The Resolve of Mistfall

A few months ago one of my playtesters, after performing a very impressive combo that led to his Shieldbearer eliminating two rather nasty enemies, stated that it’s a shame there are no individual rewards for monster slaying – and asked if I could modify that rule, so that there is an incentive for players to do more killing. I shook my head and told him what I am about to tell you.

Art by Enggar Adirasa.

Mistfall is a game of management. You manage your hand, you manage your deck, you manage your discard pile. You try to manage the level of Enemy Focus you are forced to put on your Hero whenever you’re doing some doing heroic stuff. You also manage Resolve, a resource generated mostly by eliminating Enemies, that allows you to develop your Hero – and that is stored in one common pool, for any player to draw from and use to buy new Feats.

So why is there a common pool, if the Mage does more killing than the Cleric? The question actually includes the answer: because the Mage does more killing than the Cleric. And the Cleric is protecting and healing the Mage, making sure that the exhausted spellcaster does not fall victim to a new wave of fresh Enemies, or to the main villain (like Karnas the Betrayer depicted here).

Mistfall is a game about managing, but it’s also a game about sharing. It’s about deciding that the Resolve generated by the Seeker’s killing blow will be immediately used up by the Shieldbearer, allowing him to protect the Mage from a crippling blow in a moment of weakness. Or it will be used by the Cleric, who used to be focused on healing, but with a new Advanced Feat will now suddenly be ready to deal with some of the undead threatening the whole party.

So, there are no individual Resolve rewards – all goes into a single pool. All the tokens stay there until you, as a group, decide that it it’s the time for one of you to acquire the card that will allow you all to overcome a previously insurmountable obstacle – and persevere. This allows every individual player to make their own propositions on which character to improve and how. This also allows everyone to participate in the overall party development, building a feeling of a fellowship and creating an option to synergize even beyond combinations of cards, actions and in-game effect – making Mistfall a truly cooperative experience.

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Mistfall Rogues Gallery: Of Beasts and Men

For ages beastmen were the most dangerous enemies of mankind and a constant threat always lingering beneath what humans believed to be the borders of their lands. Tough and ferocious, they have proven over time that they should never be underestimated, even when their simplicity might imply they are less of a threat than some of the creatures inhabiting the dangerous world of Mistfall.
 

Art by Enggar Adirasa

Rage and Resilience

Venturing into the wilderness, humanity would always find the same enemies waiting there: beasts of prey ready to defend their hunting grounds – or make do with new and different game that had decided to enter their territory on their own. And things got even more dangerous, when the Duskfather willed to elevate animal hunters and use them to create a race more similar to humans – but more ferocious and easier to control.

Natural hunters and warriors, beastmen usually employ a simple strategy: striking fast and hard. Their inborn resilience and toughness makes them difficult to repel, especially when in the heat of battle they make use of their inner rage to strike even harder at whoever stands in their way. Whenever able to tap into the potential of their true ferocity, beastmen become more than a match for Heroes seeking passage through their lands. The beasts of pray display similar features, and although less resilient, they may make up for the lack with sheer numbers and the relentlessness with which they stalk their prey.

Wildlanders in the Game

In a way, fighting beasts and beastmen is simple – although not necessarily easy – matter and players should never underestimate the sheer power and stamina the denizens of the wilderness demonstrate. Especially when augmented with magic of the shamans and the fact, that some of the beasts and beastmen will not be discarded when other enemies leave the game – making elimination the only viable option.

When facing off against beasts and beastmen players should also pay special attention to how easy it is to enrage these enemies, often allowing them to attack faster or hit harder. And this can make beastmen no less formidable than the devious Borderlanders or the terrifying undead.

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Mistfall: The Wildlands

The denizens of the Wildlands are probably most well known to those who followed the Mistfall articles, as the beastmen became the rivals of humanity during the first ages of the world. Today we take a closer look at what the players can expect as their Heroes enter the lands of the first servants of the Duskfather. 

Hostile and Wild

The wilderness has never been a welcoming, especially in the northern, ice-ridden lands of the Valskyrr, and many settlers and conquerors would come to realize that venturing deeper into the north was a dangerous endeavour – and not only because of the creatures living there. Swept by cold winds, unforgiving, sometimes surprisingly barren and featureless, the Wildlands would often repel – or kill – those seeking passage on their own.

The half-man, half-beast children of Dusk inhabiting those hostile lands also left their mark, as the Wildlands were transformed by the Mists, and those who enter them now can often suffer from the effects of the dark sorcery the beastmen shamans dabble with.  But even without the dark magic, crossing icy plains and half-frozen rivers can prove a task able to wear down those who are not well prepared.

