Legends of Rakasa is a tabletop adventure game set in a fantasy world. While its the Kickstarter campaign hasn’t really picked up much steam in the first couple of days, I think it has a lot of potential. It’s pretty obvious that the Vatcher brothers are good storytellers. While not yet as robust a mythos as Golem Arcana, I feel that the overall game play in Legends of Rakasa displays far more of its respective story than does Golem Arcana’s game play. You can read what they have so far on their webpage.
Basic Information
Players: 1+
Ages: 12+
Time: Varies
Estimated Delivery: May 2014
Game Overview
Forum: http://geekerskeep.com/topic/legends-of-rakasa-the-hunt-for-glory/
Players take the roles of newly pronounced Hunter-Warriors, the most elite and holy of all callings in Rakasa. As Hunter-Warriors, players prove their might and worthiness during the Life Crossing Festival by hunting and collecting the most valuable sets of parts carved from the legendary Mahakasai.
Winning these parts is no easy feat for players as they will begin their hunt for glory with nothing but a handful of ingredients from the village market and a set of bone gear, the weakest and most basic of equipment (often found discarded along the roads of Rakasa).
Players roam the land, lay traps, hunt and battle monsters, gather ingredients and spoils, forge new equipment, brew potions, trade in the market for tools and other items, grow in power, and devise plans for hunting the Mahakasai to claim glory above all other Hunter-Warriors.
Never too Many Players
As someone who runs gaming events, I have found the number of games that can be played with large groups to be far too limited. Like Clockwork, Legends of Rakasa features non-linear game play. The authors of the game specifically mention that with this mechanic in place, the maximum number of players is virtually unlimited. The Starter Pack and the three Land Expansions facilitates up to 8 players. All you need to do in order to accommodate more players is simply get more add-on packs.
Product Components and Options
Beyond player mechanics, the game itself utilizes a board consisting of tiles, 56 different monsters, and various types of equipment and potions. There are multiple expansions available for the game including three land expansions and an alchemist expansion. As far as the graphics are concerned, I have to say that I’m really liking the visuals so far, especially the monsters. For reference, below are sketches of some of the monsters.
Monsters from Legends of Rakasa
Average Playing Time
I left the average playing time as “varies” because according to the game author, there are so many ways in which the game could be played that it could take as little as 30 minutes to play or many days to play. Here’s what the author of the game had to say on the matter:
Setting an average play time is quite hard as the gameplay can be customized in so many ways. Players can create any sort of mini mission or different starting and winning conditions that a game could take 30 min and another game could last for days depending on what situation players build for themselves. We do provide a standard story and gametype for players to play. The standard game play is roughly 240 min. The standard game progression can be broken in half with a very clear stopping point, thus resulting in 120 minute games.
Kickstarter Specifics
Goal: $40,000
Pledge Levels: Four levels ranging from $35 – $95.
End Date: Saturday Feb 15, 2:35am EST
Chances of Success
It seems like almost everything is set for this project in terms of development. As the Kickstarter page states, the only foreseeable issue is in printing. In fact, they have run test trials at two separate Expos, so I have little no to concern regarding a possibility of the project failing after being funded. The only concern right now is whether or not they can reach their funding goal.
Based on other campaigns I have seen, one change that would really put this campaign over the top would be to increase the number of tiers, especially tiers which give backers the privilege of adding their own input for customized content: something I have seen in pretty much every successful game funding campaign.
Update
1/4/2014 New reward tiers have been added to the campaign, this includes tiers for backer input in the game. There is now a total of six tiers, with the highest tier at $500. This tier allows you to add three elements to the game.
1/16/2014 Well, it looks like Vatcher Brothers have taken the campaign down for some reformatting. We will update you on the progress of a reboot.