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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:

First post-project update
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 28, 2023 at 04:16:46 PM

Good day! And welcome to your first post-project update! As I mentioned at the end of the campaign, the plan is to send out an update every two weeks on Fridays, just to let you know what's going on and whether we're still alive. We've got a lot of work ahead, but we want to keep you informed every step of the way. For a complete timeline of when everything is delivering, you can look at this handy timeline, which is also on the main page.

There's not a whole lot to report on this first week, as we've all either been attending San Diego Comic Con or taking a much-needed break (or both!) after the campaign finished.


First news item is the pledge manager timeline. Previously we had planned to open that up next week, but ended up needing a little more time to get everything lined up, so tentatively we hope to have the pledge manager launched the week after (the week of August 7), so keep an eye out for that.

Our first push on getting things done is focused on waves 1 & 2, which is the reprinting of Frosthaven (plus playsurface books) and printing Buttons & Bugs (which will start later, but ideally end around the same time because it is a much smaller product). Submitted edits to Frosthaven and the playsurface books (which I talked about in this update) are still being worked on, so no news there.

For Buttons & Bugs, we are continuing to finalize the development as all the art and graphic design comes in. I did want to share some new monster artwork from Mofei Wang, but everything else is still in progress at this point, so not a lot to show.


Next week we'll all be out at Gen Con, where we will have demos of Buttons & Bugs, Gloomhaven: Second Edition, the RPG, and Frosthaven, so if you're around, please stop by at booth 157 to check out whatever you are most interested in!

Also we're looking for new artists, graphic designers, and writers, so please stop by the booth and share your portfolio with us! Or send it to [email protected].

That's all the news I have for this week, so I hope to catch you at Gen Con, or either way I'll see you back here in two weeks for more Gloomhaven news!

Final day!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 09:40:26 AM

Good day! And the final day of the campaign! This has truly been a unique experience for all of us at Cephalofair Games, and I hope you had a good time with the Gloomhaven Grand Festival. Whether you watched a lot of streams, or worked out the puzzles, voted in the polls, or just backed for $1 and moved on, I hope you enjoyed doing so, and will continue to have a good time when you receive what you pledged for.

So just how will we go from running this grand festival to delivering you your stuff? Well, it will be a process, but a process that we are very familiar with. Once the campaign ends, we're going to transition to an update every other week on Fridays, just to keep you abreast of the goings on as we move through completing the various projects. Initially, these will probably focus on Buttons & Bugs, as that is the first thing we are working on getting out the door (in addition to the Frosthaven reprint and playsurface books). And then we'll move on from there!

So you can expect the next update for this project to arrive July 28, and then we will also be working on opening up the pledge manager some time the week following that. If I'm being totally honest, we all need a bit of vacation after this. It was an intense experience preparing for this thing and then running it, and now we've got a long road ahead of us. But we'll get it done!

All that's left now is to give you a recap of yesterday's streams and tell you what's coming up for today, so let's get to it.

Bright and early yesterday morning, Drew, Dennis, and I got together for a final Gloomhaven: Second Edition play, and even though we were tackling one of the most notoriously hard scenarios in the game, it went pretty well! Of course, the new version of the scenario was a little easier, but it was still no joke.



Then, after a Fireside Chat with Price, we had a great RPG stream with the Good Time Society showing off the digital features of Hero Lab and Roll20.

And we finished the night off by completing the final scenario of Gloomhaven Digital with Brambeard Gaming, where I rode my high from playing Squid Face well in the earlier stream to just absolutely losing my mind and tanking it. Good times.

And today? Well, we decided to close things out by just rerunning all four gameplay videos of the Old School RPG. We started at 6am PST, and it will be running up until 4pm PST, when Price, Ruel, and I will hop on one last stream to play some Buttons & Bugs, chat, and watch that final number go up. If you're looking for a place to share in the excitement of those final hours, this will be where it's at!

And that's it! I will say it once again that it has been an experience writing these updates for you everyday. And while I'm looking forward to getting my life back, I also just want to thank everyone once again for joining us for this festival and participating in whatever way you did. I won't catch you tomorrow, but I will catch you next Friday, the 28th, for a post-vacation run-down of where we're at. Until then!

Project in review
over 2 years ago – Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 08:00:47 AM

Good day! We're in the last 48 hours now! This campaign has lasted a full month at this point, and we've sent a lot of information your way over that time! I figured, instead of filling out an update with yet more information, it would be good to take a beat and provide you with an organized way to view all the valuable posts and videos from all those previous updates. So today, it is time for lists of links!

But before we get to that, I've gotta tell you about all the exciting stuff we've got planned for today.

First of, the dread time has come for Drew, Dennis, and I to play scenario 72, the most notorious scenario in the original Gloomhaven. Did it get better? Will we survive? We'll start playing at 8am PST, so you'll just have to watch to find out.

And then, as with every Tuesday, you can join me at 4pm PST for a Fireside Chat. I'll be talking with Price about running this campaign, and the next steps once the time is up.

Then right after that at 5pm PST, we have a very special extra RPG live play for you from Good Time Society! We really wanted to show off the slick functionality of the Gloomhaven RPG digital tools from Hero Lab and Roll20, so we brought GTS on board for another play featuring Josephine McAdam as the GM, and Lexi McQueen, Phill Correa, and Kate Elliott as the players.

And if that isn't enough, we've even got counter-programming for you. At 6pm PST, I'll be jumping on Twitch with Brambeard Gaming to (possibly?) finish our Gloomhaven Digital campaign.

