Third Stretch Goal Unlocked!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Oct 05, 2021 at 01:04:17 PM

We unlocked our third stretch goal!

Great work everyone! We unlocked spot UV detail on the player boards, this will add flash to the slot trim, as well as the icons making those sections pop and draw the eyes to the key details of the board. 

Up next is matte lamination for the tiles and tokens, effectively the rest of the components, giving Quests & Cannons an even more durable finish for all the components that lay on the table. 

With this update we're also releasing the full list of stretch goals! We've got some great material upgrades in here such as linen finish and black core for all the cards, increased thickness of all the chipboard components (including the player boards!) and most notably acrylic standees in every copy of Quests & Cannons! We also have a grand total of 12 more Loot cards that can be unlocked between the social and regular stretch goals!

But wait there's more! Many of you have suggested adding additional characters, this is something that would be challenging to do with our current punchboard layouts; however unlocking acrylic standees allows us space for three additional characters! If we can finish out this campaign heroically we will unlock a 3v3 backer tournament (eligible for anyone at heroic pledge or higher) to compete for the chance to design these three characters!  Let's keep it going strong with the social goals and keep pushing upward, your support means the world to us! 

Thank you,

Eric & Shannon Geller, Short Hop Games

Social Stretch Goals & Accessible Strategic Depth
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 08:07:17 PM

Hello Everyone, 

We wanted to take the time to tell you how much we appreciate all of you for sharing our enthusiasm for Quests & Cannons. Designing this game has taken us on a journey we could have never imagined. 

Social Stretch Goals

We recently got the suggestion to add some social stretch goals, and would love to get some thoughts around that from all of you.  

What would you like to see as rewards for social stretch goals? Let us know in the comments. 

Accessible Strategic Depth

We've focused a lot on conveying the accessibility of Quests & Cannons, how simple the core mechanics are to take in, but maybe what hasn't been fully expressed is the level of strategic depth that can be found in the game.   

What makes Quests & Cannons excel in this area is that there's no solvable strategy to the game. Even with playing the same map layout, each game will have different resource locations, different quests, and different map clues, that make figuring out the navigation puzzle of the game unique each time. How do you make the most efficient use of resources, and find efficient pathways to complete multiple objectives, while upgrading your ship, repairing damage, and either attacking or avoiding rival adventurers? 

Many of the resources have multiple uses or can be converted into other resources easily. The five "gather" resources: lumber, metal, canvas, spice, and gems all can be used to complete quests, sold for coins, or used to upgrade your ship. While lumber, metal and canvas, upgrade your cargo, cannons, and sails respectively (along with a 3 coin cost), gems and spice along with 3 coins, can be used to buy loot and additional map clues that represent additional upgrade paths. With most coin costs in the game being 3 coins such as upgrades and repairs, having loot and map clues sell for 3 coins means that these are resources that can easily pivot your strategy into something else. Loot itself always has 3 uses to it: it can be used for its effect, it can discarded for your champion ability, or they can be sold for 3 coins. 

Combine this with a quest system that provides you with new objectives each time you land on islands where you only keep 3 at the end of your turn, and combat that focuses on tactical positioning, means you will be reassessing and adapting your strategy as the game progresses. 

The depth in Quests & Cannons is really found in the flexibility and freedom in how you decide to combine simple core mechanics to most efficiently complete objectives while paying attention to the actions of your opponents. 

This is further expanded in team play where combining character specialties and abilities along with trading with your teammate opens up a whole extra layer of strategic possibilities. Maybe your faster teammate ferries you ammo as you lay down cannon volleys, or your cargo teammate meets you at an outpost with a full hold of resources so you can both upgrade your ships.  

Supporting Indie Games

Eric here, we have another indie game in the TTRPG space with this update. Games have always been the space that I've been most comfortable and could connect with other people on a level that I had difficulties relating or otherwise feeling confident expressing myself. One of the main reasons at we designed Quests & Cannons was to help remove barriers preventing more people from experiencing the joy that gaming provides. 

That's why I think campaigns like Tower of the Soul  are important for growing the hobby and giving much needed representation for people that don't have representation in society, that don't see themselves in the media that we partake in.  Check out their campaign, they just recently funded! 

Over 500 backers! AMA Announcement, Loot Ideas, Lore, Play Mat Feedback,
almost 3 years ago – Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 06:34:49 PM

Welcome Aboard! 

Greetings adventurers! We are thrilled to say there are now over 500 (559 as of writing this) brave heroes answering this call to adventure! On the horizon we have upgrades to the player boards to give them some extra flash and highlight each recessed slot by adding spot UV to the trim of the player board.  After that we're upgrading the rest of tiles and tokens to have matte lamination, and then even more loot cards! 

