Dracula’s Feast: A monstrous game of secrets and deduction

Three MORE stretch goals have been unlocked since Thursday!
over 7 years ago – Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 05:39:14 PM

Hey!

I think it's important to be honest with you. I'm worried that in my last update, I held back a little. Let's try again:

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

We're currently on day 6 of the campaign, and we've just hit TWENTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. That's $22k in the first week! Any minute now we're going to get our thousandth backer, and we still have a full month to go.

The only appropriate response is three letters long, italicized, and looks like "mom" written upside-down.

Wow.

Thanks to you sharing this project with your friends and just generally being the coolest dang people on Kickstarter, we've managed to smash THREE more stretch goals since my last post. Here's an updated chart:

As you can see, there's all kinds of new exciting stuff on the horizon! But first, let's look at what's been unlocked so far...

UNLOCKED - $16k: UPGRADED BOX

At $16k, we unlocked a fancier and sturdier box! My previous project - Scuttle! - has started to arrive to backers, and I've already received a few compliments about how lovely the box is - I'm excited to say that thanks to your support, Dracula's Feast is going to arrive in an even bigger and lovelier box! 

If you've ever played Bottom of the Ninth (a game designed by Dracula's Feast's awesome graphic designer, Darrell Louder), the box's dimensions are based off that, so you can now imagine exactly how awesome it's going to look on your shelves.

Go ahead. Take a minute. I don't mind. 

UNLOCKED - $18k: CEREMONIAL DAGGER

This is the second Artifact that you've unlocked so far, and I'm super excited about it! Cthulhu and Friends is now going to come with SEVEN artifacts, and this one is particularly intense:

As long as the Ceremonial Dagger is in play, guests are able to accuse TWO people as an action. If they're right, they immediately take two additional actions - wowee! But as soon as any player has two dance tokens, it's destroyed...

This is a super cool, super different artifact that really highlights the weirdness of the game while Cthulhu is in play - in the best possible way! When an Elder God crashes your party, you can't be surprised when things start to get weird...

UNLOCKED - $20k: MAGIC MIRROR

If you've watched any of the awesome reviews that Dracula's Feast has been getting, you might recognize Magic Mirror...well, he's back with an upgrade!

The original ability was "Look at the Mystery Guest before you perform a Grand Reveal." - in a smaller game (4-5 players) that was totally fine, but as the player-count grew, his ability was able to be applied far less often.

This change fixes that and makes him way more fun in games of any size! We found that it was slightly too weird for the base game - adding in an "eyes closed" phase at the start for just one card was a bit more complicated than we want the game to be for first-time players.

Fortunately, there's a perfect place for cards that are a tiny bit too complex or different for the base game; promos! Magic Mirror is a perfect promo card, and I'm excited to add it to Captain Bluebeard and Bride of Dracula as one of the cards that you'll be getting as a thanks for supporting us on Kickstarter.

---

I'll be back on Thursday with a million more pieces of exciting Dracula's Feast-related news (count 'em!) but I just wanted to thank you again for your support, and for sharing the project with your friends! 

If you haven't yet, consider printing out the free print-and-play version of Dracula's Feast to confirm for yourself how fun the game is!

A few people have informed me of a typo in the earlier version of the print-and-play. That's been fixed now: Zombie wins by collecting two different dance tokens, not by dancing three times! That was an earlier draft which had the opposite problem of the Magic Mirror - it was really fun and effective in larger games, but wasn't feasible in a smaller game.

A few people have asked for recommendations for different player counts; obviously in an 8-player game, you're going to be playing with all 9 guests, but in a smaller game try these combinations out:

• 4 players: Dracula, Alucard, Trickster, Van Helsing, Zombie OR 
  Dracula, Alucard, Doctor Jekyll, Trickster, Van Helsing
• 5 players: Dracula, Alucard, Doctor Jekyll, Trickster, Van Helsing, Zombie 
  OR 
  Dracula, Alucard, Beelzebub, Boogie Monster, Doctor Jekyll, Werewolf
• 6 players: Everyone except Alucard and Van Helsing
  OR
  Everyone except Werewolf and Beelzebub

If you've found particularly fun combinations for different player counts, leave them in the comments below! Just remember, Dracula has to be in every game!

Thank you again for your support. You rock so hard that Hank would call you a mineral. 

(If you're not familiar with Breaking Bad, just imagine your Hank of choice - Green, Venture, Williams, Hill, the octopus - calling you a mineral. They wouldn't do that if you weren't awesome, would they?)

(They would not.)

If you have any questions or there's anything you need, message me privately or ask in the comments! I'll be back on Thursday with more exciting Dracula's Feast news.

