Day 24: Final Day and Hero Voting!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Nov 18, 2022 at 10:26:37 PM

Time has passed so quickly. We are already on the last hours of our campaign! With a strong finish you have unlocked all remaining stretch goals for this campaign. Here come: A Piranha Priestess, a Trapping Treasure and a very Open-Minded Mentalist!

Thanks to your support we have also upgraded our Well-Ironed Golem with a crafty repairman. That guy is working day and night to maintain that massive Guardian and to keep it firmly under the control of the Empire:

 Vote: Crab Knight VS Turtle Monster

Our rampaging turtle monster has been challenged by a mysterious Crab Knight. We love our Turtle monster, but we also think this newly awakened crab knight looks just too cool to be left out! Who is your champion and should make it into the game?

 Please vote for your champion in this Google Form. Only one* of the characters can make it into the game!

* We need to keep a balance of cards and a balance between the four factions. For this reason, it can really be just one of the two.

Thank you & Closing Thoughts

What a campaign it was! For us, it was a unique experience to conduct an expansion campaign for the first time. Never before had we to think about old and new backers, continuity of old components and providing new ones to everyone. In our last campaign, everyone was new! The more, we are thankful for all your feedback and your patience with us. It took a little longer to make some decisions, but in the end we are quite happy with them and hope you are happy too!

 What will happen next? For now, our minds are focused on delivering this campaign and bringing our cooperation for Almost Innocent to a close. After that, we would be eager to make a brand new game next year. What could that be? Have a look in today's voting and let us know what you think of our early prototypes!

While the final hours of the campaign are upon us, we will go for some drinks tonight to our favorite board game bar (Paradice Board Game Bar) to celebrate and reflect on yet another amazing Kickstarter campaign. We will be back next Friday with the voting results and some post-campaign news. Thank you so much for your continuous support. 

Markus, Raphael, Andreas & Team

Day 22: An Almost Innocent Spin-Off & Two Contest Winners
over 1 year ago – Wed, Nov 16, 2022 at 06:22:09 AM

We are gaining a lot of momentum currently. You have burned right through our next two stretch goals and are close to unlock yet another! So here come our lovely Charlatan and an Overcharged Trident. We have still three more cards to unlock (up to 5000 backers) but it is looking very good that we can reach that soon.

In today's update we want to properly introduce you to another game project that we have been eagerly working on this year. Meet: Almost Innocent. We will look into what this game is about and how it integrates with the lore of Hidden Leaders.

The Game: A cooperative, scenario-based game

Almost Innocent is a game by Philippe Attali that we helped to develop in cooperation with Kolossal Games. Our part in this was to create the story, characters and art (with Satoshi Matsuura, of course) as well as developing the game mechanism from a tile laying game to a scenario based story.

The game is a cooperative game where you play a group of heroes that have been (almost innocently) accused of horrible crimes. Everyone draws a solution of five clues and helps their team mates to find the properly solution on a grid of clues by asking specific questions. Our Goblin likes to describe it as "a cooperative cross over between Sudoku and Clue). Check out this video by Foster the Meeple for a more elaborate introduction.

We are currently providing feedback on the remastered visual design of the game (above). We can't wait until this game finally arrives at our doorsteps. It has been an amazing experience for us to expand the lore of Oshra beyond Hidden Leaders with the help of experienced partners. You can still get the game via a Late Pledge on Backer Kit.

The Story: Between Hidden Leaders and Forgotten Legends

The story of this game is firmly rooted in the Oshra universe and takes place between the events of Hidden Leaders (the death of the Emperor) and the Forgotten Legends expansion (the awakening of the Guardians).  

In the game, we explore the rivalries between the factions after the death of the Emperor with boots on the ground. As a group of five heroes, you dive into the rivalries between the factions lead by Queen Mellena the Well-Funded (Empire-Water) and the Emerald Bandits (Tribe-Undead). You get to decide if you want to side with the Queen or join a third secret leader instead! If you like, you can go after a powerful artifact that might be connected to the sudden re-appearance of the Guardians or you hunt down some nasty bandits instead.

