A Halloween Treat
over 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 02:08:06 PM

We have a very special treat for you all today on All Hallows' Eve.

Chances are, if you're a fan of Deep Madness, then you're also a big fan of Halloween. We are as well, and we like to do something special on it in our campaign. During our first campaign we unveiled Unbound. (And many of you have seen how that turned out.) Well, we've been brainstorming on ways that we could really give you guys something awesome today, and we think we've got it. But first, we're going to need your help.

Some of you may have heard on the live stream yesterday that we had originally hoped to make all of the investigators into Sphere Faces. Well, we're taking one step closer to that goal today. When we reach $450,000, we're going to make a brand-new Sphere Face figure that will appear in every copy of The Faces of the Sphere. So, if you get that expansion, you will get this stretch goal.

The problem is, we don't know which one to make. That's where we need your help. Just a few hours ago we asked you which standalone epic monster you'd like next as an add-on, but this one's probably even more important: which investigator would you like to see turned into a Sphere Face? Post your comments below as to which investigator you'd most like to see become a Sphere Face!

(Personally, I'm really rooting for a Charles Ryan Sphere Face. However, I can't deny a Ward Phillips Sphere Face would be very interesting indeed…)

We won't be able to update this update after we send it out, so keep an eye on the front campaign page to find out how the voting's going. We'll have it up near the top so it's easy for you to find. We'll also keep you informed in future updates. Voting on this will end as soon as the stretch goal is unlocked, so make sure your voice is heard soon! Oh, and did I mention that we'll be able to watch the winning figure being made, just like we did with Unbound? Fun stuff!

So what are you waiting for? LET'S GET COMMENTING!

(And Happy Halloween, my friends!)

The Monsters Rise
over 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 03:17:26 AM

Hey everyone! I hope you've had a great day. We certainly had a ton of fun today on the live stream (well, I guess technically it was yesterday at this point.) If you stopped in to chat, thank you! And, if you missed it, no worries. The recording will be up for 48 hours from the end of the broadcast according to Kickstarter, and I'm sure we'll do another one since this one went off so successfully.

But now it's time for some monsters.

-

FACES OF THE SPHERE

Many of you have been wondering how The Faces of the Sphere expansion works. And what exactly are those… things inside it? Are they Epic Monsters? Or are they something else?

In the coming days we will be going over the horrors contained within The Faces of the Sphere. However, for today, we're just going to go over how this expansion works.

(Please note that all of this is still a work-in-progress, and the rules and mechanisms are still subject to change before this campaign fulfills next August.)

When someone looks into the Sphere, when one is corrupted by its power, the abyss contained within it stares back. In it you begin to see your deepest fears, your darkest secrets, your potential realities. And then those things begin to come to life.

The Sphere contains worlds; galaxies; universes. It is furthermore the key to other dimensions. And in one of those dimensions something has arisen. You could call it a reflection of the investigators' faces. For now, we'll call these beings Sphere Faces.

Sphere Faces are not investigators. (Obviously.) But neither are they monsters. An investigator can still deal damage to them during an attack action, and when they take enough wounds to equal or exceed their maximum health they are still killed like an investigator or monster. However, that's about where similarities end.

Sphere Faces don't necessarily exist to kill investigators or even make the game harder. (In fact, sometimes their effects might end up helping the investigators in a round-about way.) Instead, they roam around the board and sow chaos wherever they go. Sphere Faces don't activate during the Activation Phase. Instead, they introduce a new phase to the game, called the Sphere Phase. During this phase, the Sphere Face creatures roam around the board, and new ones spawn in various devoured rooms. Then, any monsters or investigators that wander into its path are affected by its power, whatever that power may be.

When an investigator kills a Sphere Face, that player takes the creature's card and flips it over to reveal a special reward that this investigator will keep for the rest of the game. So, in a sense, they're kind of like traveling, fleshy piñatas. Yes. That's it. They're chaotic, game-changing, horrific, traveling fleshy piñatas. Piñatas that could potentially cause you endless grief until you actually kill the things.

So that's a little bit about how the Sphere Faces will affect your games of Deep Madness. We'll reveal much more about each individual Sphere Face in the coming days. And we will potentially have a very big, very awesome announcement about them very soon as well. But, in the meantime, we have one other very cool announcement to discuss with you.

-

THE RAVENOUS BECOMES EPIC!

So, halfway through writing this update we were about to release a new line of resin miniatures called the Deep Madness Collector Series. But by the time we finished the update we had changed it completely. There's a reason for this. Basically, we had this awesome looking new sculpt for Ravenous, bigger and nastier than the original version. And we realized we wanted to play with it in Deep Madness, which would be much harder to do if it was a resin collector's item. So, we retconned our plan, and decided to make this big nasty baddy an Epic Monster instead. That's right: Ravenous is now all grown up and its own proper Epic Monster!

