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Gloomhaven Grand Festival

Created by Cephalofair

We invite you to join the celebration and check out the latest in the city of Gloomhaven. From Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs, Gloomhaven: The Role Playing Game, Miniatures of Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Second Edition and more, there is something for everyone.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Full Funded!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 09:51:53 AM

Good day! I hope you are having a wonderful Friday so far. We certainly are over at Cephalofair because this project is officially funded! Stuff all that confetti back into the cannons and launch them again, because it's time to celebrate! Like I've said before, we've got so much more to share over the coming weeks, so we are happy to get over that initial funding hurdle and bring on more awesome stuff!

Speaking of, I need to rectify a mistake we made at the start of the campaign: we forgot Forgotten Circles! Well, we didn't exactly forget it, but enough people have spoken up about want it, that we've decided to do another printing and add it to this campaign as an add-on. Feel free to add it to you pledge for $30!


For those not aware, Forgotten Circles is an expansion to the first edition of Gloomhaven, and we have no plans for updating it. That said, it is more-or-less combatable with the second edition of Gloomhaven as well, with a little wonkiness (for full details on that wonkiness, you can read this BGG thread). It is out of print currently, so we decided this is as good a time as any to spin up another print run. This will be the same version that was available during the Frosthaven Kickstarter, with a handful of typo fixes.

But that's not all we forgot from Forgotten Circles! The Diviner class from this expansion also has three summons that are not listed in the Forgotten Circles miniature set. We will be rectifying that, so that box will contain three more miniatures for those summons. Yay, more miniatures!

                       

Yesterday, Drew, Dennis, and I had a nice Reddit AMA on r/boardgames, and then went and streamed another scenario from Gloomhaven: Second Edition. We decided to use some of the locked classes: Lightning Bolts, Saw, and Triangles, so slight spoilers there, but if you are interested in seeing how the new version of those play, or just want to see me fumble around and get damaged a bunch again, you can watch parts 1 and 2.




Today, we're streaming Adam from Tabletop Minions painting some of our miniatures on the main page. That started at 8am PST and will be running for another hour. We've actually had a lot of great painters checking out the Miniatures of Gloomhaven during the campaign. In this sponsored video with Ninjon, Jon paints some while sharing techniques and tips to bring out detail and colors.



In addition, it's Friday, so it's time for another Fireside Chat at 4pm PST. Should be a good way to finish out the week and slide on into the weekend. We might have on a special guest or two to talk more about Gloomhaven: Second Edition.

And finally, let us not forget that Friday is also puzzle day! We've got a new puzzle for the Tinkerer this time, which you can find at the bottom of the main page (use the navigation bar on the left to make it easier!).

I think that's about it for today. Once again, thank you all for believing in this project and loving Gloomhaven enough to empower us to make all this cool stuff for you. We're committed now, and it's going to be great! I hope you join me at the fireside this evening, but either way, have a great day and an even better weekend!

Closing in on that goal!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 08:55:18 AM

Good day! We are starting Thursday off strong as we approach that funding goal. I also enjoyed watching the first photos from the Origins Game Fair coming in yesterday. It's a little sad I couldn't be there personally, but we've got a BackerKit project to run! Plus, the convention team is still out there and we will start running demos of Gloomhaven: Second Edition and the RPG today, so if you are out at Origins, please stop on by and check them out! We'll be at booth 1200.


If you missed what happened yesterday, our main stream was the first session of our Old School campaign. We tooled around town for a while, playing in a jam band and looking for a missing wagon. We didn't get into any combat, but we explored the non-combat mechanics with lots of attribute checks.



We'll have to wait a bit for the next installment (partially because Alice is out at Origins!), but we'll be back on Saturday, June 30, and each Saturday after that.

We also released the first puzzle of the crowdfunding campaign. And if you want to talk about the puzzle, or are looking for hints or solutions, check out this BGG thread.

                           

So what's going on today? Drew, Dennis, and I will be doing a Reddit AMA at 9am PST today (which is right about now!) on r/boardgames, so come ask us questions over there. Then right after that at 11am PST, the three of us will be streaming another live play of Gloomhaven: Second Edition. Maybe I'll embarrass myself less than I did last time.

                           

And finally, I wanted to spend the rest of the update delving more deeply into the new faction reputation system in Gloomhaven: Second Edition. 

How were reputation and the faction conflict handled in the first edition?

