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Etherstone

Created by Gonzalo Aguirre Bisi

An evolving card game designed by Virginio Gigli and Simone Luciani. Illustrated by Paolo Voto.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Designer Diary and new Stretch Goals revealed
9 months ago – Mon, Mar 25, 2024 at 10:54:38 AM

Dear Noburians,

We hope you had a great weekend!

Twenty stretch goals have been unlocked and we are excited to reveal the next three! We are getting close to the final 48 hours and hope this campaign was fun for you all.


This update is very special to us as Virginio and Simone are taking over to discuss the design process of Etherstone, its origin, and its development. We hope you’ll enjoy the read!

Etherstone Designer Diary

SIMONE
Some games are born from a brilliant idea for the game mechanic; others are born from a setting, an atmosphere. Etherstone was born from a feeling after a match. Race for the Galaxy is one of my favorite games and when Res Arcana was out, I was feeling frenzy. Lehman is an author that I admire and follow and the idea of handling a few cards to optimize them got me galvanized. I bought the game, played it a couple of times, and liked it! But the game that I had imagined in the awaiting time was completely different. I thought it was interesting. I talked about it to Virginio.

VIRGINIO
For Magic players my age, it was a revolution. Not so much (at least for me) for the collectible aspect: the mechanic was innovative, it offered a world to explore and it allowed to create infinite decks of cards and experiment uncountable strategic possibilities. I played and studied it. Then I played and studied many other card games that came after that one, sometimes they did not include original elements. When Simone asked me to work on a game of cards I accepted the proposal with enthusiasm. In the years some ideas came to my mind that I could not wait to try and create.

WORKING TOGETHER: FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS

What could be our starting point?  We had some solid points.

Cards activate with dice
The original nucleus was a game where cards that a player had in front of them would activate with a dice drafting mechanism. There were multiple references: our Lorenzo il Magnifico was offering the central idea: dice would activate cards but in a peculiar way. We thought that this activation element thanks to colors and numbers of dice could offer a new level of depth both in the choice of the cards to play and in handling the singular actions. 


Only 7 cards for a match
Another crucial idea was creating a game that could offer players an experience of deep strategy and variety, exclusively handling a small hand of cards for each match. Res Arcana and Seasons helped us imagine a game where the initial player's hand would guide the player throughout the whole game, but we took to the extreme the concept of an immediately and fully available hand of cards, that would not allow integrating more cards during the match. We wanted to generate diverse and in-depth matches with few cards in hand: a lot of work had to be done for the characterization of cards and their interactions. Magic stimulated us to find depth, variety of effects, and net distinctions among different colors of cards (That in Etherstone became factions), in a way that each had well-recognizable and distinctive peculiarities and characteristics. This also led us to search for the maximum variability of strategies allowing us to play different matches every time.

Fast but deep
Another characteristic was to create a game that was both deep and agile, fast, where players had time (and will!) to play one match after the other. It was important for our idea that the game would maintain fluid tension in each moment. This was still not a formed idea, but a very clear intention (below we narrate how we pursued it).


Common enemies
Given, that we liked to have the sensation of attacking and defeating an enemy, but we wanted a game without direct adversary attacks, we thought of a common threat to defeat. That’s how the monsters were born, which with a specific action could be faced and defeated.

Starting from these central ideas, we started laying out the basics. We can narrate how these ideas took shape, consolidated, and transformed.

DEVELOPMENT

Often the development process is very circuitous and many of the central ideas of the game change multiple times. In Etherstone instead, we were lucky that all the central mechanics fit well from the first tests.

The cards had a cost in ‘mana’, which color was also the same as the card, and had instant abilities: some permanent, some activated with dice (that being colored allowed to use both the value and the color).
We thought right away that it was exciting to pick the ‘correct’ dice that would activate two or more cards! We naturally added the catch of the main resource, the mana, to the dice.

