Stars Below card deep-dive: The Thief

This is part two of a five-part series of articles on the design of the cards for The Shipwreck Arcana: Stars Below expansion.

Last time, we talked about The North Wind and how to make a card unique by caring about a new piece of game state. Today, we’ll talk about the second and far more interesting bit of uniqueness that underpinned the Stars Below card designs: mandatory effects, otherwise known as gold text.

This began with the following idea: could a card have a static, “always on” effect, warping the game state and the way you play while it’s out? Rather than providing information directly, when you play on it, it would provide information passively, at all times. This additional information would be mitigated by the fact that it eats up one of the four arcana card slots, giving you fewer places to play.

Some initial brainstorming lead us to what would ultimately become The Thief:

This card is surprisingly close to our initial ideas, but we learned a lot from it. For starts, “passive” cards need a way to fade, so that the game state continues to progress. That means they ideally want to siphon fates onto themselves somehow. In turn, this meant that we began exploring thresholds for “move a fate onto this card” that would convey information when you executed it.

We’re excited for everyone to try out these new “mandatory effect” cards, as they create some of the most unusual turns compared to how the base game plays. Intriguingly, we eventually found that they also give rise to the “fade cascade” which we’ll talk about in the next post.

Art from the archive: Part 1

These blog posts will feature art from various projects Matthew has done over the years.

The story: I'm a big fan of the card game Red7 by Carl Chudyk and Chris Cieslik. This art is from a custom print-and-play version I made to go along with my official copy, as an excuse to add a little theme and art to the numerical gameplay (hmm, that sounds familiar).

Drawn: 2014

Stars Below card deep-dive: The North Wind

This is part one of a five-part series of articles on the design of the cards for The Shipwreck Arcana: Stars Below expansion.

Stars Below began its inception on the drive home from Gen Con 2018, with a van full of game nerds and one question: how many more arcana cards can be designed for The Shipwreck Arcana? During the game’s initial Kickstarter run, we dug deep and exhausted our pool of ideas (several times over) while coming up with stretch goals, but a year later we were refreshed and ready to tackle the challenge anew.

What makes a good arcana card, mechanically speaking?

1. Range: It eliminates some, but not all, possibilities.

2. Context: Its value changes based on the cards around it.

3. Uniqueness: It doesn’t overlap heavily with an existing card.

4. Reliability: It’s never completely useless, and rarely a complete freebie.

Requirement #1 tends to be the easiest in a vacuum, and they get harder as you try to meet #2, #3, and especially #4. Given that we’ve already made 31 cards, Uniqueness is also a particular problem. There’s also an unspoken #5: it must fit in the text box!

So where do we start? How about with something that arcana cards have never cared about before: the “hour” pips on each fate token. This idea became The North Wind:

The key to this design is that behind the novelty, it also satisfies the other requirements, carving the number line up in a way that past cards haven’t. Because playing a 4, 5, or 6 on this card always narrows your fate down less than playing a 1, 2, or 3, it gives you some simple strategic thinking and room for optimal play.

The effect ends up being simple, yet always useful. This makes it a point of reference when you don’t play on it in favor of a more complex card. We think of these as building block cards, which are critical when someone plays on a more complex card. “Why didn’t she play on the North Wind? I guess we can rule out 7.”

It turns out that building blocks are way harder to make than complex cards, so this — along with the Musicians — proved vital during design and playtest of Stars Below.

The Shipwreck Arcana: Stars Below launches Jan 29

Update: The Kickstarter campaign for The Shipwreck Arcana: Stars Below is now live!

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We wanted to share this nice new campaign graphic and offer one last friendly reminder that The Shipwreck Arcana: Stars Below mini-expansion is coming to Kickstarter on Jan 29, 2019, at 8AM EST, along with a new print run of the game! Get your co-op deduction skills ready!

If you want to be notified by email when the campaign goes live, you can sign up for our mailing list here (we only use it to announce new Kickstarters).