There was a single reputation track, ranging from -20 to +20. Generally, you could pay an immediate cost or take a more difficult path to do something “good”, or you could do something “bad” and get an immediate reward. Positive reputation would give you a discount on item purchases, whereas negative reputation increased item costs. And there were unlocks at each interval of 10 on the reputation track. This system had a couple of issues both thematically and mechanically:
  1. A binary “good” vs “bad” scale is overly simplistic.
  2. The short term rewards of doing something “bad” were not significant enough to justify the long term increased item costs. “Good” was always the correct choice mechanically. And while you could theoretically address this by just tweaking the rewards, that would create a system where the immediate rewards were so great that current characters would be overpowered and later characters would struggle to purchase items effectively, which is generally not fun.

The faction conflict was built up as a significant choice in the middle of the campaign, but after completing it, the game treated you the same regardless of who you sided with, outside of a couple of follow-up scenarios and events.

What is the new Faction Reputation System, and how does it address these concerns?

Instead of one reputation track, Gloomhaven: Second Edition campaigns feature three reputation tracks ranging from -10 to +20, one for each faction vying over control of Gloomhaven: the Military, led by First Shield Harmon, the Merchants, locally led by Jekserah, and the Demons, led by the Prime Demon. Depending on which scenarios you play and your choices in events, you will gain and lose reputation with these factions. Often the factions will be in direct opposition to each other, so it’ll be up to you to decide if you want to side with one faction above all others, or simply try to play all the sides at once.


Note: Graphic Design on this event has not been done yet which is why it’s using a Frosthaven Outpost card back.

Each faction offers the party rewards for their cooperation. Early rewards from supporting a faction's motivations include access to certain items and unlocking faction-specific scenarios. Eventually, you’ll be able to unlock more faction narratives and bonuses, such as an envelope unique to each faction full of additional rewards. Conversely, if you side against a faction, you may run into members of that faction who are not too happy to see you.



Note: Graphic Design on these items is work in progress. Each faction will have a unique faction symbol.

Beyond collecting various goodies, choosing a side in this conflict (or siding with no one) also affects how the scenarios in the final act of the campaign play out and how the narrative evolves through to the very end. Unlike in the first edition, you will feel the impact of your choice for the remainder of the campaign.

In summary, our three primary goals with the faction system were:
  1. Present the party with more competitive options in resolving events and branching scenario paths in order to reinforce the sandbox nature of the Gloomhaven campaign.
  2. Make the faction conflict narratively relevant from start to finish.
  3. Give players meaningful rewards to both help emphasize the importance of their choices and bring each faction’s theme through into gameplay mechanics.

As an added bonus, all of this also serves to make the campaign even more replayable.

It’s tricky to share details without getting too deep into spoiler territory, but we hope this preview gives you a taste of what to look forward to in the Gloomhaven: Second Edition campaign.

And with that, I will head off to this AMA, and I hope you have a great day!

Day 1 in the books!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 09:53:59 AM

Good day, and what a day it has been! We've seen $1.5 million raised in less that 24 hours, which is no less than magnificent! I, of course, must thank everyone who has come out to pledge for the project. Our goal was to have an open market that has something for everyone, and I think the turnout so far lends some evidence to that conclusion.

What's really exciting, though, is that we're just getting started! We've got so much more to share and announce over the coming month, so sit back and enjoy the party with us!

There is so much news to share and imminent exciting things! But first, for those who may be overwhelmed by the amount of offerings on the page, a quick walkthrough of how to back the project.

  1. Take a stroll through the page! See if anything strikes your fancy.
  2. If you're interested in one of our wares, head over to the pledge page and click on it. If what you're interested in is an add-on, just click on the $1 pledge.
  3. Either way, clicking on a pledge will send you to the add-ons page, where you can add anything else you want to your cart.
  4. Once you've done all that, just check out!

Unlike Kickstarter where you select a pledge level and then have to wait until after the campaign for a pledge manager, in BackerKit, you get to do whatever pledge customization you want up-front, which is pretty helpful when there's so many things on offer! And if you do want to wait until later to do it, that's totally viable too. The pledge manager will remain open long after the campaign ends, and pledging for $1 now will give you access throughout, so be sure to at least do that!

                   

On to the exciting stuff! Did you know that the Frosthaven Play Surface Books, which allow you to play all the Frosthaven scenarios on the books themselves like in Jaws of the Lion, is available as an add-on? Well, it is! We've been working on laying those books out for quite a while now, and the work is nearly done, so we should be able to ship out the books in September along side the second printing of Frosthaven. Just one of the fun things you can find by exploring the page! You can add it to any pledge level, including the $1 pledge manager access level, as described above!

