No one enjoys a 2 hour board game if they spend the entire time regretting a choice made 10 minutes into the game.

Here’s the thing, if a player can make a mistake so early in the game that makes the rest of their experience unfun – the game designer should never have made that choice available.

I made this mistake in creating several of the companion Aethermon’s movesets.

When levelling players gain a Battle Card and gain Max HP proportionate to the inverse of the power of the Battle Card. If you learn a very powerful 5-value Battle Card, you gain 0 HP.

Most 5-value moves guarantee the player a win against most enemies in the early to mid game.

However there /were/ a small subset of 5-value moves that were combo finishers. That is to say, very powerful, but only when combined with other cards.

A player learning these Battle Cards on their first level up, would not receive a significant offensive bonus… and would not gain any additional HP.

Compounding this, the XG (experience) awarded reduces as players level up. So this player would gain no HP, minimal offensive benefit AND would then be punished by gaining less experience.

This is bad. And it happened to one of our playtesters (even one occurence of this is too much).

I am grateful to this playtester for pointing out this fatal game design flaw. If you are reading this, I need to reiterate one final time, this was not your fault – it was my fault for making a mistake possible.

Next week we’ll explore the details of this problem and its solution

Stay Smart AetherRen

Protecting Players from themselves II

Last week we pointed out the potential problems created when an Aethermon’s most powerful moves are exclusively useful as part of a combo.

We’ll highlight 2 examples of when I made this error and how the situation has been resolved.

===

Sparkitty/Matchka/Harquat

Our Fire-Type player controlled Aethermon is built around boosting the power of its attacks by discarding additional Battle Cards.

To synergise with this, the moveset included a 5-Value finishing move “Afterburn” which deals 2 damage per card in the player’s discard pile. If the player has 8 cards in their discard pile (very easily achieved with moves that discard extra cards) this attack would do 16 damage – 4 damage less than the 12 damage we would expect from a blank 5-Value Move.

However if a player took this early, the player would only have a maximum of 4 cards to discard, capping this move’s power at 8 damage (4 less than the 12 damage of a blank 5-value move). Furthermore, most fights early don’t last long enough to put even that many cards in the discard pile, so it would usually yield even less damage.

We remedied this situation by changing this move to deal 10 damage +1 extra damage per card in the player’s discard pile. This change keeps the card’s flavour and relative strength, but protects players who take it early from having an unusable Battle Card.

===

Cervistral/Cervaero/Cervaura

Our Sky-Type companion Aethermon faced a similar situation with its Value-5 “Aerial Assault” dealing 5 damage, plus doubling the effect of (F)lying buffs. Unfortunately early the most powerful starting (F)lying buff is 2 damage… so its peak value early is 7 Damage… 

Our solution here was not to increase the Battle Card’s utility early game (like we did with “Afterburn”); instead we scaled down “Aerial Assault” to Value-3 (Deal 1 damage + double damage from (f)lying buffs). This means even if a player takes this combo card without the cards that maximize its value, players at least benefit from the additional health to get them through to their next level.

Keep finding your Answers AetherRen

There is no perfect Peanut Butter – PvP vs PvE Experience

We learn a lot from our playtesters. One particularly salient piece of feedback was that Aethermon as originally constructed begins primarily as a Player versus Environment (PvE) experience that builds up to a Player Versus Player (PvP) climax.

For many this incongruence made the game’s conclusion feel disconnected from their experience up until that point.

We were always aware that player appetite for PvP and PvE would be varied – so we attempted to balance PvP and PvE in a single experience. This meant limiting some PvP elements so PvE elements could shine – and denying the PvE experience the ending it deserved.

It was like trying to satisfy both crunchy and smooth peanut butter lovers with something neither crunch nor smooth – satisfying noone.

We have instead created two parallel experiences that allow players to choose the experience that most suits their gaming group – each culminating in a distinct but equally exciting climax.

This strategy has also allowed us to lean much further into the PvP elements. Allowing us to better provide to the Killers (see Bartle’s Player Taxonomies) without ruining the experience for the Explorers. 

Tune in next week for a breakdown of the changes made. 

Find your perfect place AetherRen

The PvP and PvE divide

The most immediate difference between our PvP and PvE mode is that in the PvE mode players are not allowed to challenge other players. We are making this the default mode for players playing in exploration mode (the version of the game where the combat mechanics are massively simplified for less developed gamers)

In addition to this, the end of scenario tournament – The Aethermon Junior Championship – takes a completely different form.

In the PvP final tournament players are arranged in a bracket which forces players to match their Aethermon head-to-head to determine the winner. Fans (Victory Points) are rewarded to players for each victory in this tournament. The winner of this tournament may not necessarily win the scenario, but there is a single player who can be said to have won the tournament.

In the PvE final tournament players face a series of 4 random NPC challengers. Players advance through the tournament whether they win their battle or not. Players gain Fans for each victory in the tournament. Unlike the PvP tournament it is entirely possible that several players will defeat all 4 NPC challengers, in this case there is no clear victor for the tournament.

Aim for the top AetherRen.

Alternate NPCs

To further delineate our PvP and PvE scenarios, we have created duplicates of several Special Characters – both variants of these duplicate characters maintain a similar gameplay function, but refined to better facilitate either PvP or PvE gameplay. 

RoboReporter (make players chase other players)

The Malfunctioning Robot Reporter used to be a sort of hot potato, players would hand him off to any player they defeated. The player in possession of the Robot at the end of the game would lose fans. 

In the PvP mode we’ve lent even further into this concept, this RoboReporter now grants players bonus fans for defeating other players in battle.

While in the PvE mode this RoboReporter takes on a much more friendly flavour, giving players 4XG when passing him on to another player by beginning their turn on the same square as another player. 

Superstar (make players be chased by other players)

The Superstar was the inverse of the RoboReporter. The player who was in possession of the Superstar at the end of the game was rewarded with additional Fans (Victory Points).

Now the Superstar follows players singing their praise, gaining players additional Fans the longer the Superstar follows them. This incentivises other players to chase this player down and gain the bonus for themself.

In the PvP mode the Superstar may be taken from a player by defeating them in a PvP encounter. In the PvE mode the Superstar may be taken from a player simply by beginning their turn on the same square as the player. 

Let’s make some friends AetherRen

No pvp

Elite 4 ending

Alternate special characters to not suggest fighting

Robot -fans give to player you beat –} 2xg when receiving & 2xg when giving, give when landing on another player

Super star +1 fan when gaining fans. Give to player who beats you —} 1 fan when getting, give to player who lands on you

Reporter +5 fans end of game, +1 fan when completing quests, give to player who completes more quests than you on your square

Less bosses per location

Currently 3 move cards and 6 boys cards (9)+1

Each location now has 3 bosses of 4 cards (12+1)

1st two –  3(1) 4(2) 5(3+)

Mid level – 4(1 or 2) 5(3) 6(4+)

Last three – 5(1,2,3) 6(4) 7(5+)



Draftings

Balance Class Specific Moves

Game design mistakes tend to take one of two forms: (1) an issue or improvement was never considered when it should have been; or (2) an issue or improvement was considered and the wrong decision was made.

Upon identifying the first kind of mistake, the solution tends to be relatively simple – you’ve found an improvement so implement it. 

An example discussed in a previous week (pushing players forward), a playtester asked a simple question “why do items cost anything?”. It was a suggestion we hadn’t considered, but it offered a solution to a problem with very few drawbacks, so it was quickly implemented. 

The second kind of design mistake (where choices are deliberated upon then the wrong conclusion is reached) is more difficult to address. Part of this is simply pride, human beings (including those on the Aethermon team) don’t like admitting they’re wrong. But more than this, these are design decisions that have very strong reasons for being made, and tend to require a larger shift in perspective to address. 

Aethermon faced this kind of mistake when balancing Aethermon Specific Battle Moves against Battle Moves in the universally available set.

Tune in next week as we breakdown this mistake and how it was addressed. 

Stay humble AetherRent

In earlier iterations of Aethermon, an Aethermon’s Specific Battle Moves tended to be slightly more powerful than the Battle Moves available in the universal pool.

The rationale here was partially thematic – if Thunder Aethermon were supposed to the fastest Aethermon, it made sense that when using (q)uick attacks theirs would be more effective. It also incentivised players to pick moves from within their unique moveset. 

Mechanically it also gave us more flexibility with balance. It was okay if an Aethermon’s specific move fluctuated above the powercurve because the priority was to balance Aethermon as a whole even if that meant some moves were imbalanced. 

This unfortunately created a double incentive to choose only moves within an Aethermon’s unique moveset. (1) These moves were more powerful than moves outside and (2) These moves synergised with each other.

As a result we began to see that at the end of every playtest every Aethermon started to look very similar. This was contraindicative to our hope the players might take moves to offset their Aethermon’s weakness, or create novel synergies.

By buffing the Battle Moves in the universal pool, we have restored some of the interesting decisions when levelling up player’s Aethermon – players can choose between (1) Leaning into Aethermon Specific Synergies or (2) Taking potentially more powerful moves that cover the Aethermon’s weaknesses. 

Stay Interesting AetherRent

Reducing Player Overhead

Aethermon has always strived to create a tabletop experience, undiminished by the typical limitations of tabletop games: One of these limitations is player overhead.

This concept is best explained with an example: In the earliest iterations of Aethermon, random encounters required players to roll a dice then use a lookup table to determine the encounter (not unlike the back end of a computer game).

This process was not only time consuming but fundamentally wasn’t fun.

We have since replaced the dice and lookup table with a deck of cards for each area. For a random encounter players simply draw the top card from an encounter deck, this card then presents the player with all the relevant information. 

The move from lookup tables to cards was a simple solution to a quickly identified problem. Over the next couple of posts we’ll discuss additional strategies Aethermon implements to streamline the player’s experience.

Keep it easy, AetherRen.

Reducing Player Overhead 2

To truly immerse players in the Aethermon experience it was essential that players had a tangible sense of their Aethermon’s growth over a playthrough.

Representing this growth however created a conundrum – the most overt ostentatious displays of character development included the most overhead. A growing pile of poker chips to represent as many stats as possible was very satisfying; however using physical chips to track every possible stat became a laborious endeavour. 

Ultimately we’ve struck a compromise, increased offensive capabilities are not tracked with poker chips or stats, but instead each combat maneuver is tracked with a single easy to follow card. A few key stats are still tracked with chips (HP, XG, VP). While fairly static stats (such as level) are tracked with a single slider.

This has been easy for players to manage in playtests. However for players who have desired an even more streamlined experience we’ve created an android app which tracks these stats for players.

We are still debating how much more development we plan on committing to this app. There is a magic that happens when players come together around a tabletop – we don’t want to lose this by fostering a situation where players spend the game looking at their screens. Nevertheless, the app’s feedback from playtesters has been positive.

Stay Streamlined AetherRen.

In some ways humans are very simple creatures – we like progress, numbers going up, goals being achieved.

People can reliably think of 3 things at a time

Left or Right

Our keenest followers may have caught something about our Aethermon depicted thus far.

Our player controlled Aethermon all face right… All other Aethermon face left.

The simplest explanation for this is it allows two characters to more literally faceoff when placed next to each other.

A more interesting question is why do player controlled characters face right, while opposing characters face left. The honest answer is convention – if we did anything else, it would likely feel ineffably flawed. 

Anyone who’s played a 2d mario game can tell you Mario moves to the right, the enemies move to the left. Same goes for Sonic, Player 1 in Street Fighter, or even player controlled Pokemon.

There are some notable exceptions such as the Final Fantasy series, but we’ll hypothesise about this next week when we delve in to the origins of this convention.

Stay curious AetherRen,

Why Left or Right

The phenomenon where positively perceived protagonists face right whereas antagonists face left has been studied in much greater detail in film theory than in games. 

