Fantasy Flight Games

14 Years

Published 26 July 2019 | Star Wars: Outer Rim

14 Years

A Retrospective Journal from Corey Konieczka

I started working at FFG on July 1, 2005. Before then, I had designed games as a fun hobby, so being able to do it as a career was (and still is) an unbelievable privilege. At the time, FFG had twenty or so people, and we had no idea that the company (and the hobby games industry) was about to grow in leaps and bounds.

It doesn't seem that long ago until I do math and realize that I’ve been doing this for fourteen years. While I still have much to learn, I have experienced much through my years at FFG, and I thought it might be fun to examine my career through the lens of the games I've worked on.

World of Warcraft: The Board Game – 2005

I started my career at FFG designing bosses and equipment for World of Warcraft: The Board Game. I remember spending an afternoon solo-testing boss fights that went roughly like this: roll a handful of D8s on my desk with a clatter. Record data. Scoop and repeat.

Warrior Knights – 2006

We had the rights to republish Derek Carver's Warrior Knights, and my boss wanted more than just a new coat of paint. Bruno Faiduitti and Pierre Cléquin took a stab at a redesign, and I was asked to take it even further.

When testing the game, I vividly remembered one piece of advice from Christian T. Petersen: "Your game is too short." This really caught me off guard. The game was already three hours long, and I'd been doing everything I could to shorten it. I didn't heed this advice, and when the game was released, the fan feedback was: "The game ends just when it's getting exciting." Luckily, I got to fix this in an expansion, but this greatly shaped how I evaluate feedback from others.

This was also the first time I worked with Andrew Navaro on a project. The gorgeous graphic design and cardbacks were made by the man who would one day become the head of FFG studio!

Twilight Imperium: Shattered Empire – 2006

I'm not going to talk about expansions in this article, but I have to make an exception for this one. The third edition of Twilight Imperium was the game that introduced me to Fantasy Flight Games.

Before working at FFG, my friend Gary and I created a small homebrew expansion for the game. Months later, when I applied to work at FFG, I included a copy of it with my resume. Luckily, they liked my additions, and I was hired. A year later I was given the opportunity to work on a Twilight Imperium expansion, and some of my fan content ended up in it!

While working on Shattered Empire, I vividly remember writing hilarious backstories for the new planets. I soon found out that Twilight Imperium is a serious universe, and I had to start over. In hindsight, this was pretty obvious.

Tide of Iron – 2007

My name probably shouldn't be on the box of this game. I designed a few scenarios and helped out, but I didn't design any of the core mechanics. Fun game though!

StarCraft: The Board Game – 2007

I was introduced to the StarCraft videogame at a LAN party in high school. I was hooked immediately, and I sank way too much time into that game and its awesome map editor.

Needless to say, I was over the moon when I was given the opportunity to design the board game. Christian proposed zooming out the scale of the game to show multiple planets, as well as the idea of using A Game of Thrones: The Board Game-style order tokens (but stacking them). With those mandates I dove into my first "from scratch" game design.

Looking back on it, I still like most of the individual mechanics, but holy cow, is it complicated. A 48-page rulebook? Was I crazy?

World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game – 2007

The goal was to create a simpler World of Warcraft game that could be enjoyed by both casual gamers and hobby gamers. In the end, I learned that trying to appeal to everyone meant that it appealed to no one. Except one guy. And he really liked it.

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game – 2008

I spent the next six months working on game expansions, and then came the opportunity of a lifetime: we had secured the rights to do a Battlestar Galactica board game.

After my first playtest of the game, I knew that we had something special. Instead of needing to strong arm people into playtesting my game, I had people approaching me to ask when my next playtest was. To top things off, some of these people had never even seen the show!

I think what made the game successful was not in how it recreated the events of the show, but how it made people feel. The game exudes an intoxicating mix of deception and mistrust, which was rare among board games. When you secretly look at your loyalty card and see that you're a Cylon, your heart rate immediately picks up. As much as you want to smile, groan, or shout, you have to pretend that your card is blank. It's exhilarating.

Middle-earth Quest – 2009

I was tasked with creating an asymmetric game that had one player taking on the role of Sauron and the other players embodying heroes of Middle-earth. It was a unique design challenge in that I was really designing two different games: Sauron was playing a strategy game, while the heroes were playing an adventure game. I love a challenge.

My most vivid memory for this game was spending a week at Christian's house rewriting the rulebook in his home office. I learned more about rulebooks in that week that I had in my first four years at FFG.

Space Hulk: Death Angel – 2010

The moment that sticks with me about this game was when the late Harald Bilz (in charge of our partner Heidelberg at the time), played my game and said: "It is good, but not great." He then listed the issues with the main card mechanic and how it did a poor job of capturing the theme. He was right. The original mechanic was shelved and would later find its way into the Gears of War boardgame.

I really appreciated the frank feedback, and I think it was instrumental in making this game a great success.

Runewars – 2010

Back in 1998, FFG made a fantasy take on Twilight Imperium known as Battlemist. I was tasked with making a spiritual successor that lived in our Terrinoth universe (used both in Runebound and Descent: Journeys in the Dark).

While the premise of the game was the same, the mechanics were designed from scratch. This was definitely one of my heavier designs and included everything from huge strategic battles to heroes sent on personal quests. In hindsight, it was probably trying to do too much, but perhaps that was part of the charm?

Mansions of Madness First Edition – 2011

My most vivid memory of this game was a discussion with Tim Uren that went something like this: "If we tell players to not, under any circumstance, go into the freezer, do you think they'll listen?" "Hard to say. Let's make players lose the game if they ignore the warning."

The answer is that when you tell players not to do something, it jumps to the top of their wish list. Many people died because of my curiosity, and I learned a lesson.

Rune Age – 2011

This one has a special place in my heart. It was my attempt to add direct player interaction to a deckbuilding game. While it wasn't a huge hit, it still has some dedicated fans and I'm proud of the game.

Gears of War – 2011

I had dipped my toe in the "co-op" design pool with Death Angel, but this was my first deep dive into a fully cooperative board game. I'm most proud of the AI system I designed to control the Locust enemies, and this design later became an inspiration for AI in apps like Road to Legend for Descent: Journeys in the Dark.

My favorite memory was visiting the Epic Games studio to play my prototype with the Gears of War dev team. It was great to show them my game and meet everyone, including the great Lee Perry, who would later help design a little game called Fortnite.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition – 2012

The planned amount of content in this game was staggering, with more hours of scripted playtime than I'd ever been a part of. Luckily, we had a big team (including myself, Adam Sadler, and Daniel Lovat Clark). The plan was to draw on Kevin Wilson's first edition, but to include a campaign from the start. I learned how to split up design tasks among big teams and gained a new appreciation for this style of game.

Eldritch Horror – 2013

I was tasked with building a world-spanning Lovecraftian adventure that borrowed heavily from Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson's amazing Arkham Horror Second Edition.

Nikki Valens came in halfway through the design process and asked some hard questions about this game. She was a key proponent in streamlining the mechanics to what it is today. Before that point, there were probably twice as many token types (including money tokens).

Star Wars™: Imperial Assault – 2014

A Star Wars version of Descent: Journeys in the Dark? Sign me up!

The biggest challenge with this game is that we wanted to have two distinct games in the same box: a traditional dungeon-crawling campaign and a two-player head-to-head skirmish mode. I spent most of my time working on the skirmish game, and I got to geek out and design abilities for this little-known character called Darth Vader.

Star Wars™: Rebellion – 2016

Christian was a fan of the old Rebellion video game, and he thought it would be the perfect inspiration for a board game. Although I had only played that game once growing up, I loved the idea of the game.

I focused my design on what I enjoy most about two-player games: bluffing and mindgames. It's a game about outthinking your opponent and living out Star Wars fantasies in a unique way. If you've ever wanted to blow up a planet, this game is for you.

Star Wars™: Destiny – 2016

In my youth, the Decipher Star Wars CCG was one of my favorite games, so to have an opportunity to work on a new Star Wars collectible card game was a dream come true.