Here's the 3D modeling and our painted sample in all its gooey glory:

-

The Epic Ravenous is available right now as an add-on for $15 (or $12 for returning backers) - unless you have an All-In pledge. Then it's included. If you'd like to add it to your pledge, go up to the "Manage your pledge" button in the upper-right corner, then click "Change your pledge" and add the amount of this monster to your total. Then save your changes and you're good to go. We'll find out what your extra funds were for in the pledge manager following the campaign.

Now, previously we announced that all of our Canadian backers from the first campaign would receive a free copy of the Ravenous Collector Series miniature due to their shipments being even later than everyone else. We will still honor that promise. However, now you all will receive the Ravenous Epic Monster rather than the Collector Series mini. So, for those of you who didn't really want to assemble or paint a mini, we hope this helps you out. :)

We will still likely launch the Collector Series at some point, but today will not be that day. That said, we were originally going to do a vote to see which monster you would like to next see made into a Collector Series mini. We really didn't want to kill the vote, so now we're just going to change it slightly. What normal monster would you most like to see made into an Epic Monster next? Will it be Agony? Wrecked? Immortal? Putrid? Delirious? Let's find out!

Post a comment below with your choice for your ideal monster to become an Epic. You can even pick two or three monsters if you'd like to, but let's try to keep it to one entry per backer per monster. This contest will last for about five days. The monster with the most comments will be our next Epic Monster! PLUS, three lucky commenters will be randomly chosen to receive that Epic Monster for no charge! So what are we waiting for? TO THE COMMENTS!

New Stretch Goal, Translation Update, and Live Stream
over 5 years ago – Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 01:30:27 PM

Hey everyone! Welcome to day two of the Deep Madness reprint!

Chances are we'll have another update later today for you, but there were a few things we wanted to go over now.

-

TRANSLATIONS

First of all, we have good news for our international backers. We've created a new all-in pledge level specifically for you! This level removed the novel, and instead added translation packs. So now you won't have to add those as an extra add-on if you choose this pledge level. Want to change your pledge level? No worries. Just go up to the "Manage your pledge" button in the upper right-hand corner, click it, then click "Change your pledge." You should now be able to select the correct pledge level for you.

But now, what about that novel? We've seen many, many of your comments wondering if we were going to be able to translate the novel. And at this point things are looking significantly more positive than we were initially suspecting they would. But, before we completely commit to it, we wanted to gauge people's interest for it. So, we've made a brief poll to see what languages would be of the most interest to backers.

-

Click here to take the poll.

-

The top levels will be the ones we'll focus on getting translated first, and then we'll work our way down from there. Now, just to be completely up-front about this, translation is expensive. As such, we may need to end up charging more for the translated book, and it may end up shipping after the English version of the novel to ensure we have the translations perfected. We'll let you know more as all of this transpires, however. The important thing to take away from this is, we're listening. =)

-

NEW STRETCH GOAL!

Well, it's time. Enough of these social goals. (Having said that, let's keep working towards those social goals! =D We're making great progress toward them!) Let's get one with an actual funding level.

So, at $400,000 we will be unlocking a special scenario that ties directly into the novel Shattered Seas, and will be included with the hardcover version of the book. (In every language, should translation go through - which, once again, is looking very positive at this point.)

There's not a whole lot to say about this scenario yet, because I have to write the book first. But, knowing Roger (the game designer), I'm sure it's going to be amazing. (And likely hard.)

Now, some of you might notice that we are currently over $370,000, and that stretch goal is for $400,000. That means we're under $30,000 away from unlocking it. So, sshh! Don't mention anything about it to the team, and let's get this unlocked before they realize they set this goal really low! ;)

-

LIVE STREAM AT 3PM PDT!

Just as a reminder, I (Byron) will be trying out Kickstarter Live at 3PM PDT today. That's in just a couple of hours. I'd love it if you stopped in and said hi. If not, though, it'll be recorded and you'll be able to watch it for the next 48 hours I believe. This is the first time I've done this, so there's no real agenda apart from figuring out how it works. Please bear with me as we work out the kinks. =)

Wait, did I just say it was in a couple hours? Shoot, I should probably go get stuff ready…

Talk to you all again soon! =D

Deep Madness Day One Update
over 5 years ago – Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 08:54:17 PM

WELCOME, FRIENDS!

Welcome to day one of the Deep Madness reprint campaign! We are so incredibly ecstatic that you are here with us right from the beginning!

It’s been quite a whirlwind day, and in just a few hours we’ve hit over $250,000 and over 2,700 backers! WOW! And really, we’re saying first day, but it’s really only been 9 hours! How’s THAT for amazing!

So, we thought we'd start off by telling you a little bit about what's going to be happening during this campaign and what to expect. First of all, as we've said previously, we are purposefully shying away from adding a bunch of new miniatures to this campaign. This is because we want to get this reprint out to people as quickly as humanly possible, and stay as close to our target delivery date of August as we can. Having said that, does that mean there won't be any incredible new minis in this campaign apart from The Faces of the Sphere? Of course not! In fact, you might even get to help bring one to life! (But more on that in a couple of days.)