The building of a hand was one of the cardinal points to face. We started from a mechanic that was faced a few times: choosing your hand starting from a bigger pool (15 cards) identical for each player and casually extracted for each game; we liked this choice. The cards were created to generate very strong interactions, so you could keep a card to block a strategic combination that you foresaw as a possible adversary move, or simply anticipate others in interactions that they might have overlooked.

3 categories of cards were immediately solid, the Followers that were the majority, also helped to attack monsters, then Rituals and Technologies. Having chosen a small hand, of only 7 cards, we were not considering discarding playable cards, everything stayed in the field, therefore Rituals and Technologies had a similar structure, but we needed to differentiate them both on a thematic level to handle the interactions between cards.

To add variability we created unique powers with Hero cards, so we could create strong asymmetries to start with, that concerned both Mana and initial life points. We thought that this choice was very important also to guide players in the construction of the hand since the heroes to choose were assigned before drafting.

We liked the idea that players could “die” to give extra tension.
So each player had life points, that could be lost when attacked by monsters but also after the activation of some cards. We were not keen on eliminating a player, therefore the player with zero life points could ‘resurrect’ after losing a turn and some victory points.

Since we wanted a game where in every match different facts could shake up the rules making the match unique, we very early added victory points tokens obtainable with effects and interactions to add quantity and variety of interactions between cards and strategic lines of the game.

We started trying the game divided into small rounds in which we would collect a few dice (gaining Mana and activation) and we would either play the cards or attack the monsters. This division did not seem to be the best choice for a fluid game during gameplay, therefore we abandoned rounds and added the mechanic of re-rolling dice paying life points; at the same time, we made the player turn as fast as we could, making all actions alternative between them (catching of the dice and activation, playing cards, attack, etc…) so that every player could run their turn fast.

We did many tests, pushed by the fast pace and our amusement playing the game (it is not always the case when playing dozens of matches of your own game). We added cards and refined everything, but it was surprising how a lot of the initial game is still present in the final version.

Some ideas that we tried we also abandoned or pushed for future expansions; some territories to conquer appeared (common cards that were obtainable only by reaching the objectives that were proposed) and tokens that gave extra actions, to activate those that would progressively lose victory points. Some sacrifices needed to be made though, therefore, at least for the time being, these elements, together with many cards that did not convince us, are not in the game.

Since we are here, we can confess that during the development, we kept naming this game Little Magic (Magichino)…


WITH THE PUBLISHER

A crucial moment was the presentation of the game to Thundergyph, and we need to thank them all, starting with Gonzalo and Pier, for the enthusiasm that they showed right away for the game and further down the line during all the phases of the final evolution of the game.

In the meantime our generic and not too-original fantasy setting changed into a new thriving world, that the editor wanted to go in-depth in an incredible way, to the point of writing a book of the Story of Nobura, a planet where colors became factions, monsters became menaces, and Mana was substituted by Etherstones. Everything started taking shape with the incredible art by Paolo Voto, greatly supported by Giada Princi.



The fundamental change in the game, after the encounter with the editor, was abandoning - with a hint of sadness- the idea of creating your hand from a common pool to get to a more classic draft of cards. The tests with new players gave us the impression that choosing the hand from a bigger pool could become complex and disorientating, furthermore, the editor had clear in mind right from the start that 4 copies for each card, considering promo and expansions would have increased the price range of the game and a bigger box, without adding enough gameplay to justify the choice and compromising the accessibility and slowing down the preparation.

Finally, another extremely innovative idea was the concept of an evolving game, the future evolution of the game is guided by proposals, observations, and ideas of the community of players, which make the game stimulating and also challenging for us designers; we are very curious to discover what we could add to the future of this story…

Thank you so much for your support and talk to you in our next update!

Sincerely yours,
Everyone here at Thundergryph Games

New goals and Etherstone on Tabletop Simulator
9 months ago – Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 10:15:45 AM

Dear Noburians,

How is everyone doing?