Lukas Litzsinger was the lead designer on this, and it was a pleasure to work with him on this one. From the start, we knew that we wanted to use unique printed dice, and that presented a huge challenge. CCGs with dice have a notorious history, so our first goal was to find a way to integrate them in a fun and novel way. I am super proud of the end result, and I think we created a unique CCG that is engaging, fun, and accessible.

Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition – 2017

This project was weird in that I played the role of guide and overseer, while the actual development work was done by the talented Dane Beltrami. I helped identify the best parts of third edition that we wanted to keep, and I also provided ideas to try and improve an already great game system. My favorite contribution was the new trade system and how it provided even more opportunities to form and break alliances.

I could talk for hours about the development of Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition, and if you want a glimpse into this, be sure to check out the wonderful mini-documentary that Shut Up & Sit Down created.

Discover: Lands Unknown – 2018

I first pitched this game idea in 2014 as my homage to exploration and survival video games. It later was combined with Christian and Eric Lang's brilliant idea of creating a board game in which no two copies in the world are the same (the full history of which is cataloged here).

I feel like this game was a little lighter than many people expected, but I'm really proud of how it turned out, and I think it deserves a second look (especially if you haven't seen the fully cooperative rules).

Star Wars™: Outer Rim – 2019

This game is inspired by space exploration videogames from the mid ‘90s, like Wing Commander: Privateer.

My goal was to create a game that wasn't about delivering colored cubes from one space to another, and instead lean into the flavor of the universe. My fondest game memories always revolve around the people and the stories, and I think we've provided all the tools scoundrels need to tell emergent stories in the Star Wars universe.

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Looking back on fourteen years makes me realize how malleable memory can be. Did we have the concept meeting for Battlestar Galactica on a plane ride to visit Blizzard? I think so, but I'm not sure. Human memory doesn't work like a computer, it flows and rewrites itself to make sense of the world. Memory is built from impressions, feelings, and snippets of conversation—our mind fills in the gaps, but I'm never quite sure which bridges are fabricated.

I do know one thing for certain though: this long list of games are not my accomplishments; they are the accomplishments of hundreds of people. They only exist because of other designers, producers, artists, graphic designers, editors, licensors, playtesters, and more.

I was born in the right place and in the right century, and I have had the pleasure of working with wonderful people to craft fascinating games. The future beckons, and my journey continues.

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Cooperate to Survive

Published 22 January 2019 | Discover: Lands Unknown

Cooperate to Survive

Cooperative Rules for Discover: Lands Unknown Are Now Available

We first featured them on our livestream gameplay of Discover: Lands Unknown (which you can watch here), and now, they're available for you to use in your own games! The One for All Cooperative Rules for Discover: Lands Unknown are now available for download through our website (pdf, 528 KB). For a short message on these rules, here's the game's designer, Corey Konieczka!

Corey Konieczka on the Cooperative Rules for Discover: Lands Unknown

Survival can mean different things to different people, but in Discover: Lands Unknown, you're literally surviving against your environment. Whether you’re stuck on a frozen mountaintop, a blistering desert, or a remote island, you must find food and water while avoiding the dangers that lurk in the dark.

And now, you can brave these elements with your friends in a fully cooperative way. This free supplement provides new rules and victory conditions that require working together to make sure everyone survives, while removing all selfish motives and backstabbing. This option has been a widely requested feature, and I’m happy to provide it to you. Although many groups will undoubtedly prefer the game’s original rules, this variant is ideal for groups that want a team-oriented experience. It works great with new players, families, or just about anyone who likes cooperative games.

Let this be your guide in the next stage of survival,

Corey Konieczka

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FFG Live in December

Published 30 November 2018 | Arkham Horror Third Edition

FFG Live in December

Join Us for Four Gameplay Livestreams

Curious about some of the latest titles from Fantasy Flight Games? You’ll have your chance to go in-depth with some of our newest releases in four upcoming FFG livestreams—the perfect opportunity for you to learn more about these new games and come hang out with us as we play.

We’ll have four livestreams on YouTube over the next few weeks, each looking at a different title from Fantasy Flight Games: Arkham Horror Third Edition, Heroes of Terrinoth, Discover: Lands Unknown, and Cosmic Encounter. In each livestream, we’ll play an entire game, and even if you can't join us live, the streams will be archived on our channel for viewing later.

Find the dates for these FFG livestreams below! All livestreams begin at 12:00 PM Central Time.

Whether you’re curious about how a new game looks and plays, or you just want to join us for a few hours around a board game table, tune in to our YouTube channel throughout December and catch our gameplay livestreams!

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The Latest from FFG

Published 21 November 2018 | KeyForge

The Latest from FFG

Games You Might Have Missed in the Holiday Rush

The holidays are nearly upon us, and the last few months have been stacked with new releases from Fantasy Flight Games. Now, as you start picking out games for your wishlist or shopping for your loved ones, we want to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

Take a quick look at our recap of some of the hottest new games we’ve released in the last few months and complete your holiday shopping today!

Arkham Horror

The year is 1926, and it’s the height of the Roaring Twenties. Flappers dance till dawn in smoke-filled speakeasies, drinking alcohol supplied by rum runners and the mob. It’s a celebration to end all celebrations in the aftermath of the War to End All Wars. Yet a dark shadow grows in the city of Arkham. Alien entities known as Ancient Ones lurk in the emptiness beyond space and time, writhing at the thresholds between worlds. Their occult rituals must be stopped and these dread creatures must be destroyed.

Arkham Horror is a cooperative board game for one to six players who become investigators battling to defeat the servitors of the Ancient Ones. Based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, players will have to gather clues, defeat terrifying monsters, and find tools and allies to stand any hope of defeating the ancient creatures that exist just beyond the veil of our reality.

Pick up Arkham Horror at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

New California

Ah, California: sunshine, ocean breezes, and radioactive wasteland as far as the eye can see. This desolate coastal state was once a shining jewel, but since the Great War, the region known as New California has fallen into chaos. Which is great news! Where there’s chaos, there’s loot!

The New California expansion brings new quests, companions, vaults, and items to Fallout: The Board Game, letting you venture out into the wasteland as five new characters. While there, you can wander across twelve new map tiles that expand the scenarios found in the original game or head into sunny New California and visit some of the most memorable locations from throughout the Fallout series.

You can pick up New California or Fallout: The Board Game at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

Heroes of Terrinoth

Strike back at the foes of the realm in Heroes of Terrinoth! In the Free Cities, the Bloodguard sows discord, while in the Mistlands, the dead rise from their graves. Now, the realm turns its eye to you and your team of heroes in search of saviors.

In this cooperative card game of questing and adventure, one to four players take on the roles of unique heroes who must unite to face deadly villains, navigate treacherous terrain, and defend the realm to earn fame and fortune! Terrinoth needs champions—do you have what it takes?

You can find Heroes of Terrinoth at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

Discover: Lands Unknown

You awaken with a splitting headache and no idea of how you got here. The wilderness stretches in every direction, and something howls in the distance. Your quest for answers will have to wait; first, you need to survive. Will you help the others stranded here or will you save yourself at any cost?

When two to four players find themselves marooned in the harsh wilderness, you must cooperate and compete to search for water, food, and tools that will be essential to your very survival. But your adventure holds many secrets. Discover: Lands Unknown is a Unique Game, and every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown is unlike any other in the world. A mix of environments, storylines, characters, locations, items, and enemies have been engineered to tell a story unique to every copy of the game, thanks to an algorithm that ensures no two copies are alike. Your adventures will be your very own as you struggle to survive in the heart of the wild.

Pick up your own copy of Discover: Lands Unknown at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game

It is an era of sudden change and upheaval in the realm of Rokugan. Mortal schemes, natural calamities, and celestial turmoil alike have disrupted the political, military, and spiritual equilibrium of the land. Long-simmering rivalries and fresh betrayals ripple through the courts and on the battlefield. The Chrysanthemum Throne is beset by threats from without and within, and the honor of the seven Great Clans shall be put to the test. Who among the clans will prove strong enough to guide Rokugan in these tumultuous times? Will their names be lifted up beside those of the honored ancestors, or will they fall among the ranks of the empire’s most infamous villains?

