Conquest of the Fallen Lands - a BGDF connection

WOW!!
that looks Awesome!!
blatantly my favourite style art ever !
and definately - when???

WOW! Excellent. Congratulations, Josh. The game looks fantastic.

I particularly like the event cards with the b&w illustrations and the parchment background. You've certainly done a great work.

I hope the game goes well.

Seo

OutsideLime,

Awesome art work! Are the rules posted anywhere on the web?

Hello everybody,

well, I do not see any harm in posting the rules here :) So here you go. It's not the latest revision, and it lacks Josh's beautiful artwork (which is, I have to say, aboslutely amazing!), but it should be enough to figure out what the game is all about.

Everything is a little hectic right now before christmas, and I concentrate on churning out copies of the game. Once we enter the new year I plan to assume a more systematic approach: do the web site, submit the game for reviews etc. If anyone is interested in this game right now, they should be able to get it through www.unclesgames.com in a day or two.

Thanks -- Andrei

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CONQUEST OF THE FALLEN LANDS
A STRATEGY GAME OF CHIVALRY AND CONQUEST

In a faraway corner of the kingdom, these once-fertile lands have been invaded by vile hordes of monsters. Their control over the area has become complete, and they have begun to strengthen and fortify themselves for an assault on the rest of the kingdom. The king summons you and the other leaders of the most noble houses in his dominion and sets forth this grim task: Rid the Fallen Lands of the savage monsters that occupy them, win back the riches they have plundered, and return the countryside to peace!

CONTENTS

*The Fields. These are hexagonal tiles that depict the various monster forces that inhabit them. Each field also shows a large number from 1 - 12. The higher the number, the more difficult the field will be to conquer.
*A Deck of Cards. It contains Troop, Fortification, and Magic cards. These represent the assets and spells that you may deploy in your struggle to conquer the fields of the Fallen Lands.
*Follower Tokens. There are three types: Warrior, Craftsman, and Mage. These Followers are responsible for carrying out all the actions you perform on your turn.
*Coins. There are silver, gold, and platinum coins. Five silver coins are worth one gold coin. Five gold coins are worth one platinum coin. Coins are used in the game to purchase assets and abilities, and are also used to decide who wins the game!
*Color Chips. There are five colors, one for each player. Players use the chips to mark a field as their own once they have conquered it.
*A Reference Card. This large card displays all the details of the game rules for quick reference during play. Keep it face-up on the table for all to see.

SETUP

Lay down the fields in random order to form the gameboard. If you are playing with 3 players, you must use these tiles,* and the gameboard will have this shape.*
If you are playing with 4 or 5 players, you use all of the tiles,* and the Fallen Lands will have this shape.*

Shuffle the cards and place the deck face-down near the gameboard. Keep all of the Follower tokens together in a stockpile, and all of the coins together in a bank.

Each player gets all of the chips of one color, and 15 silver coins to begin the game. Each player also draws 8 cards from the deck. Cards are kept hidden in each player’s hand.

After looking at their cards, each player draws 3 Followers of their choice from the stockpile. Followers are placed face-up on the table in front of the player who controls them.

Choose who goes first, and play begins. Each player gets a turn and play moves clockwise around the table.

TURN ORDER

A player’s turn consists of the following phases, in this order:

1. Draw a Card. Take one card from the top of the deck, and add it to your hand.
2. Complete Tasks. Carry out actions using your Followers, coins, and cards. There is much more detail on this phase in the Completing Tasks section below.
3. Restore Your Followers. Return all your expanded Followers to a face-up position.
4. Hire a new Follower. If you wish, you may pay 5 silver coins to the bank and draw a new Follower token of your choice from the stockpile and add it to the table in front of you. This Follower becomes available for you to use at the beginning of your next turn.