Cheers,
-Peter C. Hayward
(the "C." stands for "Hank".)

P.S. If you're as cool as me, Tania (the artist for Dracula's Feast) or Tom (the game's developer) then you should consider using the Facebook cover that we're all using at the moment. It's cute, it tells people about the game, and anyone who clicks through to the full image gets to see Alucard was hiding behind your profile picture the whole time!

The first two days, and THREE stretch goals unlocked!
over 7 years ago – Sat, Oct 08, 2016 at 08:05:26 PM

Hey!

Let me introduce myself - my name's Peter! I'm the blue-haired Australian you'll remember from the project's video. Dracula's Feast will be the second Kickstarter campaign that I've run (after Scuttle!, earlier this year) and my third published game.

I love puppets, games (obviously), the musical 'Hamilton', and I say 'Wow' a lot.

How's the campaign been going? In a word: 

Wow!

In three words:

WOW

Wow!

Wow.

So on Tuesday at 10am, Dracula's Feast was launched. Within 14 hours, the project was funded...and now, just over two days later, we are almost at $15 000.

Fifteen thousand dollars.

Wow.

Dracula's Feast is my favourite game I've ever created; I've been working on it for almost 3 years (as I was getting this Kickstarter together, Facebook's 'on this day' feature reminded me of the first time I ever playtested an early, early version!) and I've played it with hundreds of people all around the world.

Your support and confidence in the project has been...look, there's only one word for it.

Wow!

I'm going to be posting a new update every Monday and Thursday during the campaign, answering questions and letting you know the latest Dracula's Feast news - stretch goals unlocked, new reviews, cons I'm going to be attending. As well as that, we'll probably run some competitions, maybe have a few pillow fights - it's going to be a good time!

As you may have noticed, before I even got a chance to write one update, we have unlocked THREE stretch goals.

Wow.

The stretch goal chart has been updated; we’ve ticked off Funded (wooo!), Bride of Dracula, Upgraded Card Stock, AND Dreamplate Artifact.

Let’s go through in order:

Firstly, we’re funded! That means that Dracula’s Feast is definitely happening! Just as backers are currently receiving their copy of Scuttle!, in a few months you’ll be getting your very own copy of Dracula’s Feast to play and to hug and to kiss and to sleep with at night. (Hey - I don’t judge what you do with your games.)

I’m so excited about this. Ever since I started playtesting Dracula’s Feast, people have been asking to borrow my prototype copies so they can play with their friends. Now, you’ll be able to play this game whenever you dang want!

Secondly - Bride of Dracula has been unlocked! This is a special variant role that won’t appear in the retail copy of the game - along with Captain Bluebeard, it will be sent to every Kickstarter backer who orders a copy of the game!

But what does she do? Well, Tania (the artist for the game, and art director for Jellybean Games) has been so excited about the speed at which we unlocked this, she’s put the finishing touches on her sketch, and so I can show you what the completed card is going to look like:

We have a few promo cards in mind for Dracula’s Feast - stuff that is maybe a little too complex or weird to put directly in the box. As you can see, any game with Bride of Dracula in it is going to play completely differently to a standard game - suddenly, it won’t just be Van Helsing who’s asking about Dracula, it’ll be everyone!

The SECOND stretch goal we unlocked (this has been a wild first few days!) was for upgraded card stock - the cards in Dracula’s Feast are going to be sturdier and more durable, and will have a classy linen finish.

This game is going to be so nice to hold! You have no idea.

Lastly, we unlocked the Dreamplate artifact - this is part of the expansion, Cthulhu and Friends. Whenever Cthulhu is in the game, he brings three artifacts with him; the game had a set of 5, but as we unlock more stretch goals, that number is going to up.

Every combination of artifacts provides a different game experience…the more that are in the game, the more combinations will be possible! The Dreamplate is particularly cool - as long as it’s in play, players can use their action to question two guests instead of one. But as soon as anyone is questioned, they put one of their dance tokens on the card; once every player’s dance token is on the card, it gets destroyed!

This is a great example of how the artifacts work - as long as they’re around, Cthulhu remains in the game (and trust me, you don’t want to keep him around)! But destroying them means giving up an awesome ability…maybe it’s worth keeping, just for one more turn…

I’ve added two more stretch goals - this update is getting pretty long, so I’ll go into more detail about what they are on Monday!

Lastly, I’ve added an FAQ to the bottom of the page - if you’ve been wondering about how to add extra copies of the game, or the size of the box, that information is now available on the page!

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments or message me. I’m looking forward to keeping you updated on the awesome adventure that we’re going on together.

Thank you so much for your support. You are my new favourite! (Don’t tell the others.)

Cheers,
-Peter