Here's a few actions you can take to help make Quests & Cannons the best it can be:

• Visit our page on Kicktraq and click on "Visit this Project" to keep us on the hotlist (repeatable).
• Visit our page on Board Game Geek and "Subscribe", become a "Fan" or like some pictures.
• Visit and like our Facebook page. 
• Visit and like our Instagram page and like some posts.
• Drop a comment in the main page of the campaign to keep us high on Kickstarter (repeatable).
• Share this Kickstarter on social media (being mindful not to spam of course!) 

AMA (Ask me(us) Anything) on Reddit: r/boardgames

We've scheduled an AMA on r/boardgames for Thursday October 7th starting at 1:00PM EDT (UTC-4) 

We'd love to see you there and answer any questions about the creation of Quests & Cannons. 

Lore: Porcs

Kelwolohan Expanse:

Porcs live in an arid unforgiving environment that has characteristics of a cold desert. Porcs being a nomadic people have a rich oral tradition that venerates their ancient symbiotic relationship with the Kelwoloh, their caravan creatures that make survival in this harsh climate possible. 

The saliva of the Kelwoloh has alchemical properties that transform the landscape it touches springing forth edible plants and fungus that the Porcs gather and store in their homes built atop the backs of the Kelwoloh. The Porcs in turn protect the Kelwoloh from the smaller desert predators that harass these massive beasts. The Kelwoloh begins to salivate as it approaches its sole food source, the Weeping Lotus Tree which resembles a weeping willow tree with blue lotus flowers cascading down its branches. After the Kelwoloh eats all the leaves and flowers of the Weeping Lotus Tree it sleeps and enters a dream state that Porc dream seers have learned to enter where they commune with the Kelwoloh.

What lore would you like to see highlighted next?

Loot Ideas:  

Really loving the loot ideas that you all are suggesting! Has us thinking that we should have more loot cards unlocked as stretch goals instead of some of the material upgrades. Would you like to see more loot card unlocks for stretch goals?

Here’s a list of the loot card ideas so far, which do you like best?

Smuggler’s Cache: Discard to add resources to your cargo hold, potentially based on a die roll

Wet Powder: Discard an ammo die or resource to reduce a cannon roll fired against you

Long Barrel Cannon (Equipment): Cannons can be fired from adjacent spaces possibly limit 2 cannons, has resource cost to use, or 5 pips for one damage. 

Coin Launcher(Equipment): Use coins to do damage, maybe use coins to modify attack rolls, or refresh cannons with coin cost to make multiple attacks.

Black Powder Thruster(Equipment):  Discard ammo dice to modify movement

Baby Kraken: discard to release a mist of ink, letting you escape/cancel a battle

Swindler's Coat(Equipment): While equipped, you gain an extra 2 gold when selling loot, potentially reduce cost of buying loot/map clues.

Black Pearl: discard to freely move 2 hexes

Powdered Kegs: Discard when attacking, spend any number of spice to add 2 to your attack roll.

Do you have an idea of your own that you want to add? 

Play mat: 

We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on the direction of the play mat; we’ve compiled a list of the comments here to make it easier to review.

Comment 1: Full size, with a few basic rules included

Comment 2: I like the custom cut playmat. I prefer to have reference/rule information cards because you don’t have to have them out if you don’t need them. 

Comment 3: I'm voting for a hexagonal-shaped playmat, especially after receiving Vindication's. There's a lot of space on the non-player's main locations (the outposts) that you could possibly put light outlines for the map clue, quest, and loot cards (one horizontally at each location). Those cards aren't assigned to those locations, but it would keep the setup neat and leave the space outside the mat for player ships.

Comment 4: For the playmat, I'm of two minds. I think overall, I prefer it being cut close to the board size so that it doesn't take up too much table space, but if it's going to be extended in some way, I'd like to see something with themed areas for the components, like someone else mentioned. I think you already said that this is the plan, but edge stitching is a must if you can. It adds so much more to the overall look and quality of the game. I'm super excited for this campaign to continue and congrats for the progress so far!

Comment 5: For the game mat, I'd prefer if it as custom cut to be the same shape of the game board. Keeps the size manageable and extra other graphics on it would make it look too busy. Having rules/tips on it would look busy while also making it wordy. There's already plenty of tips and rules in the player aid cards, the rule book, and the icons on the board pieces themselves.

The second option worth looking into is keep it square, but with a stitched edge (I'd assume having it both custom cut and stitched would be far too expensive). The extra space could be used for some simple graphics that complement the board. Don't want to go too crazy on it otherwise it'd look busy and cluttered.

Comment 6: My vote is for the mat to add some of the common rule tables, makes it easier for new players.

Comment 7: keep the playmat rectangular and print rule cards in the borders.

Comment 8: Having an edge on the game mat is nice to lay things on. If the space is functional the size of the game mat doesn't matter to me.

Custom Cut same size as the assembled board - 4 Votes

Custom art + Add rules to the mat - 3 Votes

Custom Art with themed spaces for components - 1 Vote

Based on the feedback so far, the custom cut option is the most popular, and we’ll add our thoughts on the other options as well.

