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Oh yes, my mistake there! Still, even if I wanted it I would have no one to play it with on this remote little island in the Atlantic!

Finally got all my Season 1 Dreadball ready for painting. Dammit Mantic..... Well, at least I'll have till Christmas before this this gets to me. (Also, I really hope with that much lead time it will ship on schedule. Mantic I have faith in, but the other Kickstarters I've done tend to be 2 months late minimum).

Also very curious to see how the terrain aspect will work.

I dropped my pledge for early bird at 90 bucks. Jump in and get it!

-$668 so far today? People dropping out or just down from Knight to Bishop level? Looks like sparkywtf's early bird is still up for grabs.

one of the painted sets ($650) dropped out, hence the drop. these things happen...

sparkywtf, why did you drop you pledge?

Sigh, now -$773. (I know, I know, part of the usual up and down. I just want my completed elements!)

For those interested, Cavatore was on The Weekender on BoW talking about Loka. They get to it about 20 min in.

http://www.beastsofwar.com/the-weekender/weekender-alessio-cthulhu-cavatore/

 Black Nexus wrote:
sparkywtf, why did you drop you pledge?

The biggest reason is I ended up buying a big ticket item yesterday for another hobby, so the money I had for this is gone. Also I don't play chess ever pretty much so it didn't make a lot of sense to buy the game. I have plenty of other games to finish up (like dreadball!)

It is still a great looking game, just not for me.

Looks like a nice game that will be quite successfull. However, my question is "will this delay the rumored Warpath kickstarter?"

All the minis are already sculpted externally, not by Mantic. All printing of the board and rules and box is being handled externally by River Horse.

Tooling is something for China to deal with. Mantic is simply on board for organization, distribution and dispatch.

Similar to what CMoN provides for its kickstarters. Small fish partner up with a bigger fish because they can't stand out or get into FLGS stores worldwide without them.

Anyway, the upgraded rulebook stretch goal has been hit, only another 12.5k to go for the Earth set to upgrade the core game box.

Backed with a Bishop. Though I don't like the mandatory shipping. Make it a part of the payment, if it's the same for every one!

They didnt make shipping part of the plege level as those who pick up in person from the Mantic head office don't have to pay postage (see the FAQ).

yeah... And everyone would have whinged the $100 level wasn't worth it if it had been $115...

still, onwards to the Earth set

Alessio's Developer Diary: 1- The Rules


With funding secured yesterday for the LOKA Rulebook, Alessio has put together the start of a developer's diary - a mix of great blog posts and cool videos showing you the ins-and-outs of LOKA.

We kickstart this morning off with Part 1 of Alessio's focus on the Rules...

I was reading quite a few comments about the rules for Loka, and fear not, videos focussing on each of the main points of difference between Loka and chess are coming!

In the meantime, I will use this update to take you through my thinking on the rules design of Loka, which is about modularity. You see, when I was learning to play chess as a kid, I remember going through a beautiful illustrated book that taught you the moves of each piece and then had a little exercise mini-game that used only the pieces you already had learnt to use to that point.

The core rules

The core system of Loka is chess, which is why the rules for chess will be included in the rulebook. If you know the rules of chess, you know a good 80% of the rules of Loka. More importantly, you can play just that, normal chess, using the cool elementals of Loka as normal chess pieces. And I expect quite a few people are going to do just that. Alternatively, you can continue your journey and learn the next step, which I’m gonna call a ‘bolt-on’ rule. You can learn the bolt-ons one at a time, and, even more importantly, once you have learned them all, you can choose which ones to use in your games, IN ANY COMBINATION!

If you use all three bolt-ons, you are playing Loka as I envisaged it – a full fledged hybrid chess-wargame. If not, you are playing something that is more or less like chess… the choice is yours.

Bolt-on 1 – Build your army

Instead of having the fixed pieces of a chess set, you start with just the King, representing yourself, the player, and a number of points, representing the elemental energy available to the King to summon his warriors.

