Lockwood's Asylum

Production Update #3
almost 6 years ago – Tue, May 22, 2018 at 01:11:29 AM

We've received the production prototype from our manufacturer!

This is just a prototype, so it's not quite as polished as the final product will be (the corners are a bit rough, for example), but it's still a pretty sexy little box!

When the lid is opened, the rulebook is the first thing on the top. It sits nicely on top of the cards, as you can see here.

We're going to tweak the rulebook box a bit, since the stapling left it slightly off-center, but otherwise it looks great.

Beneath the rulebook we have...

The cards themselves!

The leftmost box is just a white stand-in box for the "Seeds of Evil" expansion box. To the far right are the cards for the core game, and between them is a cardboard separator to keep them from sliding around inside the box. If you don't plan on sleeving your cards, the divider will keep them in place without any hassle.

 If you do sleeve your cards, all of them - the core set plus the expansion - fit nicely within the box. They're in their snug enough to keep from moving around, but there's still enough give that getting them out isn't a problem. We've given our manufacturer the green light to move forward on the final production for the boxes (including the Seeds of Evil box).

The cards themselves ended up coming out a bit dark (one of the perils of a horror game), so we increased the brightness of the art to compensate for that. Fortunately, that's just a minor setback and the cards should be in final production shortly.

All in all, we're still on schedule and very happy with how things turned out!

Production Update #2
about 6 years ago – Wed, Apr 04, 2018 at 11:34:28 PM

Hey everyone!

The art is all finished and the game files are in the hands of the manufacturer! We had to tweak the card files to ensure that they would print as best as possible (which primarily just meant moving the bottom "credit line" on the cards up a slight bit), but otherwise everything is still on track.

We've been spending this week getting the print and play files together, so we're expecting to have those sent out to backers late this week or this weekend. Such excitement!

Here's a sneak peek at some of the finished art:

 I'm not sure just who the Unfortunate Visitor is waiting to see, but I doubt it's the monster behind him...

While he doesn't have much in the way of combat power, the Unfortunate Visitor is a great way to draw some quick cards at the low cost of just sending him into an opponent's Room.

Perhaps more interestingly, however, if he lives through a combat in your Room, the Unfortunate Visitor flees, dragging a card of your choice with him. This ranges from very annoying, if it's just him and an Ally that you like, or game-changing, if he lures a powerful Monster or Horror out of your Room and into an opponent's Room.

RPG Update
about 6 years ago – Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 12:03:26 AM

Hey everyone!

As we mentioned in our last update, this week we're going to talk a little bit about the RPG stretch goal.

The Lockwood's Asylum RPG (probably not the final name) is a d10-based game in which the players take on the roles of patients in the asylum. Depending upon the group and the type of story they want to tell, the players might find themselves helping another patient with a problem, trying to escape from the asylum's confining walls, or fighting over who gets the last pudding cup at the evening meal.

Each character has three Physical Attributes (Strength, Agility, and Toughness) and three Mental Attributes (Perception, Intellect, and Willpower). Each Attribute, in turn, is tied to three Skills, giving characters a total of eighteen different Skills to round out their capabilities and talents.

Since all of the patients are of dubious sanity, we decided to represent that in a few different ways. Firstly, all of the character "classes" are Disorders; a character might be Delusional or Psychotic. At the end of each session, the character advances in whichever Disorder she feels best sums up her behavior for that session, allowing her to mix and match abilities in a way that suits the unfolding story.

Secondly, every player character has as Insanity score. Before she rolls the dice to determine the results of an action, a player can choose to "Push" herself to gain a bonus on the dice roll... as well as an increase in her Insanity. If a character's Insanity gets too high, they run the risk of acting irrationally, which is never a good thing when you're fleeing from a hungry monster.

Each Disorder gives the player a way to lower her Insanity (or "Stabilize") whenever her particular form of insanity becomes an obstacle. For instance, Delusional characters stabilize when their hallucinations cause problems for the group, while Psychotics stabilize when they indulge in unnecessary acts of violence.

We've been having a lot of fun with the rules in our internal playtests, and we're really happy with how the game is shaping up. It's been growing in some very interesting ways, including a very neat thematic 'ritual magic' system that characters can tap into if they have a high enough Occult Skill. You're not going to be able to throw around magic like a full-fledged sorcerer, but the one or two Rituals you do know can still let you get up to some weird stuff... provided you can find all the necessary components, that is. 

Our focus has been upon the core gameplay rules, which have stabilized at around 24 pages or so, and it's looking like the finished bestiary is going to come in at about the same length. The Disorders chapter is hovering at around half that at the moment, so that's 60 pages or so right there, before we get into the formal character creation rules, fluff background, and starter adventure! 

This means that the RPG is turning into a bit of a larger project than anticipated, but fortunately, since it's a digital project, that doesn't end up affecting our budget at all. We'll get you updated on our progress as things continue to come together, but just so that this post isn't all text, here's a sneak peak at the Obsessed Patient:

Let us know in the comments if you have any questions, and thanks again for all your support!

Pulsating Seed Pod & Podlings
about 6 years ago – Thu, Mar 01, 2018 at 12:04:28 AM

Hey everyone!

We were planning to make this an update on the Lockwood's Asylum RPG, but we're still tweaking a few things, so that update is getting moved to next week.

In the meantime, here's some art from the Seeds of Evil expansion!

Pulsating Seed Pods don't really do anything by themselves, but they do send a steady supply of Podlings stumbling into your room every turn. if you don't take the time to smash the seed pods, you can use some of the bio-goop inside the plant to heal a few wounds, sort of like a grosser version of putting aloe on a burn, but it's still just a matter of time before more...

...Podlings show up. I probably should have seen that coming, to be honest.

Podlings are all over the place in the Seeds of Evil expansion, which is why we're giving you a few extra copies of them. Unlike most Monsters, Podlings don't go into the Asylum Deck at the start of the game; instead, they're spawned by various Monsters and Horrors. They are incredibly annoying, and left unchecked, might even overrun the entire asylum.

Production Update
about 6 years ago – Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 12:31:21 AM

Hey everyone!  We thought that we'd give you a quick update on where we're sitting for production.

At the moment, we're finalizing some graphical elements on our rulebook and box, the former of which is being edited at the moment. Ultimately, they're both more or less finished.

The cards are similarly finished, and unless something unexpected comes up, we're essentially done with the second round of playtesting. We have eleven more pieces of art to go, but they're coming in at a good pace, so we're hoping to be all finished with those by mid-March, at which point we can send things off for manufacturing.

Speaking of art, here's a glimpse at one of the recent pieces we got in, the Stalking Shadows.

And here's the card:

The Stalking Shadows is an annoyingly powerful little card, since it can wipe out the Damage of our your Allies, and if you kill it, it just goes right back on top of your Deck to bother you next turn. As it turns out, attacking the darkness doesn't always work out so great.