Clandestine Preorders

Thank You!!! From the Shadows Into the Light...
over 1 year ago – Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 01:15:43 PM

Thank You

647 of you rallied together and were intrigued by Clandestine's campaign - helping us bring Clandestine fully out of the shadows and into the light. Thanks to each and every one of YOU, Clandestine will make its way to your gaming table next year.  I continue to be eternally grateful to this community - gamers, designers, playtesters, artists, collaborators, backers, and so many others who helped turn this idea from the fall of 2019 into the product and experience it is today. Your support fuels my passion and creativity to bring thematic, challenging, and fun experiences like this to gamers' tables around the world. Thank you so much!

What's Next

Pledge Manager

The post-campaign pledge manager will launch next month in BackerKit and remain open until roughly the time manufacturing begins. During that period you'll be able to provide your shipping details and make any final payments for shipping (and where relevant, VAT or sales tax) depending on where your pledge will be shipped.

In the pledge manager you'll be able to upgrade your pledge, if desired, at the prices you saw during the campaign - even if you backed at the Initiate ($1) level while the campaign was live. You'll also have the ability to add add-ons if desired, or even additional copies of the game.

Transcendent Backers

For Transcendent backers (a special thank you!!!), I'll reach out to you soon through direct Kickstarter message to coordinate delivery of your signed Clandestine prototype.  You'll be one of the lucky few to have a playable, physical version of Clandestine while waiting for the final product to be produced and delivered. 

Play Clandestine Online

For those that are eager to try Clandestine online, a scripted version is available on Tabletop Simulator (Note: Tabletop Simulator is a paid platform - usually $20 one-time fee but sometimes Steam has it on sale).  Additionally, if you join the Brookspun Games Discord channel, I plan to use that channel to communicate and host some plays online.  

Monthly Kickstarter Updates

As for Kickstarter Updates, I'll continue to share an update at least monthly (occasionally more frequently when key timelines like the closing of the pledge manager draws near).  In the meantime, please feel free to share any questions or comments with me either here via Kickstarter comments/messages or on the Clandestine page in Board Game Geek.  I'm committed to delivering a fun, high-quality game to you and look forward to answering any and all questions you may have as I work with my manufacturing & logistics partners to get Clandestine produced and on your table in 2025.

Thank you once more for being such a wonderful and integral part of this incredible journey! May each and every one of you always be the most intriguing player at your table.

--Jason  

Blue Army ❤️ Followers! + Final Hours
over 1 year ago – Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 06:46:04 AM

As we enter the final few hours of the campaign, I couldn't think of a more perfect update than to introduce you to the fifth society in Clandestine - the Blue Army!   

If social media existed during the world of Clandestine, you can guarantee the Blue Army would have amassed epic amounts of followers! (just like all of you following and supporting Brookspun Games - who can usually be found sporting our blue polos)

Let's take a peek behind the curtain of the... Blue Army!

Make no mistake, friends - there can be no real freedom that we do not win for ourselves.  Take arms and rise up!

With the Blue Army in play, you'll likely be thrilled to see them regularly adding more followers to the board with their secrets, strengthening the available actions for everyone.   That is until you see the ease with which they're able to move those followers around the public track, thwarting your plans and positioning them in front of their own society. 

The advantages of the Blue Army include their ability to seed the game board with many more followers and to lure followers from public spaces to regularly make their Fundraise & Discover actions even stronger.  Additionally, the Blue Army has the only unique action on one of their society chambers - Revolt.  The Revolt action allows them to perform a PUBLIC regroup and then take an additional action using a public leader (and a chaos token because - they just made a whole mess of all of your public plans...).

The Blue Army has the most potential to set the overall pace of the game.  When using their secrets to add followers to the board, actions become stronger for everyone, accelerating gameplay.  With their ability to move followers around the public track pretty regularly, they're rarely stuck taking a low strength Fundraise or Discover action so they can advance well toward their Ascension needs on any given turn.

Empires have risen and fallen, and tyrants have come and gone, but the people will always remain. So says the Blue Army, a shadow regiment of soldiers, from conscripts to generals, who are working to secure the city's independence as its own sovereign state.

