Legends of Rakasa is a tabletop adventure card game set in a fantasy world. The game is suitable for larger groups of people, making it ideal for game night. After canceling their initial campaign, the Vatcher Brothers are trying again to fund their game.
Update: Unfortunately the second attempt was unsuccessful, but they’re back for a third attempt.
Basic Information
Players: 1+
Ages: 12+
Time: Varies
Estimated Delivery: January 2015
New Campaign
This is the second attempt to fund Legends of Rakasa. The team decided that the campaign needed some changes and so cancelled the initial funding. The new campaign has slightly different rewards, including a much lower base game package which doesn’t include any of the expansions.
In addition, the initial goal is $10,000 less than it was in the old campaign. Also, it looks like TriVatch has been working to get the word out about the campaign reboot, which is going to be important if they’re going to get their project funded.
The campaign page itself looks a lot better than the old campaign. Images have replaced plain text: something that’s necessary given Kickstarter’s poor formatting system, and it’s just an overall better look.
Game Overview
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.
Campaign Specifics
Goal: $30,000
Pledge Tiers: Five tiers ranging from $1 – $180.
End Date: Fri, May 16 2014 12:00 AM EDT
Chances of Success
The game was more or less complete during the first campaign, so with the added time, the game is in its final state. This reduces the risk of the project failing to deliver its promised content. Like with the original campaign, I think some custom content tiers would be useful, but I think the team is trying to stay conservative with initial rewards until they see how the campaign progresses.
Hopefully the campaign will fair better this time than it did in the initial round. An unsuccessful campaign is not a failure but rather a learning experience, and we’ll soon find out whether or not TriVatch has learned from the first attempt. One suggestion would be to, of course, provide feedback. I’ll drill this over and over again because it’s something many campaign creators miss: interact with the backer community. Thank those who back in the first day or two.