This is the stage of the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying, a roleplaying experience in the world of Rokugan. If you’re new to roleplaying the Beginner Game is the perfect place to get started with advice for players and new Game Masters, and with the Core Rulebook, you can take your adventures in Rokugan to the next level with detailed options for creating your own characters!

Pick up your copy of the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Beginner Game or Core Rulebook at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

X-Wing

Enter the next era of interstellar combat in the Star Wars galaxy! In the second edition of X-Wing™, you assemble a squadron of iconic starfighters from across the Star Wars saga and engage in fast-paced, high-stakes space combat with iconic pilots such as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

With refined gameplay that focuses on the physical act of flying starships, X-Wing lets you create your own Star Wars space battles right on your tabletop. Intuitive mechanics create the tense atmosphere of a firefight while beautifully pre-painted miniatures draw you deeper into the action. Man your ships and enter the fray!

Pick up your copy of the X-Wing Core Set at your local retailer or online through our webstore, and look for the expansions of Wave II at your retailer soon!

Across the Galaxy

Step into the Star Wars saga with Across the Galaxy, a new set of boosters for Star Wars™: Destiny featuring 160 new cards!

Across the Galaxy brings the characters of Solo: A Star Wars Story to Star Wars: Destiny. Before he was a hero of the Rebellion, Han Solo was a cocky young pirate just looking for a little adventure. With a crew of like-minded individuals that includes Lando Calrissian and Tobias Beckett, the dashing young rogue finds his way to Star Wars: Destiny.

Across the Galaxy finishes the block started by Legacies and expands on its themes. You can look for plot cards with negative point values, cards that grow stronger when you spot specific characters, and new ways to upgrade some of the most famous vehicles in the galaxy.

Pick up Across the Galaxy booster packs at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

Cosmic Encounter

In the depths of space, the alien races of the Cosmos vie for control of the universe in Cosmic Encounter. Alliances form and shift from moment to moment, while cataclysmic battles send starships screaming into the warp.

This classic game of alien politics returns from the warp once more. Features 51 aliens, flare cards to boost their powers, Cosmic Combo cards with suggested pairing of aliens, 100 translucent plastic ships, a host of premium components, and tech cards that let players research and build extraordinary technological marvels.

Pick up your copy of Cosmic Encounter at your local retailer or online through our webstore!

Mother of Dragons

Cross the Narrow Sea with the Mother of Dragons expansion for A Game of Thrones: The Board Game! Clawing their way into power, this expansion includes a side board of the Free Cities of Essos and an overlay of the Eyrie, as well as new characters and mechanics to bring House Targaryen and House Arryn into the fray. As you make your claim to the Iron Throne, you can call other Houses to your cause or even ask for aid from the Iron Bank of Braavos.

Pick up your copy of A Game of Thrones: The Board Game at your local retailer or online through our webstore, and look for the Mother of Dragons expansion, coming soon to your retailer!

KeyForge

Enter a world where anything is possible in KeyForge! In the center of the universe hangs the Crucible, an artificial world built from the pieces of countless planets. Here, in the world’s first Unique Deck Game, created by legendary designer Richard Garfield, two players step into the roles of mighty Archons, racing to forge keys that unlock the Crucible’s hidden Vaults.

Leading their diverse teams, filled with followers from three of the Crucible’s great Houses, the Archons must gather Æmber, stave off their opponent’s progress, and ultimately be the first to open a Vault and gain its incredible knowledge. With a vast array of creatures, artifacts, and abilities, and over 104 quadrillion possible decks, every deck is completely one-of-a-kind, and no two battles will ever be the same!

Pick up your KeyForge: Call of the Archons Starter Set and Archon Decks at your local retailer!

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A World of Discovery

Published 25 October 2018 | Discover: Lands Unknown

A World of Discovery

Discover: Lands Unknown Is Available Now

Order your own copy of Discover: Lands Unknown at your local retailer or online through our website today!

You awaken with a splitting headache and no idea of how you got here. The wilderness stretches in every direction, and something howls in the distance. Your quest for answers will have to wait; first, you need to survive. Will you help the others that are stranded here or will you save yourself at any cost?

Discover: Lands Unknown is available now from your local retailer or our website!

As a Unique Game, every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown is different. Although each copy pulls from a massive pool of possible components, each individual copy of the game is unique—with a distinct mix of components unlike any other copy in existence. This allows every owner to have their own stories about their game, and once you’re done with your copy, you can even trade with a friend for a fresh new experience.

Join us today as we run down the unique components featured in Discover: Lands Unknown!

Where Are We?

Every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown contains 34 map tiles depicting two different environments for you to explore! Can you outlast the blistering heat of the desert or the frigid snow-capped peaks of towering mountains? Even if two copies of the game contain the same two environments, the landmarks featured on each can be completely different, providing a wide array of experiences! While the environments are the most obvious difference between copies, there are plenty of variable components waiting to be discovered. For a preview of how to move about these environments within the game, click here!

Who Are We?

Your copy of Discover: Lands Unknown will feature twelve different survivors, each with their own set of skills to help them survive the wilderness. From a flannel-sporting Lumberjack to a world-renowned Sushi Chef, the characters of Discover are as varied as the game itself, and while your copy of the game will feature twelve survivors, they are likely to be quite different from the characters in amother copy of the game. Your assortment of survivors only makes your copy of the game even more unique—after all, how a Chemist tackles surviving in the wilderness is wildly different from how a Hunter would.

How Did We Get Here?

When you begin a game of Discover: Lands Unknown, your initial means of escape won’t be clear. Instead, the quest cards of your chosen scenario will guide you on your journey. Each quest card has a simple objective that can be completed by any survivor, and once that goal is met, you move on to the next quest card. Eventually, a way home will be revealed!

Every game comes with four interconnecting scenarios, and a fifth stand-alone scenario that is completely competitive. However, between different copies of the game, there are a variety of narrative scenarios that can be included, each providing different objectives and goals for your survivors, and each presenting a different narrative with its own twists and turns.

What Do We Have?

Surviving in the wilderness won’t be easy, and you’ll need all the tools you can get to survive! Discover: Lands Unknown features a full-fledged crafting system that can be previewed here, but the tools available to you won’t necessarily be available to your friends in their copies of the game! While you may have a story about a handy decoy helping you escape a venomous snake, your friend may have a story about crafting a bow-and-arrow and providing plenty of food for survivors. Every copy of Discover will feature eleven project cards and 44 crafted item cards showing the result of your projects, all of which are variable between copies.

What’s Out There?

Your copy of the game will also contain between 94 and 96 exploration cards, to be revealed when exploring landmarks or achieving goals laid out on quest cards. These exploration cards provide new opportunities and items for your survivor, and they're ultimately essential to survival. While some of these cards are tied to a scenario, others will be tied to the environments found in your copy of the game. However, every environment offers a wide assortment of exploration cards. Even if you and your friend’s copy of the game both feature a forest, the adventures held within can be completely different!

But exploring can be a dangerous proposition. Waiting in your environment are terrifying monsters, represented by the 30 – 32 enemy cards in your copy of the game. Like exploration cards, these enemies are tied to your environment and story, but are still variable between copies of the game, meaning you never know what’s waiting for you in the unknown!

Other variable components in the game include 24 threat cards, sixteen monster tokens, and two to five special monster tokens. These components enhance the game, providing exciting challenges and making your copy of Discover: Lands Unknown truly your own. Whether you’re playing alone or with others, working together or against one another, you can be sure your experience is one of a kind.

Take a look at the common and unique items in any copy of Discover: Lands Unknown below!

What’s Next?

Every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown is different, allowing unique narratives to emerge from each game. It also opens up a world of possibility—while Discover is infinitely replayable, you can completely change the game by trading your copy with a friend. Unlike any other game in the world, trading copies with a friend truly provides a completely different experience. While you may be an expert at surviving in the forest as a Wildlife Photographer, trying to escape an island as a Hitman provides its own unique challenges, and its own unique way to play. What stories will you tell?

Explore the wilderness with Discover: Lands Unknown (DSC01), available now from your local retailer or our website!