The most popular explanation for this is in the western world the majority of written scripts are Left-to-Right – and our eyes have been trained to scan in that direction.

This of course betrays a cultural bias, not all scripts are written Left-to-Right. Semetic languages are a good example of this – but even many East Asian have Top to Bottom (possibly explaining the reversal of this trope in JRPGs), Right to Left, routes even if they are often composed Left to Right today.

Unfortunately the most cited study I can find of this phenomenon (https://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/vitae/EgiziiDennyNeuendorfetal12.pdf) doesn’t explicitly explore native languages as a variable (understandable for a study conducted on American undergrads). The study confirms people feel more at ease with characters facing right than they do with characters facing left, and found no variation with religion of handedness. 

If writing direction was the root of this phenomenon I might have expected a slight variance with religion given exposure to right to left scripts may be increased in certain religious groups (Hebrew and Arabic are both Right to Left scripts). 

This suggests this phenomenon refers to something intrinsic to human chirality, not a cultural accident – perhaps something to do with our hemispheric lateralization. At this point I’ve digressed plenty from game design, so I’ll leave this hypothesising to the experts.

Tune in next week.

Stay sharp AetherRen.

Final Fantasy is a right to left language

The Game Modes

Chapter 2 Boss balance

Following from last week. The set piece Chapter 2 Bosses are designed as enemies powerful enough that no play could possibly defeat them alone – balanced carefully so that each player feels that their contribution to the fight was necessary.

This week we’ll discuss the care that was put into finding that balance. We’ll use the second boss as an example, from which the final boss can be extrapolated.

The playable Aethermon have been balanced so that at level 12 (the approximate level players will encounter the 2nd boss) each Aethermon can deal approximately 11 damage per turn on average over 5 turns. They also have the HP and defensive abilities to allow them to survive turns against an enemy dealing an average of 11 damage per turn.

(Note this offense to defence ratio is an average, Velvenny and Batuursa skew much more heavily defensive.)

By simply multiplying the bosses health by the number of players in the game it is easy to create an enemy which is a challenge to players, but the players have a slight edge.

This however would not create the epic memorable showdowns we are striving to create.

Instead we balance these bosses so that players are receiving on average 14 damage per turn – meaning an average player can only survive 4 turns, against an enemy capable of surviving 6 turns against a regular offense.

This leaves players at a 2 turn disadvantage. We do however give the players powerful tools to close this gap. Tune in next week to discover what goodies players get when cooperating.

Stay tuned and stay together AetherRen

Part 2

Last week we highlighted the disadvantages players will face against the chapter 2 bosses.

This week we breakdown on of the tools we give players to overcome that disadvantage: the support given by the Dojo leaders players rescue. 

The bosses from Chapter 1 are again encounterable in Chapter 2. However instead of giving players victory points (as they did in Chapter 1) players are rewarded with two powerful boons:

1 – The players get a one time use Battle Card. Players call upon the Dojo leader to help them in a single round in battle. This move is typically twice as powerful as even the most powerful moves otherwise available to players.

2 – The players shuffle 2 passive Dojo Assist Cards into the boss move decks. When these cards are revealed they activate to assist all players in some way. This happens automatically not taking a players round in battle.

For example when players defeat the Cumuloceti dojo in chapter 2 they get a Dojo Assist Battle Card that will “restore 15 HP to all allies in battle”. And the players shuffle in two Dojo Asisst Cards that will “restore 8 HP to all allies” when drawn. This represents the Cumuloceti flying around the battlefield helping players with its healing energies when they need it most.

Next week we’ll Delve into the final tool players have to access to overcome their disadvantage against the Chapter 2 Bosses.

Bring it together AetherRen

Part 3

Contrasting with the enormous singular power of the Chapter 2 set piece bosses, players will discover that they are stronger together. To highlight this each Aethermon has access to powerful team focused Battle Cards.

These Battle Cards do little to help a player when battling alone. However in the context of large team battles they provide value many times greater than any single card might produce.

Some examples of this are Sky move available Cervistral “(r)eact, (f)lying Buff: all allied attacks deal +2 damage”. As a (r)eact Cervistral can play this ability at no cost to itself, meanwhile it will likely buff each ally’s damage by 2 for 3 or 4 rounds. If Cervistral is fighting with 3 allies, this might turn into 24 damage without taking up an attack, possibly more if fighting with Raivalp!

Similarly Batuursa’s “(r)eact, gain 3 Df, redirect all enemy attacks to your Aethermon” effectively multiplying Batuursa’s high defense by the number of allies by ensuring it applies to each incoming attack. This can save a vulnerable player in a pinch, or act as a noble sacrifice protecting the entire team against a powerful attack.

By giving each Aethermon a powerful team ability that will be necessary to overcome the final boss, we create a scenario where each player has the opportunities to create moments in battle where their efforts helped turn the tide.

Rise together AetherRen

Cooperative Win/Loss conditions

In chapter 1 or in the MOBA scenario, a player’s success or failure is measured by how quickly the player progresses relative to the other players.

In the co-operative scenario (chapter 2), player success/failure cannot be measured by their development relative to their peers, as players want to all grow together.

Instead success is measured by the entire team’s strength relative to the strength of the major bosses. Time pressure that was previously created by trying to develop faster than one’s peers is simulated by giving these bosses objectives and scaling abilities that incentivise players to confront these bosses sooner rather than later.

This left us to question how we are supposed to address the defeat conditions when players fail to overcome the major bosses. A simple game over is punishing and inconsistent with the game’s overall aesthetic.

However without a punishment for failure players will always inevitably defeat the bosses (viab repeat attempts with stronger characters)- undermining the threat and tension these major set pieces present.

Tune in next week to find out how we resolved this paradox. 

Keep fighting together AetheRen.

Never posted oops:

As a compromise this we have created a system with multiple endings. 

The 1st boss fight is a gimme… a tutorial that introduces the new cooperative elements of the game and demonstrates the value of the new “team moves”. There is no punishment for failing here.

But in the 2nd and 3rd major boss fight, the bosses will accumulate points through the game, that strengthen the boss and act as the bosses objective. If the players defeat the boss before the boss has accumulated their target points, they succeed (y). If The players defeat the boss after the boss has accumulated their target points, they do not succeed (n).

Either the way the game continues, but based on the success or failure against these bosses the players get a different ending

On Balancing Aethermon Specific Moves against General Moves

Last post identified the formula that determined the rough value of a Battle Card in Aethermon.

Damage (or equivalent value) = 2*XgValue+2

Of course not every Battle Card can be easily assigned a Damage Equivalent Value – and those that can might not fit an nice easy integer divisible by two.

While the numbers can be jiggled around they don’t always land squarely (a consequence of trying to deal with only small numbers), in those cases our initial approach was to let Aethermon Specific Battle Cards fluctuate slightly above the expected power curve, while General Battle Cards slightly below.

This created a double incentive for players to choose Aethermon Specific Battle Cards. (1) they tended to be slightly more powerful than their generic equivalent, and (2) they had in built synergies.

As a result players have been choosing Aethermon Specific Battle Cards ahead of General Battle Cards about 85% the time.

Tune in next week to see how we address this.

Stay Balanced AetherRen

Previously taking a Battle Card outside an Aethermon’s exclusive set, meant delaying a powerful synergy to take a potentially underpowered Battle Card outside their set.

Aethermon Specific Battle Cards have now been balanced holistically for the Aethermon, allowing for some asymmetry in the strength of each Battle Card within an Aethermon’s set; but keeps the Aethermon balanced overall.

This balance has been established at levels 1, 4 and 8, so that a player with access to learning any Aethermon Specific Battle Cards, but only these cards, can develop any given  Aethermon of approximately the same strength at these levels.

Regarding the lack of incentive to choose Battle Cards outside an Aethermon’s set, when these moves can’t neatly fit on the prescribed powercurve they now fluctuate slightly above. Now when a player no longer feel they are being punished for choosing a move to supplement one of their Aethermon’s weaknesses.

Building HP Vs Building Damage

When players level up in Aethermon, they get 5 XG to spend on a 1 to 5 cost Battle Card (combat move). They also receive 1 MaxHP for every XG not spent learning a battle card.

As a result, players are tasked with a decision between building HP, or Battle cards (usually damage).

To determine the efficacy of a Battle Card relative to its XG value a simple formula was constructed:

Damage (or equivalent value) = 2*XgValue+2

The most significant consequence of this formula is the  “2*”  ( the slope in geometry terms).

This multiplier creates a relationship where for every 1 MaxHP a player wants to develop, it comes at the cost of 2 Damage on a Battle card.

This point is significant because it incentivises players to build Damage over HP. This is necessary because battles need to approach an end after several rounds. If HP was a more efficient investment than damage, the optimal strategy would be to build HP and outlast opponents – this would lead to much longer fights slowing down the game experience.

It would also disincentivize players from exploring the more interest battle cards included in Aethermon.

Stay Aggressive AetherRen

Balancing Ch2

Making Special Characters Special

One final post on the changes made to Aethermon to accelerate the player’s adventure.

Special Characters were originally balanced at around 1XG per round, equal to an easy battle, but the player wouldn’t lose moves or HP. This figure has been moved to about 2.5XG. 

For example the Fortune Teller character who previously asked a player to pay 1XG to gain a new Friendship Moment (a personal quest that when achieved gives your Aethermon a new ability), now gives players a new moment for free.

Assuming players have 15 standard encounters per play through, and 20% of the standard encounters are Special Characters, + 1 Special Character through other means, we estimate about 4 Special Characters per player per play through. Each of these encounters is now worth about 1.5XG more than before, for a total about 6 XG boon for players – or a 3-turn (9-minute) reduction in play time.

Combine this change to special characters with changes to defeat penalty and item costs, we estimate a 28XG saving over the length of the game, translating into a 45 minute reduction in playtime without compromising the overall experience,

It’s hard to perfectly measure this through playtests as these improvements have coincided with the implementation of Quality of Life improvements. But in total playtest times are now below the target max length of 3 hours!!!

Pushing Players Forward – Playtime

At the core of Aethermon’s experience is a journey that includes the growth of the player’s character’s: Players begin their adventure battling the lowest of opponents; by the end of 1st chapter they are challenging for the junior championship; by the end of the 2nd chapter players battle for the fate of humanity. 

Just typing that story gets me hyped. If that experience took 4 hours per chapter, it would be 4 hours well spent. But if that macro-experience took 3 hours I would be no less impressed – but would also have a spare hour to play another game 🙂

In order to compress the experience of Aethermon into a 3 hour window, a trend quickly developed – give the players more stuff, remove the things that slow players down. 

The penalty for defeat is a great example of this. The intention was always that players could continue their adventure after being defeated, but with a XG per turn penalty. The original penalty was all the XG you would acquire on the players next 2 turns. Given XG directly translates into battle competence – ie. the game’s ending condition, 2 turns of XG slow down the game by 2 turns per defeat!!! Way too long.

The current system is a simple 1XG penalty. Assuming an average of 2XG per turn, this is a difference of 3XG per defeat; if the player is defeated on average 4 times per playthrough that is a 12 XG difference or 6 turns. At an average of 3 minutes per turn, 18 minutes are saved per game!!!

Over the next few weeks we’ll do a deep dive into several other time cutting measures taken in Aethermon!

Be quick AetherRen

Pushing Players Forward (Cont) – Free Stuff

Everyone likes free stuff, but unfortunately stuff tends to cost money.

In games this creates interesting decisions, everything you buy comes at the opportunity cost of something else: if you only have one gold and you buy a 1 gold elixir, you can no longer buy a 1 gold potion. This is how I grew up playing games, and it’s how Aethermon started – at the shop you purchase Items.

This went mostly unquestioned until a playtester asked a simple question “why do items cost anything at all?” And honestly the best answer I could muster was “… because items cost money”.

