The Riot Quest Wintertime Wasteland Kickstarter is almost over! Thank you to everyone who has pledged, will pledge, or has shown support for this whimsical hobby board game. It’s a pretty good feeling to fund in less than 24 hours, let me tell you!
We recently unlocked a very important stretch goal: the upgraded version of the Castle of the Dark Prince map. In today’s Insider, I wanted to talk to you about the both the regular version and the special version of this map that will be available to players.
The new Arena available in the Wintertime Wasteland starter is an old rundown Umbrean castle. The roof of its uppermost spire has been blown off, leaving the throne room (and all its loot) exposed to the snowy Khadoran elements.
In Season 2 of Riot Quest, our Heroes (and Villains) have begun to explore the northern wasteland of old Khador, Rhul, and beyond. Their first stop is this very castle. Since this map comes in the starter box, the design intent was to make it a beginner-friendly experience. Similar to Thunderstone Fortress, this map doesn’t have any sort of crazy layout or weird tricks to it, not like Hullgrinder or the Temple of Concord from last season.
We didn’t want to simply reprint Thunderstone Fortress with new graphics, though, and instead decided to offer a unique experience from that original map while still being kind to folks who are just learning to play the game. As you can see, the map is a giant circular Arena where Heroes will almost always spawn within reach of something. That “something” might be some treasure to raid, a bounty to rig, another member of your Crew to help, or (best of all) an Enemy scavenger to go fight.
This is the version of the map that everyone will receive inside their starter boxes, but as I mentioned earlier, we just unlocked the special neoprene map! Why is it special? Well, not only is it on a fantastic and durable material (seriously, I love the way dice sound when you roll them on neoprene), but we’ve altered the map to offer some new gameplay experiences.
Check out the neoprene version of the map and tell me: what do you notice that’s different?
If you answered “Trap Doors,” then congratulations! The neoprene version can be played without the use of the trap door mechanic for that beginner friendly starter experience, or you can turn up the mayhem and try it with the trap doors active.
If you play without the trap doors active, nothing changes. Play as normal. If you play with the trap doors active, however, they work like this:
A Hero can spend an Action Die while standing on a trap door to try to navigate the private dungeon under the throne room. When they do so, they roll a red Power Die. If they get one strike, that Hero can be placed on any other unoccupied trap door within four spaces of the one they’re on. If they get two strikes, they can go to ANY unoccupied trap door instead.
Oh, and if they roll no strikes, they are immediately knocked out and sent to the cooler. Dungeons are scary places—I’m sorry, they just are.
Best of all, if an Enemy is standing on a trap door and you hit them, you can force them to make the roll to navigate the dungeon, and YOU decide which trap door they go to based on their roll. The trap doors are a simple mechanic, but they add loads of fun to your games once you’re ready for some more craziness.
The neoprene map will, in its final illustration, also look slightly different in terms of the daylight coming through the shattered roof, giving you an updated visual to the throne room. We can’t wait to show you the final version!
Make sure to check out the final hours of the Riot Quest Wintertime Wasteland Kickstarter if you haven’t already, and get your first look at all the new Hero models coming your way soon!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/riot-quest-wintertime-wasteland/
