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In-depth look: Ocean's Hungry Grasp
over 8 years ago
– Fri, Oct 02, 2015 at 03:41:32 PM
The seas around Spirit Island were not always so dangerous as they now are; when the Dahan's ancestors first arrived, the journey was no more (or less) perilous than any other voyage between islands. Several centuries ago, between the Second Reckoning and the rise of the Spirit-speakers, Ocean's Hungry Grasp arrived in the nearby waters. It has severely curtailed the Dahan's trade with other islands, though not extinguished it: expeditions are careful to propitiate the Ocean before setting out and upon their return. Some smaller ocean spirits still exist - some playful, some indifferent, some moody - but all are overshadowed by the hungry, waiting presence lurking deep offshore, and many have fled. Thus far, the tall-shipped Invaders have mostly escaped its attention, but that is sure to shift soon.
Ocean's Hungry Grasp is by turns tempestuous and patient; it may slowly eat away a rocky shore over centuries or devour half an island in a hurricane. It has an awful fascination to it, luring sailors to founder and people to hurl themselves into its embrace. The one constant is that it is always willing to consume more, until all things lie beneath the waves.
Ocean is one of several spirits that's still getting frequent adjustments from playtesting, so the usual warning of "this may not be final" applies even more strongly here. It's also a high-complexity spirit: you'll probably want at least 3-4 games under your belt before playing the Ocean!
Here's its panel:
Artwork and design are not final
Let's start with its special rules, because they're fundamental to understanding how the spirit plays:
Ocean's Home / Oceans In Play: In most games of Spirit Island, the oceans aren't in play, they're just there to show which lands are readily accessible from the coast. (This affects where Invaders Explore and where some Powers can be targeted.) Ocean's Hungry Grasp changes this: it can place Presence in the ocean, and where it does, Spirits may use their Powers as if those oceans were wetlands.
Drowning: Why is this relevant? Any Invader that's moved into an ocean is drowned (destroyed) - and Ocean gains Energy from consuming them! So other Spirits can use Powers which Push or Gather Invaders to entice, harry, flood, or blow Invaders into the sea, feeding their ally.
However, Ocean is limited to the coasts: it can't place Presence into inland (non-coastal) lands. It can still affect them with Powers, if those Powers have the range to reach, but for the most part other Spirits will have to pick up the slack on inland areas.
Once we know this, some other things on the Spirit panel become clear:
Growth: Ocean's main "add Presence" growth option lets it add 2 Presence at any range - but only to Oceans! Another of its choices has it surging onto the shores, placing one Presence in a coastal land and Pushing one Presence out of each Ocean. ("Push" means "move out to an adjacent land".) Its final option lets it regather its spent Power Cards, but it must also Gather ("move in from an adjacent land") one Presence into each Ocean, retreating back to the sea. Most Spirits don't move their Presence around much once it's placed; Ocean is a clear exception - it can't avoid it!
Presence: What are those things on the Energy track? They're Elements - the same as you see on the side of Power Cards. Most mid- and high-complexity spirits have some bonus Elements on their Presence tracks; while those spaces are uncovered, the Spirit gains the shown elements every turn. This makes Innate Powers easier to trigger as the game goes on, and helps with Major Power thresholds.
Presence: Once we look past the Elements, we notice something else: the Energy track is terrible. But Ocean gains Energy for drowning Invaders, so it has an alternate supply. A couple of the Growth options give Energy, too, particularly the one involving pulling back to the ocean and regathering strength.
Innate: Pound Ships to Splinters - Fear, fear, and more fear. Straightforward enough. It takes Moon, Water, and Air to trigger; the first two are obvious aspects of Ocean, but Air?
Innate: Ocean Breaks the Shore - A way to drown Invaders directly, in coastal lands with Ocean's Presence. Takes Water and Earth; two of this Spirit's core elements. (Not all ocean spirits would be Earth-aspected, but this one is: it's a spirit not just of the waves but of the ocean floor, erosion, patience, and depths, all of which give it Earth as a strong secondary element.)