Obviously no game is a 1:1 simulation of the real world, but is at best an abstraction. In the case of Aethermon, an abstraction that aspires to evoke the emotional experience of adventuring with an awesome creature companion.

Ultimately the only reason items cost money is because an arbitrary set of rules deemed it so. Sure it may create situations where players need to decide between purchasing a potion or an elixir… but is that really an interesting decision? Is it the kind of decision that is likely to excite a player when looking back on an epic adventure? Probably not.

To estimate how many turns (and therefore time) per game could be saved by making items free, I present a completely back of the envelope calculation:

Players on average bought 4 items a game at 1 XG each (4XG total = 2 turns), the additional free items will probably save players 3 trips to a recovery square (3 turns). For a total savings of 5 turns per game, at 3 minutes per turn this is a total saving of 15 minutes per playthrough!!!

So like that items in Aethermon became free.

Stay Frugal AetheRen

Balancing Philosophy

I once heard a school of thought described as the SNK philosophy of game balance (as contrasted to the capcom approach) – “Balance is boring”.

Making characters perfectly balanced, strips them of makes them mechanically interesting. Instead make every character overpowered in their ideal situation. Since these “ideal situations” are not going to be uniformly distributed, some characters are going to be stronger overall.

Don’t mitigate this imbalance by making characters less interesting. If a character’s ideal scenario doesn’t happen enough, build into the design space more opportunities for the archetype to survive. If a character’s ideal situation is arising too often, build more counters to that character into the design space.

Eleafy (nature elephant) is a great example of this – Eleafy’s power scales the longer a battle drags on. In the 2nd chapter the most important boss fights all last many rounds, towards the end of which Eleafy would overrun the large boss encounters in chapter 2.

To solve this we could take away Eleafy’s most interesting mechanics so he wasn’t overpowered in chapter 2 – but this wasn’t fun.

Instead we further enhanced Eleafy’s (e)ntanlgment mechanic, giving him more powerful options that scale as battles continue. Let Eleafy completely dominate standard fights that last for 4 or more rounds.

However to stop Eleafy completely dominating the chapter 2 bosses we built counters into their move sets. One in 5 boss moves now holds the addendum “remove all debuffs from self”. This still allows Eleafy to stack damage against these bosses – however if Eleafy waits too long to use his most powerful combos Eleafy might miss the opportunity all together.

Ta-da eleafy much stronger in chapter 1, has very unique feel, but not the same threat to just stomp the chapter 2 bosses.

More on Simultaneous Turns

When landing on a generic square while playing Aethermon, you draw an encounter card – there are 5 for each area. 4 of these cards lead to a battle, the last one instructs the player to draw a special encounter card. 

At the end of each round, all used encounter cards are shuffled back into their respective decks. If Aethermon was played with sequential turns rather than simultaneous turns it this last step would not be necessary, but with simultaneous turns a problem occurs if we do not reshuffle the deck.

Consider a turn where 4 players draw an encounter card from an area – none of which is the special encounter card. All players would know the last card is the special encounter. If two players desire a special encounter on the next turn they would both want to be the first to land in that area… but with simultaneous turns no player lands there first.

We could introduce a series of rules to determine who gets that last card, but Aethermon’s design philosophy always strives to minimise this sort of overhead.

To resolve this we simply reshuffle the cards between turns.

This left some of our playtesters with some mathematical quandaries of the implications of this decision. But we’ll get into that next week.

The world has been crazy of late, stay safe AetherRen

Drawing Straws (Simultaneous Turns cont.)

Last week we described the rationale that led to the reshuffling of encounters between every turn.

This resulted in one playtester questioning whether the order which the player draws their encounter card affects the odds of drawing the special character encounter. So we’ll go through the math here quickly (tl;dr: the order doesn’t matter).

This scenario is mathematically equivalent to drawing straws, except the short straw wins instead of loses. Although we have 5 encounter cards in each area, we can simplify the math by working with 3 straws – the same logic can be applied at any number of straws.

==The first player==

This player chooses 1 of 3 straws – one of which wins. This player uncomplicatedly has a 1 in 3 chance of winning (1/3rd).

==The second player==

This player chooses 1 of the 2 remaining straws. 

In 1 out of 3 cases (1/3rd), the winning straw has already been drawn, and the player cannot win.

In 2 out of 3 cases (2/3rd), the player will be drawing 1 of 2 straws, one of which wins.

This player wins in half othe 2 out of 3 cases. Half of 2/3rds is 1/3rd – the same odds as the first player.

==The final player==

This player gets the remaining straw. This player wins every time neither of the other players win. Given the 1st player will win 1/3rd of games, the 2nd player will also win 1/3rd of games – the final 1/3rd of games will be won by the final player.

Bringing this back to Aethermon, though this logic we can see that it does not matter whether you’re the first play to draw an encounter or the last player – the odds of receiving any individual card does not change.

I promise no math next week AetherRen!

Simultaneous turns

I love high player count games. Not because I need 8 players squeezed around a small table – but because I love setting up a game for four and knowing there’s still room for an unexpected guest to join in.

Unfortunately, as you increase the number of players at a table, you also increase the waiting times between turns.

There tends to be two solutions to this problem:

1. Give players something to do on other player’s turns (a la Settlers of Catan); or
2. Let players resolve their turn simultaneously.

For the most part, Aethermon has opted to have players complete their turns simultaneously. 

This approach does however struggle when one player’s decision is dependent on the actions of other players. Aethermon faces this problem when determining overworld movement. 

Consider a variation of Naughts and Crosses where players make their moves at the same time. The game would be full of fighting to go first, and “If you go there, then I’ll go here” “Oh in that case I’ll go here” conversations.

This obviously would not work. Again there are two typical approaches to solve this problem

1. Players make their decisions in secret (a la Diplomacy); or
2. The game segments temporarily into a non-simultaneous game

Here, Aethermon borrows a little from each of the above solutions. Players must choose their movement card secretly; upon reveal players conduct their movement phase sequentially beginning with player who played the lowest movement card to the highest (with ties broken by a roll of the dice).

Players then simultaneously play out the rest of their turn.

That’s all for now. Next week we’ll follow on from this, taking a far more abstract dive into the advantages of acting first and acting last.

Keep in time AetherRen

Advantages of acting first and last

In any game where players act in sequence a division occurs: in some games it is better to act first, while in others it is better to act last.

In perfect information games with limited resources, players that act first have an advantage (as they have the first opportunity to grab those valuable resources. This includes games like Chess or Connect-4. In fact Connect 4 has been solved so that the player acting first can force a win no matter how the second players wins (note: for a more fair game of Connect-4, prohibit the first player from using the center column on turn 1 – this game is a theoretical tie)

In games where information is the most valuable resource, players that act last (after having observed other player’s decisions) have the greatest advantage. This concept can be seen in its purest and most abstracted form in non-transitive dice – where players choose a set of dice to attempt to outroll the other player, the player choosing second can always choose a set of dice that will outperform the first place’s dice.

A more familiar example of this is poker, where the player acting last gets the most information before having to make a decision. This advantage in poker is so pronounced that in the “Heads-up” variant of the game, the usual rules of the first player after the dealing paying the small blind is eschewed to prevent the same player acting last in every betting round.

Bringing this all back to Aethermon – in last week’s post we discussed sequential overworld movement. Players moving the smallest distance must choose their movement before players moving the largest distance. To balance this asymmetry, Aethermon borrows elements from both games.

Players travelling the least distance (and acting first) arrive at their destination first – in the case where there is a limited resource at that destination (often during quests) this provides these players an advantage. 

On the flipside players travelling the largest distance (and acting last), have the advantage of making their decision after watching all the other players make their moves and can make strategic decisions accordingly.

That is all for now. Next week we go back to large player counts.

Large Player counts cont.

Aethermon can be played with any player count from 1 to 8. As discussed in previous posts, to avoid playtimes bloating at larger player counts turns are conducted simultaneously. However, with 6 or more player counts this system begins to break down and new solutions have been implemented.

From a pragmatic standpoint, at large player counts the game begins to become unwieldy: lots of hands moving around the table etc.

Larger player counts encounter a much more “hard” limitation in component count. Like any tabletop game, Aethermon is limited by physical components. Several of these components are shared by players during their simultaneous turns – if too many players require these components at once the game breaks down.

The simplest example of this are the encounter cards. Each region of the map has 5 encounter cards – 4 unique battle encounters and 1 special encounter card (directing players to draw the top card from the special encounter deck). If 8 players landed in the same region (nearly inevitable in the early game), more cards would be required.

Instead in 6+ player games, Aethermon divides players into two groups: a day group and a night group (the night group starts with an additional item to address the first move advantage discussed in the last post). With at most 4 players in each group, eliminating any possibility that more than 5 players could demand an encounter card from the same area at the same time.

This, of course, could have been addressed by printing more cards and chips. This solution would increase the cost of the game to the consumer and wouldn’t solve the unwieldyness described earlier.

Thanks for tuning in AetherRen.

Why isn’t there a good pokemon board game?

There should be a great Pokemon Board game.

Pokemon Go has been downloaded 1 billion times; meanwhile, the tabletop games industry is seeing about 10% growth per year. However, fans have been left waiting.

History of Pokemon and Tabletop games

Pokemon has launched a wildly successful trading card game. The collectible element resonated perfectly with the franchise’s “Gotta catch ‘em all” mantra. But Pokemon has a more spotty history with traditional board games.

The 1999 Pokemon Master Trainer series is remembered fondly by many, but never achieved critical acclaim or market penetration, struggling with a boardgamegeek rating of 5.8.

Nevertheless, the love for the Master Trainer series is evidenced by the multiple attempts to revive the games with “homebrew” variations.

The difference between Board Games and Video Games

Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the Master Trainer series is its attempt to recreate the Pokemon handheld games in their entirety, without addressing the limitations of the board game medium.

Limited by the components that fit in a box, and restricted to only calculations that can be completed by hand – a game attempting to recreate the vast experience of pokemon will need to simplify the mechanics to the point they no longer serve their original purpose. Or inundate players with calculations and components that will reduce the experience to a crawl.

Nevertheless, the Master Trainer valiantly incorporates as many of Pokemon’s features into its game as possible, including: Trading, pokemon battles, collecting Pokemon, evolution lines, rivals, items, legendaries. 

However, each feature is compromised to the point where they sometimes have an effect opposite to their original intent.

Consider the trading mechanic in Master Trainer. Trading in Pokemon was originally a prosocial feature that allowed players to share their Pokemon experience that benefited everyone involved. In Master Trainer, players can use a force trade mechanic to effectively rob an opponent of their best Pokemon – turning a co-operative mechanic into a competitive mechanic. 

Focus on how Pokemon made players feel

Rather than try and perfectly imitate the video game, board game designers must take a lesson from the impressionist art movement of the 19th century.

Realising they could never compete with lifelike stills emerging from the new discipline of photography, the impressionists shifted their focus towards painting what the camera could not capture: colour, time, movement – how a scene made the beholder feel. 

Similarly designers attempting to create a Pokemon board game cannot hope to recreate Pokemon… but they can instead recreate the way Pokemon makes a player feel.

With that goal clear, a pokemon themed board could be designed from the ground up to evoke that emotion, with mechanics appropriate for the medium.

How did Pokemon make you feel?

This is an intensely personal question, and I think lots of people will have different answers. What follows is only my opinion

More than anything else, I remember my relationship with my pokemon on my very first playthrough of pokemon Blue. Pidgeot wasn’t by any means the strongest pokemon, and was partially redundant next to my Charizard… but those two were my first two pokemon… ever… and they never left my side as I escaped into a world where an 11 year old kid had the power to effect real change.

That came at a time in my life where I really needed that feeling as an escape. I didn’t take that feeling for granted then — and i am not going to take it for granted now.

Aethermon

Which brings me to my current project: Aethermon. A board game and labour of love design from the ground up to emulate the wonder and awe felt when setting out with your companions to explore the world of Pokemon.

