Welcome to Spiralchain MAYSTRAVAGANZA! What is this made-up word, you ask? Why, it’s a special, month-long celebration of Spiralchain awesomeness! Why May? Well, truthfully, it’s because May is the month BEFORE heavy drafting starts on the next book in the series. It’s the calm before the storm in the world of Spiralchain writing, and that makes it the perfect time to celebrate some of the amazing things we have in the pipeline for you!
Each Sunday in May, we’ll share a new Spiralchain goodie. Whether it’s a sneak peak, an announcement, or a freebie, you can be confident that it will be something that will help expand our magnificent little universe in a new direction.
For this week’s MAYSTRAVAGANZA, may I present…
THE SPIRALCHAIN BOARD GAME (Sneak-Peak)
For the better part of two years, I have been working on a Spiralchain board game in partnership with my colleagues in Nightcandle Imaginations. The game is not quite done yet, but it is far enough along that we can start talking much more openly about it!
The game was designed to be fully cooperative–that means the players (1-8 of them) work together against the game, rather than against one another. It has a variable difficulty and currently plays in about 70 minutes with 10 minutes of setup time. Inspired by games like Pandemic, it plays out the epic quest of a group of Onusborn mystics to travel the Spiral of Worlds and collect the necessary technologies, sorceries, prophecies, and alliances to thwart the Foreverot before it spreads across the Spiral and destroys everything.
The game is 95% final in terms of mechanics, which means it is now entering the graphic design phase. Andrew Aguirre, who has provided all of the cover art for the series, is currently hard at work on designing something truly special. Don’t let my meager Microsoft Word-produced prototype fool you, this will look amazing when it is done!
As Andrew locks in art assets for the game, I hope to share more previews. When the game is complete, it will likely launch via Kickstarter and print in partnership with The Game Crafter. Before all of that, once the mechanics are 100% final, some backers of an earlier novel Kickstarter—Fatewaker, I believe–will be receiving a complimentary Print-and-Play version of the game!
OK. Enough words… let’s look at the game! Here are some shots from a game-in-progress featuring four players (A Fatewaker, a Shadowbender, a Bloodmender, and a Gatemaker) working hard to stop the Obliviates and warlords that are plaguing the eight worlds. By gathering resources, petitioning dragons, using their mystic abilities, and forging alliances, the players must defeat the Rot in its lair on Nur!
The Worlds of Jeremiah L. Schwennen 