that the boxes could do with being a tad brighter. In terms of the card this is an easy fix - thanks for spotting, the revised card is below, this will flow through onto all cards via the template:

Party Tests. LU is an adventure game and we want to give you that RPG like experience. With that in mind the design intent here is that you do Party Tests one Hero at a time. Gamification wise this means you must use a risk:reward premise to establish the order you do it in - e.g. Hmm my Farmhand is good at climbing he could go first and hopefully get a Critical success so that the Student with vertigo doesn't have to test. Also, my Farmhand did get a lightning bolt in the a$$ from the Student when you Failed in Combat last Turn and I am now on one Health...decisions...decisions... etc. 

Thematically we imagine this as a one of the adventurers throwing the rope across and then calling it safe for the next one to cross etc. Part of the inspiration for this came from an old picture I remember in the Dungeoneers Survival Guide where adventurers were roped together. Please note aslo on the point of ropes etc. Kits are really good for Party Tests, everyone gets to use them and they often have a 2x bonus.

That said, LU is your game, your copy and you can of course house rule to do whatever you want just as you say. It will certainly work the way you propose Nakano.

Greg, Justin, Blodhemn and others

Comments on changes and how they impact original sets and updates

IG Response 

Please note the changes we propose do not make any of the previous cards redundant. This is important as we do not want to orphan anybody's existing sets. 

We want to be able to introduce new things in LU that help improve the game iteratively, and like so many other games (Magic and VTES come to mind to me) this means minor changes to cards but they still work in the same way. This does not mean we can reprint all cards every time we tweak something, that would mean effectively reprinting all the non-hero cards for Caves and Sewers (150 odd cards) and then sending them out to everyone in an upgrade pack which for a tiny company like IG is financially unviable I'm afraid.

However, we totally appreciate we would have no game without you, and we always try our very hardest to keep you on board and go the extra mile to be that friendly publisher that listens. What we propose therefore is that where a change is purely cosmetic (like changing Keywords on a Foe Title card to Uppercase, or changing where it says Table or Staged Test on a card) then we do not reprint - there is no need to.

However where we think something will genuinely improve people's understanding of the rules we want you to benefit from this. With this in mind we think that all of the original Party Basic Tests would benefit from the new icon and where appropriate the revised positioning from the Title Bar into the Action Bar.

At first we thought this was just these cards in Caves:

Box Junction, Chasm, Flooded Tunnel, Island Hop.

And the following Party Basic Tests in the Great Sewers:

Icy Blackness, Sewer Blockage, Water Pit.

However then we noted there is a Party Basic Test on the Lizardkin Lord and then of course on a good number of the Events.

We think we can help you remember stuff more easily here and therefore will add another 23* reprinted cards (covering the Caves and Sewers and Caves EE and GS EE Party Basic Tests) for free to the Update packs accordingly. This is actually quite a big uplift to the Upgrade packs but we think it will help you all learn and enjoy your games more. To clarify, looking at the existing cards right now as I type I would advocate this is 'nice to have' stuff, the existing cards work fine as they are, by no means will those without the Upgrade pack be unable to play their game(s).

*We think it is 23, if we find something else we will let you know of course!

Again, thanks everyone for their feedback and helping to move this forward. I hope you are content that we have moved this in the right direction. We can now adapt the rulebook accordingly and share them with you shortly. While you are looking at the rules we will of course crack on with the other parts of the product so that we can get ready for final assembly and off to Whatz in due course.

Thanks so much for all your help, it helps all of us have a better game to enjoy together.

Cheers

IG

Seasons Greetings! LU Liveplay (recorded) link, we need your opinions on a couple of things please!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Dec 28, 2023 at 01:45:20 PM

Seasons Greetings to you all!

For those that celebrate it - Merry Christmas I hope you are all having a wee bit of a rest and enjoying the holiday!

LU Liveplay link

• After some initial teething problems I joined Monkeys With Fire for a liveplay of LU where we talk about some of the lore and the characters. We then go on to introduce some of the key concepts. A big thanks to those of you who joined us and thanks for all the questions also! Doing the liveplay was a lot of fun, it's exactly how I would introduce the game at a convention. If you want to watch the show it has been recorded and you can watch it here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvxLcFNdQLM 

User interface tweak - we need your opinions please

We had a rush on after the last update to get the Core Rulebook proofing finished. I'm pleased to say we are done with it now subject to a few things we would like your opinion on please. During the liveplay it became clear to me that there are some tweaks we can make to the card design interface which I think will make them easier for you all to use, particularly for those that are new to the game or have not played in a while. I will walk you through the problems and proposed solutions here:

#1 Commonality of Keyword usage

 If you look at the Foe card below you can see other than the tweaks to the left hand side, and the introduction of the Creature number/Breakpoint symbols to the left and right of the Creature number stats (the 1/0, 2/1 etc), this card reads and works the same as all the other Foes you are used to. The only differences are the new Keyword 'Areten' and the Special Ability 'Impale' (which is particularly nasty by the way folks so try and keep a Ranged Weapon to hand for the Engagement Round).