My favorite aspect of the Blue Army is the way they can maneuver and even add followers around the public track with regularity.  There's a great satisfaction of knowing you're unlikely to be "stuck" when you need to gather gold and there are no good Fundraise actions available or if you need just a little more strength for your Discover action to get the one relic that fits perfectly with your strategic plans.

Final Hours

Throughout the campaign I've shared many of the aspects of Clandestine's gameplay, components, and even some of the history and inspiration behind the design.  I hope these updates have given you the insight and information you've been looking for about Clandestine.

After the campaign, you'll get a rousing thank you update from me as well as a summary of what to expect over the next few months in terms of updates, pledge manager details, and other key steps between now and the time Clandestine arrives on your doorstep.  

Be sure to continue to follow along with my updates here as well as on Board Game Geek where you can participate in any rules questions, strategy analysis, or other topics that appeal to you as you await your copy and - before you know it - begin your first plays of Clandestine.  

Looking forward to pivoting into the next phase of our journey together in just a few hours...

--Jason

Custom Trays, Bone Vessel Mini, & Solo Modes
over 1 year ago – Wed, Nov 20, 2024 at 07:06:44 AM

We're in the final countdown of the campaign and I greatly appreciate every one of you who's pledged, followed along, and/or read these updates.  Today I want to share a bit more about some of the deluxe elements that are included in EVERY copy of Clandestine backed during this campaign.  Additionally, I'm excited to provide details about the solo mode for those of you (myself included) who love a game with a great solo mode.

Custom Trays

We all know that truly great deluxe games come with an excellent storage system to hold the hundreds of components and cards in place elegantly while helping to keep setup and cleanup simple!  Bryce Cook designed the fantastic trays for Legacies and I've partnered with him again (under his new company - Black Magic Inserts) to create the custom tray solution for Clandestine.

The custom trays will include:

• A main tray to keep all of the larger components neatly organized with room for sleeved Relic, Conjunction, & Solo cards
• TWO resource trays with lids to simplify the setup of shared components like Public Leaders, all Followers, Gold, Intrigue, Chaos, & Deep Alchemy Tokens
• Individual player trays with lids to hold each society's Secrets (including sleeved versions), starting tokens, Society Leaders, and Alchemy Tokens

I'll keep you apprised of the designs of these trays as they're solidified over the coming months.

Bone Vessel Mini

While I chose to go into this Kickstarter campaign with the game fully stretched, I contemplated one single stretch goal - a relic mini that could serve as a container. Ultimately, it didn't feel right to dangle a single item out there for backers that was dependent on reaching a certain level so before launching I made the decision to include the Bone Vessel Mini from the start - honoring that "fully stretched" philosophy and rewarding each and every one of you for supporting the Clandestine campaign.

In addition to my strong desire to provide you with a cool and functional mini as a thank you for backing Clandestine, the idea for the mini came from two other sources.

First, a fellow designer friend - Rob - has opined multiple times during games over the years - usually after hearing someone say "Oh, it's my turn? I thought it was still her turn...".  At that point, Rob would reliably share "You know, every game should come with something you pass to the next player when you're done with your turn." Clearly that stuck with me (because it's a great idea)!

Secondly, for much of the design of Clandestine, players would earn an energy with most actions (all but Purge & Ascend), and regardless of iconography changes, players would forget their energy half of the time.  My friend and one of the lead playtesters for Clandestine - Dave - finally asked "Why don't you just have people take energy with EVERY action."  While I had my original reasons, that made so much sense. After some quick modifications to the alchemy trades - that became a permanent rule in Clandestine.  Step 7 of the player turn (showing your turn has ended) involves taking an energy token.

Combine the two ideas above with the desire to have a mini for all backers of Clandestine and - voila - the Bone Vessel Mini was born. Finish your turn, take an energy token from the mini, pass it to the next player and the game flows along smoothly!