We have a winner: Poetry Contest results

With 32 contributions, we were busy reading and collecting your many great poems throughout the campaign. But there can only be two winners! Our jury has decided and has chosen two among many great pieces of poetry:

We congratulate the winners! Your poems will be printed in the Forgotten Legends rule book. You will be contacted by us soon and can make the difficult choice: Would you like A) A copy of the base game B) a fan shirt or C) free shipping for your pledge?

 Help us by rating Hidden Leaders on BGG

As we just discovered, some people decided to "punish" us with terrible reviews for the base game on Board Game Geek because we were hesitating to offer Tarot cards. Can you help us out and leave us a proper review based on your actual game experience? We would greatly appreciate this support!

Day 20: Tarot Card Add On & many unlocks
over 1 year ago – Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 10:13:06 PM

We are heading into the last week of the campaign and today we have a lot of news and reveals for you. Most importantly, the Tarot Cards are now available as an add on! We hope you like this new option and enjoy today's update. 

Unlock: 4000 backers and Social Goals

We are now 4000 backers strong and have unlocked the Suggestive Puppet artifact. This artifact allows you to perform cards from the tavern's open display. Next up your champion, the Headless Charlatan, is waiting to be finally unlocked!

Guardians Upgraded: Social Unlocks

Our loyal followers on the bird site were aided by a surprising relief army of 200 followers on Mastodon. With joined forces, we were able to catch the rampaging Surprised Sapling and control them with a skilled Ent Rider:

 Isn't that tree enormous? Our Possessed Poodle looks like a little puppy next to it! But would you like to see a truly gigantic Guardian? Wait no longer!

Many of you have participated in our poetry contest and our jury on Discord is voting on them at the moment. Thanks to 34 contributions we have unlocked an Upgrade for our Woeful Waterghost. A tiny ship is struggling in the waves. This gives you an idea how truly gigantic this peace loving Guardian is:

 Only our Well-Ironed Golem on Instagram is still waiting for repair to be finished. Follow us on Instagram and/or share a photo of your base game with #HiddenLeadersBG to unlock this final social stretch goal!

 Tarot Cards Add On now available

One of your most frequent wishes regarded (once again) Tarot sized leader cards. And we are happy to announce that they are now available as an Add On on to your Kickstarter pledge. However, there was a lot to discuss on our team and we want to share our thoughts and reasons with you.

We took the time to ask for your opinion, to gather all the production and shipping details and to debate it with our team. Among others, two big questions were puzzling us: English flavor text or none (1)? And should we offer 4 cards only (2)?

 1) Regarding flavor text, arguments for both options were pretty good. Do we want to show off the art or the story? Do we want to make it appealing for every language or add some English-only story text? In this case, we agreed to just follow your preference. What a narrow majority it was!

 2) And what about a 4 cards only option? We ran the calculations and found: The material value of the cards has only a small impact on the final price. Minimum order quantity, handling, picking and shipping are the major cost drivers. For this reason, offering both 4 and 10 cards would make both options more expensive than if there is just one option.

We could have done 4 cards for 4.50€ and 10 cards for 5.50€, sure. But would that be reasonable? It would complicated things a lot for us and made such a minor difference on the price. Instead, we decided to split the diff and go with 10 cards for 5.00€ instead. So, some of you will have 6 extra cards "left over". However, this comes with one important bonus: If your original 6 Tarot cards show any sign of use until the expansion arrives, you can be sure to have 10 identical cards, new and shiny in the extra durable 400 gsm paper quality.

 Fate Cards: Art & Development

We have shown you one of our fate cards last week already. But there are three different fates so we need 2 more artworks, right? Right! And here they are:

 When a Guardian is buried, this cannot only harm the Guardian faction, but also impact the island and cause devastation on the land of the Tribes and the cities of the Empire.

The Development Process

The fate cards have been a rather recent addition to the Guardian expansion. You might have seen self-printed cards or even a Guardian dice in some review videos! Here is how this module developed:

Our initial question was: The Guardian marker is always going up by +2 when a Guardian ability is triggered. But how is it supposed to get down again? We started out with a simple "-2" whenever a Guardian is buried, but we soon found that there needs to be a slight upward tendency or the Guardians can never secure a lead.