Let's look at its Unique Power Cards:
Artwork and design not final
Some general patterns:
They all have Water, and most have Moon. But only two have Earth, and only one has Air. When taking new Powers, there's going to be a tension between taking powers with (Air + Water/Moon) and those with (Earth + Water); the former will empower Pound Ships to Splinters, the latter Ocean Breaks the Shore. Thematically, the question is whether Ocean's Hungry Grasp shifts more towards its aspect of "stormy sea, sinker of ships, drowner of sailors" or its aspect of "eroding waves, breaker of stone, devourer of islands" as it grows.
All of its Powers cost 0 or 1 Energy. Good thing, given its limited base Energy income.
Two of the four Powers involve moving Invaders, and one of the four Drowns Invaders directly. So it does start with some ability to feed itself, though it certainly benefits from help by other Spirits.
Two of its Power Cards and both its Innate Powers have Range 0. Presence placement is going to be extremely important.
The only way Ocean's Hungry Grasp can directly target inland lands at first is by working through another Spirit. A definite weak spot!
The individual cards:
Call of the Deep - moving Explorers at Fast (before Invaders go) is generally quite useful, as emptying a just-Explored land keeps Invaders from Building there. In this case, though, it's even better: Ocean's Hungry Grasp can Gather Explorers into its briny embrace and eat them. This can only be done at a Sacred Site, though! Here, Ocean's intrinsic mobility can work for or against it: moving Presence inland or out to sea can form - or break up - Sacred Sites. There's another subtlety worth noting: this Power targets coastal lands. This can be used on an ocean, but if it's used on a normal coastal land, some of those Explorers could be Gathered to the shore from places further inland. Yes! A way to affect the inland game, though it may be tricky to set up, and doesn't result in eating anything immediately.
Grasping Tide - Defense! Ocean isn't just good at swallowing Invaders, but keeping them occupied on the shorelines so they don't do as much damage. It's hard to farm - or fight - when the waters of shore and river reach out of their beds and tear your gear apart. It's also pretty intimidating.
Swallow the Land-Dwellers - Subsidence, sinkholes, and floods. Sadly, this Power causes Dahan casualties as a side-effect. While Ocean's Hungry Grasp doesn't personally care about the Dahan, it gets nothing from drowning them - the sustenance gained is cancelled out by lessened propitiation from all surviving Dahan on the island - and they're allies in the current fight, so this Power is best used on lands without Dahan.
Tidal Boon - Grants another Spirit the shifting energies of the ocean, and with them the power to shift and move both Invaders and Dahan. This benevolence extends to any Dahan the target Spirit may send Ocean's way, granting them safe passage to another coast of the island.
Overall: Early in the game, Ocean is going to be primarily concerned with building up and building Energy while keeping the shorelines from getting too badly overrun. As it gets more Presence onto the board, it will gain in raw power level and in ability to target; all those Range-0 powers start being a little easier to find targets for. How it goes from there depends on a combination of which Presence track has been pushed, Power choices, and Energy availability: Ocean's hungry Grasp can grow into a whirlwind frenzy of Fear generation, a full-island "keep the shores under control" defender with moderate coastal offense on the side, or an immense stompy powerhouse slamming the coast with multiple Major Powers.
In-depth look: Lightning’s Swift Strike
over 8 years ago
– Thu, Oct 01, 2015 at 01:35:04 PM
Another day of this fantastic experience! It's great to see so much activity and talk about Spirit Island happening here and elsewhere.
Speaking of talk about Spirit island, Eric has written up another Designer Diary that is timed rather nicely with yesterday's update regarding Adversaries. In it, he talks about the design process of matching mechanics and theme in regards to some of the specific Adversaries. Check it out!
Eric has also been writing up some very interesting bits on the various Spirits you might play. Occasionally we'll be sharing these, and I figured we'd start today. Let's take a look at Lightning's Swift Strike!
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Most spirits of storm travel the sky, never touching down or staying in any one place for too long, but a few find a place they’re sufficiently drawn to to stay - often a site with high winds or violent weather. Spirits of lightning are especially prone to this, finding the earth below more interesting than their cloud-formed bretheren.
Lightning’s Swift Strike was born long ago, of a storm-spirit off the shores of Spirit Island. It decided to stay in the instant it first struck ground, and has remained ever since. Lightning destroys with a fierce and glorious joy, not for the sake of destruction itself, but for the exultation of swiftness-in-power.
Let’s look at its stats:
Some things of note:
Growth: It can play two Presence/turn. Not all Spirits can manage this! Lightning can spread quickly, setting up a new Sacred Site (two Presence in one land) in a single turn, even 2 lands away.
