Dark Souls Boardgame by Steamforged Games - Kickstarter NOW LIVE!

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**Deadshot**

MOD EDIT:

LINK TO KICKSTARTER:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/steamforged/dark-soulstm-the-board-game?ref=nav_search

Didn't see this anywhere yet

http://steamforged.com/news-dark-souls-develop/

STEAMFORGED GAMES TO DEVELOP
DARK SOULS BOARD GAME

Steamforged Games is proud to announce we will be working with Bandai Namco Entertainment, developing an exciting board game for the Dark Souls universe.

As Dark Souls fans, we could not be more excited to be given the honour of developing a board game that embraces everything that makes Dark Souls the deep, compelling game experience that it is.

The Dark Souls board game will be launched on Kickstarter during April 2016.

Not much info but one to keep an eye on...I know my wallet is hiding beneath my bed cowering in fear right now.

12 April 2016

Nostromodamus wrote:
Some info via Beasts of War:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/dark-souls/board-game-details-revealed/

And via Facebook:

"Further to the exciting announcement we made last week, it's time to share some details about the upcoming Dark Souls board game.
Designed from the ground up, the Dark Souls board game is a brutally hard exploration miniatures game for 1-4 players. Prepare to die. Because this will be the hardest board game you have ever played.
Featuring an exciting "fast setup, long reveal" mechanic that gets you into the game faster and builds the location as you explore. The sense of danger is palpable as you discover new locations and the monsters that inhabit these dark places. The core combat mechanic and enemy behavior system forces deep strategic play and clever management of stamina to survive.
The game will ship with numerous boss and mini-boss encounters, and as mentioned above, will utilize an innovative behavior mechanic that will mean no two encounters are ever the same, thus giving the game near infinite replayability.
Using our advanced miniatures pipeline and working with one of the finest board game manufacturers in the world, the quality and detail in the miniatures will be world class. As Dark Souls fans, and with the entirety of the Dark Souls universe available to us, one of the hardest decision has been to narrow down which enemies and bosses to include in the core game. We wanted to be sure to use both old favorites as well as new enemies from Dark Souls 3.
We are pleased to reveal that one of the boss fights included in the core game will be the Dragon Slayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough.
From the start of this project, Steamforged Games has worked closely with the team at BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment; Dark Souls fans can be sure that this board game will give an experience that captures the very essence of the original video games.
We launch the Kickstarter project on the 19th April."

**Nostromodamus**

I've been repeatedly trying to find info on this for days, but nothing yet other than the announcement.

I seriously hope it wasn't an April Fool's joke...

**Sinful Hero**

Wouldn't this just be your basic dungeon-crawler that just resets your equipment and such to zero every time you die?

**infinite_array**

There was a little talk about this down in the board games subforum.

I'm certainly interested, especially since it's basically come out of no-where that Bandai Namco went with Steamforged, of all companies, instead of someone like Gale Force 9 or CMoN. Maybe the Japanese Guild Ball scene is spreading quickly?

There's already a pretty successful board game in the market that captures the feel of the Souls games pretty well, in the form of Kingdom Death. If Steamforged can do the same, with a somewhat less sexualized theme and for less money, then they may have a winner. At least we know they're pretty dedicated to making good rules, and producing good miniautres.

Sinful Hero wrote:
Wouldn't this just be your basic dungeon-crawler that just resets your equipment and such to zero every time you die?

Well, you don't lose your equipment in the Souls series when you die...

In fact, I wonder if they'll do something like in Dark Souls, where you need to store and use Humanity as a resource, or Dark Souls 2, where dying decreases your health, which can be restored with Humanity.

**Nostromodamus**

Sinful Hero wrote:
Wouldn't this just be your basic dungeon-crawler that just resets your equipment and such to zero every time you die?

Probably will require you to punch yourself in the balls every turn too.

**Hanskrampf**

Read the rumours on a kickstarter comment page a few days ago. Very intrigued. But yeah, not much info yet.

**highlord tamburlaine**

Curious to see how this develops.

There's also that Bloodbourne card game/ deckbuilder (?) that Eric Lang is developing for CMON too.

We'll see if it brings anything new to the table that games like Kingdom Death and Darklight: Memento Mori haven't/ won't already have done by the time it sees release.

**Nostromodamus**

highlord tamburlaine wrote:

We'll see if it brings anything new to the table that games like Kingdom Death and Darklight: Memento Mori haven't/ won't already have done by the time it sees release.

If nothing else, I hope for some Siegmeyer and Solaire minis

**Barzam**

I'm surprised Bandai isn't just doing it themselves. They certainly have the capability.

**infinite_array**

Nostromodamus wrote:
highlord tamburlaine wrote:

We'll see if it brings anything new to the table that games like Kingdom Death and Darklight: Memento Mori haven't/ won't already have done by the time it sees release.

If nothing else, I hope for some Siegmeyer and Solaire minis

Oh yeah! Iron & Sun set, Catarina set, Favor set, Black Iron set, Elite Knight set, all the good stuff. I want a Havel mini!

**highlord tamburlaine**

I agree, it's odd that Bandai doesn't just do it themselves. Then again, why use their resources when someone else can do all the legwork, all of us can pay for it, and they can just rake in the cash?

So many potentially awesome figures that could come out of this though...

Nito, Gwynn's Knights, the Gaping Dragon, the Black Knights... hell, just about every basic enemy!

I'm sure Solaire is a given.

In a perfect world we'd see Kingdom Death style armor kits to mix and match gear.

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

Nostromodamus wrote:
highlord tamburlaine wrote:

We'll see if it brings anything new to the table that games like Kingdom Death and Darklight: Memento Mori haven't/ won't already have done by the time it sees release.