Each piece has a point value, based on traditional chess theory, and you can decide how to spend your points and build a different set. For example, I’m thinking 10 pts for a pawn, 90 for a queen, and so on… You can have as many p[ieces of a certain type as you want, within the limit of the points values. The only pieces I have to limit (because they are too cheap and they could fill the board!) are pawns, of which you can only have up to 12).

By using different amount of points you can have bigger or smaller games, and by having an unbalance of points between the two players, you can offset differences in skill (say I give you 1000 points and I give a chess Master 300 points… can you beat him?)

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

Chess with a points system? Hmm, my interest is piqued once more!

Chess already has a well known points system.

I'm interested and I jumped in... Not sure though if I'm going to keep my pledge or back out.

Why aren't you sure?

 AlexHolker wrote:
Chess already has a well known points system.

Oh I know about the relative value of each piece, I was in a chess club way back when! The thing that intrigued me was being able to mix and match the pieces to your own liking.

Alessio posted a new update...

seems like everyone gets a free Earth and Fire King at $50K when the Earth set is unlocked, and an additional king when Air and Ice get done.

Also put a new stretch goal for scenery expanding the value once again:

$55,000 – LOKA Scenery

War rages across the world of LOKA as mighty elemental armies invade the lands of their enemies. Whether it’s through the dark mountain passes that lead to Tushaara Castle or battling over the Great Lake of Tears, the landscape is often as dangerous and unpredictable as the warriors stood before them…


Examples of Scenery Tiles. Concept Art by Heath Foley - Design TBC.

We will be able to design and produce the LOKA Scenery and include a sheet in every pledge of Bishop ($50) and up! This card sheet will feature 8 different types of Scenery in glorious full colour artwork!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/loka-the-world-of-fantasy-chess/posts

 Catyrpelius wrote:
I'm interested and I jumped in... Not sure though if I'm going to keep my pledge or back out.

The models are nice but I'm not sure I'll actually play it.

Earth concept art from the new developer's diary...



alessio talks about the design philosophy...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/loka-the-world-of-fantasy-chess/posts/416102

Mentioned Loka to my gaming group over the weekend. Have at least 4 other people interested in playing chess, and giving the Loka variant at least a try.

----

As for the cost, I've been toying with the idea of using Reaper Miniatures to make a great chess set for the last decade, but kept putting it off due to the expense. Loka is 36 figures for $50, or $1.38 each for figures that are themed and styled together. That seems a pretty reasonable cost to me per figure considering how much alternatives cost. These also come based, so that is an additional issue, expense Iworked out as well.

Update: Concept art for the "River Horse" KS exclusive mini:



Wonderfully ridiculous.

Closing in on the $50k stretch now, shouldn't take long.

I might go in for the joke figure of Alessio on Hippo. Hopefully they have a WIP of the sculpt at some stage before the KS ends.

yeah, you don't even need to select a reward level, you can just pledge $15 (10 for the model and 5 for the shipping) and pick the model up...

sorry for the double post by just got an update through...

extra models being added to Rook and Bishop, even more being added to Knight. Turning into pretty good value for the price/model ratio.

new add-ons include a funky looking chess clock, t-Shirt and upgrade set.

There's also a new preview of the AIr queen and Ice King, as well as indication that the ice and air sets will be sooner rather than later, and that stretch goals will be listed soon...

Knight ($100): we’ll add in 8 additional models from one faction of your choice! 1 Queen, 1 Rook, 1 Knight, 1 Bishop and 4 Pawns, raising the total model count to an incredible 78 figures for passing this level!

So for $100 I get
4 complete sets,each with an extra queen
1 extra fire king
1 extra earth king
1 Queen, 1 Rook, 1 Knight, 1 Bishop and 4 Pawns of one faction, my choice.

I'm willing to bet once the air and water kingdoms make it in that they'll throw in kings for them as well.

The water Kingdom, is more ice and undead, and currently my favorite.

Are there pics up for the water kingdom now? I only see earth/fire...

Ice King


Air Queen

This just got a massive, huge boost.

They're giving away +10 free minis as soon as $50k is hit, so there's a lot of added value incoming really soon.

The extra minis are useful because Loka features an army-building system, so the extra minis help you to "max out" your options.