The final gifts of the Ancient Ones
over 3 years ago – Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 05:29:07 PM

Explorers, cultists, comrades! The hour is nigh! A new quartet of gifts appear as we vault the final hurdles. With your efforts, your ardour and your support we have unleashed them all- the final pieces of the puzzle that will lock together in alignment to offer the complete Machina Arcana experience.

Friends! Acolytes! Visionaries! With your help the To Eternity expansion has grown beyond our wildest imaginings to truly offer the best possible conclusion to the Machina Arcana saga.

As an additional token of appreciation for your tremendous support, we have one special announcement, and a small offering to all you brave explorers.

The Announcement

It is our pleasure to introduce Matt Healey - our engineer that will be responsible for designing the plastic tray insert(s) for the game. He will be working directly with the manufacturer in order to bring you the best possible "insert" experience that our little infernal box can hold!
You can see Matt's past work here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dzDXxwscKHuMrO_6kcV5dMXPjWDvavld/view

A gift

We prepared a number of carefully selected graphics that you can freely use to decorate your screen, and bask in Her glory.

She is anxiously waiting for you..

The Twin Grimoires: Secrets of the Codices
over 3 years ago – Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 11:07:57 AM

Curious tricksy things you humans are. Forever in search of answers, forever in thrall to the lure of the forbidden. Perhaps in your thirst you have dared to crack the spines of ancient tomes, scrying the incantations within to cast open the doors that beckon in the hinterlands of the mind?

The covetous eyes of the Sentinel pore over them even now, these twin tomes of lore. Studious minds searching for the keys they proffer in their spread of sigils and dense alien script.  Riddle upon riddle spools forth from their pages, images unleashed in a riot of colour and form. Lets us dive into what our curate’s eyes have spied within…

Many of you have sought answers to what lies within the Codices. We heard your cries and dispatched a crew of researchers to unearth their secrets. To a man they returned half-mad and raving of the horrors they had witnessed, oracles from the indifferent depths hewn here into the pages of Arcanum and Aeternum. From their fractured babbling we were able to unearth the following kernels of truth:

Explorer Bios

Each wayward soul who enters the Arcana has their own reasons, their own obsession, their own furtive agenda. Within these pages are exclusive extended biographies offering a deeper glimpse into their stories and what has compelled them to embrace such dire fortune. Cast your eyes over their full-page colour portraits and find the tale that resonates with you as you select your avatar for the perilous plunge. 

The Bloated Bestiary

Assailed from all angles by the denizens of the haunted depths, those who come prepared may glean an advantage when confronted with the slackening jaws and viscous tentacles that await. Learn the exclusive terrible details of each baleful beast you will encounter within the depths of the Machina Arcana, their horrific origins and their place in the mythos. Recoil in terror as their card sized illustrations come to life in glorious full-page colour spreads.

Illustrated Inventories 

The many ingenious items unearthed in the voyage to the frozen north are detailed here as our scientists seek to reverse engineer their steam-powered secrets with diligent diagrams. 

Unfolding Chapters

Follow the story of each scenario as the explorer’s destinies unfold with interconnecting vignettes and the chapter card art reproduced in eye-popping full-page colour. 

Mystery and Motivation

Who are the sinister forces at play, pulling strings behind the scenes to set this macabre act of theatre in motion? Learn the stories of the obsessive House of Bliss and the sinister machinations of the Sentinel syndicate in a series of exclusive stories, journal entries, reports and reclaimed relics that detail the terrible truths cavorting in the shadows.

Horrors upon Horror

A series of exclusive short stories from within the greater world of the Machina Arcana, its shrouded origins and the pawns in thrall to its greater purpose. From its murky origins to it thrilling climax, the truth laid bare in all its sanity shredding splendour. 

Esoteric Etchings

Scene after scene of exclusive artwork to draw you deeper into the web as your eyes dilate further with each perfidious page!

The Beauty of Binding 

A fitting frame for such tortured tales, each Codex is bound in beautiful faux-leather and embossed gold script, a true collector’s item and a blessing for your bookshelf, certain to call envious eyes to the table. 

From the notes compiled in their wretched ordeal we have pieced together the ultimate accompaniments to your time within the Machina Arcana. Speed your passage To Eternity within these hallowed pages!

Where light never dwells
over 3 years ago – Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 11:07:52 AM

Deeper and deeper we plumb the infernal depths, drawn ever onward by a mysterious compulsion that threatens to overwhelm our sanity with every mounting revelation. 

Your every fibre screams to avert your gaze, and yet you cannot look away as each fresh hell is rallied and let loose…

Explorers! Rally to these ragged banners now as we draw down the moon in feats of terrible virtue. Our numbers continue to swell and the veil between worlds grows ever thinner with each hand raised in triumph and tribute. 

We are many. We are ready. We are coming for you!

Crafting "To Eternity" scenarios
over 3 years ago – Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 02:25:51 AM

Have you wondered what to expect from the new ‘To Eternity’ expansion? Then rest your clanky copper equipment for a moment and listen!

Story-wise, To Eternity is the conclusion of the Machina Arcana saga, soon to span a total of 8 scenarios. No spoilers here, but it's safe to say that your witty explorer brains will at last grasp the existence and being of Machina Arcana. Is there a system behind the madness? Will your bodies and soul hold or warp into the abyss?

I also want to introduce our new co-designer Roland Auer, who joined my team to create memorable game experiences for To Eternity. He's not only a passionate Machina Arcana fan, but also enjoys other co-op board games (e.g. Spirit Island, Fireteam Zero), as well as the occasional pen & paper RPG (DSA, ShadowRun, Paranoia).  I'll hand you over here for some sparkling new info on To Eternity!