Our first try  was the Guardian dice ranging from "0 to -2". It made sure that there was a slight upwards trend. However, this felt unsatisfying as it depended purely on luck. For this reason, we changed things. The player who buries the Guardian must pick one of two cards that can cause a bigger or smaller setback to the Guardian faction. This way, you can not only pick an outcome that fits your strategy, you can also use the cards to mislead your friends about your true intentions. Even as a Guardian player it now has become an interesting option to bury other Guardians, as you can make sure that the negative impact on your faction will be minimized.

Day 17: Naming the Guardians
over 1 year ago – Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 07:00:10 AM

We have unlocked the Self-Made Widow! She's a hero that knows a lot about precious artifacts and handling corruption!

This character comes from Almost Innocent, a game we helped to create in co-operation with Kolossal Games. It is also set in the Oshra universe. If you did not have a chance to check out the game have a look on the Kickstarter page for more info. You can still late pledge it via Backer Kit. We will look into more detail into this game next week and explore how it connects to the lore of Hidden Leaders.

 Names for the Guardians

Fun character names are an important element of Hidden Leaders. Still, it is not always easy to judge which names are fun and which names are not.

Can you help us out? Do you want to contribute your own ideas? Then check out this Google Form. You can rate our current name ideas and contribute your own.  Many names from the base game originated in ideas from our community. We would love to get your name into the game!

Possessed Poodle: A Fresh Meal Unlocked!

Thanks to all of your amazing support on BGG we are finally able to feed our Possessed Poodle properly. We received a donation of amputated body parts fresh from the Hopeful Salamander Hospital to feed that giant puppy a balanced diet of hands and feet.

How big that fur ball is? Just look at the size of those hands! And let it be told: That is the smallest of our four unlock-able Guardians! These will now be easier to unlock, as we changed from an AND to an OR condition for our two goals (more in yesterday's mini-update).

Final Day of the Poetry Contest

Do you love poetry? Do you hate shipping costs? Then we have the perfect contest for you: Write a Poem about one of our characters and post it on Twitter or comment it under one of our Instagram postings to win free shipping, a Hidden Leaders fan shirt or a KS copy of the base game. But be aware: Our contest ends at midnight today!

What a Dilemma: A Tale of Two Board Games

Do you happen to know a Tug of War style game, that launched on Kickstarter October 25th, with roughly 4000 backers, a dead king and a very well alive Queen? Of course, we are talking about... The Queen's Dilemma! 

Or what were you thinking of? Admittedly, we make smaller boxes than these Italians do, but with hidden objectives, some smart deduction mechanism and an immersive story, how can we not be fans of this game? The Queen's Dilemma is the standalone sequel to the award-winning The King's Dilemma. The three of us role played the hell out of the first game and are day one backers of the sequel, of course. Here is what makes it special:

• It's a competitive legacy game, 3-6 players with a 30+ hours campaign
• It's heavily narrative-driven, with both shared and personal storylines
• As the Queen's advisors you face hundreds of unique dilemmas in tense voting sessions
• During all this you develop your character, improve your lands and trade resources in a game that does not forget your past actions

Now which game should go on your table during a game night? The Queen's Dilemma or Hidden Leaders? Fortunately, for this dilemma, there is a simple solution: One game as a main dish and the other as dessert. But we won't tell you which is which!

Day 15: The Corruption Mechanism & Story
over 1 year ago – Sat, Nov 12, 2022 at 10:55:56 PM

Today, we don't have an unlock for you as we are in the middle of the infamous mid-term slump. However, we are very close to our next stretch goal already! To compensate for that calmer period of the campaign, we are glad to present you some amazing artwork reveals! So far the Guardian Fate Cards (that are used to determined the impact of a Guardian that has been defeated) have been simple prototype layouts. In many review videos you might even have seen self-printed cards.  However, we commissioned Satoshi Matsuura once again to provide some exclusive art for them!

 Inspired by the amazing buildings he drew for Almost Innocent, we decided to visualize the impact that the destruction of the Guardians has on the land. In the above case the shrines of the Mother are falling apart and the Guardian faction is weakened. However, we have two more up our sleeves for next time!