COMPLETING TASKS

Any task you wish to complete will usually expend the efforts of one or more of your Followers. When you have expended a Follower, turn its token face-down so that you can keep track of which ones have been expended. At the end of the Complete Tasks phase of your turn, you flip all of your Followers back face-up to indicate that they are fresh and ready to complete more tasks on your NEXT turn. Some tasks cost coins as well, which you pay to the bank,

There are several types of task you may complete on your turn

a) Conquering A Field
b) Flying
c) Fortifying A Field
d) Using Magic Cards
e) Exchanging Cards
f) Recruiting Troops

You may complete any or all of the tasks you want to in whatever order you want, as many times as you want, as long as you have the available Followers, coins, and cards to do so.

Conquering A Field. You conquer a field by placing a Troop card onto it, where it will stay for the rest of the game. The following rules must be observed:

a) You may only play a Troop card if you have the correct unexpended Followers to do so, as shown on the card. For example, playing a Halberdiers card requires you to expend 2 Warriors and 1 Craftsman.

b) The sum of the Attack value of the Troop, plus the Support values of all Troops and fortifications on adjacent fields, must be equal to or greater than the difficulty level of the field. Please note that you benefit from the Support of other players’ Troops and fortifications as well as your own. This cooperation is involuntary: noblesse oblige.

c) You may only conquer fields that have not been conquered already, by any player. Each field may only contain one Troop card.

d) You may only conquer fields that are adjacent to your own previously-conquered fields, even if they were conquered earlier on the same turn. Flying (as described below) allows you to break this rule.

SPECIAL STARTING RULES: On your FIRST turn of the game, the very first field you conquer may be anywhere on the gameboard, and may NOT be adjacent to any other players’ fields. On your SECOND turn of the game, the very first field you conquer may also be anywhere, and this time it MAY be adjacent to other players’ fields. If you are unable to conquer any fields during your first or second turn ONLY, you may opt to discard your entire hand and draw 8 fresh cards from the deck.

e) Treasure! Once you have conquered a field, you must place one of your color chips on it to mark it as your own. Conquering a field also gets you a reward equal to the difficulty of the field. For example, if you conquer a field of difficulty level 6, take 6 silver coins from the bank.

Flying. You may magically fly to conquer a field on the board that is not adjacent to one of your own fields. Before flying, you must make an offering to the spirits of air; spend 7 silver coins. After this money has been spent, you may fly over ONE field for every Mage that you expend on this task. Thus, if you expend one Mage, you may conquer (using all other normal rules of conquering fields) a field that is two fields away from the nearest field you own, if you expend two Mages you may conquer a field that is three fields away, and so on.*

Fortifying A Field. You may fortify a field, and thus increase its overall Support value, by placing a Fortification card onto it. The following rules must be observed:
a) You may only play a Fortification card if you have the correct unexpended Followers to do so, as shown on the card. For example, playing a Garrison card requires you to expend 1 Craftsman.
b) You may only play Fortifications onto fields that you previously conquered with a Troop card, even if it was earlier on the same turn. Stack the cards carefully in the field so that the Support values of both cards can be clearly seen. Only one Fortification card may be played per field.

Using Magic Cards. Magic cards introduce a variety of special effects and abilities to the game which can benefit you greatly. Each Magic card requires the expenditure of one or more Mages as shown on the card. For details on when to play specific Magic cards and the effects they produce, read the text on the cards themselves.*

Exchanging Cards. You may discard a card from your hand and draw a fresh one from the deck. One Mage is expended in this task.

Recruiting Troops. You may draw 2 new cards from the deck through recruitment, but recruiting costs money. Fortunately, you can reduce the cost by expending Mages on the task. If you expend 0 Mages, it costs 7 silver coins; if you expend 1 Mage, it costs 5 silver coins; 2 Mages can do it for 3 silver coins, and 3 Mages can do it for 1 silver coin.

VICTORY

The game ends when all of the fields of the gameboard have been conquered, or if no fields are conquered for two full rounds. The game can also end by mutual agreement of all players. At this point, the king summons you all to his throne room and counts the treasure that you each have accumulated. The player with the greatest value of money is declared the Champion, and wins the game!