- Juraj

Greeting explorers! Let's fire up that rusty lantern and shed some light onto To Eternity. Maybe you already own Machina Arcana and trust Juraj's design vision, or maybe you have just joined the league of fellow explorers and are still on the fence about getting the new scenarios. There's a chance that you have seen the gameplay video, but this update will also examine several motivations behind the concepts that we plan to integrate.

Disclaimer: This is work in progress! Juraj and I are in frequent exchange to iterate and polish ideas, especially if playtesting gives us reasons to do so. But we will share the following ideas here because we believe in them.

•  Duration & Pace: Machina Arcana used to be a long game. And that can be a good thing if you want to spend the evening crawling through murky dungeons. A longer build-up allows for a stronger release into endgame. However, sometimes a compact movie does the job better than a trilogy marathon. In To Eternity, we'll be reducing playtime per scenario by keeping meaningful experiences while shaving off the more stretched out excess. We aim to reduce chapter durations while increasing chapter intensity.
•  Tighter Story: The existing scenarios provide a framework to build a plot across a random selection of maps and monsters. We like that. It comes with high replayability too. At the same time, the story can't reliably ignite distinctive moments that feel like from a great novel. But we'd like that, too. The To Eternity scenarios will occasionally ask you to add specific game elements like monsters and maps to serve a more compelling story, while still retaining random selections to keep Horror ever lurking in the fringes, ready to strike terror when you least expect it.
•  More Modularity: Chapter tiles are a completely new element, opening up a range of options both for scenario design and for your own community creations. Located at the backside of some chapter cards, they are scenario-specific map-like elements to extend the playing area. This enables us to deliver both additional playing space and changes in atmosphere while keeping costs low for everyone, as map tiles are both expensive to print and to ship. More importantly, it allows us to anchor the tiles directly into the plot and inject them where the story benefits from them most. Some of you have wondered if the tiles will extend over the game mat borders. They won't, as we'll keep the map scrolling mechanism to let you discard old map tiles and avoid designs that would spread wider than the 2x2 map size. In endgames where we have tiles on multiple map edges, the single map tile plus chapter tiles will stay well within the playing area.
•  Easier Handling: Machina Arcana isn't a very fiddly game, but we still have plans to slim it down. More specifically:     
  •  Less shuffling. We heard you, I feel it as well. It can be a bit shuffly at times when you introduce new item levels. At this moment (work in progress!), each scenario starts with item levels 1+2. In Parabiosis, we replace the level 1+2 decks with level 3 at a specific point. No sorting in, no sorting out. Of course, it's a buff to guarantee a level 3 draw. So this would only happen quite late in the game.
  •  Less spawn & horror rolls. Instead of rolling the dice each spawn and horror phase, the ratings for both just tick down by one each round. That also allows for some interesting new countdown mechanics. It comes at a cost, as the increased player control may result in less tension caused by chancy monster spawns. We're currently exploring how we can still build a solid foundation for drama in the chapters where we need it.
  •  Health tokens become wound tokens. This rule change will also be for the Core game. When wounding a monster, you deal the token. It will reduce token handling, as low level monsters with 1 health don't need a token at all anymore.
    
    That's the juicy part so far. I also want to state that I've been absorbing both the BGG forums as well as the comments in this campaign. Many great ideas! I can only encourage you to come up with your own creations to enrich the Machina macrocosm. Juraj has always been supportive of fan creations and we enjoy seeing you twisting this game into your own fantastic shape. If anyone is interested, I'd also clean up the GIMP files I used for designing my previous fan scenarios (On Wings Blackened: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2376971/community-scenario-wings-blackened, Blood to Stone: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2377590/community-scenario-blood-stone) to kickstart your own tales.
    
    Ok, I got to run. Cthulhu is knocking.
    
    See you in the Machina,
    
    - Roland
    
    PS: Fiiiiine, I’ll tease my favourite mechanic that we've baked into one chapter! At specific times, explorers need to be adjacent to each other to stay sane. Of course, we've got true solo heroes covered as well, but now I'm spilling too much already … ;)

Unlocked: Polish language version
over 3 years ago – Sat, Oct 10, 2020 at 04:58:25 PM

Z radością informujemy, że nakładem wydawnictwa Galakta ukaże się polska edycja gry Machina Arcana!

Obejmie ona zarówno zestaw podstawowy, jak i oba rozszerzenia ("From Beyond" i "To Eternity") w pełnej wersji z tej kampanii.

Prace nad tłumaczeniem rozpoczną się już wkrótce, dlatego jeśli wszystko pójdzie dobrze, polska wersja językowa zostanie wyprodukowana wraz z wersją angielską i wszystkimi pozostałymi wersjami językowymi.

Tłumaczenie obejmie właściwą grę i rozszerzenia, czyli elementy kluczowe dla gry. Na ten moment książki (Codex Arcanum i Codex Aeternum) pozostaną w wersji oryginalnej. Nie są one wykorzystywane podczas rozgrywki, a naszym głównym celem jest terminowe przygotowanie tłumaczenia zawartości powiązanej z grą.

Jak wybrać polską wersję językową?

Po kampanii każdy Wspierający będzie wypełniać ankietę na koncie służącym do zarządzania kampanią (pledge manager oparty o BackerKit). Zostanie poproszony o wybór preferowanego języka dla każdego produktu z kampanii, który posiada różne wersje językowe.