Solo Modes

Enjoying games with a group of people is a wonderful way to spend an evening.  Another great way to spend an evening is to enjoy a game by yourself - as a puzzle to solve or a challenge to confront.  About 30% of my personal gameplays are solo rather than with groups. I recognize the value of a high-quality solo mode in games and have assembled several "cool factors" into the solo mode for those who love the challenge of brain vs. cardboard. Those cool factors include:

• TWO solo opponent options (described below).
• SIX difficulty levels
• Easy to control opponents w/ clear and quick actions
• Use of the ascension board as a "timer"
• A solo deck showing "intent" to allow you to somewhat anticipate the solo society's plans
• Ability to insert a solo opponent into a multiplayer game for adding 2-, 3-, & 4- player challenges.

One solo opponent (the Most Holy) - places tithe tokens onto fundraise spaces which reduce the amount of Gold you're able to generate and siphons it into their society.  Additionally, it traps universal followers in its society longer - converting them into society leaders over time.

The other solo opponent (name to-be-finalized, but think government-esque) - places conservation tokens on relics, ultimately adding them to their museum which in turns, slows down the passage of followers across their sidewalk.  Additionally, they deploy inspectors into YOUR society, reducing the strength of your chamber actions and possibly preventing you from scoring specific chambers at game end.

The solo deck (which has cards removed based on the difficulty level) consists of 18 cards each with 6 pieces of information (and works for BOTH of the solo opponents).  

The items on the left side foreshadow the targets of the solo player on its next turn.  For example, on the card below, you can see the solo player will:

• Target Swords relics / ascension tiles
• Gain a chaos token
• Take an action with the Public Leader having the most strength

Given that information, you can adjust your plans knowing whether or not it's possible the solo player can....

• Ascend to the next level (given the target suit)
• Take a potential action you want (given its preferred leader)

On the solo society's turn, the next card from their deck is revealed and placed alongside the previous card so now the intent is shown with their actual action.

Testing has gone VERY smoothly on the solo mode and the next steps include:

• Finalizing the values and card distribution for each of the six difficulty levels
• Completing art and graphic design for the solo society paths & cards
• Testing and adjusting the ability to integrate these opponents into multi-player games.

I'm very excited about the way the solo mode has come to fruition and also enjoy tackling each of the opponents with the different societies, finding ways to adjust my tactics to overcome their moves and/or speed to ascension.

Thoughts & Next Update...

Are you a solo mode player? What aspects of the solo design most intrigue you?

What are do you think of the vision for the custom tray design and the bone vessel mini?

The last update during the campaign will focus on the final society, the Blue Army.  Get ready to learn about the society best suited to control the overall pace of the game.

Looking forward to sharing more as we wrap up the campaign.

--Jason

Garden Club ❤️ Gold! + Alchemy Trades
over 1 year ago – Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 06:47:34 AM

Hello again! As promised, here's the next deep dive into Clandestine's societies (#4 of 5).  Today we'll take a peek behind the curtain of the...Garden Club!

For those that watched Stella's Short & Sweet from Meeple University you got a good taste of her vision for running the Garden Club...

To be truly enlightened, one must want for nothing... and with us, you shall never want for anything money can buy.

When playing a game of Clandestine with the Garden Club, you'll quickly find the streets lined in gold.  That gold is not for anyone's taking, though, but rather gold that the Garden Club has invested from their own coffers so every time ANY player uses that part of the game, they'll be collecting on their investment from the bank.  That's right - your actions will make them rich!

The advantages of the Garden Club are straightforward in that they have the easiest access to Gold within the game.  With their ability to invest and a Fundraise space within their society chambers, the Garden Club can usually build up a quick engine for cash - allowing them to focus on all of the other aspects needed to become the most intriguing society as they passively rake in gold.

When players are new to Clandestine or looking for an "easy" society to play, the Garden Club is my recommendation.  Everyone understands the value of money.  Combine that with the fact that the first alchemy section gives you ways to regularly spend extra cash, the Garden Club can often feel like they've got the hang of things pretty early (but that doesn't mean they're the most likely to win!).

The Garden Club is a collection of businesspeople who look out for their mutual interests. While most of its members are law-abiding, the upper echelons of its hierarchy secretly control the city's black markets, and couch their criminal secrecy in layers of metaphor and superstition that has confounded even the most dogged investigators.