Knowing that the player relationship with the Aethermon was going to be the heart of the emotional experience of the game, we could move forward with some of the most difficult design decisions.

One example of this was sacrificing the “gotta catch ‘em all” objective:

With limited components, and only a couple of hours of the player’s attention, if we included 150 playable creatures in Aethermon, the player’s experience of any individual “Aethermon” would be necessarily diluted.

Instead Aethermon will have about 55 Aethermon, of which 24 will be playable – 8 starters, each with 3 evolutions.

Focusing on just 8 starters we have been able to develop a dedicated deck for each Aethermon, filled with Aethermon specific moves and abilities.

By creating each starter Aethermon with unique mechanics and access to different strategies – players can more easily develop a deeper connection with their Aethermon, knowing their Aethermon plays unlike that of any other Aethermon on the table.

================

This is the first part of a series where I’ll be discussing the design choices that are currently being made in the creation of Aethermon. 

Your feedback helps shape the development of Aethermon, be part of the conversation now:

1. Tell me what I missed
2. How did Pokemon make you feel?
3. And what part of the world of Pokemon could you not imagine a game without. (or alternatively which parts would you rather not see recreated in a board game?)
4. What sort of content do you want to see in this space moving forward?

If you believe there is a place for this game in the world, join the AetherRen by commenting, sharing, liking us here or joining our mailing list at Aethermon.com 

Artist: Fabio Porta

www.artstation.com/theartofnemo

www.instagram.com/theartofnemo

• A new franchise aethermon is capable of doing something a pokemon boardgame could never do (wouldn’t ever do at least)
• A pokemon filled game will be populated with well loved familiar creatures.
• And that is a lovely feeling… but the most fun I ever had playing Pokémon was the first time seeing a new creature that I had to learn to understand.
• Give you a world filled with creatures you’ve never encountered before.
  • And every couple of days I get to wake up discover a more about this world. It’s a journey like none other. And I want to share it with you
• Fortunately aethermon team has been blessed with Sarah and Fabio
• Check out our most recent aethermon profile languravi

• The implied question here is what makes Pokémon so special… and why don’t the Pokémon board games recreate that specialness?

• Meanwhile these do little to leverage the advantages board games have
  • Boardgames are an intrinsically social experience in a way hand held games are not

D

• 1st par to fa sieries on what made pokemon great and how we recreate it
• A quick preview can be found

• Conversely, a hypothetical board game could concentrate on recreating a single element of Pokemon faithfully – perhaps the Pokemon battle mechanics. However, I imagine the majority of players would find such an experience shallow, missing out on so much of what they love about Pokemon.

What is Aethermon?

Aethermon is an upcoming thematic tabletop board game with RPG elements… but before that it was a feeling.

I know you know the one:

• The excitement of setting out on an adventure; every step into the unknown filled with the promise of possibility
• That pride and joy you get from protecting and raising a creature that will become your constant companion
• Together exploring a world similar to our own… but somehow more.

That feeling. Hold on to it for a moment, savour it. That feeling is rare and worth fighting for.

That feeling is Aethermon, and if you are reading this, I want to share it with you.

This game and its world are just in their infancy; and some everyday our creative director Sarah (www.sarahawhillier.com) or our character artist Fabio (www.instagram.com/theartofnemo/) share with me something that pulls me deeper into this world. 

Words cannot do these two justice. Instead I’ll share you a preview of our first Aethermon Spotlight:

[preview]

Inspired by the legend of Sun Wukong; The Languravi are born into this world with their hands tightly clasped around a tiny star. The Languravi will keep this star with them for its entire life and will protect it by finding a lantern to hold the star. It is said if a Languravi ever loses their star they will travel to the ends of the earth to find it.

As the Languravi grows it will learn to fight to better protect its star. Favouring simple blunt weapons such as sticks, the Languravi will hold its lantern with its tail as it practices.

Once the Languravi perfects their skills with the bow staff, they proudly display their lantern on the end of their staff as proof of their mastery.

If you believe this world would be better with Aethermon in it, you can help make that reality.

Follow us on our socials (below) and sign up to our mailing list. You will not only be the first to know how this game is developing, but you can be part of this process from the ground up. Your feedback, criticism and support is what will make this game a reality.

Stay strong AetheRen, the road is long but you are alone.

Christopher Ng

Creator

5 Ways to Play Aethermon

In recent years the tabletop gaming ecosystem has seen a greater acceptance of board games designed to offer a highly crafted single experience, at the cost of replayability.

• Legacy style games, such as Pandemic Legacy, literally ask players to tear up components throughout game play
• Decksporation games, like TIME Stories, hide secrets or decision points in their decks that lose their surprise in subsequent playthroughs.

Aethermon’s campaign mode embraces this philosophy – fine tuning the experience with twists and surprises that will lose some impact on subsequent playthroughs. Nevertheless unique playstyles for each aethermon, branching narratives and varying interactions with other players will give player plenty of reasons to revisit the campaign.

More significantly Aethermon has been designed with multiple playmodes beyond the primary campaign; each offering a distinct experience, tied together by common mechanics. 

This is only a very surface overview, we’ll address each mode in their own blog post eventually

Campaign Chapter 1

The competitive chapter of Aethermon’s campaign. In a story familiar to most, players collect their Aethermon, compete with various Dojo leaders, training their Aethermon to its 2nd evolution, before challenging the Jr Champion. Successfully beating the Jr Champion triggers a tournament which all players compete in. Along the way players can engage in various side quests including a team Evil subplot that feeds into chapter 2.

Campaign Chapter 2

The cooperative chapter of Aethermon’s campaign. Players come together after the tournament to fight an ancient adversary. On the way players will unlock powerful co-operative abilities and train their Aethermon on their 3rd evolution.

Competitive Gauntlet Mode

This mode forgoes the overworld map, allowing players to focus purely on Aethermon Development and combat.

• Each player starts with a level 1 Aethermon; with whom they must defeat every enemy in the game in ascending difficulty.
• Players receive XP similar to normal, between rounds players can use this XP to develop their Aethermon, recover their Aethermon OR make the next enemy more difficult for their opponents
• Last Aethermon surviving wins

This mode was inspired by a similar process we went through in balancing the starter Aethermon.

Tale of 2 Cities

The overworld map in Aethermon is largely symmetric in nature – with the starting town on one side and the Aethermon League on the other. (There will be a blog post on how difficult this was to achieve later)

In the Tale of 2 Cities players are divided into two teams with the objective of landing players in their opponents “Base”

By capturing key points on the map teams can increase the difficulty of their opponents encounters, making it more difficult for their opponent to advance

This can vaguely be thought of as a moba-esque playstyle

1 Vs All

Plays similar to chapter 2, however 1 player controls The Darkness and a single Dark Champion.

The Darkness can win by defeating a target number of player Aethermon

The 8 Elements

Every Aethermon is blessed with a powerful affinity with one of 8 elements. These elements do not have any sort of natural type advantage – but instead each element is differentiated by access to unique gameplay mechanics and strategies.

Here is a surface overview of the 8 elements.

• Fire – Fire Aethermon have the most powerful basic attacks but these attacks require the player to discard an additional move to use. As a result Fire Aethermon can often defeat powerful enemies, even while at a level disadvantage… but multiple battles tend to leave them exhausted of offensive resources. 
• Water – Water Aethermon access a wide range of healing abilities. This gives players bonded with a Water Aethermon the ability to push through the campaign with less frequent visits to recovery centers (working name, if you have a suggestion throw it at us!).
• Nature – The basic attacks of Nature Aethermon “Entangle” their opponents. These “Entangle” debuffs amplify the power of future attacks. As a result Nature Aethermon can deliver devastating blows to opponents in long battles. Nature Aethermon also recover a little HP after each battle.
• Thunder – Thunder Athermon utilise “quick” moves – moves that allow the player to attack their opponents before their opponent can strike them. Oftentimes Thunder Aethermon can end a fight before being hit even once; in longer fights they use abilities enabling them to make multiple attacks on a single turn. 
• Earth – Earth Aethermon have more defensive abilities than any other element. Their natural armor combined with their defense enhancing moves often allows them to completely ignore their opponents attacks. In longer battles Earth Aethermon can find victory by exhausting their opponents offensive capabilities.
• Sky – Sky Aethermon have “flying” abilities that forgo an immediate effect, instead increasing their capabilities on a future turn. By stacking these “flying” abilities these Aethermon can often take out a powerful opponent in a single turn, while also recovering their HP for their next battle.
• Sunstruck – Sunstruck Aethermon’s attacks often have the “pure” feature that ignores their opponent’s defense giving them some very favourable matchups. Furthermore Sunstruck Aethermon can gain experience without fighting.
• Moonlit – Moonlit Aethermon’s abilities require the player to discard a “Movement Card”* to activate – the power of their ability varies with the “Movement Card” they discard. This allows players to finetune the exact damage they need to deal or recover. Moonlit Aethermon can be very powerful in a pinch, but will have to pay for it eventually.
  • More on the card based movement system soon.

Let us know which element most intrigues you!

Stay vigilant AetherRen

Designing a Map

It has been said that the best special effects are the effects the audience doesn’t see.

This perfectly describes the process of designing the overworld map for Aethermon – the design must fulfill a large range of mechanical and artistic requirements without feeling engineered to meet those requirements.

Hopefully most players will never stop to wonder how carefully each square has been placed.

Nevertheless I am going to break it down for our keen readers here.

Typically players will progress from the bottom to the top of the map. 

To provide context let’s start with a key:

• Grey Squares – Generic Encounters – players will encounter either an enemy of appropriate level or a special character on each of these squares
• Green Squares – Healing Spots – they heal
• Blue Squares – Quest Locations – players go here to get quests, continue existing quests or complete quests
• Yellow Squares – Major Objective – Dojos holding bosses, starting and ending squares etc.

A number of rules exist to make the artwork for the map easier.

1. The space above each coloured square must be free for artwork
2. No coloured square should be adjacent in any direction another coloured square
3. There are no 4 way intersections
4. All transitions between areas must be vertical (works best for a top-down oblique perspective)

In addition to these requirements, for mechanical reasons these additional rules must also be followed

1. All Grey squares must be within 6 distance of a Green healing square (this is the maximum distance a player can travel on one turn)
2. All Yellow squares must be exactly 7 distance from their nearest Green healing square (ensuring players cannot travel directly from a healing square to a boss encounter, while also giving players the most 2 card combinations to travel that distance)

Furthermore the map needed to be designed with a top vs bottom symmetry for some of the advanced playmodes.

1. Both the top Yellow Square (Top’s starting location) and the bottom Yellow Square (Bottoms starting location) are exactly 14 squares from their nearest Dojo (the top right yellow square is not a dojo).
2. The most center Yellow Square is exactly 12 distance from each of the 5 Dojos (the 5 closest Yellow Squares).
3. Whether taking the left route or the right route, both the top and bottom starting squares are exactly 20 squares away from the centre Yellow.

I’ll be honest, I wrote this one mostly for me, for everyone who has read this far – Thank you.

Stay Strong AetherRen

The Aethermon Overworld

Gameplay in Aethermon can broadly be divided into two phases:

 (i) The overworld map where players navigate between locations;

 (ii) And the encounters that transpire at those locations

Following on from last week’s post regarding the design of the overworld map; we’ll discuss the mechanics governing player’s navigation through the overworld map.

Aethermon is not a roll-and-move game. Roll-and-move games are chancy by nature – taking away agency from the player, and crippling the player’s ability to plan ahead.

Instead, Aethermon employs a card based movement system which, similar to roll-and-move mechanics, grant players the ability to travel a variable distance per turn.

Each Player begins the game with 6 “Energy Cards”, representing the values 1 through 6. Each turn players use one of these “Energy Cards” to travel exactly the distance specified on that card. Once a player has used all of their “Energy Cards”, they redraw 5 of the 6 cards they have already played.

