Greetings from Calbria! We've got a big update here in June discussing the graphic design we've been working on, a few functional changes to the way our type system works, and when our next Kickstarter will be. Read on to get the inside scoop on Ivion's development progress!
We're currently working with graphic designer Mike Højgaard (Fog of Love) to imbue Ivion with a more minimalist user interface approach, while retaining the brutal fantasy that we know and love. Shown above are four 'product icons'—one from each of our Calbria boxes (more on that later) and one for the first product in the Ivion game system, Winterstorm. Each of these will be used to identify what products are necessary to gain certain classes and specializations, providing players with the information they need to snag the content they want as easily as possible.
Beyond that, we've completely redesigned our card format. Take a look below!
All cards on Tabletop Simulator (Winterstorm and Calbria) will be swapping to our new format as soon as it's ready and Calbria will be physically printed with it. Now, there is a lot to unpack here.
Why did we change the card format?
There were some aspects about the old format that made it difficult for new players to learn the game. Many features on the cards blended together, drawing your attention to each place instead of prioritizing what the player should focus on. The iconography didn't do a great job of 'popping', making it harder to establish what aspects are explaining aspects of the game relevant to them.
What do we like about the new format?
Because each Ivion card has so much information represented, we opted for a clean presentation, ensuring that each piece is visible where appropriate. Our new format accomplishes this well, providing a great deal of statistics in a less intimidating way.
How does this affect someone who owns Winterstorm and wants to own Calbria content?
The front (and back) of your cards will look quite a bit different from one another! You'll need sleeves to properly play both Winterstorm and Calbria archetypes in the same deck. Additionally, while this is certainly no guarantee, we're considering a reprint of Winterstorm in the future in a similar product format to Calbria, if the model is successful. If you're interested in your cards looking the same, you may be able to have that in the future!
Pictured above is Pommel Strike from Winterstorm. This card illustrations a mechanical change that Calbria is bringing. Previously, cards were divided into six different types: Instant, Travel, Ability, Aura, Attack, and Buff/Debuff. While this system was descriptive of each card's role, it was unnecessarily complex. We've trimmed this down massively and reduced each card to a single type: ability, attack, or passive.
Attacks are cards that deal damage to one or more targets.
Abilities are cards that don't deal damage to one or more targets.
Passives are cards that aren't played, instead providing passive effects.
Cards that cause a player to Travel at any time are considered Travel cards. Cards that specify they attach are considered Attach cards. These types aren't printed on the card type area itself, but rather discernible in the card's rules text.
That's it! Our old type system dictated the types of control each card as affected by, and we're leaving that unchanged—it just won't be directly visible on the card itself.
You may wonder how much this changes old Winterstorm cards, but it does surprisingly little. It makes Energize slightly better, and simplifies the types on a lot of cards. We opted for this solution because we've found that it won't hinder our design space to do so, and it's a great way to reduce the complexity that each card brings to the table.
Next up: what will these Calbrian boxes look like, and how will they work?
Introducing our new distribution model: the hero pack! (Name also a work in progress).
Calbria brings three new classes and six new specialization to Ivion, and with it, three new boxes. Each box represents a duel between two heroes, and contains the cards of their specialization as well as half of their associated class. Each will contain:
- 60 Class Cards (30 / each of two)
- 60 Specialization Cards (30 / each of two)
- 2 Ultimate Cards
- ~6 Trait Cards
- (3 or 6) Relic Cards
- 2 Reference Cards
- 3 Decklist Cards
- 2 Mechanics Cards
- Action, Power, Health, and other Tokens
- Gameplay Board
- Quickstart Guide
- Specialization Miniatures (?!)
Keep in mind that this is a work in progress content distribution! It is subject to change.
Each box will come with everything you need to play, including a board for your heroes to do battle on! While we can't say it with financial certainty, we're looking at adding high quality miniatures of the represented specializations to each box instead of standees, furthering increasing the immersion of your Ivion experience!
For players seeking to complete their collection, buying each box of Calbria will perfectly complete your collection, providing no extra copies of skill or feat cards that you'll need to throw out. For new players seeking to dip their feet in instead of going all in, each box provides a quality new player experience for them to begin with, as well as provide options to change the starter decks.
Our original plan didn't include overhauling the graphic design to the extent that we did, but we're glad that we followed through with it and took the time to make Ivion as good as it could possibly be. We're proud of what we've accomplished so far, and we're certain that the product coming into your hands will be one you'll be proud of owning.
Because of this, we're pushing our projected Kickstarter date back to sometime in Q3 2019. We've still got a lot of work to do on the board, our marketing plan, various back-end functionality and what we can accomplish with the funds we have currently. As the famous Shigeru Miyamoto once said, "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." Thank you for your patience!
The design of Calbria is more or less complete. We're likely to see some problematic cards continue to change as we experiment with their designs, but nothing major is planned to change the content. We're happy about the innovations we've made in making Ivion gameplay even better, and we're excited to get it into your hands to see for yourself.
That's about it! Thank you for joining us in this adventure as we march towards releasing Calbria. It's hard to describe how excited we are about this project, and the potential of bringing it to your doorstep. We hope you'll continue to support us in this crazy ride!