Now it's getting dark in the battle for the castles: Crimson Company is entering the next round with a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and a multitude of new creatures are entering the battlefield. Long more than an insider tip, the Crimson Company has developed into a highlight of the game year 2019 - now the expansion is intended to polish up the entertainment factor of the basic game.
The clever two-person game gets the first expansion. After the basic game was successfully implemented and delivered through the first crowdfunding campaign, the two designers, Dario Reinhardt and Fabian Fischer, have now launched a new campaign on the Kickstarter platform to implement the expansion The Other Side.
Proven concept also for the expansion
The game's recipe for success is consequently continued. It is the turn of the players to take turns, receive their income, bid on the cards and play cards in order to take the castles in the middle. If you want to learn more about the basic game, you can here read more about it.
The basic principle remains: The fight for the three castles. Photo: Marco Troschka
The expansion now brings 15 new cards into play, with additional ones being unlocked by reaching stretch goals. As already known from the basic game, the cards have all sorts of effects, this time true to the gloomy motto “The Other Side”.
The bishop is a point generator, the puppet a nasty tactical element. Images: publisher
For example, there is the Apocalyptic Horseman, who forces the player to destroy cards on both sides, the Voodoo doll, which destroys another card when it is destroyed, or the Bishop, who turns the scoring mechanics upside down: the scoring wins now the one with the most flipped cards
As soon as you read the effects, you can tell what possibilities and combos the new cards bring and I am definitely looking forward to this expansion.
Interview: That's what the designers say about their game
Since the base game is one of my highlights of the 2019 game year, I wanted to take the opportunity to ask the two designers Dario Reinhardt and Fabian Fischer a few questions:
Where did you get the idea for the game from?
We played up and down games like Magic, Hearthstone, Star Realms, and Gwent. However, among other things, the high luck factor, as well as the low interaction between the players and the few real decisions that you have in the games, bothered us. Since we haven't found a card game that satisfies all of the points for us, we made our own. 😉
What prompted you to use crowdfunding to make your idea a reality?
First of all, we tested the game with our work colleagues at Travian Games, where we work as game designers. Your feedback convinced us to release the game. Crowdfunding has made it possible for us to proceed in a similar way: The game is only produced when there are enough interested parties.
In addition, crowdfunding gave us the opportunity to exchange ideas with our supporters and to learn from them. This direct contact and the feeling of creating something new together with the community is indescribably beautiful and has convinced us of this path!
How did you work out the balancing of the cards and what were the difficulties?
Crimson Company is designed so that the cards have different values in different game situations. As a result, recruiting the mercenaries remains interesting and no patterns for the prices of the cards emerge. We also supported that through balancing.
So in balancing we had to make sure that every mercenary in the game is valuable in certain situations and not in others. However, both have to be kept within a certain framework. For example, a mercenary must never be so weak that none of the players want him. The main difficulty here is that the strength of the card skills is not shown mathematically, but primarily in the interaction with the other cards and the game situations. As a result, we had to do a lot of play testing for balancing and could not use a fixed scheme.
In a gameplay video, the "Crimson Company" shows how the game is played.
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Especially in such tactical card games, balancing is an essential factor to guarantee fairness and thus fun. According to the designers, it was not easy to find the right balance. As the number of cards increases, so does the number of possible interactions - and with it the complexity of the game. So there are many more game situations that you have to consider.
Why did you want to use exactly this topic, were there others to choose from?
As game designers, we come from the mechanics very much. We love the flip effects because they make exciting combos possible and the value of the cards fluctuate a lot. In addition, we found effects that are only triggered with the death of a card exciting.
When determining the card value, the players still have to estimate when the effect will take effect. Both effects automatically led us to the theme of the first expansion - "The Other Side"; so the border region between life and death.
Did you already have the idea of expanding the basic game and what made you decide to develop an expansion?
In fact, when we designed the base game, we didn't think of an expansion. However, after the release of the base game, we quickly felt the need to play with more cards that have flip effects. Therefore, we thought about additional effects that then led to the expansion.
Is there anything you would like to add?
We appreciate everyone who supports our campaign! In the Kickstarter campaign there is an inexpensive bundle consisting of a basic game and an expansion for newcomers!
Thank you both for your answers.
The Crowdfunding Campaign for Crimson Company - The Other Side runs through November 28th. The game will be available in German and English. The makers have targeted a financing amount of 5.000 euros - but this has long been exceeded.
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It is possible to get the basic game in the deluxe version, the expansion, or both together in a bundle. The designers Dario Reinhardt and Fabian Fischer are calling for a pledge of ten euros for the expansion, the deluxe version of the basic game is available for 19 euros. The bundle - deluxe core game including expansion - costs 27 euros.
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