Growth: It only gains new Power Cards when Reclaiming / not placing new Presence. So it’s not going to be gaining huge numbers of new Powers unless it Reclaims a lot - which would limit its expansion.
Presence track: It has a slow Energy ramp-up, but incredible Card Plays - better than any other Spirit in the game.
Special Rules: Swiftness of Lightning - For every Air it has, Lightning’s Swift Strike can make one of its Powers Fast - that is, use it before the Invaders go rather than afterwards. That seems pretty good, but we’ll have to see how many of its unique powers are Air-aspected before we know how often it’ll be useful in practice.
Innate Power: Thundering Destruction - That’s a lot of wrecked buildings at higher levels! It’ll take playing 4-5 Fire to reach the best effects, but Lightning has that awesome Plays track, so playing 4-5 Power Cards in one turn isn’t as distant a feat for it as for others. The targeting is a bit restrictive, though: it must strike from a Sacred Site, and can only reach a single land away. And we don’t know how readily it has access to Air and Fire - so let’s look at its Unique Power Cards!
Before we go into specific cards, we can see two things right off the bat:
Every single Power has both Air and Fire - which makes sense; that’s Lightning for you. That means it’ll have a really easy time finding the Elements to use Swiftness of Lightning and Thundering Destruction!
A couple of those Power Cards cost 2 or 3 Energy to play - destructive power takes some oomph! Playing both of those together would require 5 Energy, far more than Lightning starts out getting in a single turn. So Lightning is going to be somewhat Energy-hungry, and may want to occasionally hold some Energy in reserve to build up for a massive strike the following turn.
The cards themselves:
Shatter Homesteads is a workhouse power, destroying those Towns that crop up all over the place in a particularly intimidating fashion. Like the Thundering Destruction innate, it must be used from a Sacred Site, but has better range.
Raging Storm hurts every Invader in a land, damaging buildings and wiping out Explorers entirely. The more Invaders there are, the more Lightning can pound on them - but it’s not cheap to do. It can be used from any of Lightning's Presence, though.
Lightning’s Boon grants Lightning’s overwhelming speed to other spirits, amping up their ability to pre-empt the Invaders. It could in theory self-target, but with Swiftness of Lightning, that’ll rarely be necessary!
Harbingers of the Lightning asks some Dahan to warn the Invaders about what Lightning’s Swift Strike is going to do to them if they stick around. It also asks the Dahan to move, setting up shop near the Invaders - perhaps simply a threatening gesture, perhaps a setup for a counterattack.
Overall: Most of Lightning’s Powers do a small amount of Fear, plus any Fear caused by destroying Towns and Cities - so we can expect that Lightning will be decent at helping frighten the Invaders. The only way it has to destroy Explorers is Raging Storm, which is expensive: Lightning isn’t good at wiping out small groups of people hidden away in the jungle. But while it has a hard time stopping the Invaders from Building, it’s really good at wrecking those buildings once they show up! It can do this best in bursts - playing lots of Power Cards to trigger Thundering Destruction - but setting those up may take a turn of gathering strength.
Stretch goal #2: unlocked!
over 8 years ago
– Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 12:20:13 PM
You knocked down the stretch goal to include the canonical and thematic map on the back of the map tiles! We've talked quite a bit about what that means in the last couple updates, so I hope you are as excited as we are!
We've got, at the time of this update, just a little over $4k to go to unlock the next very exciting stretch goal: a brand new scary Adversary!
Adversaries are a really neat part of the design in Spirit Island. The game can be played just fine without a specific Adversary, but, if you want to ramp up the challenge, you can instead choose to attempt to repel the Kingdom of England or Brandenburg-Prussia (or the new, still-locked option). These are more difficult, and the mechanisms of these Adversaries attempt to mirror how these Invaders would have operated in the actual world. They're very thematic and difficult, and we really hope you'll have a lot of fun with them.
Keep being amazing, backers!
Balanced vs. Thematic: The Designer Chimes In
over 8 years ago
– Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 01:04:09 PM
Good afternoon! I was thinking we might squeak up to the $50,000 stretch goal this afternoon, so I held off posting this update. But it's just time to connect with you, and we'll handle that stretch goal as it happens.