 
Themed areas for components: We think having themed areas for the components would look great, and we’re confident we could get it to look clean and organized. That being said, the components surrounding the board don’t create much clutter as is. You have ship related and upgrade components (sails, cannons, ammo dice, hull damage), coins, resources. These components can even be further organized with each playing keeping upgrade tokens, and hull damage tokens near their ship, really leaving only ammo dice, coins, and resources surrounding the board.

On adding rules to the play mat: there really aren’t many rules that could go on here that aren’t already on the reference cards, and in most cases it would be much easier to use the reference cards than trying to read rules off the play mat. For rules that could go on the play mat, there is: “What happens when you sink”, “How to start a game”, and “What you can trade with your teammates”.

Final notes: some of you mentioned stitched or sewn edges for the play mat, this is actually what we intend to have for the play mat regardless if it is custom cut or not. I’ve updated the FAQ and will be updating the description on the KS page to state this.

Any additional thoughts are of course welcome, so let us know what you think in the comments! 

Supporting Indie Games

The path to self-publishing games is not an easy one, and there are many talented creators that we have met along the way giving it their all to breathe new life into the hobby. This update we'd like to highlight one of those games currently on Kickstarter from a first time creator that we think is really worth checking out! 

Ambal Tournament is a fast paced strategy card game that uses simultaneous turns and mechanics that put you right into the feeling of player vs player combat that you might be familiar with if you've played any MMORPGs such as Guild Wars. Eric play tested this a number of times,  and this is one of the tightest dueling card games he has played.  You start at full tilt so there's no building up lands or energy cards to unleash epic combos, it's strategy at full tilt right out the gate! On top of that the artwork is gorgeous and given that we can confidently say it plays better than it looks! Check it out :D  

Thank you for all your support!

-Eric & Shannon Geller

Over 200% Funded! Play Mat, Loot, and more!
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 12:44:32 AM

Happy Friday everyone! 

We're thrilled to say we've passed over 200% funded! Thank you everyone for your support and believing in this game, it truly means the world to us! 

Play Mat

We've gotten a good number of questions on the play mat and we wanted to use this update to try to give a better representation of it. 

Keep in mind this is a prototype, but it should give you a better idea of size, scale, and what will be printed on either side. For the border we've got a few ideas that we'd love to get your feedback on. 

1. We could do a custom art border around the board on the mat. 

2. We could add reference information/rules to the border areas. 

3. We could custom cut the player mat to just be the printed board layout to save table space.  

Let us know your thoughts in the comments :D

Loot Cards

With us unlocking additional loot cards, and wanting these new loot cards to be an opportunity for all of you to take part in shaping Quests & Cannons, we figured it would a good time to highlight some loot cards in the game to get some ideas flowing! 

There are two types of Loot in Quests & Cannons: One-time use and equipment. One-time use are discarded from your hand for an effect, while equipment can be equipped to one of the two ship slots on your player board to give you activated or passive abilities. Additionally all loot you get can be discard to power to your champion's top ability (shared among that race). For example Dwunny champions can discard a loot card to turn a die they roll into a 6. Loot can also be sold for 3 coins at the various ports, which gives any loot card you get a variety of strategic options for how you decide to use it.  

We'd love to add more equipment loot cards to the loot deck, since that's definitely a fun aspect of outfitting your ship. What cool new loot effects would you like to see added in the game?

Building Community

As new tabletop game creators, we've found that the community behind making games and those supporting these creations, is one of the most welcoming and supportive communities we've had the pleasure of being a part of! 

We think it is important as indie creators to help spread the word about other cool projects and likewise we are always appreciative when other creators spread the word about our game! 

We were featured in an update yesterday by another creator as they just passed the 500K funding mark!

So we want to share with you about that campaign and ask you to check it out if it interests you :D

Valda's Spire of Secrets is a Dungeons & Dragons 5E expansion absolutely jammed back with content, my personal favorite part is that you can play as an animated Teddy bear! Geppettins are animated playthings made of wood, cloth, or porcelain! Definitely a campaign worth checking out!

It's especially nice to highlight some D&D content, since Quests & Cannons was originally inspired by a homebrew D&D campaign Eric was working on! Would you like to see Quests & Cannons races and classes made into D&D content? 

Thank you <3

Eric & Shannon Geller

Second unlocked Stretch Goal!
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Sep 23, 2021 at 11:44:07 PM

What a great way to enter day 3! 

We've unlocked our second stretch goal! Matte lamination for the dual-layer ship boards! This will improve the surface durability of the main component of Quests & Cannons!

Here's the updated stretch goal graphic! Didn't Tony(Stained Karbon) make some super cool themed treasure chests?   

Our next stretch goal is adding spot UV to the player boards to really make their trim pop!

Due to popular demand we have also added 3 more Loremaster pledges (with one already being scooped up!) 

Thank you all for your support! Excited to see with your help how much more awesome Quests & Cannons becomes!

What play counts and game modes are you most excited to try in Quests & Cannons?  

-Eric & Shannon Geller