(5 cards are drawn instead of 6 to address edge cases where “Energy Cards” are used as tiebreakers between players – if all 6 cards were drawn it is theoretically possible that both players would perpetually play their highest value card resulting in an infinite draw)

This system allows players to move an average of 3.5 distance per turn, just like a D6 based movement system. But addresses many of the shortcomings of roll-and-move games:

 (i) Chance has heavily mitigated. No player is likely to pull massively a head based on lucky dice rolls. Over 5 cards the largest possible difference in energy card values is 5 (15 vs 20); as opposed to a theoretically possible gap of 25 (5 vs 30) when comparing 5 rolls of the dice.

 (ii) Players agency is restored. Reaching a desired square can now be achieved through careful planning rather than wasting turns circling around the desired location. This massively streamlines play.

This “Energy Card” system is interwoven into many of the mechanics of Aethermon, stay tuned to future posts to discover more of these mechanics every week.

For now enjoy our first AethmonSpotlight preview.

Stay Curious AetherRen

Balanced Moves and Abilities =/= Balanced Strategies

Context is everything. A paperclip is just a piece of metal that binds paper; unless you are a student in Norway during WWII, then a paperclip is a powerful symbol of resistance and solidarity. Context is everything.

So too is it with abilities in games. My personal favourite example of this comes from Hearthstone. Compare the Druid exclusive card ‘Innervate’ that reads “gain 2 mana”  (pre-nerf) against the Rogue exclusive card ‘Counterfeit Coin’ that reads “gain 1 mana” – ‘Innervate’ seems strictly better. However, in the context of their respective class, Innervate offers the player “ramp 2 mana”; whereas Countefeit Coin is loade with synergies and can offer the player “ramp 1 mana, activate combo cards, buff minions and draw cards”. Given this context each card offers similar value to their class.

Or consider this example in Aethermon:

When Aethermon “level up”, players must learn a new move for their Aethermon, these moves vary in cost from 2 to 5XP. If a player chooses a move that costs less than 5XP, they will increase their Max HP to make up the difference. For example an Aethermon learning a 2XP move will also receive 3 additional Max HP. 

One might intuit that a 2 cost move exclusive to one Aethermon would have a similar value as a 2 cost move unique to another Aethermon – and this is mostly true.

However Earth Aethermon, have more Defense than any other Aethermon type… which effectively serves as a multiplier of HP. Consequently Earth Aethermon get more value from 3HP than other Aethermon. Therefore an Earth exclusive 2XP has its power throttled to account for this. 

Overall the objective of balancing moves and abilities in Aethermon is not to ensure that every move or ability is balanced against every other move or ability; rather that the larger strategies available to each class are balanced. This ensures that no matter which Aethermon you choose as your own, you have the same opportunity to explore the world of Aethermon and compete to be the best AetherRen. 

That is all for now, enjoy another #AethermonSpotlight preview.

Stay ready AetherRen.

The Diegetic Tutorial (because buttonmashing in board games doesn’t work)

• I’m not sure about everyone else out there; but when I boot up a new video game I tend to skip the tutorial, instead buttonmashing to learn my controls…
• Buttonmashing in a board game… … Well, randomly drawing and discarding cards isn’t as rewarding as one might think.

• Board games will typically have some sort of quick setup guide or some sort of simplified or preferred first game setup – but fundamentally the experience still starts with one player reading the rules, and other players waiting.

My typical experience of opening up a new board game with friends involves one person reading the rules for about 15 minutes while other people sit around awkwardly. 

We want every player drawn into the world of Aethermon from the moment players first open the box.

Upon opening Aethermon, players will find a deck of cards labeled “Start here”. This card begins the tutorial in the form of a dialogue that directly addresses the players from one of Aethermon’s more significant NPC’s.

By addressing players directly from an intradiegetic narrator (a character who belongs in the world), Aethermon immediately begins to familiarise players with the theme and tone of Aethermon.

This tutorial will direct players from one card to another, demonstrating the core mechanic by which players will navigate quests in Aethermon.

Each subsequent card will walk players through one element of setting up Aethermon, beginning with the board (themed as set up a map so all players can track each other) ending with players selecting their Aethermon partner. 

Once this is complete, players will be guided through a single turn of overworld movement and a single battle encounter, ensuring all players are appropriately equipped to begin their adventure.

This process ensures all players begin the game with the level of knowledge necessary to continue the game. 

Of course, Aethermon will have a typical rulebook. And the tutorial will be entirely skippable – though I would note that the equivalent of buttonmashing in a board game is randomly drawing and discarding cards… 

Stay on your toes AetherRen

Sometimes we make mistakes

• There is an adage in game design circles “10 hours of theory crafting is equal to about 1 hour of playtesting”
  • I’m not sure how true that is… 
• There was about 2 months between Aethermon’s conception and its first playtest
  • In that time I theory crafted balance between the classes like no body’s business
  • Each class competed in a round robin against each other at lvl 10
  • I tested each class against probably enemies at levels 1, 3 and 8.
  • It was beautiful, class felt unique, balanced at their level
• Then came the playtest
  • Players manage multiple resources in Aethermon; but for combat there are (usually) only two that matter. HP and available moves.
  • For the Moonlit class; there is an additional resource. 6 cards numbered 1 through 6. The majority of damage dealt by this class involved discarding one of these cards; once all these cards were discarded they could redraw their hand.
  • It only took a little bit of math to realise the average value of these cards was 3.5. It was fairly easy to balance around this number.
  • There are some inherent advantages in being able to finetune the exact damage dealt, or front/backload the damage dealt – but ultimately you’re going to be stuck with a 1 eventual.
  • Except I also included my favourite ability in the game “blink” a passive that allows players to discard a card equal to the attack damage received to avoid that damage.
  • In single simulated combat, this was only a slight advantage. Enemies always deal the same amount of damage… sure you could discard you 3 once to dodge your opponents 3 damage attack… but all their next attack would also deal 3 damage.
  • But… in an actual game, players face a series of combats. If the player vs 3 consecutive enemies dealing 1,2 and 3 damage… the player could use its 4,5,6 attacks. Discard their 1,2,3 cards, then use their 4,5 and 6 attacks again. Giving them a massive of 5, almost 50% stronger than the 3.5 I had balanced for.
• So yeah. I made a mistake.
  • I loved the blink ability, so it’s still in the game as a learnable move which players must discard to use. Increasing its cost and limiting its use.

Mechanics as Narrative

We’re trying to tell a story with Aethermon. Most of this is done via visual assets and writing. But fundamentally Aethermon is a game, and if the game doesn’t tell that same story we’re faced with what is known as ludonarrative dissonance.

Ludonarrative dissonance occurs when there is a disconnect between the mechanics of a game and the story that game is trying to tell. An extreme example of this might be a surgery themed game with a frantic Hungry Hungry Hippo style mechanic – the game is asking you to imagine suturing a wound with delicate precise movements, but the rules are you to frantically take as many actions as possible.

A great check against ludonarrative dissonance is to imagine playing the game without any art assets or flavour text; then guess what story the game is trying to tell. 

If play through the two main chapters of Aethermon whiteboxed in this way, we are left with this experience:

• Players move around a board from bottom to top completing quests and defeating enemies along the way
• As players defeat enemies they grow stronger
• Eventually all the players come together to fight each other
• After this big fight a winner is crowned
• After a winner is crowned, players collectively need to fight an enemy too strong for any one player to defeat
• Players travel around the board from the top to bottom this time, collecting power ups
• All players come together at the bottom of the board (where the adventure began) to defeat the strongest enemy yet, using the power-up they collected along the way

So there is a lot there; but if I had to guess the narrative from those mechanics I would imagine I was playing a game where players first to compete in a large friendly competition. After that players must come together, put aside any rivalries to defeat a larger enemy at their collective home.

This admittedly completely loses the “‘mon” theme, but otherwise I think tracks fairly well with the story we’re hoping to tell with Aethermon.

I can’t wait until we can start sharing our online playtests to get your feedback to see if you have the same experience.

Stay wise AetherRen

Decksploration

In a previous post I explained that a turn in Aethermon consists of two interconnected phases:

• Movement around an overworld map 
• And the events that occur at the locations on that overworld map

On the vast majority of turns, thos events will be either an Aethermon Battle or an Exploration of a Location.

We have made special care to ensure exploring locations are just as engaging as Aethermon battles, emphasising that the World of Aethermon is not just a battlefield – but a place players can explore. So today, we’ll talk about how players explore locations in Aethermon.

Each significant location on the Aethermon overworld map comes with a unique deck of cards that is placed on its space on the overworld map. Each card within this deck represents an event that might occur at this location.

When a player visits a location they will either draw the top card from this deck to explore the location – or if they have a card that instructs them to do otherwise they might search for a particular card at that location. 

The events on these cards can offer the player an immediate boon, or perhaps will ask the player to make some sort of decision that will force them to search for an additional card in the deck to discover the consequences of that decision. Otherwise these events will trigger the beginning of a quest that will task the player to visit another location and draw a specific card from that location’s deck of cards.

Exploring these locations and completing their quests give players who don’t want to focus on Aethermon battles a pathway to advance through the world of Aethermon – or for those trying to battle their way to the top they can provide a critical moment of respite as the players search for their next heal.

That is all for now. 

Keep on exploring AetherRen

Experience and Gold

Aethermon has been designed and redesigned from the ground up to create a streamlined player experience. This rigor has led to an unexpected design decision in Aethermon – the amalgamation of Experience and Gold.

Certain concepts that don’t need explaining to gamers: You run from left to right; XP levels you up; and gold buys you new stuff.

Gold and XP fundamentally serve the same function in games, they are a reward which players can use to make their characters stronger. The two, however, scale and accrue differently: The cost of goods tends to remain static over a game, whereas the cost of leveling up increases; A player’s Gold reserve fluctuates over a game, while a player’s total XP tends to only move in an upward direction.

In a pen and paper RPG or computer RPGs tracking both these stats comes at very little cost to the player – so keeping these two stats is a no-brainer. But in a board game, tracking these stats takes significant player overhead and upkeep – as well as costing literal components.

Given the premium we are placing on a smooth user experience, we made the difficult decision to amalgamate the two stats into a unified statistic “XG”.

This single decision influenced every game design feature related to how the game scaled.

Next week we’ll address how XG is addressed in Aethermon.

Keep your heads up AetherRen.

EG Cont.

Following up on last week’s post regarding the decision to amalgamate Gold and XP in Aethermon; let’s explore some of the design decisions that needed to be made to make this concept work.

Optional Levelling

It costs 5 XG to level; at the end of every turn players with 5 or more XG have the option of leveling their Aethermon – but are not required to level their Aethermon. This needs to be an optional process as players might be disadvantaged if they were forced to spend their XG levelling on a turn where they needed to save to purchase a critical item.

The value of purchasable items scale with level

Consider the basic potion: A potion that restores full HP costs 1XG (1/5th of a level). If the potion restored a set amount of HP (say 5HP) early in the game 1XG (1/5th of a level) would buy you a full heal, but late in the game it would be very hard to justify 1 XG for what might amount to 25% of your Aethermon’s HP.

(contrast this with the traditional approach of including increasingly powerful potions, ie: potion < super potion < hyper potion etc).

Enemies deliver variable XG

The XG awarded to a player for a victory varies depending on the player’s character level compared to their opponent. Defeating an opponent of a higher level will award the player 3XG, defeating an equal levelled opponent will award the player 2XG; defeating a lower level opponent will award the player 1XG. Because a level is always 5XG, that means a victory against an equal levelled opponent and a higher levelled opponent is enough to level up. Alternatively you could level by defeating 5 lower level opponents. 

(Contrast this with enemies that give a set XP/Gold throughout a game, but the rewards for defeating lower level enemies become insignificant when compared to the Gold/XP requirements of higher level players).