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The Unique Story of Unique Games

Published 19 October 2018 | KeyForge

The Unique Story of Unique Games

A Designer Journal by Christian Petersen

With the advent of the “Unique Games” label and the upcoming releases of Discover: Lands Unknown and KeyForge, I thought FFG’s audience would be interested in learning how this bizarre, unconventional, and wonderful new game format came to be. So, here goes.

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For me, the first serious discussion of what was to become the “unique game” concept happened during the GAMA Trade Show of 2015 in Las Vegas.

During one of my free moments, I’d gotten together with long-time friend, collaborator, and frequent FFG design contributor, Mr. Eric Lang. As the two of us often do on such occasions, we caught up, shot the breeze, talked industry, and spitballed possible future projects together. I’m always interested in what Eric’s fecund mind is brewing.

Then Eric floated an idea that would take flight.

He’d been contemplating on whether it would be possible to create a booster-pack of cards or, even better, some physical component by which each instance of the product would be completely distinct (that is, one-of-a-kind in the world). It would be something that a player could claim only he/she owned. Eric felt this would bring about a sense of product engagement and wonder to games that had never been seen before. Wow.

We bandied his idea back and forth. Could procedural 3D generation and 3D printing be used for this? Not yet, I opined, because the quality of most 3D prints is very sub-par, and, for cost reasons, using high-end machines with UV-hardening resins wouldn’t be feasible for consumer products (it wasn’t in 2015, and still isn’t in 2018).

Could you make print-on-demand components with randomly generated unique stats and effects? Technically feasible, but how to create a good game experience with this, not to speak of a balanced one? Additionally, on-demand printing is very expensive and does not practically work on most common game materials, such as counter-sheets, game-boards, plastic bits, etc. At the time, I’d developed some experience in digital printing, having established The Factory (our print-on-demand/short run production facility in Roseville, MN).

I suggested perhaps we were thinking too small. Perhaps we could create an entire game that was unique, not just a component. If the design was built from the ground up with such a concept in mind, we should be able to craft a completely unique product by clever assortment of different (traditionally produced) components.

Eric immediately took this variation of his idea and began to run with it. Perhaps each game represented a unique planet in a galaxy that would be colonized by players? Perhaps we could augment with a digital interface?

It was an exciting conversation.

At the end of the meeting, I committed to Eric that FFG/Asmodee will do this.

That was not lightly said. I was aware that such endeavor would be risky, take significant research and development in both game design and manufacturing, and would entail a big financial bet.

Yet, the concept was fascinating. Over the years, FFG has built a valuable combination of design, manufacturing, technology, and talent. If FFG/Asmodee could not assume risk in pushing boundaries, then who could? Who would?

Normally, a boxed game includes 6-12 “items” of component bundles, each such item being a rules-set, a pack of reference sheets, an individual deck of cards, a game board, a bag of plastic miniatures, a bag of dice, a sheet of cardboard tokens, etc. In a typical production, such items are designed, mass-produced, and then placed individually into game boxes, creating identical products for which variation is sought to be minimized.

In the “Unique” game concept using the assortment method, each such item would be drawn from several “pools” of different items—to form a unique final item sequence of individual items composing each final instance of the game product. The above illustration provides a simplified example of this concept.

The item sequence to go into each game box would be determined by an algorithm designed from scratch to facilitate the desired gameplay and variability. Individual items could, in some cases, have down-stream dependencies, such as [If X is selected for Pool1, then draw either a, b, or c from Pool2; If Y, then draw from a, d, or f; If Z, then draw either b, e, or f] and so forth.

Further, such a system could maintain a database of product instances to ensure each new instance be unique to a given minimum points of differentiation. By that, I mean how different each copy would be from the most similar other copy. The greater number of points of differentiation, of course, the exponentially less possible instances will be possible for any given set of item pools.

From a manufacturing and financial perspective, this posed a number of substantial problems:

We’d need to design and create 5-6 times the amount of content of a normal product (i.e. different boards, cards, scenarios, characters, etc). Consequently, if we printed the same amount of copies as a normal game, each interior item would be printed 5-6 times less than normal––significantly affecting volume (and thus price) of each item.
How would the physical collation happen?
Because such a product would be exceptionally challenging to manufacture affordably, could we publish the game in languages other than English? Sales of English language FFG products typically constitute roughly 60% of the global market, with all other languages combined constituting the remaining 40%.

This was challenging, daunting even. Yet, FFG has come as far as it has during the last 20 years because we love such challenges. So, let’s go!

In concluding the ‘15 GAMA meeting with Eric, we agreed he’d begin designing a game using this new concept, while I’d get the process started to understand the science and cost needed to make it happen.

For good reason, Eric is an “in-demand” designer, and 2015 was no exception. He was engaged in numerous other commitments at the time, so we knew that early progress on the “Unique” game design would be slow.

Other FFG executives and I would talk on-and-off with Eric about high-level design concepts for the following two years. Alas, life and other design commitments on Eric’s part were in conflict, so design on the “Unique” game remained in high-concept form (core ideas and play pattern) only.

In early 2017, Eric announced he was joining rival-publisher CMON as Director of Game-Design in Singapore.

I was jealous. I’d tried to hire Eric for over 10 years, but was never able to overcome U.S. immigration and work-permit policies. To make matters worse, Eric’s job with CMON would preclude him from working on competitors’ projects, including FFG’s.

This meant the “Unique Game” design from Eric would not be forthcoming after all. Sigh.

Many ideas and projects die in such ways. The oceans of creativity are littered with such abandoned hulks, lonely and gray, sleeping on muddy bottoms.

Fortunately, that was not to be the case here.

Because from stage right, another tentacle enters our unique story.

Since 2011, I’d been discussing an entirely different concept with FFG’s lead designer Corey Konieczka. Corey had smelled the burgeoning promise of Minecraft before it became a global phenomenon and was inspired by its core concepts of “explore, build, survive” (no 16-bit cubical bricks included).

In 2014, Corey finally pitched an innovative game from this concept. It was titled “Outcast” and expressed the theme of discovering an unknown land combined with the mechanic of persistency—the notion that your next game would build upon the discoveries and stories introduced in games prior (unlike “Legacy” game systems, persistent games could be re-set to their original position).

“Outcast” was approved, but slow-tracked due to a heavy FFG release schedule that required Corey’s insight and oversight, and in some cases, his personal design skills.

After learning that Eric would ultimately not be designing the “Unique” game that we’d been waiting for, we considered whether the “Outcast” game could be merged with the “Unique” game concept. A winning formula?

Eric graciously agreed that we should proceed without him.

I expect (and hope) Eric will create his own vision of a “Unique” game one day, be it with CMON or otherwise. I can’t wait to play it when it arrives.

That is how work began on what would become Discover: Lands Unknown.

Discover would retain most aspects of Corey’s original “Outcast” design, but parts of the experience were rebuilt from scratch to accommodate the “unique game” model.

Creating Discover has been hugely challenging, but Corey and the FFG team made a heroic effort to design, develop, engineer, and finish the game with its immense amount of “item pool” content. The Asmodee North America production and software teams also contributed in a major way to this complex production. I’m very proud of what they’ve have accomplished, and hope you’ll give Discover a try to see what they brewed up.

Then, dramatically entering from stage left, comes another tentacle.

In early ‘15, renowned designer Richard Garfield pitched a concept for “collectible deck game” to Adrien Martinot, Days of Wonder’s Head of Studio.

Like FFG, DOW had recently become part of the Asmodee Group, so when Adrien passed on Richard’s ambitious pitch (deeming it too ambitious for DOW’s resources at the time), Adrien kindly referred Richard to FFG and myself.

On a frosty March morning in 2016, it was an honor for us to host Richard Garfield and a few of his close compatriots for a presentation of a game he called “Technic.”

Technic was a head-to-head game involving a single random deck for each player, with a fun, if early, game design. But here’s the kicker: each deck was envisioned to have a completely unique collation (from a fixed pool of cards). The contents of each deck were not to be customized by players whatsoever, not before, not during, not after, play.

What more, Richard’s prototype included random name generation and procedural illustration of card backs for each deck. In other words, each deck would have its own unique name, its own unique art, and its own unique play personality!