Your final vote for the remaining memento card is done, and here are the results and the final five memento cards available just for anyone who joins this campaign with a Deluxe pledge or more. These cards will become living proof of your support towards the first few steps of Etherstone!

Also congrats to our winner of the Council Card: Hessel van der Eijk


New Goals Revealed

We are so close to unlocking the Etherblade and here are a couple of new Stretch Goals including a new Threat card!

Etherstone on Tabletop Simulator

We are excited to announce that the demo version of Etherstone is now live on Tabletop Simulator. You will find 5 different pre-made decks to discover the different aspects of each faction and a few more Leaders in case you prefer to mix all the cards and draft right away!

Click the link below to download the Workshop! (Tabletop Simulator is required to play)

Thank you so much for your support and talk to you in our next update!

Sincerely yours,
Everyone here at Thundergryph Games

The Void - Last vote for the final foil card!
9 months ago – Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 09:30:43 AM

Dear Noburians,

We hope you had a great weekend!

The votes for the Luminary card were cast and counted. Congrats to the winner of the Council Card: Vermeesch Tieme, and to the most-voted card!

We want to remind you that tonight we have a special livestream in Italian. We will be doing another one on the 21st in English.

We are also heading towards unlocking the box for Victory Points and Counters and we are glad to reveal one additional goal, related to the Void, which is the topic of this update!

The Void

Nobura remained untouched by anyone from inside or outside the galaxy since the last extinction.

Etherstones shaped Nobura's different environments and gifted plants and animals with special traits. Life on the planet includes tropical areas, caves filled with water, and a strange, colorless landscape made by one kind of Etherstone.

On the other hand, the Vacuous settled on a small piece of land and stayed there for millions of years, digging its roots deep into the ground.

During earthquakes, the Vacuous rises from the planet's core to the surface as vapor. It encounters various life forms on Nobura. Upon contact, it imparts enlightenment, enhancing their abilities while subtly infecting them. As the infection progresses, the host loses consciousness and exhibits erratic behavior. Eventually, the host implodes, releasing the Etherstones, which return to orbit to reform the cosmic being, initiating a new cycle.

Vote on the next Memento!

It’s time to choose the foil card for the Void!Visit the comment section and vote before tomorrow, March 19th at 17:00 CET | 11:00 am EST.

Thank you so much for your kind support and talk to you again soon!

Sincerely yours,
Everyone here at Thundergryph Games

An Empowered vault, Luminary vote, and live stream!
9 months ago – Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 10:41:55 AM

Dear Noburians,

How is everyone today?
It seems like you're enjoying the excitement surrounding the voting process, and what an explosive victory for the Unstable Fighter, literally! snowQQ is the winner of the Council card, congrats!


Hold on tight to your Grit, because we've got some exciting announcements lined up for this update, starting with our new Stretch Goal reveal!


New dice tray illustration

This new art will replace the old art with the logo. You will receive it included in your Council Bundle pledge or you can add it as an add-on for 10€. This dice tray is a Kickstarter Special and only a single print run will be made.

Even if we are talking about something nice and practical, we wanted the dice tray to tell more about Nobura. Paolo Voto illustrated the Cosmic being that gave life to the planet.

The legend narrates that Rhea gave up her divine essence to give life to Nobura. Bright Etherstones fell on the planet's lands to create its biodiversity. Since then, Rhea hasn't made her presence known, leading to rumors that she breathes through the lands of Nobura.

The Etherstones

Rhea's divine essence was a quincunx. Sacrificing herself to give birth to Nobura anew, the five elements that composed her transformed into Etherstones.

The quincunx, a geometric pattern of five points arranged in a cross, with four circles forming a square and one at the center, explains the divine nature and the five Etherstones:

Life (green) - The essence of being alive, essential for healing and rebirth in Nobura.

Flow (white) - The mental state of energized focus, full involvement, and success in finding purpose without hindering others.

Grit (red) - Represents unyielding courage in adversity, fostering resilience and growth, though it can lead to anger and risk-taking.