Hi all,

I just want to say that that game is avalable in Redmond and Bellevue Uncle's Games for 49.99. All the the other location includin Internet at www.unclesgames.com will get their stock soon, but the games are avalible for secial orders (no extra chagrge but alow and extra week to ship).

Thank You
Kirill Gil

Emxibus,

well, yes, those games are handmade, but I put a lot of effort (and money) into making sure they are as good (or even better) than manufactured.

E. g. I ordered die-cut shapes for cards and hexagons from a Seattle-based company, rippedsheets.com (those guys do amazing things for reasonable money).

Still it takes a lot of manual labor to put those games together...

I thought about it and felt compelled to post a message on why it had been so great to work with Josh. Here is why:

1. He creates great art. Ditto here.

2. Josh is a very logical guy. This is something you don't see in every graphic designer (I think it comes from playing board games :) My own background is Math, and the gap between Math and Arts can sometimes make communicating somewhat difficult (I am speaking from experience here). With Josh, however, we found understanding very quickly and were able to discuss all aspects of the game and communicate very efficiently.

2. Josh is very responsible. I could mention him staying up till 5:30 am to meet the deadline... what was also striking is that under such pressure Josh never tried to cut corners.

When only hours were left (I had my own deadlines to meet so I had to put some pressure on Josh) I suggested that the box art could be quickly compiled from existing artwork. But that was "cheating" and, instead, Josh started from scratch (well, leterally) and... that was the day he crashed at 5:30, but the box was done the way it should!

4. Josh is a nice guy overall... well, I never met him... but I guess having worked with someone is worth something!

In any case, this message is unsolicited (and I for sure don't benefit from it in any way). I honestly consider myself very lucky because I got Josh to work on my game. I hope everyone else here can benefit form me sharing my experiences.

Thanks -- Andrei

Guys,

Congrats to both of you on a very nice-looking production, it's very impressive and I hope it sells well!

I'm interested in the materials you used for the cards and the tiles. For the cards, what material are they printed onto? How do they compare to "regular" cards in terms of opaqueness, feel, shufflability, etc? For the tiles, did you buy pre-perforated cardboard as well, or is only the top layer of the tile pre-perforated? Thanks in advance for this info.

Everything looks great. Good luck with the game!

-Jeff

Wow, VERY good production value, the quality looks Great! And it brings back fond memories of my 1st D&D games. It speaks for itself: Adventure! Combat! and Treasures!

Great work to both of you! I'm really impressed:)

Ben

I think, without going into too much detail, that I spent between $2K and $3K so far. If you don't count the initial investment, each game costs me around $15, plus close to 2 hours of my time (which is my biggest concern).

Of course, with the current rate of production, I'll have to wait for a very very long time before I see any profits (if ever). The hope is that the games I produce now will break the ice and that new possibilities will present themselves.

And, honestly, what other options does one have? Suppose you have a great design on your hands. You can quickly put together a prototype and then spend your life besieging big publishers with that dirty-looking prototype, hoping they see a potential in it.

Or you can spend 50 grand or more and order the game manufactured... then stuff your garage with shrink-wrapped copies and start thinking what to do next. The latter approach has more chances for success, but risking 50 thoudsand dollars (even if you have that much) is very very scary.

I am trying to find a middle ground here. It looks like you CAN produce very professionally-looking games without completely destroying your family's finances (although you atill have to spend a lot of money and a lot of effort). This does not guarantee success, but getting people's attention with high-quality games is much, much easier.

I wanted to say that as one of the Uncle's Games managers I will gladly put on the shelf a game that is just starting up... So let me know :-). Also for those of you who live in Seattle area, there will be a game disigner convention designed to promote and show off all the games that were never published in the area. Orgonized with the help of Uncle's games and Crossroad Mall. It will be happening on 19 and 20th of March. All big companys will be invited and all af the new designers are of course welcome, who knows you might get lucky. Please contact me if you would like more info at kirill@unclesgames.com.