Art by Enggar Adirasa

Wildlands in the Game

Although occasionally a Wildlands Location can bring with it an opportunity to gain a bit of an edge, usually players will have to factor in the extra effort it may take to move out of a Wildlands or be ready to deal with some damage their Heroes may suffer upon entry. Still, most of the wilderness can offer them a little bit of respite, if they manage to successfully rid it of its original inhabitants. The enemies most often encountered in this terrain are both beasts and beastmen: strong, tough and often impossible to deal with by simply retreating when the going gets tough. 

Next time we will take a closer look at what the players can expect from the ones that call the icy wilderness their home.

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Mistfall Rogues Gallery: Brigands and Sorcerers

Each type of terrain in Mistfall is inhabited by its own, distinct group of enemies the Heroes will have to face each time they enter a location not yet cleared of the Mists’ corrupting influence. Today we take a closer look at the those who either fell prey or decided to embrace the power offered by the nefarious Mists.

Art by Enggar Adirasa

The Lost and the Wicked

In ages past what is now known as the Borderlands used to be a part of inhabited Valskyrr. The proud and strong people that took this land as their own at the dawn of the world called these now abandoned places their home. Now, those who still live there wilfully or unwittingly serve the Mists, allowing it to spread its influence ever further.

Most of the Bordelands were not lost because of vicious beastmen attacks – they more often fell to acts of betrayal and villainy of those, who saw the Mistfall as an opportunity to reach their own goals and were ready to kill or enslave others on their way. As keeps and villages yielded to posisoned blades and sorcerous fire, many of the convicted criminals or power hungry madmen made their way to what they perceived as a land of new opportunities and a place where their skills could be used to satisfy their lust for wealth or power.

Travelling through those territories always carries the risk of encountering those who are more than eager to part travellers from their property, their freedom or their life. Terrifying news of captives taken away to become sacrifice in blasphemous rituals or bartered away to the beastmen keep those who live at the edge of the Borderlands awake at night, with their weapons always at the ready.

Borderlanders in the Game

As in game enemies, the inhabitants of the Borderlands can be a big problem to deal with. With abilities that allow them to instantly deprive a player of one of their key cards, and a formidable striking power to match, they really have the potential to make Heroes meet their doom.


When facing off against Borderlanders, watch out for dangerous synergies and choose your targets wisely. Sometimes it is better to suffer a few harder blows but protect your Hero’s key assets, than go for only a seemingly more dangerous enemy who simply deals a little more damage.

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Mistfall: The Borderlands

The Valskyrr is a dangerous place, dominated by three distinct types of terrain and three distinct types of enemies, each with their own way of making the life of Heroes a challenging one. We start our Mistfall journey with the Borderlands inhabited by brigands, sorcerers and shady characters that inhabit them.

Edge of Civilization

What is now commonly known as the Borderlands used to be inhabited by the Valskyrrians up until the time the Mists took hold of beastmen, raised the dead and darkened the minds of some humans, either making them go mad, or drawing from their darkest instincts, making their lust for power and their malice two dominating features.

The landscape of the Borderlands is filled with remnants of what used to exist there. Burned villages, abandoned shrines, keeps and watchtowers struck down by an ancient battles, and reclaimed by the wilds. Once filled with light and life, now are usually twisted in places of a dark cult or steeped in decade old ice brought on by dark magic and the cruel Valskyrrian winds.

Art by Enggar Adirasa

Borderlands in the Game

In game terms, the Borderlands locations can still offer the Heroes a small boon, such as an opportunity to scout out some adjacent terrain or find a cache hidden away by the previous inhabitants. But entering a Borderlands location can also mean losing some of the Heroes’ resolve, as seeing the influence of the Mists and the destruction they bring can truly be a depressing site.

The enemies typical for this terrain are mostly humans – unwitting servants of the Mists, who embraced its power and allowed it to guide their fate. Join me next time, as I take a closer look at what the Heroes can expect from them – and why they can sometimes be the most formidable of all the inhabitants of the Valskyrr.

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The road to Progress

Civilization games… ask any heavy gamer what is their favorite genre and more often than not you’ll hear this answer: “civilization games, of course”. In today’s world, with everyone being busy – and this category includes the aforementioned heavy gamers – many people are looking for short, yet deep empire builders, games which offer the epic feeling and yet they last just a few hours. The civilization game playable in less than one hour has slowly become the fata morgana of the board games world.

