Let’s build a board game!
Avast me hearties!
Thank you for checking out this developer blog for Tails of Adventure: The Curse of Count Catula, a brand new dungeon crawl board game from the makers of Club Penguin! Each week we’ll discuss an aspect of the game, like the components, the rules, behind the scenes stuff, etc. This week I’ll introduce who we are, and what this game is all about!
We’re two twin brothers! I’m Gord, and my brother, who is diligently drawing dungeon-dwelling denizens right now, is Chris! We’ve been working in games since 2006, our biggest project was Club Penguin from 2006-2018 where we worked on room art, character design, spy adventures - but perhaps what we enjoyed the most was building the monthly special events, especially when it was Halloween, our favorite holiday! It’s certainly no coincidence that this board game features skeletons, zombies and vampires!
We’ve always enjoyed multiplayer games, particularly when there was room for player expression and creativity! Games like Warhammer opened our eyes to fantasy worlds where we could invent our own heroes and stretch our artistic muscles by painting miniatures and building battlefield scenery. Later when our friends taught us D&D we were delighted with the teamwork and collaborative nature of the game – and in turn, we immediately got them playing with miniatures and model terrain. They enjoyed how it inherently brought tactical depth to combat encounters and increased the immersion of dungeon exploration.
Avast me hearties!
I‘ll be straight with ye, I’m a little hesitant to share this work because it’s still using really sketchy art – but I also think it’s pretty neat, so let’s share away!
Getting immersive, 3D terrain for the board game has been an important goal from the start. We want the terrain to be easy to build, hold together without any glue, and look great! To get things started we begin with a paper prototype!
Tales of Adventure is a love letter to the enduring appeal of tabletop adventure gaming. Each session is a new adventure that builds upon the previous ones. The rules booklet is short and intuitive, (it is currently only 24 pages long, and a lot of that is pictures!) and those rules cover everything from exploring dungeons and fighting monsters, to shopping for new equipment, and leveling up/learning new skills! We want the same level of immersion as a miniatures wargame, but without the grueling hours of painting miniatures and building model terrain which is why we’re using colored standees for all the characters (no painting required!) and 3D punchboard terrain that quickly slots together.
Concept Art: Kittenstein Boss Room
From the opportunistic rogue to the wildly destructive mage, each hero has a distinct playstyle. Teamwork and clever battlefield tactics are essential for ensuring victory. Will you push a monster into the blast radius of your teammate’s fireball, or will you and your buddy get stabbed due to poor positioning?
The adventure booklet (separate from the rules) will have a sequential series of adventure maps detailing the Curse of Count Catula storyline where players valiantly defend their homeland from the predations of a dread vampire lord. It will also include materials so you can build your own sidequests and adventures. As much as possible we want this game to be both an engaging adventure game and an exciting toolkit for players to create and share their own adventures. There’s 4 Heroes, 32 pieces of terrain, and over 70 Monsters and NPCs included in the box so there’s no end to the stories you can tell!
Stay tuned for next time where we’ll discuss some of the game’s components! We just got the proofs for some prototype furniture and we’re excited to share the results!
- Gord
a.k.a Captain Pirate