The intent is that both the Special Rule and the Keyword are easy enough to understand. For those new to the game the Areten are a very important mysterious culture in Mor Nadar that you will learn more about in Deepsorrow.

However we want to adopt this use of Keywords across other card types also as it will mean that you have more flexibility with your Heroes and more opportunities to use them. For example if you find an item that lets you gain some form of bonus when used with a card with the Areten (or indeed any Keyword), the game will be more fun and more immersive if you can use that on many different types of cards. 

Our proposal for this prior to the liveplay was to drop the word 'Staged Test' from the title bar which would give us the real estate to add a Keyword. The assumption for this was that not all games tell you the type of card they actually are and if you learn the template (in this case the card has the 'belt buckle stages') you would learn and then know that this has to be a Staged Test.  

However it became clear to me that during the liveplay this is just something else to learn that I think we can actually help you with but in a different way. In addition this also helps us solve: 

#2 Making the Action lines easier to understand

This is something I have been wanting to tidy up for ages but never found a satsfacroy way to do so...until now! To me it seems odd to have the word 'Basic/Staged/Table' in the title bar and then explain again what happens in the action bar (the section immediately below the narrative text in grey).

We bounced this around at our end and it struck us that we could move the Test type to the action bar (freeing up space for Keywords as per #1 above) AND include it in the action bar rather than rely on you learning/knowing the card templates by style alone.

This is best illustrated by the side by side of the 'Current' (in line with 1st printing Caves and Sewers) and 'Proposed' cards below: 

 If you look to the 'Proposed' card you can see:

• Replacing the 'Staged Test' in the title bar with the Keyword 'Areten' in this case.

Reinserting it (rather than deleting it) in the action bar where it reinforces the following key information:

1 - This is a Staged Test

2 - It is for One Hero (not a Party Test)

3 - It is optional, note the word 'may' because it is a Curiosity not an Encounter.

4 - It works off both Solve (Reason) and Identify (Reason).

5 -  Note the updated Set Icon and Card Code in the bottom left and the Caves Environment tab in the bottom right.

Here is another example showing how it would work with a Trial that is a Party Table Test. 

Note there is no Keyword here but the User Interface remains the same. The action bar tells you in this case:

1 - This is a Table Test

2 - It is for the whole Party (it is a Party Table Test)

3 - It is compulsory (note the word 'must').

4 - It works off both Climb (Brawn) and Swim (Brawn).

5 - Note the updated Set Icon and Card Codes.

6 - Note the replacement of the old (incorrect) Gnimshka Speciality with the correct Subterranean Speciality.

As we are looking at Party Tests this brings me to:

#3 Tidying up the reminder on Critical Successes on a Party Basic Test

An often forgotten rule in Legends Untold that can make a real difference to your success in a game is the rule for a Critical Success on a Party Basic Test. Here is the excerpt from the new Core Rulebook below:

As with the rules above we bounced this around at our end and think adding a simple icon to these cards (where appropriate) is one less rule to remember which again lets you focus more on having your adventure. With this in mind Morgan came up with this icon to use to represent the Critical Success on a Party Basic Test:

And here you can see it in use on the proposed Lizardkin Hatchery card, which also has the 'Lizardkin' Keyword on it:

Please let us know your thoughts on the proposals above - if you like them we can incorporate them now, tweak the cards and finish the book for sharing. We think these are small but incremental improvements, we'd like to hear your thoughts though before we proceed.

Playtesting credits - help us get your name right in the book please!

For everyone who kindly helped with the playtesting please help us get your name right in the credits. If you can email me at: [email protected] with the name you want us to use that would help us immensely.

For now thanks again to everyone for your support and from us at Inspiring Games we hope you have an amazing New Year when it comes to you!

Cheers

IG

LU Live on TV (again) 8pm UK time tonight
over 2 years ago – Mon, Dec 04, 2023 at 07:40:06 AM

Hey folks,

the last live play session hosted by Monkeys with Fire ran into some issues and so it is being played again tonight from the start.

I will be joining via voice chat this time around as well to answer any questions anyone has about the game.

Hope to see some of you there!