                   

So what else do you have to look forward to today? Well, first of all, I wanted to make sure you are aware that we are going to be streaming on Twitch every day of this campaign, and very often multiple times each day. Whenever that happens, the Twitch stream will appear right at the top of the page, and if you are logged into Twitch, you can interact with the chat right there as well, which is super-cool. And if you missed any stream, you can always catch up on the Cephalofair Twitch channel.

Yesterday we aired the character creation for a recurring RPG campaign that will air throughout the BackerKit project. I'm calling it "Gloomhaven RPG: Old School", because the group consists of my old high school friends, Adrian Francies and Jon Arana, who formed my first D&D group back in the day. We also brought in Alisandra Livingston from Rage Badger Gaming to round out the party, because I'm a big fan of her work. I had a lot of fun hanging out and doing some roleplaying with them.



And now that character creation is done, we'll be airing the first steps into the campaign today at 10am PST (which is, like, right now!). That's the big video for the day, but if you want more chill videos, you can also check out my fireside chat that aired last night. We'll be doing those twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays at 4pm PST, where I just sit in front of a (fake) fire, run down what's been going on, and answer questions from chat.

                   

The other exciting thing dropping today is puzzles! If you were part of our Frosthaven Kickstarter, you may remember these. Essentially we give you a small setup with a single character (with a small set of cards) and some monsters (with preset cards for each round), and ask you to achieve a specific objective in a given number of rounds. We'll be dropping a new puzzle every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the campaign. And, seeing as it is Wednesday, you can find the first puzzle down on the page. Good luck!

                   

Next I just want to throw a quick shout-out to the character previews being done by Drew and Dennis for Gloomhaven: Second Edition. In the last week, they've shared the ability cards, perks, and design discussions for both the Mindthief and Saw (beware: Gloomhaven class spoilers!). So check that out for more details and insights into the character class redesign process.

Over the course of this project, we'll have lots more updates about changes to Gloomhaven: Second Edition, as well, so look forward to that!

                   

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that just this morning, it was announced on Nintendo Direct that Gloomhaven Digital will be coming to the Switch September 18, which we are all super-stoked about!



In closing, I just want to thank everyone once again for coming out, backing this campaign, and having patience with us as we work through some of the hurdles of such a large project. We were working furiously today to fix things like: updating the add-on section to showcase more of our partners like Folded Space and Forteller, updating shipping for a number of countries that were not included in original graphic, and updating a handful of miniatures to show off the new sculpts. We're also working on getting all the add-ons for the campaign together into a more navigable area for clarity.

This beast of a project is always evolving, so be sure to check back often for new updates, videos, and more! Until next time, and have a great day!

Gloomhaven Grand Festival Is Live!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 10:49:30 AM

Greetings Mercenaries! 

Thank you for all the support for being here at launch and patience this morning as we got up and going.

The Gloomhaven Grand Festival is open! The city is bustling and the marketplace is ready to go. The stalls are packed with merchants ready to share their wares. Welcome to the celebration of Gloomhaven!



In this campaign, we welcome you to explore the page to learn about all that is being offered. The BackerKit page provides tools to help as you adventure around the pledge pages and add-ons. From Gloomhaven: The Role Playing Game, Gloomhaven: Second Edition, Miniatures of Gloomhaven, and a wide variety of add-ons, there is something for everyone.

We have videos and live streams planned each day with playthroughs, miniature paintings, discussions, and more, which will go the entire length of the campaign. Be sure to check the schedule to see what is coming up.

Join in the discussion to be part of the Gloomhaven community too. We are looking forward to sharing more about each game, with rules previews, spotlights, and more. 

Thank you for coming to the Gloomhaven Grand Festival and we look forward to celebrating with you! 


Less than two weeks from Launch!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jun 09, 2023 at 07:05:03 PM

Greetings Mercenaries! 

This past week, our team has traveled far and wide to share previews and insights for everything that is coming in this campaign.

What’s new for Gloomhaven: Second Edition?

Our team was at UKGE for the first time this past week! We appreciate the warm welcome from everyone who came by to get a demo and pick up some games. We also had a first look at the starting level 1 character cards for Gloomhaven: Second Edition, along with a handful of painted previews for Miniatures of Gloomhaven. 


We will of course be sharing more throughout the campaign, but if you want to get a closer look at some of the starting characters for Gloomhaven: Second Edition now, check out Rage Badger’s video where she digs into the cards. 