Lo and behold, parallel to Eric Lang’s early uniqueness concept and our joint exploration, Richard had been working on his own flavor of unique games––one in which every deck would be unique in the world. The stars must have been right, that winter of ’15.

And somehow, both of these initiatives had landed with FFG! Humbling.

Needless to say, we committed to the brilliant Technic.

Technic had its own idiosyncratic (great word, also means unique) problems. Unlike Discover, which receives its uniqueness by algorithmic collation of conventionally printed materials, Technic had to be printed on an individual level, as each deck contained unique artwork and printed names. Software would need to handle not only the algorithm of item sequence, but also random name generation and a procedurally generated unique image, all of which would need to be automatically collated and prepared for output.

Unlike Discover, which joined uniqueness and collaborative play, Richard’s game, which would become KeyForge, married the concept of uniqueness and competitiveness.

The concept at first was mind-boggling. The TCG/CCG and deck-building game paradigms were so entrenched in our minds. How would people react to a competitive game in which they could not customize the deck itself? How would the agency of the player express itself? How would the decks, of which some invariably would be less competitive, be received by the customer?

As with all good innovations, more doors open behind the first one. The more we thought about it, the more opportunities and excitement the “Unique” concept awoke in us.

Richard’s initial Technic served as core game design when the assigned team of FFG developers began work on the game. Richard’s original concepts, such as cards having no playing cost, three factions per deck, and the three totems (later keys) have remained intact as the principal foundations to the game.

FFG is not always the easiest game studio to collaborate with for outside designers. In our approach to game design, there are no “sacred cows.” Every stone is turned, option assessed, and we work very hard for any design to be the very best experience and value (as we see those, of course). I’d like to think that there’s a special “FFG-ness” to our work: a style and approach that cuts no corners, is not afraid of hard work, and seeks to innovate wherever possible. We are not always perfect, but we always aim to be, and do much soul-searching when we fall short.

I believe the “FFG approach” to game development was a little surprising to Richard at first. The progress and changes to the Technic design, theme, and marketing plans would become somewhat tense at times, as Richard rightfully challenged FFG’s desired changes or additions. He himself worked tirelessly alongside us to test and think through the merits of every suggested change, balancing component, algorithm weighting, and artwork style. I hope Richard will agree that he and FFG have established a terrific and productive relationship in the course of bringing KeyForge into its hard-fought life; we certainly think so.

As game design development on KeyForge began rolling, production considerations, software development, and IP development (artwork and story of the Crucible) also started.

For KeyForge, our desire was to produce a product in which every single deck would cost less than $10 MSRP. As every card would need to be custom (digitally) printed, this was not an easy goal.

While digital 2D printing has advanced rapidly over the last decade, digitally-printed cards are still typically 2-4 times more expensive than cards from traditional offset printing. Additionally, the printing is much slower per dedicated machine—so would scalability be a concern? Would we be able to print enough decks to satisfy demand, especially initial demand?

Not only is digital printing substantially slower than offset printing per se, but each unique high-resolution digital file containing a deck would need to be ripped/processed by the printer prior to starting the physical printing (not unlike pre-print processing on your local laser printer).

The software development side of KeyForge was a monster. The algorithm to create the decks would have to be built, and done so with mind to future expansion and design space. We’d also need to create a system that created procedurally generated images and names for the back of the cards (names using grammatical rules that can change from language to language). All these would need to be stored in databases with interface access for game designers for them to add future cards, names, images, algorithm weight, correlations, etc.

Finally, a software would have to gather and flatten the elements and then imposition the cards in printable file for production.

After working for nearly a year on custom software and Adobe scripting to achieve these goals, we encountered another snag––computing power.

To output the printing files for a single KeyForge deck, the various components of the deck need to be processed and rendered: that is—various elements of each card knitted together, each deck collected, and a printable file generated with correct card impositions. Unfortunately, as we are working with high-resolution, print-ready files, the processing power required is intensive. For example, if every deck would take a processor only two minutes start-to-end to build and render, rendering 100,000 decks would still take 166 days (assuming 20 hours uptime for the processor per day). With a simultaneous release of five languages, we would be printing substantially more than 100,000 copies.

To get around this serious limitation, we had to not only optimize the rendering process, but thread our rendering to multiple processors (i.e. have the software delegate rendering jobs to different targets working simultaneously). Ultimately, we built a “render farm” that would output enough decks per day to meet the production targets for initial release (and we have continued to output files, hoping the game is successful).

From that fire came the final product that is KeyForge.

The first real products in this “Unique” category of games will emerge onto the market this Fall. As with anything new, they are bound to create controversy and confusion, as is the case with all new things.

Some may find it disheartening that they cannot “own” what another player has. However, aren’t some of the most wonderful things in life unique and defy replication? Art, kids, plants, love, life, journeys?

Unique games may be akin to Forrest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates, you never know what you may get (except to know that you’ll get variants of chocolate). Unique games are about discovery, surprise, and a connection to someone singular.

The “Unique” concept may not be for everyone, and probably shouldn’t be the only game experience for anyone. However, I for one, believe that we’ve created something special here, something that will evolve and improve over the years, but that will stand the test of time.

Care to try?

Christian T. Petersen
Founder of Fantasy Flight Games
President of Asmodee North America

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The Essence of Survival

Published 17 October 2018 | Discover: Lands Unknown

The Essence of Survival

Preview the Competitive and Cooperative Aspects of Discover with Designer Corey Konieczka

Order your own copy of Discover: Lands Unknown at your local retailer or online through our website today!

Discover: Lands Unknown is a game unlike any other. Not only is it a Unique Game where every copy is different from every other, the game’s survival setting offers a mix of cooperative and competitive gameplay. Working with other players is essential to survival, but when resources are low, who can you really trust? This mix is a delicate balance and part of what makes Discover a truly unique experience.

Today, journey with us as we take a look at Discover: Lands Unknown with designer Corey Konieczka as he highlights the competitive and cooperative aspects of the game, and how they came about during design.

Continue on for Corey’s thoughts on the survival aspect of the game, and remember to pick up Discover: Lands Unknown when it releases on October 25!

Corey Konieczka on Survival in Discover: Lands Unknown

When I first came up with the pitch for Discover: Lands Unknown, there were three main elements that formed the foundation of the experience:

Exploring the Unknown
Resource Gathering / Crafting
Surviving the Elements

For this preview, I’d like to focus on survival, the struggle to make it fun, and how this led us to the game’s victory condition!

The Last Can of Beans Scenario

Throughout development, I often talked about “The Last Can of Beans Scenario.” Imagine that you were stranded on an island with three strangers and no food. While exploring, you find a single can of beans. Do you keep it for yourself, or do you give it to the person most in need? (For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that it cannot be split between multiple people.)

In a game, the “correct” answer to this question obviously depends on the game's victory conditions. Through testing, we found that the most interesting scenario is the one in which players share food when it's plentiful, but are more selfish when resources are low. To make this work, we had to evaluate how you win and lose the game.

I Don’t Lose if You Win

Since Discover’s announcement, the most common question I’ve been asked has been: “Is this game cooperative or competitive?” The answer is neither.

In both cooperative and competitive games, my victory is tied directly to the performance of other players:

Pure competition: If you win, I lose
Pure cooperation: If you win, I win

Throughout the course of development, we tried both of these options, but neither felt right.

Pure competition didn’t make any sense for the setting. Unless I’m criminally insane, why would I want other players to perish?

Pure cooperative made more sense, but it caused players to only care about the group, not their own character. This didn't feel accurate to real life either. In a real-world situation, people would probably help each other, but only to a point (see the Last Can of Beans Scenario above).

This led us to a third option:

Real Life: If you win, I could win or lose based on my own performance

In this situation, each player wins or loses on their own, but they can work together if it suits their needs. There is no reason to actively work against other players, but there is reason to sometimes be selfish. Players can share supplies and assist each other if they choose to, and each player that survives to the end of the game wins. Everyone that doesn’t survive is eliminated from the game and loses!

But Wait? Isn’t Player Elimination Bad?