Link below:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvxLcFNdQLM 

Cheers

Kev

IG

Legends Untold live on TV today at 7pm UK time
over 2 years ago – Thu, Nov 30, 2023 at 05:56:34 AM

Hi folks,

just a quick heads up Legends Untold will be playing live on TV tonight at 7pm by Monkeys With Fire.

The link to the channel is here for those that want to join in:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXlcyJ5YWH0 

Proofing continues - it is definitely taking longer than we hoped and this may impact delivery. For now though we still hope to have the game manufactured prior to CNY next year - if we can.

We are finishing off the core Rules just now so we can share them with you.

In the meantime I thought some of you may be interested in watching David et al. play on his channel.

Cheers

Kev

Proofing update
over 2 years ago – Tue, Nov 07, 2023 at 12:52:39 PM

Hi folks,

I hope everyone is well - here is a progress update on proofing.

As you know we are delivering a multi product portfolio which makes the proofing process intricate as many parts of the design talk to one another (e.g. if we change something in one set then that may well impact multiple sets).

We knew this would be the case and we had planned for this! What we are doing involves proofing each set by splitting it into components (box, books etc) and card types. Whenever we change a component or card type we double check what that will mean for other sets.

For example with regards to the Weeping Caves Enhanced Edition we are remastering the entire  set to bring it into line with the newer sets, this involves 11 Component types and 15 different card types (Basic Tests, Weapon Talents etc).

With LU we always fix the cards first because everything else hangs off the cards (the play guides, the books, even the boxes, they all reference those cards).

I am pleased to say we have now done a first proof of all the cards across all 7 sets (WC, GS, ID, PP, NB1, NB2, NB3).

Our next stage is to proof the other components (the vast majority of time being spent on the books). We can then share books with you for those that want to see them  - though I am worried about spoilers so I need to think through what if anything we can share on Deepsorrow).

We will then do a final proof of all the cards and components before sending off to Whatz. I can't confirm exactly when that will be yet as the cards took longer than we hoped, however I hope to be able to share the Core Rulebook within the next week and we will keep working on the Campaign Guides in parallel.

For now I thought you may want to see some of the things that we have changed in the remastering process which be believe will make the game better for all:

Occupation cards

Here you can see the Performer from the Great Sewers Enhanced Edition set. The same card as before but we have added recommended starting cards for a Level 1 Build directly on the card in line with Deepsorrow. Please note this card does not have the new Great Sewers Set icon on it yet (the one shown is the Sewers Environment icon) this will be addressed in the second proof.

Foe cards

A slightly redesigned Foe card, Thuban Asharat no less, whom we introduced in the stretch goals and has pride of place as the 'Enhanced Edition' badge on the new box.

Things to note here:

1 - We dropped the 'Melee or Ranged' word from the Keywords section, this gives us more space to use for potential future cards where we want to describe multiple or longer keywords. We have now placed the Melee or Ranged stance icon below the Alertness Rating as this is more intuitive and the icons matches those on the Talents you will be using in combat. In this case Thuban is Alertness 10 and a Ranged Foe.

2 - Continuing on with the tweaked user interface to the left of the card we have added a vs Melee and vs Ranged box below the Melee/Ranged Foe icon - this helps avoid confusion to show that you always include these icons when you are rolling against the Foe.

3 - We have tweaked the Melee and Ranged Combat Tracks to make it really clear which applies in any situation and the applicable Damage the Foe causes. We did this primarily because a number of people play the game for the first time and can be confused as to why only the Ranged Foes have a Combat Track (the Melee Foes do not require one).

4 - If you look at the Creature number track you will see we have added in little symbols to the left and right of the figures to show # of Creatures and Breakpoint. We think this will just make it that much easier to understand which is the Breakpoint figure when people are trying to remember/learn.

5 - We have introduced a few new Abilities with the new sets one of which is Summon. This is another way for us to keep Foes fresh and interesting, in this case Thuban likes to summon all those rats for you to fight first. You can see the proofing process live in this document where I have marked up 'summon' in the rules section of the card as it should in fact be 'Summon'.

Extra Spacing

We are taking the opportunity to use the extra space we have where we can to improve readability. Here is a first draft of one of the new Booby Trap cards in the WC Enhanced Edition. Note my proofing mark which asks for more space.

Here is the revised version, you can see the same card but much easier to read. Please ignore the Speciality icon at the top, this is for Gnimshka but it should in fact be the Subterranean Speciality. Also don't worry about all the coloured frames and punctuation marks on the card below, this is just me showing you a screenshot from the merged file on InDesign.