R. Eric Reuss, the designer of Spirit Island, has crafted today's update. He wanted to speak a bit more about the differences between the normal and canonical maps, and he really is the best one to talk about it. So, take it away, Eric!
"The campaign thus far has a number of short explanations of the balanced vs. thematic maps which I think make perfect sense once you know what each of them is - but I can't tell if they make sense to someone who's never played the game (or even seen a physical copy).
The normal (aka “balanced”) maps:
Are the ones shown on the main Kickstarter page. Their graphics are fields of vivid texture.
Were created with “game balance and playability” as their top priority. Every board has exactly two lands of each terrain type. There are no large clusters of similar terrains. There is exactly one City and one Town on each board, and they’re placed so that the Invaders' first Explore will always hit all lands of that terrain type. There are exactly 6 Dahan on each board. All this combines to make for a consistent game-to-game difficulty level, regardless of what terrains the Invaders hit (and in which order).
Are better for learning the game. The ease in picking out terrain-types and having exactly two lands of each terrain per board makes it easier to learn the game - particularly in handling Invader Actions, where you're scanning for (eg) "all Jungles on my starting board".
Are designed to be assembled any-which-way. There are recommended setups for 2p/3p/4p games; they all fit together differently, and you can use any board in any position. (You can also make weirdly-shaped islands, if you like!)
The thematic (aka “canonical”) maps:
Will be printed on the reverse-side of the normal island maps at the $50K stretch goal. Also, they'll be on the playmat for the "Champions of the Dahan" pledge level.
Have a more realistic art style, though they have not yet been drawn. (See Update #2 for sample art.) It’ll look much more like a real map, which is visually appealing, but not as crystal-clear for gameplay.
Were created with “theme” as their top priority. There are large clusters of single terrain-types, which are more realistic than a mixed distribution, but swingier. The Dahan are concentrated in some parts of the island and absent from others. Terrains are distributed with an eye to elevation, watersheds, volcanic history, prevailing winds, and rain shadows. The four broad terrain types may manifest differently: some Wetlands are swampy marshes, while others are rivers and the adjoining fertile land. (There’ll be some sort of cueing to tell you “this is a Wetland”, though.)
Have a fixed relation to each other, creating a single “canonical” island. There’s the East board, the West board, etc., and they fit together in a configuration that is the canonical geography of Spirit Island. (I.e., if I wrote up a history of the island, I’d be able to point at this map to say “this event happened here, this other event happened over there...”) Of course, you can always choose to assemble them in some other layout if you like! The graphics won’t lend themselves to this quite as well as the balanced sides, but it still ought to be perfectly playable.
Have been balanced, just not as fine-tuned as the normal maps. I haven’t ignored game balance with the thematic maps. It’s just a secondary priority rather than the top priority, because some of the things that make them thematic also make games with them intrinsically a bit swingier.
Are better once you know the game. Both because terrains won't be quite so crystal-clear obvious, and because games on the thematic boards are apt to be a bit harder.
Both types of map offer fine play experiences! I'd recommend learning on the normal side, but after that, go with whichever you like!"
There you have it! I'm sure he'll have more to say later, so stay tuned!
Stretch goal #1 down!
over 8 years ago
– Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 11:29:28 AM
Over this weekend, our first stretch goal was reached! This is a really super exciting one, since it's really going to help the unique and thematic feel of the game. We can't thank you backers enough for all your support.
We've heard a lot of comments about the look on the sculpts for the Invader pieces that are a part of this stretch goal, especially in regard to the Explorers. These pieces are still a work in progress, and we definitely have some changes in mind. For one, we are working on making the Explorers more gender neutral, since that is one of the biggest comments we've heard. Stay tuned, and we'll be showing you what we have as soon as we have something to show!
We're now moving toward the $50,000 stretch goal. When we get there, everyone gets a new map on the back of their tiles! This is the canonical map of Spirit Island. The canonical map is intended to be based in the fiction, rather than focused on balance and mechanics. As you can see in this sample image, Eric has even gone so far as to show where the various spirits would typically make their home.
As always, artwork is not final
We're moving along very well, so let's keep it going strong! Thank you again for everything you do, whether it's organizing group buys or answering questions on boardgamegeek.com. Greater Than Games backers are the best ones out there.