In modern boardgaming, player elimination is often considered poor design. The main argument is that you’ve all come together to play a game, sometimes rearranging your schedule to participate in this social event. Eliminating a player from this experience is unnecessarily negative and punitive. You don’t want to sit out for an hour while your friends are having fun, right?

I would argue, however, that many modern games have “soft” player elimination. That is to say, a player may be so far behind that they cannot possibly win. This can be just as unfun, and it can lead to kingmaking (the act of one player intentionally making poor strategic decisions to help someone else win the game).

I suggest that player elimination, if done correctly, can solve kingmaking and craft a social experience like no other. If you’re about to lose the game by starving to death, you will have an emotional attachment to the last can of beans. You’ll feel different, act different, and an interesting social game emerges. The ever-present threat of elimination also makes players more invested in their characters and feel real responsibility for their actions.

To avoid the main downside of player elimination, it's important that eliminated players don’t sit out of the game for too long. This can either be solved by having a short game length (15-20 minutes), or by making sure players aren't eliminated until the game is close to its conclusion. We chose the latter. As long as a player is collecting food and water, they should survive for the majority of every game of Discover.

A Different Game for Different Groups

While testing the game with these victory conditions, I made an interesting observation: the game felt very different with different groups of people.

Players that were used to playing co-op games (especially families) would treat the game very much like a full co-op. They would help each other survive, even if it did not benefit themselves, and sometimes make heroic sacrifices to save others. These games were full of shared gasps, smiles, and high fives. I’d like to think that many people in a real-world survival situation would act this way.

Then there were the cutthroat groups. These people wouldn’t give a single can of beans to an old lady unless she gave them two water skins in return. These games had a very different sense of tension. Winning and losing these games was based on your personal skill and ability to negotiate. Some players liked competing so much, that we created one purely competitive scenario just for them.

I’ve played with both types of groups, and though different, they were both a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed games with a mix of player types, some from group A and some from group B. Navigating the social pecking order while trying to stay alive required two very different skill sets, and it led to many dramatic moments.

I hope that you enjoyed this look behind the scenes, and that it gave you a better understanding of the social games you’ll see unfolding in Discover: Lands Unknown—no matter what exactly is in your copy of the game. How far are you willing to go to survive?

Find the will to survive in Discover: Lands Unknown (DSC01), available now for pre-order from your local retailer or our website!

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Survival of the Fittest

Published 16 October 2018 | Discover: Lands Unknown

Survival of the Fittest

Preview the Competitive Mode Featured in Discover: Lands Unknown

Order your own copy of Discover: Lands Unknown at your local retailer or online through our website today!

In Discover: Lands Unknown, four of your five scenarios may see you working with other survivors out of necessity for your own victory. You may cooperate or compete with the other players within a single scenario. However, the fifth scenario included in each copy of the game game offers something very different—a cutthroat competition where only the strong can survive. The exact backdrop of the competitive scenario you find in your copy of Discover: Lands Unknown can vary from game to game, but they each see you going head-to-head against other players. The last survivor standing is the winner! When escape is of little concern do you have what it takes to achieve victory?

As we've explored in our previous previews, Discover: Lands Unknown is a Unique Game, meaning that the copy you buy will be different from every other copy in the world. The mix of components found in every copy of Discover is completely unique—even copies that have the same terrain will find different landmarks and challenges on their boards! Today, however, we're taking a closer look at a feature found in every copy of Discover: a competitive, head-to-head scenario that pits you directly against the other players in the heart of an unforgiving wilderness.

Join us today as we preview the competitive mode found in every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown!

The Stage Is Set

While the first four scenarios in Discover can be played solo, the competitive scenario requires at least two players to play. Furthermore, while any number of players can win in the first four scenarios, the fifth scenario will only feature one winner—one survivor who will stand above all else. While the backdrop of this scenario is linked to the narrative of the other scenarios found in your game, the focus is on the competitive aspect of the game.

For the most part, you'll be playing the same game as before, surviving frigid mountains or arid deserts, crafting supplies, and gaining enough food and water to make it another day. However, there is now the additional threat of other survivors attacking you, not only to knock you out of the game, but to steal your precious resources. Instead of your goal being escape, it’s to outlast the other players. If every other survivor falls to hunger, thirst, sickness, or damage, you win the game!

The True Enemy

While monsters still lurk around every corner, your true enemies in the competitive scenario are the players sitting around you. During the fifth scenario, survivors can attack one another anytime after the first turn of the game. Attacking another survivor also comes with the additional cost of three stamina. This stamina costs means an attack must be well planned, as closing in on a survivor and performing an attack will likely take up the majority of your turn.

In this scenario, the attacker has rolled a 10 and the defender has rolled an 8. Because the attacker's die is showing a result of 10 or higher, he deals one damage to the defender and steals a resource!

You may choose to wait for your enemies to succumb to the elements… but perhaps you decide to hasten the natural course of things. Attacking another survivor is similar to combat in other scenarios. The attacker rolls the gray twelve-sided die, and the defender rolls the red twelve-sided die. If you roll ten or higher, your target takes one physical damage and you can steal a resource! But every attack must be made with caution—if the defender rolls ten or higher, you'll be dealt one physical damage and lose a resource of your own! Ultimately, you must weigh the risks: attacking another survivor may win you the game, but can you overpower your enemies while surviving in turn?

Even though this is a competitive scenario, survivors can still team up to take down another survivor. During an attack, any survivor within two spaces can play support cards to assist the attacker or defender. Because everyone has access to these cards, forming these temporary alliances can be key to surviving long enough and claiming victory.

Weapons of War

Unlike the other four scenarios in Discover, no survivor has their own supply of project cards in the competitive scenario. Instead, all project cards are available for any survivor to craft throughout the game. With new dangers from your fellow survivors, crafted items that raise your defense or attack will be in high demand, but do you dare to fight for the scarce resources spread throughout your environment?

In this deadly environment, it will be the best prepared survivor who can rise above the rest. But you must always stay vigilant: harsh conditions and threatening enemies are still present, you’ll still be drawing night and threat cards, and if you aren’t careful, thirst and hunger may take you before the other survivors.

When you’re not engaged with your opponents in combat, you’ll still be exploring your unfamiliar surroundings. While landmarks within the normal game offer very specific rewards and narrative experiences, exploring a landmark in the fifth scenario gives you a random exploration card to assist you in your quest. These cards may provide essential resources or give you more weapons to defend yourself, but regardless of what you find, these landmarks will be essential to your victory.

It's only natural that survivors will be drawn to these landmarks in search of rewards, but once a landmark has been explored, it can never be explored again. If you want to find more exploration cards and gain an edge over your opponents, you'll be driven to venture further and further into the wilderness.

Last Survivor Standing

Though every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown features a competitive scenario, the exact contents of each game are unique. Crafted items, exploration cards, landmarks, enemies, night cards, survivors, and more can all be wildly different between copies of the game. But whether you find yourself under the scorching heat of a desert sun or surrounded by salt water as far as the eye can see, only the hardiest survivors can come out on top. Do you have what it takes to achieve victory?

Learn the key to survival with Discover: Lands Unknown (DSC01), available now for pre-order from your local retailer or our website!

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Deadly Encounters

Published 25 September 2018 | Discover: Lands Unknown

Deadly Encounters

Preview Combat and Crafting in Discover: Lands Unknown

Order your own copy of Discover: Lands Unknown at your local retailer or online through our website today!

If unraveling the mystery of your strange stranding wasn’t enough, you’ll also have to face a myriad of foes in Discover: Lands Unknown. As you traverse your new surroundings you’ll come across enemies that make this environment even more dangerous than you originally realized, and you’ll be pushed to fight if you are going to have any hope of finding a way home.

Join us today as we preview combat and enemy encounters in Discover: Lands Unknown, a Unique Board Game of adventure and exploration!

Discover: Lands Unknown is a Unique Game, meaning the mix of components found in your copy is unlike any other in the world. Though every game of Discover is governed by the same rules, the enemies, resources, characters, and even environments featured within will be a different combination in every box. If you would prefer to remain unspoiled on what you may encounter in your copy of Discover: Lands Unknown, turn back now! Otherwise, read on to find out how to deal with the enemies featured in your game.