If nothing else, I hope for some Siegmeyer and Solaire minis

Praise the sun!

I will try to get you guys some good info shortly. I actually had lunch with Miyazaki-san not too long ago and this was one of the topics we discussed. As I mentioned in the Darklight thread, Miyazaki-san is a huge fan of old-school fantasy, DnD, and miniatures (especially Heroquest and Warhammer Quest). Unlike a lot of licensed stuff, he will probably ensure that this keeps to the things he likes and built the IP around.

**highlord tamburlaine**

So if I'm understanding, and not just putting my own hopes and dreams into this, is that you're saying is Miyazaki is going to have some input into this?

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

highlord tamburlaine wrote:
So if I'm understanding, and not just putting my own hopes and dreams into this, is that you're saying is Miyazaki is going to have some input into this?

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

Miyazaki-san deplores the idea of having ZERO input into something he has created. The extent of that contribution varies greatly on his time demands (and right now he is deep into pre-production of a game I really can't mention), which means he will probably do some approvals, but not "design" per se.

I hate to use this analog as I know its poison in the fandom, but even on Dark Souls 2, he approved certain lore/story points, etc...

**Alpharius**

I sold off all my KD:M stuff, so I'm ready to see if this one can fill that void!

**Chopxsticks**

Your thoughts on KD:M? We still havnt finished a game. Its too damn long and the rules are poorly written.

**morganfreeman**

I'm really not sure how this would even work.

The "big thing" with the Souls series is that the combat is intentionally made super clunky, which in turn makes it very strategic. Once you commit to an action (attacking, lunging, rolling, jumping) you're 'locked' into the full animation until you finish it or something makes you flinch; usually striking a shield / wall or being hit by something. Well and the game punishes you fairly hard for dying and save points / check points come with drawbacks, but that's it.

I don't really think that any of the Dark Souls experience would translate well to a TT environment. Implementing some version of the resource lost / death punishment system would actually make things easier in the long run, given most RPGs just consider death-death and tell you to reroll. The combat being all dice throws / DM narration means that the gimmicks which define it would be impossible to replicate. At best you'd get something akin to early-characters in Dark (Failure) Heresy where you're throwing d100 at things you barely have the stats for, leaving you with about a 60% chance to accidentally hang yourself every time you tie a knot.

So basically the only way I can even begin to imagine a functional Souls game on the TT would be re-spawning on death but losing all of your currency (souls), abysmally low success chances on most actions taken, and plenty of 'rocks fall everyone dies' death traps. Which would be a truly horrible experience, as the point of Souls games is to reward you for being patient and skillful.. Yet there's no skill to simply rolling well in a TT RPG.

**Baron Klatz**

What about if it's also about grinding, pumping up your stats and taking risks to bring down that one boss so you can get his unique weapons and armor?

It sounds pretty cool to me all the same as I'm a bit of an Dark Souls fan(atic).

I'm really excited to see any models for it as well!

**Lockark**

even if the game sucks, as long as the mini's are good is what matters to me. The crazy designs in Dark souls is amazing, and would love to have mini's of the heros and monsters to use in other games lol.

**Brother SRM**

Color me interested, I adore Dark Souls.

**Stormwall**

Praise the sun!

**Baron Klatz**

Lockark wrote:
even if the game sucks, as long as the mini's are good is what matters to me. The crazy designs in Dark souls is amazing, and would love to have mini's of the heros and monsters to use in other games lol.

My thoughts exactly!

Though some kitbash creativity can go a long way like this player shows.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1148051191882353&id=100000324490146&set=p.1148051191882353&source=47

**JonWebb**

I'm certainly interested, especially since it's basically come out of no-where that Bandai Namco went with Steamforged, of all companies, instead of someone like Gale Force 9 or CMoN. Maybe the Japanese Guild Ball scene is spreading quickly?

I'd hazard a guess it's due to Mat and his contacts.

Mat is an ex computer game guy, worked for Ninja theory on stuff like enslaved and DmC, before almost being poached by Capcom.

So, he knows people for sure.

The art guy from Guildball is a concept artist for games for sure.

**Binabik15**

Interesting.

The Guild Ball models aren't exactly my favourite sculpts (though I have 4 teams feom the KS ...), but they're good with the rest, so I'm interested. Maybe if the campaign runs into May or lets ua late pledge and has a good offer. Without the crazy shipping prices SDE and CMON suddenly have.

**infinite_array**

Who's willing to bet that the Kickstarter will begin on the 12th (the same day that Dark Souls 3 sees worldwide release)?

**highlord tamburlaine**

If it starts the 12th, I would have expected a bit more hype leading up to it.

I wonder just how they're going to have a Souls game in board game form, what with all the Invasions, random deaths, interconnected levels....

**Da Boss**

I will be interested to see what the game is about. Steamforged are a minis company right? So I expect minis. I might well pick it up then. Just played the game and the monster design is amazing.

**Jehan-reznor**

Alpharius wrote:
I sold off all my KD:M stuff, so I'm ready to see if this one can fill that void!

Heresy!

I wonder how they will implement the constant dying in the boardgame.

**RoninXiC**

Rules are just four lines
1. place your victim \hero on the board.
2. place a Monster of your choice next to your hero.
3. the Monster goes first and kills your hero.
4. Reset the board to step 1.

**Sidstyler**

...sounds like someone wasn't very good at Dark Souls then.

But yeah, I don't see how Dark Souls could be recreated "faithfully" on the tabletop. Reminds me of how people keep trying to make tabletop MOBAs...it doesn't really work, and it's probably better left alone as a video game.

If it means cool Dark Souls models though then feth it!