Ultimately, this change may be counterintuitive to many players. But this decision reduces the number of stats players need to track without reducing the number of possibilities available to the player. Equally importantly, this decision halves the number of punch board tokens in the game, passing on a significant saving in MSRP.

Keep on optimising AetherRen – we will.

Exploration Mode (Family Mode)

Aethermon is a game for everyone – our “Exploration Mode” allows less experienced players to enjoy Aethermon at the same time as more advanced players, without compromising the experience for more advanced players!!!

“Exploration mode” is a streamlined and simplified ruleset for players needing a lighter experience. The beauty of “Exploration Mode” is it is entirely compatible with the regular ruleset. That is to say a group of 6 players could have 4 players playing the advanced rules; while the other 2 players are playing in “Exploration Mode”. 

“Exploration Mode” still allows players to raise an Aethermon and explore the world and complete quests like every other player. However, players in “Exploration Mode” have modified rules for levelling up and battling:

Exploration Mode Players:

• Do not enter a battle phase when encountering an opponent; instead they receive damage equal to their opponents level
• Every 3 battles (3XG) Experience Mode players level, gaining 2 Max HP, but learn no moves
• Do not purchase items
• Cannot be challenged by other players
• Additional rules for co-operative mode (chapter 2)

Currently “Exploration Mode” is only compatible with the primary story modes of Aethermon – but “Exploration Mode” serves as an easy transition to players hoping to advance to the more complicated ruleset.

“Exploration Mode” engages players at the level most appropriate for them, ensuring that Aethermon is a game for the entire family.

Balancing a Turn

Just as it is necessary to balance asymmetrical characters; it is necessary to balance symmetric strategies and tactics available to players.

In Aethermon’s case, this means ensuring that – on average and in a vacuum – no matter how a player chooses to spend their turn, all players are likely to receive similar value. If balanced well the player most likely to pull a head is the player who identifies the strategy that gives them the most value in their current circumstance; rather than rely on a single strategy that dominates other strategies no matter the circumstance.

Excluding Boss Battles (which disproportionately reward the player if successful); Aethermon allows one of four possible outcomes for a player on each turn:

• Standard Battle
• Quest
• Special Encounter
• Recovery spaces

To compare the value of each of these possible outcomes, it helps to reduce their value to a single metric. While not every resource in the game easily reduces to XG, it gives us a good place to start.

Fortunately the game rules clearly define the XG value of a turn spent in a standard battle: Easy battles (against lower level opponents) yield 1XG; Medium battles (against equal level opponents) yield 2XG; and Hard battles (against higher level opponents) yield 3XG.

This gives us the range of value a player should expect to be able to receive on a turn – 1 to 3XG, however the player can expect to spend resources (damage etc.) to get that XG. 

Next week we’ll dig into the unique way we balanced each of the other types of turns with this range in mind.

Keep on Questing AetherRen

Balancing Quests (Cont)

Last week we established that on a player’s turn a player should receive between 1-3 XG value. This week we’ll see how we balanced turns spent completing quests.

Each quest will take 1 to 3 stages to complete – with each stage costing the player an entire turn. 

A 1 stage quest can be completed the turn a player visits a location; a two stage quest would then require players to visit a 2nd location; a three stage quest would require players to visit a 3rd final location.

From this we created a simple table reference table that determined the value a player should receive based on the number of stages in a quest:

• A 1 stage quest will yield 1 XG value (average 1XG per turn spent)
• A 2 stage quest will yield 3 XG value (average 1.5XG per turn spent)
• A 3 stage quest will yield 6 XG value (average 2XG per turn spent)
• Total XG value may vary up to 1 XG in value based on difficulty modifiers (for example there is one quest that players take 1 HP damage every turn they don’t complete the quest, players receive more value for completing this quest)

Notice the average XG per turn is greater for longer quests – this incentivises players to continue their quest even if it means travelling in directions they might not otherwise travel.

Quests (ordinarily) offer players a way to avoid battles, allowing players to traversing the world of Aethermon without paying the associated HP and move costs. As such the average XG per turn from questing is less than a player would expect to receive from battles.

An additional benefit of quests is their XG value rarely comes in the form of XG, completing quests allows players to access bonuses that might not otherwise by accessible such as high level artefacts.

We’ll continue this next week with a discussion on the value of healing spots and Special Encounters.

Keep asking questions AetherRen.

Special Encounters

Most turns when the player doesn’t land on a special square, players will engage in a battle. But 20% of the time players will meet an NPCs that will aid the player and mix-up the gameplay. 

Similar to a 1 stage quest, these encounters only cost the player one turn and don’t require any battle resources, so the nominal value of one of these encounters is set to average about 1XG in value.

However since the player can’t choose to spam “Special Encounters” we have a little more flexibility, allowing the upside of these encounters to be significantly higher.

We will certainly have a blog post on this soon.

Recovery spaces

Recovery spaces restore a player’s HP and Battle Cards, and allow players to buy basic items. Long term visiting a recovery space is a net neutral in terms of XG value. 

Since players benefit here is proportionate to the amount of Damage and Battle Cards they need to recover, visiting a Recovery Space can be thought of as a kind of push your luck minigame. Play as long as you can without visiting a Recovery Space will maximise your overall XG value; however push too hard without visiting one of these locations and you may be defeated losing all your progress.

That is all for now. 

Special Characters Encounters

We continue our discussion on balancing the options available to players on any given turn, this week we discuss Special Character Encounters.

On their journey players will encounter NPC’s that aid players by creating unexpected opportunities and interrupt otherwise predictable turns by mixingup the gameplay.

Generally when players land on a standard square they will trigger a battle encounter; but 1 in 5 of these encounters will instead result in a “Special Character Encounters”. These main give the player a straight up bonus, or offer the player some sort of trade.

Similar to a 1-stage quest, these encounters only cost the player a single turn and don’t drain any battle resources. To ensure that players never feel like a turn is wasted by encountering a Special Character, a minimum value of 1 XG is set for these encounters. 

However, in the ideal situation these NPCs can provide significantly more than 1XG value. For example the Artefact dealer (who sells players artefacts at a 1XG discount) might by chance offer a player the perfect artefact to compliment their strategy, providing significantly more than 1XG value.

As a result of this upwards variance, the average value of a Special Character Encounter is greater than that of a 1-Stage quest. If players could opt into engaging a Special Character every turn, players might gain an advantage by continually triggering Special Characters Encounters – however, these encounters are distributed randomly to ensure this strategy is not available.

Next week’s blog will describe some of the currently implemented Special Character Encounters.

Stay Bright AetherRen

Special Characters (cont)

We follow last week’s post on Special Characters with details of currently implemented special characters. 

While we’re actively experimenting with 11 special characters, it is likely the final implementation of the game will only include 8 Special Characters – though keep on eye out on this number to increase with kickstarter stretch goals.

In a typical game players (depending on their play style) tend to land on about 30 normal squares, each square has a 20% chance of triggering a special, so a player can expect to see about 6 of these characters per game.

===The Traders or Gift-givers===

These Special Characters either outright give players resources or trade player resources that they might not otherwise have access to:

Travelling Merchant	Opens shop -1 cost first item
Aethermon Stylist	+1 friendship, +2 if you pay 1 XG
Martial artist	Draw 1 Normal move, if you have the XG you can learn it
Healer	Heal Aethermon and restores combat cards
Alchemist?	Sell a move for XG +1
Gymnast/Exercise trainer	Sell a move for HP
Artefact Dealer	can buy a tier 1 2 or 3 artefact (-1 cost)

===Followers===

These Special Characters don’t offer an immediate effect, but follow the player affecting future events:

Paparazzi	Extra VP at end of game, If defeated give to victorious player (discard if defeated by NPC)
Heckler	receive +3 XG immediately, negative VP end of game, transfer to any player you defeat
Taxi	next turn move up to 3 extra distance then discard
Underdog	+2XG next time defeating higher level opponent, discard if defeated

In addition to these there are a litany of Special Characters that haven’t made the cut due to interacting with removed mechanics, requiring additional resources, punishing players or simply not being fun.

That’s all for now.

Keep on being awesome AetherRen.

Aethermon ‘Mon Focus

From next week we’ll begin a series where we take a closer look at the unique mechanics and balance of each playable Aethermon. 

In order to better contextualise this upcoming series, we’ll first break down the differentiating properties of each Aethermon

Aethermon Ability:

These are passive abilities that players have access to as soon as players begin their adventure, ensuring each player’s experience of their aethermon is unique.

For example, the Nature Aethermon Eleafy, begins with the ability to restore 2 HP after battles. 

Aethermon Abilities scale in strength as the Aetherom grows to its next stage.

Friendship Ability*:

These abilities are similar to Aethermon Abilities, but are not immediately available to the player – they are instead unlocked via “friendship”. Friendship can be earned in a variety of ways such as completing quests or interacting with your Aethermon’s specific personality.

For example, the Sky Aethermon Cervistral can unlock its Friendship Ability Fly, allowing players to travel 1 distance further per turn.

* Note the friendship mechanic is currently under review and subject to heavy change (it currently requires a 2nd form of currency, therefore increasing the component cost and increasing player upkeep)

Signature Battle Moves:

These are an Aethermon’s most common battle moves, they exemplify the Aethermon’s unique mechanics. These Signature Battle Moves come in varying costs (1, 3, 5 and 7), with their power scaling accordingly. Players begin with 2 copies of the 1-cost signature battle move.

Signature Battle Moves are also upgradable. A player wishing to learn the 5-cost Signature Battle Move, could discard a 1-cost Signature Battle Move in order to reduce the cost of the 5-cost card to 4. This ensures players aren’t left at the end of the game with moves that are no longer effective in battle.

An example of a Signature Battle Move is the Fire Aethermon Sparkitty’s flamethrower moves – these moves do more damage than other Aethermon’s Signature Battle Moves, but require players to discard Battle Moves to activate. The 1-cost variant deals 5 damage but requires the player to discard an additional Battle Move.

2, 3 and 4 cost Aethermon Specific Battle Moves.

Supplementing the Signature Battle Moves, each Aethermon has 3 other class specific moves. These moves synergise or compliment the Aethermons other unique attributes.

Support Moves

Support moves are unlocked in chapter 2, these are powerful battle moves that are more effective in team battles.

For example the Thunder Aethermon Raivalp’s Support Move Accelerate sacrifices Raivalp’s turn but instead gives an ally an additional move, and makes that move (q)uick. This can be exceptionally useful for setting up defensive moves in large team battles.

===

Looking forward to taking a deeper dive into our starter Aethermon next week!

Stay Inspired AetherRen.

Aethermon Focus, The Sky Aethermon: Cervistral, Cervaero and Cervaura

We begin our series looking at the gameplay difference between each of the playable aethermon. Our focus is the Sky Aethermon Cervistral (Cervaero and Cervaura). 

Overview:

Cervistral’s moveset is built entirely around its unique (f)lying mechanic. (F)lying moves forgo an immediate impact (or reduce their immediate impact), instead giving the player a buff that will boost the next attack the player makes.

This allows Cervistral to stack these buffs to deal single attacks far more devastating than any other Aethermon could produce. Cervistral’s greatest weakness is the lack of immediate firepower, as a result Cervistral will often take two rounds to defeat opponents that similarly leveled Aethermon might defeat in a single round. 

Aethermon Ability

“Gain +2/3/4 Defense when at least 1 (f)lying buff is active”

Cervistral’s Aethermon ability somewhat offsets its weakness of engaging in longer battles by applying a defensive buff while preparing for its larger attacks.

Signature Battle Moves “Swoop, Stafe, Winged Attack, Aerial Assault”

“Deal 2/4/6/8 damage, (F)lying Buff: add 2/4/6/8 to next attack”

These attacks delay some of Cervistral’s damage, but transferring this damage to a future attack allows Cervistral to maximise its value from the rest of its moveset.

