Elric : Rise of the Young Kingdoms

You have awakened the Dragon !
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 01:38:09 PM

Thanks to your support, we can unlock this beautiful figurine sculpted by Arnaud Boudoiron, based on an illustration by Tomasz Jedruszek!

Dragons defend the Dreaming City. They even populated the island before the Melniboneans made it their capital. They sleep in a cave and are difficult to wake up, only the Dragon Princes can wake them up from their slumber, in case of great danger.

We like to imagine that this figurine represents one of the greatest and most powerful Dragon Princes of Melniboné: Dyvim Tvar!

Thank you for your mobilization! And now, let's go to the next goal: the Melnibonean Lord !

The Tuesday Treat : Cymoril joins the fight !
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 08:40:48 AM

The fundraising campaign has been live for a week now. That's why loyal backers,  we go for a nice Tuesday treat... We will do it every Tuesday until the end of the campaign!

 Today we answer to the question:  WHAT IF ?

 What if Cymoril was the main character in this whole story? The Multiverse is rich in possibilities and variations ! What if Cymoril wielded Stormbringer? What if she was the one bringing together this band of raiders from the Young Kingdoms to free Elric from the evil Emperor Yyrkoon?

So, here for you : a badass vision of Cymoril ! She will rock that board !

Successful funding : we're giving ourselves an imperial present!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 09:25:32 AM

Hello everyone!
THE GAME IS FINANCED !!!  And we are ecstatic!

Indeed, by adding the amount collected on Kickstarter to that of Ulule, we have exceeded the 40 000 € which was the first goal of this double campaign.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Thanks to you, Elric: Rise of the Young Kingdoms will be a reality.

Moreover, as we have now a better visibility on the campaign trend, as we are super reassured about the funding, and as new quotes from manufacturers have arrived (and they are quite encouraging), we can have two pleasures to celebrate the funding !  
1- We can reduce the gaps between the Stretch Goals!
2- We can afford Yyrkoon! The Emperor of Melniboné, Elric's cousin and sworn enemy, joins the stage. It's a gift!

Considering the way the campaign goes, this has allowed us to redesign a bit our Stretch Goals line, which we'll let you discover!

Now that you have the guarantee that the game will exist, don't miss to contribute to the campaign. Let's go to the second level! And see you tomorrow... for another nice surprise.

Spotlight on the mecanics of the game with Jean-Baptiste Lullien and Frédéric Chansel
over 1 year ago – Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 11:43:56 AM

As we are about to reach the 1st objective, we propose you this time a focus on the gameplay with the authors of the game !

• JB, you are one of the authors of Zombicide, and you Fred, a multi-talented gamer, this is the first game you have co-authored, what is your background as a board game player?

JB: I fell into it when I was very young. My father and grandfather had created their own wargame, with hundreds of models of WWII machines and thousands of little hand-painted soldiers, glued in packs of 3, 6 or 9 on small transparent plastic plates. They would come out of the endless tables (5 or 6 metres long!) carefully squared and play their "krigchpille" - a word that remained a mystery to me for a long time - all summer long. I loved my grandfather's armies, which were a real hoot: he lined up, opposite my father's inevitable Germans, a whole fauna of improbable warriors: Zulus armed with spears and dressed in leopard skin, Sikh warriors with their parade uniforms and turbans, Mexican bandits with big hats, Aztec warriors with feathers and stone weapons, Greek soldiers brandishing spears and shields... It was a paradise of unbridled imagination confronting Germanic rigour. So, obviously, with such a background, I easily fell into board games: ha, the crazy Talisman games of August, the weekends spent on Fief, Twillight Imperium, Diplomacy or Rising Sun...

FRED: For me it starts with the letter B : B for Bonshommes* (French for "minis") and for Bagarre* (French for "fight") ! My passion for boardgames comes from my childhood taste for Wargaming. Placing tokens on a map and beating each other up was so much more fun than Monopoly!  Classics, like Stratego excited me a lot, as well as Napoleonic wargames where you push little squares, but the trigger came from Rexton (now Eurogames) games: Cry Havoc, Samurai, Crusades... The counters were colourful, unique... full of personality! We started to tell our own stories with each game, with each die roll, and this taste for the narrative dimension became essential for me. The rest is a classic path: Blood Bowl to learn how to lose on a single bad roll and channel my anger, Knights of the Round Table and then Galactica to learn the virtues of co-op - and betrayal, Chaos in the Old World and Bloodrage to sink into Ameritrash, with its joyful mix of material and game mechanics.
Now that I'm super old and wise, I can say that I like to play everything, as long as it provokes lively (and friendly) interactions between players. So for me that was the key word for Rise of the Young Kingdoms: Interaction.

• What is the game mechanic in Elric that you are most proud of?

JB: For me, it's the alliance system. Originally, the game suffered from a real lack of interaction and negotiation between players. You could go your own way. It was not a very sociable board game. But in rectifying this, I found that we had transformed the game to create something that fit perfectly into the competitive & cooperative, although this is not an obvious thing, since the two tendencies are normally antinomic. And it's precisely this permanent tension between the need for cooperation and the desire for competition that makes the game so interesting.

FRED: Trap question... we didn't invent any revolutionary mechanics for Elric, such as deckbuilding, worker placement, or die roll... That was never the goal. What I am happy with are the very simple mechanics: the Alliance system and the Loot sharing. These mechanics allow the whole table to be interested during a player's turn, and to create a maximum of interactions. Do I offer my help?  Do I negotiate it? Do I go back on my word at the last moment? But if I do, will the others help me later? For me, the worst thing in a game is to be bored during the others' turn and to only think about what you are going to do during your own... No such thing in Rise of the Young Kingdoms!

• Do you have any other projects going on at the moment that you can tell us about?

JB: No. I do have some projects going on, but none that I can talk about. No, I won't say anything. I'm telling you, no! What don't you understand about "none that I can talk about"?

FRED: Rise of the Young Kingdoms is my first collaboration as a game designer, I've put a little bit of energy into it, not thinking about anything else or what's next. I have ideas for smaller games, but always with strong themes like... Well, Arioch asked me to work on Elric as an exclusive, and I was advised not to upset a Duke of Chaos.

Single Player Mode activated - The Automaton !
over 1 year ago – Fri, Sep 09, 2022 at 08:04:31 AM

We are pleased to announce that we are not far from our funding goal! 

To celebrate the 35K collected, at the request of many backers, we have decided to offer you the AUTOMATON MODE as soon as the game is funded.

The AUTOMATON MODE will allow :

• to play the game SOLO
• to play the game in a dynamic and HIGHLY COMPETITIVE 2-PLAYER MODE.

The AUTOMATON provides renewed gameplay : it moves its own Raiders and constantly challenges you for board domination, while the City unleashes its defenses against you.

In SOLO MODE, your strategy will vary a lot depending on the Kingdom you decide to play.

In TWO-PLAYER MODE, the Automaton will let you consider the player facing you as a pure opponent.

The Automaton will not let you rest. Even if you win against Imrryr before being wiped out, the Automaton could claim victory in your stead.

And as always, feel free to share the link of this campaign to your friends; let them discover the game and the world of Elric of Melniboné !