Also, if you did not catch the stream, Drew Penn joined Mandatory Quest for a live play of Gloomhaven: Second Edition on Tabletop Simulator. Check out their play session on the Mandatory Quest Twitch channel.

When will we get to see more for Gloomhaven: The Role Playing Game?

The campaign is less than two weeks away, and we can’t wait to share more. This week, Isaac and team were out in Los Angeles filming a couple playthroughs for Gloomhaven: The Role Playing Game. You will be able to see these game plays during the campaign, along with rules previews, designer insights, and more. 


Changing dates for the Reddit AMA!

With the current happenings at Reddit, our team has decided to move our AMA to Thursday, June 22nd at 9am PT. Be sure to join the AMA on r/Boardgames to ask any questions you may have about Gloomhaven: Second Edition. 

Community Feedback and update for the Miniatures of Gloomhaven

This week we showed an early preview of the (Boss) Jekserah from the Miniatures of Gloomhaven. This model was one of our early sculpts and was shown as a pre-production render. We appreciate all the feedback that was shared for this iconic character. We are still in the preparation stages for our miniatures and will be re-working this model to level up its appearance and sculpt. We look forward to showing you more of the miniatures we have been working on once the project launches. 

Designer Insight - Orchid Spellweaver changes for Gloomhaven: Second Edition

Also, we asked Drew and Dennis to talk a bit about how the Orchid Spellweaver changed in Gloomhaven: Second Edition:


First, let’s have a look at how the class worked in the original Gloomhaven release:
  1. The Spellweaver’s most unique aspect is the card Reviving Ether, which allows you to recover all of your other lost cards once per scenario. This gives the class the ability to perform multiple loss actions twice. 
  2. The class uses elements, with an emphasis on fire and ice. The elements come from loss actions at level 1, but as you level up, you gain access to non-loss element generation and powerful non-loss cards like Cold Fire.

At level 1, the class functioned as intended, with big loss actions and exciting variety. As you leveled up, powerful non-loss actions and non-loss element generation made many players use loss actions less and less. This could lead to gameplay focused on repeatedly using Cold Fire with two elements as often as possible.

Now let’s have a look at the new Spellweaver:




Note: Graphic Design on these cards is incomplete. They will have card backgrounds like the Frosthaven class cards.

Here’s what we wanted to change:

1. More rewards for playing loss actions: To begin with: higher level loss actions needed to be intrinsically stronger. When you’re level 1 and you perform a loss action, losing one card is effectively the same as any other. But when you’re level 5, if you play your level 5 card for a loss action, you’ve just given up access to your strongest card. This cost needed to be offset by making loss actions after level 1 sufficiently powerful to balance this exchange. Additionally, as the class’s core mechanic revolves around playing losses, it makes sense that you’d want to give players additional bonuses they could line up to feel rewarded.



2. A revamped element economy: We spent a lot of time playtesting and experimenting with versions of this class that could only infuse elements with loss actions, but concluded that this was too potentially complex and unfun on a starting class to be worth it. In order to balance the high cost of making elements, the effects tied to consuming elements needed to be appropriately powerful to match. That could work in a vacuum, but does not work when you can get elements from allies. Playing in a party with a Spellweaver who routinely asks you “can I have your element? I can do something stronger with it than you can” is often going to be an unfun experience. Instead, we opted for allowing you access to some non-loss elements from the start, but limited to a single card. As you level up, you’ll gain access to more.



3. Some competition for Cold Fire: A fundamental issue with a card such as Cold Fire is how centralizing it is. If Cold Fire is something that a Spellweaver is meant to do, which it was in the first edition, then how do you avoid taking it? What can you even put up against it? You could cut it, but it remains an iconic part of the Spellweaver, and moreover the concept is an interesting design. In the end, through multiple attempts, we were able to make a compelling alternative to Cold Fire while keeping this classic Spellweaver card intact. Now you can make a choice between Cold Fire’s area of effect damage and crowd control, or the higher single-target/flexible damage provided by Dancing Gales.



4. Tools to make the class more beginner friendly: As a starting class with a small health pool, we added some tools to make the class more beginner friendly. The Etheric Bond Perk stops you from accidentally losing your most important card during a short rest and the Crystalline Stasis Perk helps keep you safe while going for a big loss spell or preparing for Reviving Ether.


This class went through the most iterations of all the Gloomhaven: Second Edition classes to arrive where it is today. We hope you enjoy this new take on the Spellweaver.

Thank you for reading and we look forward to the launch day for the Gloomhaven Grand Festival! We can’t wait for you to join and celebrate Gloomhaven.