2-Cost “Healing Winds”

“(F)lying Buff: Restore HP equal to damage dealt on next attack”

For only 2-cost, this move turns Cervistral’s next attack into a heal that scales throughout the game; with even a modest follow up this can provide great value. Importantly the use of this move will often guarantee Cervistral will end the combat on full health and read for its next battle.

3-cost “Dive”

“Deal 1 Damage, Double Damage from (f)lying buffs”

This is Cervistrals finisher. When combined with only Cervistral specific moves, this move can deliver a massive 45 damage combo over 3 turns, or 43 damage with a 37 HP heal over 4 turns.

3-cost “Barrel Roll”

“(R)eact: Discard all (f)lying buffs to increase df by 6 per buff, place battle cards back in hand”

(R)eact moves can be played out of turn, immediately before an opponent’s attack lands (1 per turn).

This move can provide Cervistral great value when discarding a relatively weak buff. But so many of Cervistral’s (F)lying buffs provide much more value than the 6 defense this move offers, often forcing players to make difficult decisions in PvP battles.

4-Cost “Aerial Maneuvers”

“(Q)uick, (F)lying Buff: Deal 10 damage on next attack

A vanilla 4-cost battle move will deal 10 damage – so a delayed 10 damage move doesn’t seem like an overly attractive option. However, when combined with moves such as Healing Winds it becomes a 10 damage and 10 HP recovery; or with Dive it’s a decent 2-turn 21 damage combo costing only 7 combined. 

Perhaps most significantly, this move has the (q)uick attribute, meaning this move will trigger before any other non-(q)uick move. This activates Cervistral’s Aethermon Ability before the opponent can complete their first attack, in close battles this small increase in defense can be the difference between success and defeat. 

Friendship Ability “Fly”

“+1 overworld movement (max 6)”

The ability to get between destinations faster in the overworld can provide a huge advantage; particularly with quests that benefit the first player to arrive at a destination.

===

I hope you enjoyed our first Aethermon Focus, let us know which Aethermon you want to hear about next.

Keep your eyes to the skies AetherRen

Aethermon Focus, The Fire Aethermon: Sparkitty, Matchka and Felame

Continuing our deep dives into the playable aethermon, we focus on is the Fire Aethermon Sparkitty. 

Overview:

Sparkitty’s moveset heavily utilises a card discarding mechanic. Sparkitty uses fire moves that provide much more value than their XG cost would imply, but activating these cards requires discarding additional battle cards – limiting Sparkitty’s effectiveness in longer battles.

As a result, Sparkitty may be able to defeat enemies far stronger than itself; but it will quickly expire its pool of battle moves – meaning Sparkitty will require frequent trips to Healing locations to replenish its Battle Cards.

Aethermon Ability

“Gain +2/3/4 Basic Attack”

More than any other Aethermon, Sparkitty needs to be aware of running out of Battle Cards in combat. This ability allows Sparkitty to preserve its Battle Cards, and in the case it expires all its Battle Cards still gives the Aethermon a viable offensive fallback.

Signature Battle Moves “Cinder, Burn, Torch, Incinerate”

“Deal 5/10/15/20 damage, Discard 1/1/2/2 Battle Cards”

These attacks deal more than other Aethermon’s equivalent moves. Sparkitty relies on this edge to finish easier battles in a single quickly and defeat high level opponents.

2-Cost “Smoke Screen”

“(R)eact: Discard a Battle Card, Increase Df by 5”

This defensive move is a great reference for the value of increase that accompanies discarding a move card. A similar 3-cost neutral move that doesn’t ask the player to discard a card only increases defense by 4.

3-cost “Burnout”

“Deal 10 Damage, Discard all Battle Cards”

Identical to Spakitty’s 3-deal 10 damage, except this asks the player to discard ALL battle cards instead of just one; this is normally a worse deal. Unless you’ve no battle cards to discard, then it’s a very efficient 10 damage

3-cost “Afterburner”

“Deal 2 damage for each card in your battle card discard pile”

Sparkitty’s strongest moves use 3 cards per turn (1 played and 2 discarded), combine this with cards that can be used as (r)eacts, Sparkitty can fill its discard pile very quick, making this a very strong offensive attack.

4-Cost “Phoenix FIre”

“Discard 1 Battle Card; Buff: Instead of taking lethal damage, return to 10 HP”

Sparkitty’s only recovery move not only recovers HP, but in PvP battles, if timed right can negate an opponent’s strongest attack.

Friendship Ability “Embers”

“Take an Ember Battle card” “When you discard this card deal 2 (p)ure”

This ability not only gives Sparkitty one more move to discard, but scores it an extra 2 damage in the process.

===

2 down, 6 player Aethermon to go. Looking forward to the next

Burn bright AetherRen

Aethermon Focus, The Sunstruck Aethermon: Languravi

This week we zoom in on the Sunstruck Aethermon Languravi. 

Overview:

Two abilities set Languravi aside from starting Aethermon: (1) The ability to gain extra XG – advancing Languravi players through the game faster than their peers; and (2) frequent access to (p)ure type moves (ignoring defense) – giving Languravi a strong matchup against defensive Aethermon.

Aethermon Ability

“Gain +1/2/3 XG when encountering a Special Character”

Not only does this XG allow Languravi to level faster than other players; but can pay for a crucial item such as a potion that will save the player a trip to a Healing Location.

Signature Battle Moves “Luminous Glow, Radiant Glory, Incandescent Flare, Solar Blast ”

“Deal 3/6/9/12 (p)ure damage”

While these moves offer no bonus against opponents with no defense – all bosses and many players have some level of defense. 

2-Cost “Prepared Strike”

“(R)eact: Buff: next attack gains (p)ure effect, +1df”

This move allows Languravi to add the (p)ure effect to moves that might not have the typing (most neutral moves), while adding a small amount of toughness with +1df. As a (r)eact this decision does not take a turn to play.

3-cost “Blinding Strike”

“(Q)uick: Deal 5 (p)ure Damage, Buff: Gain 2 df until you next attack”

5 (q)uick and (p)ure damage is valuable. Because of the (q)uick typing, there is a good chance the 2df will trigger on turn turns, activating before your opponent’s attack on one turn, and not dispelling until after your opponent’s next attack. 

3-cost “Enlightened”

“Gain 1XG”

This ability allows Languravi to gain extra XG from easy battles. When combined with “Blinding Strike”, it can extend the Df bonus for an additional turn.

4-Cost “Mirror Strike”

“Deal twice any damage received this round”

This has the potential to be the single most damaging move in the game. However, players should be aware that it is very ineffective in battles where Languravi is attacking first each round.

Friendship Ability “Gleaming Aura”

“Enemy attacks do not benefit from the (p)ure effect against you”

Should a Languravi player opt for a highly defensive playstyle, this ability removes the weakness to (p)ure attacks.

===

3 down, 5 player Aethermon to go. Looking forward to the next

Shine On AetherRen

Aethermon Focus, The Nature Aethermon: Eleafy

This week we take a closer look at the Nature Aethermon Eleafy. 

Overview:

Every move in Eleafy’s arsenal either applies an (e)ntangled debuff or is boosted in effectiveness based on the number of (e)ntanglements that have been applied. As these (e)ntanglements stack over a battle, Eleafy becomes incredibly powerful in drawn out conflicts.

Aethermon Ability

“Restore 2/5/8 HP after each battle”

Restoring HP without requiring the use of moves, potions or trips to Healing Spaces gives Eleafy a huge advantage in advancing through the early game.

Signature Battle Moves “Sticky Spore, Root Wrap, Vine Swarm, Thorn Lash”

“Deal 3/6/9/12 damage, Deal 1 additional damage per (e)ntanglement; debuff: (e)ntangle”

Eleafy’s signature battle moves deal decent initial damage – but more importantly they both benefit from (e)ntanglements and apply (e)ntanglements, boosting future attacks. 

2-Cost “Drain”

“Deal 1 Damage per (e)ntanglement; Restore 1 HP per (e)ntanglement”

Like many of Eleafy’s moves, initially is not an overly effective move, but if used with Eleafy’s other moves that can quickly stack (e)ntanglements this becomes a solid all-round move.

3-cost “Ironbark Hyde”

“(R)eact: Increase Defense by 2 per (e)ntanglement”

Another powerful move late in battles; it is worth noting with only two (e)ntanglements this move becomes identical to a 3-cost neutral move.

3-cost “Shred”

“Remove all (e)ntanglements, deal 3 damage per (e)ntanglement removed”

This can be a devastating finishing move. Be careful, if an Aethermon survives this attack Eleafy will lose the benefit of the (e)ntanglements shredded.

4-Cost “Amber Trap”

“(R)eact: Debuff: You’ve been (e)ntangled. Twice!”

This move applies 2 (e)ntanglements, boosting Eleafy’s moves from the very first round of combat (reacts are played immediately before an opponent’s attack). 

Friendship Ability “Trunk”

“Basic attack deals +1 damage per (e)entanglement”

This passive ability ensures that Eleafy will not exhaust itself in combat so long has enough (e)ntanglements have been applied

===

4 down, 4 player Aethermon to go. See you at the next

Breathe it in AetherRen

Aethermon Focus, The Moonlit Aethermon: Velvenny

This week we key in on the Moonlit Aethermon Velvenny. 

Overview:

More than any other starter Aethermon, Velvenny is a healer. Every unique move available to Velvenny either restores HP, or otherwise helps Velvenny get Velvenny back into fighting form.

Aethermon Ability

“Learn a random 2/3/4 cost  neutral move”

While Velvenny mightn’t have the most powerful offensive moveset, at each evolutionary tier Velvenny gets a random (progressively more powerful) move which provides both longevity in a fight and produces additional offensive variety.

Signature Battle Moves “Moon Dust, Moon Light, Moon Shine, Moon Beam”

“Deal 3/6/9/12 damage, Restore 1/2/3/4 HP”

Both dealing damage and restoring HP in a single move often allows Velvenny to end battles on or close to maximum HP, giving Velvenny an edge in future fights.

2-Cost “Blessing of Artemis”

“Buff: Restore full HP after battle”

In the cases where Velvenny’s signature moves can’t ensure full HP before the next fight, this move does the job. This move however costs an entire turn in battle without helping Velvenny win the battle – this move is best used when at low HP in situations where Velvenny nevertheless has a strong advantage.

3-cost “Luna Light”

“Deal 8 Damage or restore 8 HP”

A blank damage dealing 3 cost move would deal 8 damage; a blanke restore HP move would restore 8 HP – this move can be either.

3-cost “Moon Guard”

“(R)eact: Opponent’s attack is not (q)uick or (p)ure, you may remove a of buffs or debuffs from play”

This move can be a lifesaver in a pinch. An opponent may be relying on an attack’s (p)ure or (q)uick typing to clinche a battle, removing that advantage that can mess up their plans. Similarly, many Aethermon rely on applying buffs or debuffs, the ability to remove one as a (r)eact is devastating. 

4-Cost “Eclipse”

“Restore all HP lost this turn, then deal that much damage”

This move can completely negate an opponent’s attack and turn it around on them, turning the tide of most fights. However its not much use if you use it first…

Friendship Ability “Well of the stars”

“Only receive 1 defeat token”

When players are defeated, rather than missing turns or losing resources they continue on their adventure, but are given 2 defeat tokens which must be removed instead of gaining XG. While carrying a defeat token a player cannot complete quests, fight other players, fight bosses or level up. This ability halves that burden.

===

More than halfway there only 3 player Aethermon to go.

Reach for the stars AetherRen

Aethermon Focus, The Thunder Aethermon: Raivalp

In this week’s Aethermon Focus we discuss the Thunder Aethermon Raivalp. 