My favorite aspect of the Garden Club is how approachable it is for players - especially those who might be apprehensive about taking on a game like Clandestine.  The Garden Club allows less experienced players to feel smart and productive while playing whereas for experienced players, the Garden Club provides a unique challenge to find ways to use Gold (the lowest value resource in the game) to unlock ways to maximize their scoring and intrigue.

Alchemy

All societies have access to a table of Alchemy Trades (think of them as "bonus" actions or "executive" actions) allowing you to enhance your society on your turn (or even on other players' turns).

The available trades are the same for each society, however, the conversion rates vary significantly.

Each society starts with one or two alchemy tokens (with the ability to earn up to three tokens). Tokens are required to perform a trade in one of three alchemy sections (or on a conjunction if you choose one with a unique alchemy trade).  

If you want to perform MORE than one trade in an alchemy section, there are deep alchemy tokens you can acquire which will allow you to perform two (or more) trades in the same section each round.  The good news is at the start of your turns you get to retrieve any alchemy tokens you've used since your last turn.

Alchemy is one of those aspects that allow you to combo great moves while continuing to augment your society.  The ability to perform much of the alchemy on other players' turns helps to keep the pace of the game moving and reducing downtime between player turns.

The Home Stretch

As we approach the final 48 hours, now's the time to ask any questions you've been holding back.  Take advantage of this time when I'm willing to reveal more secrets!

While you're going to hear more about the solo mode and the final society (Blue Army) in my coming updates, are there other aspects of Clandestine you want me to wrestle out of the shadows and shine a light on?  Let me know in the comments!

In the meantime, stay intriguing and be ready for another update shortly...

--Jason

Weeping Masks ❤️ Chaos! + Professor Meg at BoardGameCo
over 1 year ago – Sun, Nov 17, 2024 at 03:26:24 PM

With just 4 days left in the campaign we look poised for a strong finish. In this update I'll showcase another society as well as a new preview video that was just released!

Let's take a peek behind the curtain of the...Weeping Masks!

Don the mask, discard your self, and become an instrument of vengeance.  Those who escaped the law will not escape you.

Chaos tempts players into making aggressive decisions during their plays of Clandestine and I always say "a little chaos isn't bad".  When the Weeping Masks enter the city, be prepared for the chaos to be amplified as they wield it as a tool!

The Weeping Masks' advantages include the ability to SOW chaos around the city, relic map, and other societies in ways that benefit them.  Additionally, the Weeping Masks are able to take chaos they've accumulated and turn in into Intrigue Points when they purge.  To help them handle all of that chaos, they have an extra Purge space in their society chambers.

I love introducing the societies to gamers only to see the eyes of the most harmless looking players light up when I tell them the Weeping Masks love to sow chaos throughout the game. They can't snatch that player mat from my hands fast enough!

The Weeping Masks are the society that most directly have the ability to mess with your plans.  Their secrets let them sow chaos on relics, public spaces, and even opponent's alchemy sections.  Chaos on the board makes things a bit easier for the Weeping Masks and a bit harder for their opponents.  Additionally, when an opponent takes an action (or relic) with chaos, the token moves to that player's mat and must be purged. 

Monsters walk the streets, above the law and immune to punishment. Rather than suffer this injustice, the Weeping Mask takes matters into its own hands. Its members don terrifying masks and accost the guilty, then scatter back to the undercity before their identities can be discovered. Theirs is the wrath of the common people who are denied justice, and their actions are meant to terrify: the guilty should not feel safe in this city.

Personally, the Weeping Masks have been my favorite society to watch playtesters experiment with.  You've got to approach them differently given the risks (and potential rewards) that comes from accumulating a lot of chaos.  They regularly fill their chaos track up (and yes, you can overfill it), but have to be careful with timing and placement of leaders to be sure they can clear that abundance of chaos in time to turn them from negative points to positive points.

New Preview Video - Professor Meg at BoardGameCo

We're excited to share the latest preview video for Clandestine - this time brought to you in a crisp and easily consumable format from Professor Meg over on BoardGameCo

Next Updates?

In the final days I'll share details on the two remaining factions (Garden Club & Blue Army), as well as more details on the custom trays, bone vessel mini, and the solo mode!

If there's anything you want to hear about, please add your thoughts in the comments.  

Wishing you a "chaos-free" start to your week!

--Jason