As a designer – probably like many others – creating a civilization game is “the jewel of the crown”, the one achievement that I can be most proud of. So, there I was, about two years ago, with a pen in my hand and a piece of paper in front of me, thinking of the perfect civ, one game which would define my career as a designer. Now, let’s fast forward into the future. In November 2012,Agnieszka – co-designer – and I were sitting on the couch, cutting and sleeving no less than 550 cards which made up the first playable prototype of the game we used to call Evolution (of Technology).

The idea

In 2012, everything and everyone at NSKN Games revolved around Exodus: Proxima Centauri. We brought it at several fairs and conventions and, curious as we are, we kept asking people “what do you like the most about this game?” and the most common answer was “the tech tree”.

It was one regular evening, one of our many game nights, when it suddenly happened. After an epic game of Civilization which I lost miserably, I said out loud “I love this game…” and the natural question was “What? Why?”

Indeed, why did I like Civilization, along with many other civ games? Well, it was the tech tree.

I think that now it’s time to state the obvious. The will to design a civilization game was fitting perfectly with the new idea of making a game which is all about the tech tree. So there it was, sitting in front of the eye of the mind, the idea we were looking for, a game about researching technologies, following the path of mankind from the ancient times to the modern days, discovering technologies and shaping the things to come.

The first prototype and the secret plan of our friends

In the beginning it was all about research. We went through the history of technology, the history of inventions and of religious ideas and we selected what we believed to be the most important technological achievements in human history. I keep saying we because Progress: Evolution of Technology was not an undertaking suitable for one man. The amount of information to process was huge and it required team work and since Agnieszka and I had done it before for Exodus, it was supposed to be the perfect team. And so it was…

Back to November 2012… The first tech tree required the entire back side of a one square meter poster and it featured no less than 160 technologies divided into five types (Culture, Engineering, Science, Military and Government) and five ages, staring with the Antiquity and ending up with the creation of BoardGameGeek. This did not discourage us, so we went on to make the first prototype consisting of 550 cards which would all be used in a 5-player game. Agnieszka warned me that the game might be “a little too heavy” but I went on and tested it with a group of good friends.

The first play was epic indeed. Advancing to the third age after 3 hours of play, the table was not large enough to keep almost one hundred technologies. So I decided to end the experiment and ask for feedback. To my surprise, they loved the game but they all said “do not do this to me ever again”. Back then I could still pretend it wasn't my fault and blame Agnieszka, because for all they knew, it could have been her who insisted on allowing all those technologies in the game, not me.

The second group had a slightly different reaction. After a little more than five hours, when they had finally reached the end of the fifth age, I asked for feedback. One of them stood up and said to the others “it’s just the five of us here, no other witnesses, if we kill him now no one will ever know”. As it turns out, they didn't go through with it. On the contrary, they quite like the idea behind the game, the flow of technologies and how it all came together. Progress: Evolution of Technology had an epic feeling and the only major problem was the length of the game.

A friend of mine came with a simple yet enlightened idea. “What you've got here is a game with like… five expansions. Trim it down to… just one game” he said and so we did.

From five ages we cut it down to three, from five technology types we chose three of them which made up the core of the game and went back to review the mathematical model.

So, what is Progress: Evolution of Technology?

The rest of the story is neither that epic nor that funny. We went on playing, designing and revising until we and our testing groups could agree we have a good game in front of us. The final version of Progress: Evolution of Technology features less than 60 technologies and spread over almost 200 cards and the play time is now less than 90 minutes from the original 5+ hours.

The final stage was to dress up the game with illustrations and graphic design.

We think of Progress: Evolution of Technology as a light civilization game, focused solely on technologies and their impact on mankind. In terms of game play, Progress: Evolution of Technology revolves around hand management mechanisms. Each card represents a technology which comes with costs and prerequisites, while it is also the “currency” used to pay for other technologies. Each technology offers game play enhancers (such as larger hand size, extra actions, etc) and means to compete for victory points.

We did not give up on the rest of the original game ideas, the ones which we had to cut out. We kept optimizing and we split the universe into a base game plus several expansions, trying to separate both game mechanisms and historical ages. We went even further and made plan for additional two ages beyond the one already designed with the idea in mind that it’s better to be prepared that otherwise and on the plus side it’s an awesome feeling to play with your imagination and try to anticipate which technologies humanity may develop in the near future.

Conclusions?

Is Progress: Evolution of Technology the light civilization game I was talking about in the beginning? We think it is, but we created it, so you don’t have to take our word for it. All I know is that we have both learned a lot of history (and some physics, some anthropology, some… more of everything), we argued, we laughed and we met a lot of awesome people on the way. Designing Progress: Evolution of Technology was an amazing journey.

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