Lockwood's Asylum

Stretch Goal #4!
over 6 years ago – Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 09:33:19 PM

Wow, we hit another stretch goal right at the last minute!

Everyone that has backed at the Lobotomized Patient level or above will receive a free, full-color PDF campaign setting for the Lockwood's Asylum RPG!

We'll go into more detail on the RPG as things come together, but we're planning for it to be a dice-based, narrative-driven experience. Such excitement!

We're also adding two more Horrors to the base game. At the moment, we only have our questionable MS Paint placeholder art for these cards, but as soon as the finished art arrives, you'll be the first to see it!

Let's take a look at these new Horrors:

I guess we have a better idea about what might have been in that tome that Lockwood found...

The Tattered King is a brutal Horror that quickly erodes the sanity of everyone in the asylum, which is represented by the Allies in your deck becoming permanently, irrevocable insane (to the point where they just run off screaming into the darkened halls of the asylum). You can shed a bit of blood as an offering to the terrible entity in order to keep a valuable Ally around, but that builds up quick, which forces everyone to make some tough decisions about how much they like their friends.

Worse yet, the Tattered King doesn't leave if you ignore it. It just shuffles back and forth between rooms until someone brings it down. Even then, its punishing Slain effect ensures that your next turn probably isn't going to be a good one.

 In contrast to the terrible, cosmic horror of the Tattered King, the Mirror's Secret is a much more personal sort of evil. It haunts the mirrors of the asylum, waiting for a victim to provide it with a body in the form of a reflection. Then the reflection climbs out of the mirror and stalks its "parent."

In the game, this is represented with the ability to replace any Ally you might have recruited. That Helpful Nurse? Actually a murderous reflection. The Skulking Janitor? Murder reflection.

Fortunately, if you can't kill the Mirror's Secret, it goes right back on top of your deck, ready to be drawn into your hand at the end of your turn so that you can spread its misery around to anyone that recruits an Ally before your next Threat Phase.

The Home Stretch!
over 6 years ago – Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 10:29:02 PM

We're down to the last twenty hours of the campaign!

It's been really great to see the support of our backers over this past month. It's really overwhelming to watch a project like this come together, and we just want to say thank you to all of our backers. We appreciate your support so much!

We've polished up the solitaire game rules to a place we're happy with, so those will be included in the rules for the base game. There's even some scalable difficulty involved so that you can make things harder if you feel like you want more of a challenge!

We're really hoping that we hit our next stretch goal before the campaign closes. Can we make an RPG setting out of this? Let's find out!

Stretch Goal #3 - Seeds of Evil
over 6 years ago – Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 11:29:39 PM

We've reached our third stretch goal! Woot!

A copy of the Seeds of Evil expansion will now be added to every copy of Lockwood's Asylum that is sent out as a result of this Kickstarter campaign.

The Seeds of Evil expansion explores a meteor shower that brings the extraterrestrial Garluche Plant to the asylum. It includes 3 Allies, 3 Monsters, 2 Horrors, and a whole bunch of Podlings (so much so that we're increasing the expansion's size in order to make sure that everyone has enough Podlings to make full use of them).

Podlings are the human-shaped seeds pods of the Garluche Plant. If you've seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Day of the Triffids, you've got a good idea about what's going on here.

We'll take a closer look at Seeds of Evil as card mechanics begin to solidify a bit more, but we're really excited for the opportunities this expansion offers!

Quick Update - Malevolent Kitsune and Eye of Shal'tcha Art
over 6 years ago – Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 10:58:57 PM

Hey everyone!  We're still recovering from turkey-feasting, but we wanted to take a moment to show you the finished art for the Malevolent Kitsune and the Eye of Shal'tcha.

We talked about these two Horrors when they were first unlocked, so without further ado, here you go:

Happy Feasting!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 12:25:31 AM

We here in the US are preparing for Thanksgiving, so to everyone out there - whether domestic or foreign - we hope that you have a good weekend filled with lots of good food!

Speaking of food... cannibalism!

The patients of the Lakeshore Asylum might not get turkey dinners for the holiday, but that doesn't mean that they don't appreciate good food. The Roaming Cannibal certainly isn't all that picky about his meals, but how does that translate to the tabletop?

Mostly by eating people! When the Roaming Cannibal shows up in your room, he makes a beeline for the unmoving Allies in your discard pile. You can fight him off and get bitten in the process, or you can just keep a safe distance and let the cannibal completely devour your erstwhile friend.

They were probably dead before he started eating them, right?

Worst yet, if an Ally gets killed in front of him, the Roaming Cannibal hangs around in the hopes of getting another free meal. Some people just don't know how to be thankful for what they have!