Close Encounters

Enemies can appear in Discover: Lands Unknown in a number of ways. They may surprise you, disguised as a feature token in an unexplored space. What you think might be a vital source of water could turn out to be a lethal python, waiting to ambush an ill-prepared survivor.

A monster token is flipped faceup when it shares a space with a survivor, instructing you to take the matching card.

Other times, enemies will enter the field thanks to landmark or scenario cards in the form of monster tokens. These monsters are placed facedown, and card effects may move them towards survivors, so even if you’re looking to avoid combat, you still may find yourself face-to-face with a deadly monster.

When you find yourself in the same space as an enemy, combat begins! Every enemy has an attack, a defense, and a health. To resolve the combat, you'll roll two twelve-sided dice, one red and one gray. If you roll equal or higher than the enemy's defense on the gray die, the enemy suffers damage. However, if the red die’s result is equal or higher than the enemy's attack, your survivor suffers damage!

In this combat, the gray die is higher than the enemy's defense, meaning the Giant Python will take one damage. However, the red die is also higher than the monster's attack, so your survivor will also take one damage!

While basic combat can be resolved quickly, your options are far from limited. Resources such as wood and stone can be used to reroll dice, nearby survivors can contribute to the fight, and rewards can be gathered for defeating enemies. However, not every enemy is aggressive, and most will try to retreat after a round of combat.

If an enemy is still standing after being dealt damage, it moves to an adjacent space, based on the number showing on the red die. You'll compare the value on the red die to the compass token at the top of the board to determine where the enemy moves. If a survivor still wants to defeat the enemy, there’s nothing stopping you from spending stamina to track the monster down and resolve another combat—but decreasing your stamina, risking damage, and moving away from the safety of a campfire may be inadvisable.

A value of five on the red die means the monster will retreat to the southeast after combat is resolved.

Risking Life and Limb

Fighting an enemy may see you taking physical damage. Various types of damage can impede your survivor, and in extreme cases, may even lead to death. If you don’t have enough food when night comes, you may take a starvation damage. Alternatively, a lack of water may lead to dehydration damage. If a survivor takes four damage, the survivor is eliminated and loses the game.

Track your health with the character tracker! If any survivor would take a fourth damage, they are eliminated from the game.

While starvation and dehydration can be healed by finding food and water, physical damage inflicted by enemies will be with you forever. Engaging in combat is a dangerous endeavor, and biting off more than you can chew might mean never seeing home again!

Tools for the Job

If you’re going to engage enemies, it is best to come prepared, and crafting weapons (and other key items) is one of the easiest ways to go about doing that.

A survivor starts the game with a number of project cards—these project cards provide a formula for crafting a weapon or item at the cost of basic resources. For example, you may have a Bow and Arrow project card, giving you the basic blueprint for a classic weapon. This project card lets you trade three wood resources for a numbered card, which will always be the item you are crafting. A Bow and Arrow helps you fight enemies safely, but other items, like a bedroll or makeshift stove, can provide other important benefits.

After you complete a project, the project card is placed faceup on the table for anyone to use, and you'll draw a new project card. Having a well-stocked inventory of crafted items can make survival easier and guide you on your adventure!

Against the Elements

As with all previews, most of the components featured today may not be found in your copy of the game. Every copy of the game will feature important items like the combat dice and compass token, but what enemies you fight and what items you can craft will be different in every copy of the game. Will you go toe-to-toe with a giant python in the forest, or tangle with polar bears in frigid mountaintops? Whatever your scenario, survival won’t be easy: do you have what it takes to find a way home?

Find new adventures with Discover: Lands Unknown (DSC01), available now for pre-order from your local retailer or our website!

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Scouting Ahead

Published 4 September 2018 | Discover: Lands Unknown

Scouting Ahead

Preview Exploration in Discover: Lands Unknown

Order your own copy of Discover: Lands Unknown at your local retailer or online through our website today!

You've awoken to find yourself far from home. The vast wilderness stretches before you, the days are long and every night is a struggle to survive. While you’re not sure how you ended up here, you know that answers won’t come from sitting around the meager campsite you’ve constructed. You’ll need to explore to find food, water, and most importantly, a way home!

Join us today as we look at how to get your bearings and explore the world around you in Discover: Lands Unknown!

Discover: Lands Unknown is a Unique Game, meaning every copy in the world is different. Through a sorting algorithm, the combination of components found in your game will be unlike any other copy in existence. While your group of survivors may find themselves stranded in a dense forest or on a freezing mountaintop, your friend’s copy may see a different group of survivors trying to escape a deserted island or harsh desert. However, each game is still monitored by the same set of rules that will guide you in your journey into the unknown.

Important note: Our preview will show as little of the components in Discover: Lands Unknown as possible, but if you want to go into the game completely blind, you'll want to turn back now!

Means of Escape

Before we examine how you move and explore your environment, it’s important to understand why you would ever venture away from your campsite. Every game of Discover: Lands Unknown will begin with you starting one of five scenarios found in your box. Four of these scenarios tell a larger story together, while the fifth is focused on a more competitive version of the game.

Each scenario includes a set of quest cards which gives you your initial goal. By completing the objectives on your quest cards can advance through the stages and eventually find a way home—but you also have to make sure you survive to escape by locating food, clean water, medicine, and shelter.

Like many of the components found in Discover: Lands Unknown, the exact set of scenarios you receive will differ from game to game. You’ll never know exactly what you're going to find, but you can be sure you won’t make much progress by the safety of campfire.

Explore Your Surroundings

In a single game of Discover: Lands Unknown, you'll need to explore your surrounding and gather resources during the day, before you try to survive the deadly night. On your turn during the day phase, you can take a variety of actions, including scrounging for food, searching for shelter, or exploring and scouting your surroundings, which is what we’ll be focusing on today!

During your turn, you can perform as many actions as you want, but every action drains your survivor's stamina, and that’s a dangerous proposition in unfamiliar territory. Since every action reduces your stamina, you can end your turn anytime you want, but you must stop if your stamina hits zero. Forging ahead into unexplored territory will help you complete objectives, but ending your turn away from the safety of a campfire can have serious repercussions.

Your character tracker will keep track of both your stamina and the damage you've taken, which we'll explore in a later preview!

The Light of the Day

One of your basic actions in Discover: Lands Unknown is the move and gather action. By spending at least one stamina, you can move from one space to another and gather any resources that may be found there in the form of a feature token.

While moving from space to space in clear terrain only takes one stamina off your gauge, you may find obstacles in your exploration. Difficult terrain has different stamina costs, a reference sheet included with your copy of the game will give you a chart to determine how much stamina it takes to move into specific types of terrain.

Jenna decides to take a couple move and gather actions. Her first move sees her traversing heavy snow. Checking the reference sheet, she sees this costs two stamina and adjusts her character tracker appropriately. She decides to take another move and gather action, the next space is primarily comprised of regular snow, which costs only one stamina to enter. If either of these spaces had a feature token, she could gather it for free!

Of course, recklessly diving into the wilderness is folly for any survivor. You’ll have to scout out new tiles before forging ahead into new territory, and may find more than you bargained for.

At the beginning of a game of Discover: Lands Unknown, most of the tiles are facedown, shrouding the map in mystery. When you're on the edge of explored space, you can spend one stamina to perform a scout action and flip over an adjacent tile! This tile may reveal new sources of water and resources, vital to survival, as well as resource tokens, ripe for the taking. We’ll explore how these resource tokens can help you in a future preview!

At the start of the game, Jenna has scouted the tile above her starting location. Her next step would be placing feature tokens on the spaces marked with a square!

The Darkness of Night

After every player has taken their turn during the day, the night begins—and as darkness falls over unfamiliar terrain, your only thought is to survive. After every survivor has taken their turn, the group collectively draws a night card. On one hand, these night cards will replenish at least six stamina for all survivors as they get whatever rest they can. However, night cards are also a gut check on your resources. Some will inflict you with hunger, forcing you to dig into your supply of food or take damage. Others will move enemies around the board, or create even more dangerous situations.