 The Corruption: Ancient Spirits return

When the Guardians and their Mother were banished long ago, their live force was trapped in old temples under seals of powerful magic. As the Guardians were freed by the new claimants to the throne, their spirits repossed their old and slumbering bodies again. But some of the Guardians had no body to return to. Their remains had been burned by fires or shattered by earthquakes in the many centuries that passed.

 These aimless spirits are now searching for a new home seeking refuge in any living organism. The poor creatures who are unfortunate enough to be possessed by such a wandering soul are strangely transformed. The spirits remember their old duty and shape those who host them to a new purpose.

The Module: Changing Heroes' Alliances

With the corruption tokens, an entirely new mechanism is added to the game. Once a player reaches a certain number of open heroes in their party, they can decide to spread the corruption. This way, two times per game all players draw a random corruption token from the bag, while the player who spreads corruption gets an extra one. These tokens can be placed on any hero, open or hidden, in order to impact the faction that this hero belongs to. 

The core idea was to make it less clear what the players intentions are and to make it easier for you to play cards for their strong effect, even if they do not match your winning faction. The obvious choice with a corruption token is to turn a hero with a color that you do not need, into a color that you do need. However, more advanced moves are also possible, let's look at three examples: 

Is Red ahead because an obvious red-blue (Cyra) player causes you trouble? Force them to switch strategy! Just put a blue token on their Flailing Knight and they will have a strong incentive to switch strategy because they can no longer keep up with the other red players! 

Did you play the Unconfident Executioner? Everyone likes to bury heroes with this card. But you might choose to corrupt this card and make everyone think you are obviously not black. However, you may choose one of the "2x" tokens and increase your hidden black sympathies even more!

Have you hidden the Emperor between your face-down cards? Place a Guardian token on him! Everyone will think you corrupted one of your unloved heroes. And if they really attack him, you can sacrifice the Guardian token to protect him. If he survives the game, he will even count as an additional Guardian for you. 

 Poetry Contest: Win free Shipping!

We are very glad to read all your fantastic poems and have received more than 10 contributions already. To raise the stakes, we have decided to add a third prize option for you to choose from:

• 1) Kickstarter edition of the base game (1st edition) shipped right away
• 2) A Fan Shirt with your favorite character
• New: 3) Win free* shipping for your pledge!

So if you are burdened by high shipping costs, maybe you can ease them with some poetry? All you need to do is to post your poem below one of our Instagram feed posts or share it on Twitter (or Mastodon) and tag @boardgamegoblin.

If you have neither Twitter nor Instagram, you can also post your poem as a comment below this update. The contest ends on Friday 11th at midnight (CST).

* Free shipping will be implemented as an 18$ voucher added to your pledge manager. This covers shipping costs for most regions and strongly subsidizes the remaining ones.

Meet Nacho: Our "Community" Designer

During our first Kickstarter, we received an amazing echo from our (lock down-ridden) fan community. Among them was a certain designer from Spain who told us "Let me know, if I can help". We took him up on that and already during the campaign this passionate fan became an amazing helper on our team. 

Today, Nacho is a key member of our team and has helped us not only with the Queen Mini Expansion and Forgotten Legends but also contributed design ideas to Almost Innocent. If Satoshi creates our Mona Lisa, Nacho makes sure she has a nice frame and is perfectly lighted in the gallery. Here is an (incomplete) list of things he created for us so far:

• The entire Queens&Friends Tuck box including the family tree
• The Cover and Box for the Forgotten Legends expansion
• The Forgotten Legends rule book
• All icons for the Guardians, Corruption and Artifacts
• Card Backgrounds and Backsides for the Artifacts, Guardians, Corruption and Fate Cards
• The layout for the alternative board
• Lots of visuals for our Kickstarter landing page
• Social Media artwork for Twitter and Instagram

Besides his incredible skills as a designer, it is just a joy to see how much he shares our passion for this game. Nacho has perfectly translated Satoshi Matsurra's style to the icon and card designs. He always provides us with many variations and quick drafts and smoothly integrates into our internal communication channels. We can't wait to meet him in person, hopefullly in Essen next year!

If you are in dire need for a designer, hit us up. We gladly connect you with him, in case he has further time to spare on board games.