Lockwood's Asylum

Callous Nurse & Skulking Janitor
over 6 years ago – Fri, Nov 17, 2017 at 11:25:42 PM

Happy Friday!

The weekend is finally here, and we're celebrating with some new art, courtesy of David Romero!

This lovely lady is the Callous Nurse. As you can see, she takes her job very seriously.

As one of the more expensive Monster cards, this nurse...

...oh, right, she's an Ally.

Well then! It's always good to have an experienced surgeon on one's team, eh?

The Callous nurse is on the expensive side, as far as Allies go, but it's easy to see why. She's got some good Damage and Health on her card, and you can play her from your hand to put the topmost Ally of your Discard Pile into your Room. Plus, doing so lets you draw a card! Whatever flaws she might have, this nurse is quite efficient.

Perhaps more importantly, her Survive effect allows you to tap into some of the Callous Nurse's indifference toward human life by wounding another player. If you're able to recruit all three Callous Nurses into your Deck, they can be quite the vicious little damaging machine.

All of those brain removals and stabbings leave a mess, however, and someone has to clean that mess up. Enter the Skulking Janitor!

  Some messes are worse than others, it seems.  @___@

Let's take a look at this fellow's card:

The Skulking Janitor is a cheap Ally who does the minimal amount of work in combat. He can't really take much in the way of punishment, and his mop isn't all that effective against monsters.

Where the Skulking Janitor truly shines is his ability to manipulate the cast-off cards in the players' Discard Piles. Whether it's moving that Horror that you had to deal with last turn to another player's Discard Pile or just stealing a valuable Ally from a rival, the Skulking Janitor is great at evening (or unbalancing) the odds.

As if that weren't enough, if he lives to see the end of combat, his Survive effect lets you choose a card in your Discard Pile and put it on the bottom of your deck, allowing you to cycle good Allies back into your deck that much faster.

We're only a short distance from the next Stretch Goal! Let's do this!

Alert Orderly & Playtest Video
over 6 years ago – Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 05:58:19 PM

Hey everyone!  

Today we're taking a look at the Alert Orderly!

Here's the full art piece:

Alright, so... maybe he's not quite as alert as probably should be, given the circumstances. He's got a pipe, though, so he at least has a fighting chance against whatever is sneaking up on him.... right?

~ awkward silence ~

Well, let's take a look at his card before he ends up as monster chow!

The Alert Orderly is a very good mid-range card. He has good Damage and Health values, and he can put himself right into your Room from your hand (which is a theme that you'll find on most Orderly cards).

He's also a bit of a gamble. When he enters your Room, the Alert Orderly investigates some strange noises, prompting the player to reveal the top card of their Deck. If it's an Ally, he brings that poor soul back to the Room to help the player out.

If it's a Monster or Horror, it grabs the Alert Orderly and disappears with him into the shadows (probably amidst a whole lot of screaming and flailing).

That's certainly not ideal, but then again, that's one less Monster or Horror sitting on top of your deck, waiting to ambush you next turn. Hurray for teamwork!

Playtest Video

Speaking of things lurching out of the darkness, here's a recording of one of our playtest sessions! A number of the cards still have placeholder playtest art, and the Dr. Lockwood that pops up later in the game is an older version that was changed a few days before we played and just didn't get updated in the Vassal module.

Despite that, however, this video will let you watch a full game of Lockwood's Asylum as it plays out!

Stretch Goal #2
over 6 years ago – Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 08:45:21 PM

We've reached our second Stretch Goal!

The Eye of Shal'tcha and the Malevolent Kitsune will be added to every copy of the base game. At the moment, we only have our questionable MS Paint placeholder art for these Horrors, but as soon as the final art arrives, you'll be the first to see it!

So, without any further ado, let's take a look at these two Horrors and how they will make life difficult for the players.

When the Eye of Shal'tcha is summoned, a pall of hopelessness and lethargy settles over the asylum. In addition to really bringing down the mood, this hopelessness blanks out all Ally game text.

If you've been working on a strategy that involves a lot of Allies with beneficial Survive effects or effects that trigger when they enter your Room, the Eye of Shal'tcha brings all of that to a screeching halt.

Generally speaking, you probably want to kill the Eye of Shal'tcha right away, but if your opponents have been building decks filled with beneficial Ally effects, it might be to your benefit to let the Eye linger in your Room. It's a dangerous ploy, as the Eye will attempt to damage you ever turn, but so long as it's crammed into your Room, it blanks out everyone's Ally text.

Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is a terrible eyeball monster.

The Malevolent Kitsune is a tribute to Kitsune Sidhe, a long-time friend and one of our most devoted playtesters. On the table, the Malevolent Kitsune is a furry ball of concentrated chaos. When it shows up, the Malevolent Kitsune cloaks the asylum in mystical illusions, causing every non-Horror card in the Asylum to get shuffled together and turned face-down.

Players can purchase face-down cards as if they had a Cost of 3, but they won't know for certain just what they're purchasing... are they recruiting a desperately needed Ally, or is that a Monster that they're sending into an opponent's Room?

Worse yet, if the Malevolent Kitsune takes a personal interest in someone, it becomes even more annoying: if you don't take it down quickly, it will force you to trade hands with another player as it disappears into the shadows. If your deck is filled with Monsters and Horrors, that could be very beneficial... unless, of course, the other player was sitting on a handful of Monsters as well.

The Eye of Shal'tcha and the Malevolent Kitsune are like counterparts to the same coin: the Eye of Shal'tcha grinds everyone down to their bare essentials, while the Malevolent Kitsune ramps the quirkiness up to eleven (and then some).

The Last Girl
over 6 years ago – Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 10:53:22 AM

Hey everyone! 

We just received some new art from the ever-talented David Romero, and we wanted to share it with you! Here's the full piece:

This art is for the Final Girl. If you're not familiar with the Final Girl horror trope, it refers to the woman (often a teenager) that survives the deaths of her friends to defeat the slasher at the end of a horror film.

In our case, this poor woman is one of the asylum's patients. She hasn't quite triumphed over the terrible monsters lurking in the asylum just yet, but she's still a powerful ally to have at your side. In fact, she's one of the strongest Allies that players can acquire during the game. Let's take a look at her card!

In addition to being able to find the player just when things look darkest, the Final Girl is also capable of discarding a Monster as soon as she shows up in that player's Room. This makes her great at easily getting rid of a single powerful Monster, and when combat rolls around, she can usually handle a weaker Monster all by herself.

We'll have a look at another new art piece later this weekend. In the meantime, did you see that Lockwood's Asylum got mentioned on Bell of Lost Souls?  ~Link~

It's really amazing to see such a prolific gaming site cover our game! When we heard about it, we dropped everything and hurried over there to read (and reread, and re-reread) the article. We're hoping that Lockwood's Asylum will live up to the hype!

Funded!
over 6 years ago – Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 10:49:55 AM

We woke up this morning to find that Lockwood's Asylum had funded in the middle of the night. That seems appropriate, doesn't it?

Thank you to everyone that had faith in us and our project. It's been a tense week watching the numbers crawl up, but the feeling of relief to see the campaign go over 100%... there's just nothing like it. We really love playing Lockwood's Asylum, and now, we get to share it with all of you as well.

You made this possible!