Overview:

With a combination of (q)uick and (r)eact moves, Raivalp finds victory by hitting first and more frequently than other aethermon – often finishing a battle without taking any damage. This is particularly important to Raivalp as several Thunder abilities receive a bonus at full HP.

Raivalp however does not have access to many hard hitting or (p)ure type moves, leading to a poor match up against opponents with a strong defense value.

Aethermon Ability

“+1/2/3 Df when at full HP”

Raivalp is somewhat light on defensive moves, but the small defensive boost at full HP offsets this in the early game.

Signature Battle Moves “Zap, Shock, Jolt, Bolt”

“(Q)uick, Deal 3/6/9/12 damage”

Acting first is the cornerstone of Raivalp’s battle strategy.

2-Cost “First strike”

“(Q)uick, If at full HP deal 7”

A highly efficient damaging attack, a blank 2-cost attack would deal 6 damage, to deal 7 with the (q)uick modifier is incredibly powerful. However the drawback of only being used at full HP can be severely limiting.

3-cost “Lightning fast”

“Buff: your (q)uick moves deal +2 damage and activate before opponent’s (q)uick moves”

Against most opponents this is only a small damage bonus, generally not worth the turn in combat it cost. However against opponents relying on (q)uick moves, this will often give Raivalp back the turn this moves costs by negating the opponents (q)uick moves – making this a hugely valuable +2 damage per attack for free!

3-cost “Supe Speed”

“Buff: Next turn play 2 additional moves”

Playing

4-Cost “Supe Speed”

“Buff: Next turn play 2 additional moves”

Playing this move costs a turn, but eventually yields 3 – often meaning Raivalp can attack an opponent 3 times while only getting hit once! There is however some negative synergy with this move as it allows opponents a chance to eliminate Raivalp’s full HP bonuses before Raivalp gets to attack.

Friendship Ability “Quick reflexes”

“(Q)uick moves deal +1/2/3 damage when at full HP”

If this bonus is enough to ensure Raivalp’s victory with a single attack, it preserves this bonus for the next combat.

===

Only 3 player Aethermon to go.

Bring on the Thunder AetherRen

Aethermon Focus, The Water Aethermon: Aquus

In the penultimate Aethermon Focus we discuss the Water Aethermon Aquus. 

Overview:

Just as the tides ebb and flow, so does the power of Aquus’ attacks. Each of Aquuses unique abilities affects or is affected by the use of Energy Cards.

As such Aquus can employ extremely effective moves when using a 5 or 6 Energy Card.. but Aquus will not have access to these energy cards again until the 1 and 2 energy cards are played – making for significantly weaker moves.

Using Energy Cards in battle affects the availability of these cards in overworld movement. Players must be careful not to use Energy Cards in battle they may need for movement the next turn… conversely players can use Energy Cards in battle to refresh Aquus’ Energy Cards increasing overall overworld movement. 

Aethermon Ability

“Gain a 6 Energy Card”

An additional energy card not only increases the average effectiveness of Aquus’ moves, but helps in overworld movement.

Signature Battle Moves “Squirt, Water Gun, Water Cannon, Geyser”

“Play 1/2/3/4 Energy Card(s), Deal that value in damage”

6 damage as a starting attack gives Aquus the ability to defeat powerful enemies early. But Aquus will eventually have to play the weaker Energy Cards, slowing the Aethermon’s progress.

2-Cost “Elixir of life”

“Play 2 Energy Cards, restore that much HP”

This move is often used as a powerful heal, but in less threatening battles it is also an effective move option to cycle 2 less valuable Energy Cards.

3-cost “Be like Water”

“React: Play 1 Energy card, increase Defense by its value”

Another defensive move. As a (r)eact, it can be used to cycle an Energy Card without taking a turn!

3-cost “Rising Tide”

“Buff: Your Energy Cards count as 5 value”

This is particularly useful in longer battles or when Aquus is looking at a hand of small value Energy Cards. If boosting the 1,2,3 and 4 energy cards (such as would be used in a single move like Geyser), this buff is worth 10 Energy!

4-Cost “Tidal Strike”

“Discard 1 Energy Card, then Play 2 Energy Cards, Deal their value in damage”

Identical to the 3-cost Water Gun, except this allows the player to discard a low value Energy Card, negating the need to play it before cycling back to the high value cards.

Friendship Ability “Fresh Spring”

“Refresh Energy Cards when visiting a Healing Location”

This ability again circumvents Aquus’ weakness of needing to play low value Energy Cards.

===

Next week we look at the last  player Aethermon, the defense orientated Batuursa.

Stay Fresh AetherRen

Aethermon Focus, The Earth Aethermon: Batuursa

In our final Aethermon Focus we look at Earth Aethermon Batuursa. 

Overview:

Batuursa may not hit as hard as the other starting Aethermon, but Batuursa takes a hit like none other. Batuursa supplements this longevity with moves that redraw used moves; cementing Batuursa’s title as the king of the slugfest.

Aethermon Ability

“+1/2/3 Defense”

Reducing incoming damage is the foundation of Batuursa’s playstyle.

Signature Battle Moves “Rockfall, Rockslide, Landslide, Avalanche”

“Deal 3/6/9/12 Damage, Buff: increase df by 1/2/3/4 next attack”

Similar to Velvenny’s signature move, this move deals damage while defending Batuursa.

2-Cost “Dig”

“Buff: Draw all OTHER discarded moves after combat”

Players typically need to visit recovery centers when their HP is depleted, or they exhaust their move set. This turns easy encounters into an opportunity to set up for future battles. When combined with a potion, this move can avoid detours to the recovery centers. 

3-cost “Hibernate”

“Draw a random discarded move card, Buff: +4 Defense against next attack”

Batuursa often won’t be equipped with multiple powerful offensive moves; but if this move is timed well, Batuursa can use a single powerful attack twice in the same battle. The +4 defence can be useful for triggering “Land Mine”

3-cost “Land Mind”

“Buff: If an attack’s damage is reduced to 0 damage, discard this and deal 15 damage”

If Batuursa can stack enough defense, 15 damage on a 3 cost move is incredibly effective. In long fights this often triggers by default as opponents are forced to resort to their basic attack. 

4-Cost “Terraform”

“Buff +2 Df”

Simple defense buff, when combined with Batuursas defense from Aethermon Ability, this will often provide enough defense to passively negate the opponent’s attack.

Friendship Ability “Diamond Skin”

“Whenever an opponent’s attack is reduced to 0 damage, deal 1 (p)ure damage”

Batuursa turns defense into offense.

===

That is it for the starters… for now… back to our usual programming next week

Rock on AetherRen

Keep your eyes to the sky AetherRen

Burn Bright AetherRen

Stay Hydrated AetherRen

Rock on AetherRen

Stay Shiny AetherRen

Keep it natural AetherRen

Bring the Thunder AetherRen

Own the Night AetherREn

12 Motivations nick yee

Action

Destruction – Boom, no guns but there are lots of battles, though the game does allow for a very passive play 

Excitment – fast paced, real time. Not board games

Social

Competition – Duels, etc. Winning chapter 1

Community – Co op team building, player interaction ch2

Mastery

Challenge – DIfficulty – we awesomely let people modify this

Strategy – planning ahead, lots of choices (as opposed to reacting and reflexes)

Achievement

Completion – do all the things – task orientated. Not a lot 

Power – Story of Progression, start weak get strong… thats this game

Immersion – being part of the world

Fantasy – world, lore, history we have this

Story – Characters and arcs

Creatvity

Design – customisation. Do this in the form of unique character builds not skins

Discovery – Explore changing mechanics… we definitely do that. Integrated tutorial. Set pieces. Secrets. Unexpected combos

d

Sometimes we make mistakes

• There is an adage in game design circles “10 hours of theory crafting is equal to about 1 hour of playtesting”
  • I’m not sure how true that is… 
• There was about 2 months between Aethermon’s conception and its first playtest
  • In that time I theory crafted balance between the classes like no body’s business
  • Each class competed in a round robin against each other at lvl 10
  • I tested each class against probably enemies at levels 1, 3 and 8.
  • It was beautiful, class felt unique, balanced at their level
• Then came the playtest
  • Players manage multiple resources in Aethermon; but for combat there are (usually) only two that matter. HP and available moves.
  • For the Moonlit class; there is an additional resource. 6 cards numbered 1 through 6. The majority of damage dealt by this class involved discarding one of these cards; once all these cards were discarded they could redraw their hand.
  • It only took a little bit of math to realise the average value of these cards was 3.5. It was fairly easy to balance around this number.
  • There are some inherent advantages in being able to finetune the exact damage dealt, or front/backload the damage dealt – but ultimately you’re going to be stuck with a 1 eventual.
  • Except I also included my favourite ability in the game “blink” a passive that allows players to discard a card equal to the attack damage received to avoid that damage.
  • In single simulated combat, this was only a slight advantage. Enemies always deal the same amount of damage… sure you could discard you 3 once to dodge your opponents 3 damage attack… but all their next attack would also deal 3 damage.
  • But… in an actual game, players face a series of combats. If the player vs 3 consecutive enemies dealing 1,2 and 3 damage… the player could use its 4,5,6 attacks. Discard their 1,2,3 cards, then use their 4,5 and 6 attacks again. Giving them a massive of 5, almost 50% stronger than the 3.5 I had balanced for.
• So yeah. I made a mistake.
  • I loved the blink ability, so it’s still in the game as a learnable move which players must discard to use. Increasing its cost and limiting its use.

Elemental Archetypes

• Elemental affinities are a common trope to the mon genre; and not one i had any intention of abandoning.
• The most common of which portrayl of these affinities is via the relationship beteween elements.
  • The most simple example of this is the scissors paper rock relationship between fire, water and grass in pokemon. 
  • A far more complicated example is destruction/creation relationships depicted in wuxing philosophy; each of the five elements (fire, water, wood, metal and earth) has a unique relationship with the other four: Either creating the element, destroying the element, being created by the element, or being destroyed by the element.
  • [image]
• While this was a wonderful rabbit hole to lose hours two when developing the lore for Aethermon; mechanically it was problematic.
  • In the world of Aethermon, you (mostly) get 1 aethermon, with an affinity for a single element. If elemental advantages were emphasisd it is possible that a single choice at the beginning of the game could be the most important factor in battles at the end of the game
  • This is to say nothing as the impossibility of trying to create an engaging PvP environment.
• Instead elemental affinities in Aethermon borrows more heavily from the likes of Magic the Gathering. A system where no element explicitly has an advantage over another element.
  • Instead each element is given character by associating it with unique gameplay mechanics that feel like that element.
• Tune in next week as we break down the 8 elemental affinities in aethermon

Story Evolution

• Started with pokemon tropes
• Adjusted what was necessary for gameplay
  • Remove collect them all 
• Accept limited scope, concentrate on 2 tropes
  • Team Evil (prometheans); aggressively anthropocentric worldview
  • Win championship
• To further keep the narrative tight, bring the two into a single conflict
  • Team evil is using the championship as a testing ground

Character Development

• Through a good story characters change; through a great story readers change.
• Board games typically don’t take a player through any sort of predetermined character arc.
  • But I decided why not
• The best stories include the development and changes in their protagonist. This is difficult in a board game. 
• But by breaking the game into chapters we get the option to change a players goals between play sessions.
  • In the 1st chapter players are presented with the objective of winnings the aethermon junior championship
  • But through sidequests players can learn of a greater plot unfolding around them
  • In the second chapter the evil hinted at in chapters one manifests as the ultimate goal which players must face.
  • What is beautiful about dividing the game in sections like this; is this goal change isn’t just a shift in the narrative presented to the player, but accompanies a shift from competitive mechanics to cooperative mechanics.
• In this way the player’s character’s growth mirrors the experience of the player. As the player’s character transitions from caring about winning a title to caring about caring about cooperating with their friends to save the world – The player transitions from caring about competing with their friends on the table, to cooperating to complete the new task.