Crave (black) - The strong desire to achieve purpose, acknowledging sacrifice as necessary, though it can lead to nihilistic tendencies if embraced too deeply.

Vacuous (purple) - The tiniest element in the center of the quincunx that is kept in our divine nature as a reminder of the inevitability of death, of the end of our own existence and our purpose.
 

Art direction and gameplay live stream!


Vote on the next Memento!

It’s time to choose the foil card of your favorite faction, the Luminary! This one will last for the weekend until Monday 18th at 11:00 am CET | 8:00 am EST.

Visit our comment section and please comment by replying to the pinned thread.

We will not be posting an update this weekend, but we will resume daily posting on Monday!

Wishing you a great time!

Sincerely yours,
Everyone here at Thundergryph Games

The Limbics, new vote, and stretch goal revealed
9 months ago – Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 10:06:48 AM

Dear Noburians,

We hope you are all well!
Luis has been collecting all your votes for the second memento from the Exalted, and this time it was close! Congrats to the winner of the Council Card: Marcos and to the most voted card which will become foil!


The next voting is for the Limbic faction, and in this update, we will explore this last faction further. Before that, here is the new stretch goal to unlock!

The Limbics

Location: The Blood Trench

A landscape of deep red mud lakes, where the Limbics submerge to muffle stimuli. Here, only algae and weeping willows thrive amidst the oppressive humidity and scorching heat. The air hangs heavy with moisture, making it nearly unbearable, yet the mud's thermodynamic properties provide a surprising relief, keeping surface and submerged temperatures lower.

Social Structure

In this tribe, individuals refrain from engaging in reproduction in pairs, instead opting for a process resembling parthenogenesis. Each member possesses the biological capability to produce offspring independently, resulting in genetic diversity derived from the assortment of genetic material within the tribe. The specific mechanism of reproduction involves laying eggs.

Due to their underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, the tribe likely lacks a concept of ownership. Resources are shared and distributed based on strength and dominance, adhering to the laws of natural selection. Their brains are predominantly governed by an extended amygdala, leading to limited consciousness, minimal pain awareness, and impulsive traits that can manifest as aggression and loss of control.

Taking all of this into account, the tribe lacks a formal social structure but acknowledges a leadership hierarchy, respected out of a combination of fear and admiration.

Limbics and Whisperers

Once known as the Whisperers, the Limbics isolated themselves from society after pairing with a peculiar reptile. Wildlanders underwent a merging of traits just before complete assimilation. This process caused them to lose the use of their prefrontal cortex and their parthenogenetic mode of reproduction, mirroring the physical structure of their spirit animals. This lack of emotional attachment, makes them sever their connection with spirit animals, disrupting the natural link within the entire Whisperers' kingdom.

Since then, the Whisperers have been studying this event, maintaining a non-aggressive stance towards the Limbics while keeping their distance.

Habits/Mannerisms

Limited Vegetation: With scarcity of vegetation the only presence of it is primarily composed of algae and weeping willows, which poses a critical resource challenge for the tribe, sparking territorial competition for these vital food sources.

Hunting Techniques: The Limbics, in their primitive state, have honed efficient and ruthless hunting methods. Employing ambush tactics, they rely on their strength and impulsiveness to capture prey, often targeting small animals and fish from the muddy lakes.

Storytelling through Physical Displays: With limited verbal communication, storytelling is conveyed through elaborate physical displays. These displays feature rhythmic body movements and visual patterns in the mud, narrating the tribe's history, legends, and cultural knowledge.
 

Vote on the third Memento

Visit our comment section and vote on your favorite card of the Limbics faction. Your most voted choice will become the third memento you will receive.

We will be picking a random comment to win a Council card! 
Voting is open until tomorrow at 17:00 CET | 11:00 EST


Talk to you in our next update and thanks for all your kind support!

Sincerely yours,
Everyone here at Thundergryph Games