One thing we ARE going to do a lot of is experimenting. For starters, I (Byron) am going to do a Kickstarter Live tomorrow (tentatively scheduled for 3PM PDT,) which is something we’ve never tried before. So feel free to jump on there with me and ask away with your questions!

Next of all, we are going to do something that I think could be a ton of fun: a community-driven Choose Your Own Terror story! Basically, I'm going to write up part of an ongoing story, and then we're all going to decide what happens next in the comments from a couple of different (and potentially disastrous) choices (just like those old Choose Your Own Adventure books.) Where will this story take us? I have no idea! But I think it's going to be a blast! (Also, "mad" props to Jordan Adams who first did something similar to this in the comments section during the first DM campaign!) This is going to debut within the next couple of days.

We're also going to be doing a number of contests for different things, and big community pushes for others. All in all, we want this to be a really active, fun campaign for everyone involved.

Furthermore, we're approaching stretch goals a little bit differently. We are going to be using a hybrid system where some goals are standard stretch goals based on funding amounts, and some are based on off-the-wall social things or whatever. In other words, something that's a bit of a combo between something like Exploding Kittens and a more usual Kickstarter. For instance, we've already unlocked several stretch goals, but none of them thus far have been based on funding. (We'll take a look at those in a second.)

Of course we'll also have the "normal" surprises popping up throughout the campaign, and deeper looks at the stuff you already know about like The Faces of the Sphere and Shattered Seas. And because we're flying a little bit by the seat of our pants here, I can also say with complete joy that I have next to no idea what the next 21 days will hold. Okay, that's not completely true. We've got a pretty good idea of a lot of the goals and add-ons and such. But we're leaving a little room for flexibility and surprise along the way. And I think that's going to end up with all of us having a ton of fun with this campaign. So, with that in mind, what would you like to see happen over the next few weeks? Who knows: maybe your idea will make it in. =)

-

ACHIEVEMENT CHART

So now we're going to show you something that you'll probably be seeing a lot of in the coming days: the Achievement Chart! This chart will keep us updated on how close we are to unlocking those delicious achievements which will bring us many of our stretch goals. You'll notice on the campaign page that many stretch goals say they are "Unlocked with ___ Achievements." That means we can actively work together toward unlocking these stretch goals by fulfilling the requirements of these achievements, without even waiting for pesky things like funding levels! How quickly can we blow through these? Let's find out! (The links to complete many of these achievements can be found lower down the campaign page. In the coming days we'll move this list higher so that they are easier to access. We just wanted the focus to be more on the game and what we're offering for the first day or two.)

Here's the Achievement Chart as it currently stands:

-

THE FACES OF THE SPHERE STRETCH GOALS

As mentioned earlier, we've already hit a couple of stretch goals. Those are:

6 New Consciousness Cards

In case you're new to Deep Madness, consciousness cards are simultaneously a reward for killing a monster with no sanity tokens, and a snippet of story that peers into the past of the Kadath deep sea mining facility. (Think of them like audio logs in games like Alien: Isolation or Dead Space, or voxophones in Bioshock.) With this goal, we have added 6 new consciousness cards to The Faces of the Sphere, unraveling more of the story surrounding these abominations.

1 New Another Dawn Monster Die

We now have this awesome looking monster die included in every copy of The Faces of the Sphere! The monster die is almost always a bad thing when it's rolled, and it's also just about the only die in the game that you can't reroll by using sanity. Now you'll get to scream in terror in style with this gorgeous new 12-sided die!

We're actually really close to unlocking our next stretch goal, too, at 3,000 backers, which will be:

6 New Madness Cards

Madness cards are the polar opposite of the consciousness cards. Whereas the consciousness cards describe the past, madness cards tell you what's happening to you right now. They feature a little horrific story on each card, and each story will likely make you squirm in your seat. What's even worse, though, is that, while consciousness cards have good, benevolent effects, the madness cards are anything but. Sometimes they will destroy your precious items. Or force you to take wounds. Or devour your room. Or spawn monsters right on top of you. Or even worse. And, as soon as we unlock the next stretch goal, you'll get 6 more of them in The Faces of the Sphere! Lucky!

We are going to have a lot more info on The Faces of the Sphere very soon. I'd do more now, but I've just realized this update went really long already. But suffice it to say that in the next day or two we'll have a bunch more info explaining how these minis work and explaining some of the new mechanics they introduce. (Here's a teaser: they are NOT Epic Monsters. =D)

We will talk to you again soon! In the meantime, thanks once more for being here! We are so excited for what's coming up!

-

Your Friends,  

Diemension Games

Fully Funded in 22 Minutes!
over 5 years ago – Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 11:33:30 AM

Hey everyone!

Welcome to the second printing of Deep Madness! 

We are so glad you are all here already! And, just in case you weren't watching over the last half hour, WE FULLY FUNDED IN 22 MINUTES!!! WOOHOO!!!

We will have more updates coming very soon, with some news about what to expect, stretch goals, and fun stuff. But we just wanted to start off by saying THANK YOU! This is going to be one incredible campaign, and we're so glad you're riding along with us! =D

Talk to you all again soon!