Okay, on with the important info!

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs

We'll start off with our most popular offer, Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs. We announced this tiny solo version of Gloomhaven halfway through the campaign, and it was a big hit! Here are the best places to find out more about it:


The Gloomhaven: Role Playing Game

Then we have the RPG! This has been a massive endeavor to translate Gloomhaven's rules and lore to an RPG, but it is definitely worth your time!


Gloomhaven: Second Edition

And then out big game announcement last month, a complete rework of the game that started it all, Gloomhaven: Second Edition. This was helmed by Drew and Dennis, and they made sure to give you a plethora of information about it.


Miniatures of Gloomhaven

Our plethora of minis! Over 600 figures to replace all the monsters, bosses, and summons across all Gloomhaven and Frosthaven games.


A painting video from Ninjon.
A painting series from Tabletop Minions (parts one, two, three, four, five, and six)
A painting series from Jamie Daggers (parts one and two)
Announcing our partnership with Army Painter.
And an update with some painting tips.

Frosthaven

Finally, who could forget the reprint of Frosthaven, which is also available during the campaign? And possibly more exciting - the Frosthaven playsurface books!


A wonderful playthrough with Penny Arcade.
Another great playthrough from Pixel Circus.
A deeper look at the Frosthaven playsurface books.

                               

Phew, that's a lot of stuff! And there's still more to come! Be sure to check out all the great streams we're kicking off today, and we'll see you tomorrow for the last day of the campaign!

$4 million, 2 days left, and a Cragheart preview
over 2 years ago – Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 09:19:20 AM

Good day! And welcome once again to all the new backers! We have passed the $4 million mark, a full 200% funded, which is stupendous! Thank you to everyone for joining us on this journey!

We've got another smaller update today as we prepare for the last 48 hours. The project will end at 6pm PST on Wednesday, so we're getting ready for one last push!

No streams yesterday, but we have Jamie Daggers coming back on for one last miniature painting stream from 1-4pm PST today.

And, then of course, we have a new Cragheart puzzle at the bottom of the page. This will be the last puzzle of the campaign, rounding out the number to 12: two for each of the starting classes. In case you missed any of them, I've compiled them all into this folder for easy reference. Thank you to Drew and Dennis and all the play testers who helped create these puzzles. They were all very interesting, and also thanks to MadMullet for hosting the puzzle discussions on BGG every time!

                          

Lastly for today, we have a Cragheart preview from Drew and Dennis. This is the last of the starting classes to highlight, but we'll have another locked class preview tomorrow. Here's the preview:

Today we’ll take a look at the updated Savvas Cragheart in Gloomhaven: Second Edition.


First let’s reflect on the Cragheart in the first edition. 

The Cragheart was a burly sentient rock who could do a bit of everything. They could deal damage in melee, from range, and heal. They generally had pretty strong values on their abilities but were held back by their limited movement and poor initiative. Their most unique mechanic was the ability to manipulate the battlefield by placing, moving, and destroying obstacles.

So what did we want to address?

As with Silent Knife, this class required no broad changes. They had a number of lopsided level-up choices and had a stretch of levels where card after card was “top loss action, bottom move action”, which was a bit lacking in terms of variety. While they could deal effective melee and ranged damage, because their ranged damage was good enough, they had little reason to lean into the melee side of things, especially given that poor movement and initiative often make being a melee fighter more challenging. Finally, their obstacle theme really only took off after level 4.

So let’s see what changed with the Cragheart in Gloomhaven: Second Edition:




Note: Graphic Design on these cards is incomplete.

  • Effective obstacles sooner - When Gloomhaven: First Edition players think of the Cragheart, one of the first things to jump to mind will be playing around with obstacles. It was a shame to have such a fun and unique mechanic locked behind a higher level, so we added more effective tools sooner for those who want to manipulate the very earth beneath their feet.



  • Better melee support - While melee and ranged attack abilities were balanced against each other in the first edition, that often didn’t account for the added cost of going into melee, especially given that the Cragheart is anything but nimble. We increased the power level and payoff for melee attack abilities to make playing a more melee-oriented Cragheart appropriately rewarding.


We hope you enjoy this slightly more polished stone.

                          

Thanks again to everyone for making this happening, and I'll catch you again tomorrow!

Sunday review
over 2 years ago – Sun, Jul 16, 2023 at 09:21:11 AM

Good day! I think we had a little bit of trouble getting the last Old School episode to stream yesterday, so if you didn't see it, you can find it here. I talked more about this series of videos, but if you're looking for something to watch today, I think the whole series, which you can find here, is a good option.

And since there's not much else to go over today (we won't have any new streams) I figure I'd take the opportunity to give you a quick recap of the story going on with the polls, which is just a little choose-your-own-adventure story where you all vote on what happens next.

The protagonist is a Harrower Music Note, who had city guards arrive at their house (presumably for stealing fruit?), so they put them to sleep with a song, stole their money and clothes and then tried to escape. They ran into another group of guards and try to masquerade as one to get by using a guard's uniform, but that didn't go so well, and they lost the guard uniform in the escape. They then headed down to the Sinking Market to lay low with their friend Dash, a Quatryl Mindthief, who is using mind control technology to make seagulls dance in a musical performance. They agree to supply the music, but they are now having trouble booking a gig at the local music venue, the Brown Door.

All very exciting stuff, and, like the rest of you, I have no idea what will happen next, but I'll try to get the story wrapped up by Wednesday when the Backerkit campaign ends! Catch you tomorrow!