WarStages Update #13: Quick News and Upcoming Game Info

Dear WarStages backer,

This is just a quick update to let you know a bigger one is coming.

If you have read our latest TGG2 Kickstarter update #79, you know that on a personal level, last month has been a very challenging time as my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive illness and hospitalized for most of the month. Benoit and I flew to Canada to help and take care of my parents. Thankfully, things are finally starting to look better but it has been a very difficult and stressful period, and one that one can never quite prepare for. We are now back in France with the crew who held up the fort while we were away, and so after several days of catching up with everything here, we are getting back on track.

However, with all the work to catch up and the Black Friday madness, we have been short on time.
But our WarStages project is constantly on our mind, and we'll have a full length update for you in the coming days.

In the meantime, if you haven't already seen it, below is an excerpt of TGG2 update #78. It covers great information about our upcoming TGG game. Since you will soon have exclusive Raging Heroes scenery in your possession and probably already own several of our minis, we thought that you would want to know a bit more about what the TGG game will be like and how you will be able to use your Raging Heroes' goods with it.

Just before we leave you with that info below, you might want to know that we currently have some cool Black Friday deals at www.ragingheroes.com. AND we will have some additional crazy stuff happening before the end of Cyber Monday. But hush-hush, you are the only ones to know ahead of time about the latter...

The TGG Game is Coming!!!

Things are heating up about the TGG game! We've been very ambitious from the very beginning. We wanted to offer you a new type of experience in terms of Miniature Gaming. We wanted to make you feel closer to the action, closer to the characters and to the background. We also wanted to immerse you in a movie-like adventure during the game, and even go for a “meta-game” experience that would mean that the adventure would continue even after your game is over.

As most adventures, it's been a long and challenging road, with many tests and re-tests and updates and changes and rewrites, but we are very excited about what we came up with!

Relying on simple but rich game mechanics, the TGG game delivers a unique level of fun while providing at the same time a high level of strategic challenges that will be perfect for tournaments.

We have put a lot of work into creating a totally unique game experience that truly immerses/absorbs/engages you in your miniatures' actions and in the events of the scenario.
We want the TGG game to feel as badass as the minis themselves.

Here are a few highlights of what you'll find in the game: At every turn of the creative process, we decided to challenge what is common knowledge... In fact, one of the way we developed our game was for us to put a question mark at the end of common assumptions.

• Assumption: The deployment phase is a boring if necessary evil?
  Oh? Well, what if the deployment phases became one of the best parts of the game?
  Impossible! Crazy! Well, we feel that the deployment phase should be as exciting as the first big action scene at the beginning of a movie. So we came up with an ultra dynamic, high action system of deployment through which you are sure to live the epic moments that create awesome game memories!

• Assumption: There is no way around the fact that some aspect of combat resolution take you out of the action and you cannot get a physical sensation of combat by playing on a table?
  Well, what if the combat sequences were fast and furious and would give you chills?
  It's always fun to roll the dices for a combat: you get the anticipation of seeing the dice tumble on the game mat, hoping that you will score a success. But then, in most games, the excitement of combat ends here because then you have to resolve the action, compute the bonuses, etc. It might be cool, but it's not an experience that is as immersive as it could be. And in some cases, it totally cuts the flow of the game.

  In the TGG game we've come up with a combat system that really amps you up. Based on a card system, it is a real joust with your opponent. You've got to be on edge, take lightning-fast decision and react to your opponent choices, all in real time. You even get to throw one of your heroine's punchline in the mix (see below). All this makes for a super thrilling and lively yet very strategic and balanced combat system.

• Assumption: The only way you can express the characters' personality in a miniature game is through a few skills and maybe some specific mission objectives?
  Wouldn't it be cool if your minis felt like real characters, full of persona and badass attitude?

  In the TGG game, each heroine has her own skills that reflect her persona, of course. But it doesn't stop here, far from it! Like in good old 80's movies, each heroine has her own “punchlines”, one-liners like “I'll be back!” or “Yippee-ki-yay, Motherfucker!”. And it's not just something written on your card as the description of a “you get +1 to damage”. No, it is something that when the other player hears you say it, it means something and he might have to answer back in the right badass way. And the system is built up so that you'll often feel like your miniature is reading your mind and allows you to tell to your opponent how you REALLY feel at that time. But the cool thing is that it is truly part of the game and has a direct impact on it.
  