Those who end their turn away from the safety of a campfire face additional risks, as some night cards will direct survivors sleeping in the wild to draw a threat card. While night cards provide at least some respite in the form of stamina regeneration, threat cards bring you face-to-face with the dangers lurking in the dark. In the darkness, you may become all too familiar with the mysteries of the wilderness, but you can never be sure what the darkness will bring.

If you manage to survive the night, the day phase begins again and survivors are free to continue exploring the wilderness, but more challenges await. You’ll have to fight terrifying enemies, find sources of clean water and unravel the mystery of your stranding if you have any hope of escape! These mechanics and more will be featured in future previews, so keep your eye on the website in coming weeks.

The Call of Adventure

Tiles, scenarios, and threat cards are all a part of what makes your copy of Discover unique. But although every copy is different, your scenarios will tell a coherent, thrilling story, the threats you face will be dynamic and connected, and the two biomes included in your game will offer fresh new ways to play. Discover: Lands Unknown is a game unlike any other; how will you make your escape?

Find a way home with Discover: Lands Unknown (DSC01), available now for pre-order from your local retailer or our website!

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Discover: Lands Unknown

Published 13 August 2018 | Discover: Lands Unknown

Discover: Lands Unknown

Announcing a Unique Game of Exploration and Survival

Order your own copy of Discover: Lands Unknown at your local retailer or online through our website today!

You awaken with a splitting headache and no idea how you got here. The wilderness stretches in every direction, and something howls in the distance. Your quest for answers will have to wait; first, you need to survive.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Discover: Lands Unknown, a Unique Game of exploration and survival from Corey Konieczka!

Whether you're playing by yourself or with up to four players, your ultimate goal in Discover: Lands Unknown is to survive—but your adventure holds many of its own secrets. As a Unique Game, every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown is unlike any other in the world. The unique mix of environments, characters, storylines, items, and enemies in each copy of Discover means that your own adventures will play out very differently than your friend's copy of the game. No matter where you find yourself, you'll need to survive and uncover the reasons why you've awoken, trapped in the wilderness. Whether survival means cooperation or competition is completely up to you!

What Makes Discover: Lands Unknown Unique?

Discover: Lands Unknown is a new adventure for Fantasy Flight Games, joining KeyForge as one of our first Unique Games. What is a Unique Game? In a nutshell, it's an entirely new type of game! Unique Games can take many different forms, but they share one thing in common—every copy of the game is unique. The copy that you pick up off the shelf will have different components than the copy your friend gets at their store.

While mechanics and some common components like meeples will be the same in every copy of the game, the vast majority of the cards, tiles, and tokens in your box will be randomized, selected from a vast pool of possible components. When you open your copy of Discover: Lands Unknown, you can never be sure what you'll find inside, and the combination will be different from every other copy in the world. In other words, Unique Games aren't like Legacy Games, which start with identical components, but become unique through gameplay. Unique Games have their own distinct mix of components in every box!

Everything that you encounter on your adventure, from your pool of survivors, to the enemies that you encounter, to the tools at your disposal, to the very environment itself, can be changed, with every copy of Discover: Lands Unknown presenting an experience unique to you. While some groups will find themselves marooned on a desolate island with mysterious creatures roaming the night, others may be trapped in the mountains, just trying to stay warm enough to survive.

In the spirit of this sense of mystery, this announcement article and future previews will show as few components as possible while still diving into the mechanics of the game. Just like your survivors embarking on a mysterious adventure, you never know what fate awaits. Still, if you want to go into the game without any hints of what you'll find within, it'd be best to turn back now!

At the beginning of the game, the wilderness stretches out around you—unknowable, dangerous, and exciting!

Your Story Begins

Like the survivors you'll be playing as, you know that you need to escape… you're just not sure how. In each game of Discover, you'll play a scenario in your own evolving story, drawing your next objectives from quest cards. These quest cards will give you short term goals essential to your survival—the longer you survive, the more likely you'll find a way home.

Working together with other players, you can complete objectives quickly, but when water is short and creatures stalk the night, isn't it every survivor for themselves? Every copy of the game comes with multiple scenarios, so like many of the components found in Discover, you never know what quests you will find in your adventure!

Explore to Survive

If you're going to survive the terrors of night in the wilds, you and your companions will have to gather resources, craft items, and search for a way home during the day. During the safety of the day, you'll spend stamina on your turn to perform different actions. You may wander across the wilderness, gather resources, collect water, fight enemies, discover new areas, and more!

Survivors can explore as much as they want during the day, but every action drains your survivor’s stamina, and if your survivor can't continue on, your turn is over, right where you stand. You must carefully weigh the consequences of your actions: exploring is important, but if you end your turn away from the safety of a campfire, you leave yourself exposed to the harsh conditions of the night.

You must explore the wilderness to escape, but danger waits around every corner. While you may find items essential to your survival during your adventure, but you may also find dangerous enemies, ready to attack! The call of the wild is alluring, and even more so when survival is on the line. Do you have what it takes to find a way home?

Who Are You?

Like the very environment around you, the group of survivors included in your copy of Discover: Lands Unknown is also randomized, so you won't be sure who your heroes will be until you open your box. Each survivor brings something new to surviving in the wilds. Perhaps one of your survivors is Biff O’Bannon, a lumberjack who can easily gain more wood. Or maybe you're surviving with Jasmine Limjoco, a mountain climber who can traverse difficult terrain with ease. Your decision of which survivor you play will dramatically change how you approach your escape.

These are just three of the possible survivors you may find in your copy of Discover: Lands Unknown!

Find a Way Home

Like the survivors of Discover: Lands Unknown, you don’t know what awaits. Lost in an unfamiliar world, can you survive and find a way home?

Explore the wilderness with Discover: Lands Unknown (DSC01) releasing in the fourth quarter of 2018 and available now for pre-order from your local retailer or our website!

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in our forums!

Fantasy Flight Games

14 Years

14 Years

World of Warcraft: The Board Game – 2005

Warrior Knights – 2006

Twilight Imperium: Shattered Empire ­– 2006

Tide of Iron – 2007

StarCraft: The Board Game – 2007

World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game – 2007

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game – 2008

Middle-earth Quest – 2009

Space Hulk: Death Angel – 2010

Runewars – 2010

Mansions of Madness First Edition – 2011

Rune Age – 2011

Gears of War – 2011

Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition – 2012

Eldritch Horror – 2013

Star Wars™: Imperial Assault – 2014

Star Wars™: Rebellion – 2016

Star Wars™: Destiny – 2016

Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition – 2017

Discover: Lands Unknown – 2018

Star Wars™: Outer Rim – 2019

Cooperate to Survive

Cooperate to Survive

Corey Konieczka on the Cooperative Rules for Discover: Lands Unknown

FFG Live in December

FFG Live in December

The Latest from FFG

The Latest from FFG

Arkham Horror

New California

Heroes of Terrinoth

Discover: Lands Unknown

Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game

X-Wing

Across the Galaxy

Cosmic Encounter

Mother of Dragons

KeyForge

A World of Discovery

A World of Discovery

Where Are We?

Who Are We?

How Did We Get Here?

What Do We Have?

What’s Out There?

What’s Next?

The Unique Story of Unique Games

The Unique Story of Unique Games

The Essence of Survival

The Essence of Survival

Corey Konieczka on Survival in Discover: Lands Unknown

The Last Can of Beans Scenario

I Don’t Lose if You Win

But Wait? Isn’t Player Elimination Bad?

A Different Game for Different Groups

Survival of the Fittest

Survival of the Fittest

The Stage Is Set

The True Enemy

Weapons of War

Last Survivor Standing

Deadly Encounters

Deadly Encounters

Close Encounters

Risking Life and Limb

Tools for the Job

Against the Elements

Scouting Ahead

Scouting Ahead

Means of Escape

Explore Your Surroundings

The Light of the Day

The Darkness of Night

The Call of Adventure

Discover: Lands Unknown

Discover: Lands Unknown

What Makes Discover: Lands Unknown Unique?

Twilight Imperium: Shattered Empire – 2006