Shirefolk, The Cursed Coast, and For Small Creatures (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

Before I dive into the meat of this little update, I just want to say thank you all so much for your support in the past few months and that I'm sorry the release schedule has been sparse, to say the least. Your kind words and permission to step back for a while has really helped me deal with all this in the best way I could and while it's a long road, I've been able to get back on the horse and get moving properly again!

So, what have I been working on and what can you lot look forward to?

Well, mostly I've been getting the For Small Creatures Such As We playtest ready and that is a behemoth of a task. It's definitely the most ambitious game I've tried to create and bashing it into shape is revealing a lot of bits where past Anna just went "haha, that's future me's problem!" and now as future me, I'm raging. Pranked by myself.

But I'm getting there and I am so excited for how its all coming together. Especially as I'm letting myself go wild on it and have just bumped the Travel Events up from 60 to 120!

As Patreons, you lot will get access to the playtest document - and any feedback you provide will be much appreciated. Seriously, this thing is going to need all the eyes it can get as there's just too much for me to test, though that'll get it's own post when it's ready.

For the meantime, let's chat about the next Apothecaria expansion and my somewhat secret Hobbit game :)

The Cursed Coast

This coastal expansion takes place in Paradise Beach, a once beautiful holiday destination for folks all across the Rannoc Ranges and the lowlands now turned into a gloomy and miserable place by a trio of curses. 

The setting is very much drawing inspiration from things like A Series of Unfortunate Events, the town from Klaus, the Bergens from Trolls. Thanks to the curses, everyone in the town is comically miserable and mean and it's up to you to help cure their Ailments and break the curses.

This expansion has been a tonne of fun to develop so far because it's so different thematically to the others. Like Clammy Hands below, if you fail to cure it in time the Curse of Misery causes the patient to just give up and decide to live with clams clamped onto their hands from now on, which amuses me greatly.

Just picture them trying to hang a painting with two giant clams for hands XD

My goal is to get this out for the end of March and I'll share some more progress updates as we go.

Shirefolk

Shirefolk is an interesting project for me as I'm trying to branch out and experiment with new layouts and game design features and while I know the above doesn't look a million miles from Apothecaria, to me at least, it feels a lot different.

The main goals of Shirefolk are to build your burrow in a 2D side-on view like DELVE, collect Gossip which you can use to entertain Guests and infuriate Rivals, and earn money to keep your Pantry stocked and yourself in good standing.

The last of which you do by taking on jobs like the image above, most of which are centred around some sort of card game. 

Pest Catcher is a timed game of Snap where you want to match Suits or Values but have strange rules imposed by the Complications.

Inn Keeper is a timed Memory game where you want to match as many pairs as possible before the time runs out and, again, have Complications introduced that can really change things up.

Cleaner is one that I'm debating including because it amuses me greatly but I don't think anyone would actually do as it involves playing 52 Card pickup. And if you don't know what that is, grab a deck of cards and ask your parents or a mean friend to show you.

Unfortunately, with Kickstarter obligations and such, Shirefolk remains a hobby project that I can only work on in my free time but with that said, the current document is sitting at about 31 pages which is pretty good.

The end game is going to have a Shire Map that you can navigate, similar to Apawthecaria. Different Towns will have different Events and will buy and sell Trade Goods for different prices and you'll have the ability to head through Dangerous Woods and even venture out of the Shire to the human, dwarf, and elf towns.

This is an early draft of the starting Town but I think I'm going to give the Events their own spread and move the Market Prices to their own section at the back so that the Services and town description can breathe more.

Oh, and finally!

Golf Quest and Dead Air both funded!

Thank you so much to all of you who backed and to those who helped push it out on social media. It really means a lot to me and to Fiona who is absolutely over the moon with how Dead Air has been received. 

We can't wait to share these games with you :)