  And it goes even deeper than that ! The heroines' persona will infuse some aspects of the game in very subtle ways trough the game engine. You might not notice it at first, but as you become more experienced, you'll realize that... Well, let's keep it a surprise for now ;) 

• Assumption: in all games, some phases are necessarily about upkeep, calculations or organization?
  Wouldn't it be great if the game had no downtime and just be pure fun all the way?
  As you've seen, we've already taken care of the dreaded deployment phase by turning it into something epic and cool. And so we have taken the same approach on all the aspects of the game: movement, action resolution, special skills, everything has been designed so that is will not slow down the game or take you away from the mood. The game is fast, lean, with little to no downtime.

• Assumption: the way that you need to put technical information on game cards and other game accessories mean that it is never possible to make that info feel “transparent”and fully integrated into the card illustrations and layout?
  Don't you like goodies that feel like they come right out of your favorite movie or gaming universe?
  In the TGG game, there are no “cards” or “tokens” but military identity papers, dogtags, propaganda flyers and more that are used as gaming components. Everything feels like it's right out of the TGG world. You are going to like them so much, we are pretty sure you will ask us to make them as postcards, posters and real collectibles ;)

• Assumption: the only way to live a real story through a miniature game is by playing in campaign mode?
  Wouldn't it be nice if each game would tell a rich and exciting story full of twists, turns and epic moments, without having to play a full-length campaign?
  We have created a truly unique Story Engine thanks to which the simplest “capture the flag” game become as rich as a real TV episode. In just minutes, each player takes part in the creation of a scenario that will be telling a story full of twists and turns and revelations. The specific input of the players added to other components of the scenario engine also means that the replay-ability of the scenario will be massive.

• Assumption: Once a game is over, there's not many ways to prolong the experience apart from reading the background book while waiting for the next game?
  Haven't you ever wanted for your game to extend beyond the battlefield of your dinning room table?
  The mechanics of the Story Engine will also let you slowly discover the darkest secrets of the TGG universe and expand your TGG experience way beyond the gaming table if you feel like it. Every time you play a game, the Story Engine will allow you to unearth clues about your enemy's main character and her links to various secret societies, political conspiracies, personal ethics and hidden ambitions, etc. You'll then be able to compare your findings with other TGG gamers on the internet to understand more about what is truly going on beyond the battlefield, who is plotting against whom, who is an undercover agent, what secret organization is really pulling the strings, etc.
  
  So of course, the TGG game will come with a Background book that will contain tons of info on the TGG characters and their world, but it will only be the beginning of something bigger. If you really want to dig deeper, we thought that the best way to discover well kept secrets would be like when playing a video game or watching a movie and thus, discovering hidden information and truths as you go along and even after your game ends. 

• Assumption: Creating cool themed gaming tables takes a lot of effort, time, money, usually all three combined?
  Do you want your gaming table to look great but never have the time or the resources to build something truly unique?
  If you've followed our WarStages Kickstarter this summer, you know that we've started exploring some crazy options regarding scenery. The work on WarStages made us learn A LOT about what we could do with scenery. The TGG game will come with a complete set of super-dense cardboard tri-dimensional scenery to build many types of KST (the Kurganovas) environment. As we release new extensions, we will add to this scenery range so that all our armies have proper settings to fight in.
  
  Our first WarStages was about a truly insanely big cathedral. It might have been too big or too expensive for your taste. We learned from that and what we will publish for the game will be split in smaller kits, while retaining a unique design quality that will be very different for each army but yet with the same unique lushness intricacy than our Gothic Cathedral.
  
  The KST environments were an obvious choice because we already have some Sisters scenery in our range and a KST settlement can be home for both KSTs and their Jailbirds prisoners. So get ready for some very cool looking dieselpunk, soviet propaganda style scenery!

You might find it hard to believe that we have managed to cram so much in a game and yet kept it fast to learn and easy to play, but yes, we truly made it! And we are far from having covered everything here, there is definitely more to come, so stay tuned!

Get ready to see new video teasers on Facebook like this one we did on our Daughters of the Crucible (now available in Command and Troops):

These videos will remind you about some of your favourite action or sci-fi movies. Through these videos, we want to start conveying the general “movie-like” feel you'll get while playing the TGG game. We hope they will inspire you and will make you want to ready your TGG minis for their first TGG game.

While I realise that this game outline does not substitute for a description of the game mechanics, do give us your feedback so far in the comments below!