New Supply token icon

We introduced a new Supply icon with the new Deepsorrow set to make it look different from the Loot icon used at the top of the Loot cards. You can see it here being applied to one of the new WC EE cards.

Changed Ability

Legends Untold is an ambitious project, it is inevitable that try as we may we will not get everything right first time. This one Talent has bugged me for some time. To be clear it does work, it's just I've always felt that using Cave Brother is quite hard to do as you need an Event to occur to use it. Because of this I usually always use the top two Abilities instead - this lack of balance does not sit well with me! With this in mind we are changing the bottom Ability slightly so that you can use it more situations but it still seems relevant to caving thematically.  This is a change for the better but will create a different version of this Talent card. With this in mind we will reissue this card in the Enhanced Edition and give everyone one free copy of it in their upgrade packs so that old and new backers alike benefit from the change.

New Location cards

As part of the Enhanced Editions we are adding 5 more Caves Cards to the WC EE set and 5 more Sewers Cards to the WC Set. This will give you 20 Location cards in each of those sets making for more variety to your adventures. We have worked hard on the design and vision of these to make sure that they fulfil a number of criteria:

• They need to fit seamlessly with the original cards.
• They need to move the cards forward so that they also work with Deepsorrow.
• They give us the opportunity to foreshadow the look of potential sets. 

To make this happen we have deliberately added more detail, more verticality, more icons, sometimes they may work a bit differently because of the layout we have chosen.

With this in mind I'm excited to reveal some of the Enhanced Edition Location cards that we have built at this stage:

Above you can see WC-LO16 Winding River. Please note the Card Code, we are renumbering the Card Codes in Deepsorrow as per a previous update and making the EE sets run from 16-20 so that you get a straight run of Caves 1-20 and Sewers 1-20 in those sets. Secondly please note the Weeping Caves Set icon to the left of the Card Code and the original Set icon being used as the Caves Environment icon to the right. Another point I would raise on this card is that the Scouting Difficulty levels are higher, you need to be more careful with your use of Time and Scouting with some of these cards or you  may well end up being Careless and end up in the Winding River. How's that for immersion folks? Ahem - apologies I can not escape making Dad Jokes nowadays!

Next up we have WC-LO19 Collapsed Cave. What I wanted to show here is the artist working towards that feeling of looking through the roof rather than an into an open space, so you can see some natural stone and some supporting braces have been added here to give you that sensation. Importantly now that we have more reasons to go through Barriers than in the original sets we wanted to give you that whole 'ooh what were they mining behind there?' sensation. So if you want to go through that Barrier you will unlock both a Treasure Zone and Minerals, and also a Dark Exit which may well be important if you are worried about sneaking up on Foes.

With GS-LO18 Breached mineshaft we are doing a little bit of foreshadowing with the wagon tracks. In particular the story we want to tell here is that you could escape off into the tunnels to the left or play it safe and go ambient in the bottom right. If you are really keen to go through that Barrier and check out the Minerals there is another Exit hiding in the top right you may miss on first glance.  

I will finish this section with a look at GS-LO19 Spoil Hepas. If you look at the vertical nature of this Location it has three maybe four levels represented in it. We are using the tweaked Egress Barrier rules  to the full on this card, if you want to access those Barrels and the Campsite with their Exits beyond you will need to negotiate the Barriers first. 

The Enhanced Edition Locations have been a lot of work for us and the artist. For sure they have taken longer to do by a good few months than we originally hoped. I can confirm we now have one to go Hidden Hollow GS-LO25. I have now seen the first draft, it looks fantastic, I hope this card will be complete very soon.

Persona cards

One thing we have done with some of the cards is to add extra descriptive text where possible and appropriate. Note for many of the tests this is not usually possible or desirable as they are already full of data points, however for some of the more simple cards the additional text can just help drive the immersion a little bit further. For example in the case of Althenor and his little dog Tiwu, some descriptive text just helps build the story more when you have the card to hand. I have to say I always smile at the thought of Tiwu joining our reluctant heroes as they try to find a path for their kin into the Weeping Caves.

Please ignore the Set icon shown in this card, it is the wrong one and will be rectified.

Next steps

We need to get the Core Rulebook out to you for proofing, I hope we can do that within a week or so. While you are looking at that we will complete proofing of the other books and components and then share what we can (spoiler comment above applies for the Deepsorrow Campaign Guide). When that is all done we can do a final second proof and get the files off to Whatz.

I apologise for the additional time it is taking for the proofing, I have endeavoured to demonstrate above that we are doing this to make the products the very best they can be for you when they arrive with you. We hope that you like what you see.

Thanks for all of the proofreading offers to date - they are much appreciated!

Best wishes to you all

IG