Loka el nuevo juego de ajedrez de Alessio Cavatore esta dando fuerte, ya casi tiene desbloqueado a los 4 ejércitos del juego, y alguna que otra chuchería más. Este Kickstarter no tiene desperdicio desde luego sobre todo teniendo en cuenta de la miniatura de Alessio montando un Hipopotamo vestido de caballero con lanza en ristre.

Con 530 participantes y una recaudación de 57,964 $ le queda mucho que decir durante los 14 días que le resta al proyecto. Las figuras son increíbles y de un tamaño considerable, no te lo pierdas Wargamer.

UPDATE 1:

Wow – just wow!

Thank you so much for helping us reach our funding goal - and in less than 6 hours as well, what an incredible achievement!

With this funding we can put the first chess set into plastic and create a basic set of rules, but the fun doesn’t stop there – there’s so much more Alessio wants to add to this game and we’ve got some great stretch goals to add more value to the box.

First up…

$37,500 - LOKA Rulebook

If we hit $37,500 we’ll be able to design, layout and print a soft cover LOKA rulebook. We’ll be able to increase the page count and upgrade the rules to include Scenery and the Dice Combat System.

We’ll upgrade every Pledge Level from Bishop ($50) and up to include the new soft cover book.

$50,000 – Earth Chess Set

If we hit $50,000 we can create the Earth Chess Set in Green Plastic.

The 17 piece Earth Chess Set will be added to the LOKA Game Set replacing the White Fire Chess Set. You will then be able to pick the Earth Chess Set as one of the Chess Sets available at Rook ($25).

And then we can start looking at scenery tiles…

Examples of Scenery Tiles. Concept Art by Heath Foley - Design TBC.

Thanks again guys, this looks like it's going to be a terramazing (terrifyingly amazing!) adventure!

UPDATE 2:

Woo - that’s funding for the LOKA Rulebook secured!

The LOKA Rulebook will now be included in all pledges of Bishop ($50) and up and will include basic rules for scenery and the dice combat mechanics.

Whilst we update the graphics on the front page, there’s just time to tell you about a new pledge level – the Deluxe Cavatore Collection. Many of you wanted to get your hands on Loka, Shuuro, Turanga and all the kickstarter extras as well, so we’ve put together a package that contains Knight, Shuuro and Turanga – you best hurry though, there’s only 50 available as an Early Bird!

Finally, let’s take a look at our next stretch goal…

$50,000 – Earth Chess Set

If we hit $50,000 we can create the Earth Chess Set in Green Plastic.

The 17 piece Earth Chess Set will be added to the LOKA Game Set replacing the White Fire Chess Set. You will then be able to pick the Earth Chess Set as one of the Chess Sets available at Rook ($25).

… what’s beyond that? Well, we need to break $50,000 to find out!

PS – look out for a new update later from Alessio talking about the LOKA mechanics. It’s a fascinating series of posts, so keep an eye out for that!

UPDATE 3:

With funding secured yesterday for the LOKA Rulebook, Alessio has put together the start of a developer's diary - a mix of great blog posts and cool videos showing you the ins-and-outs of LOKA.

We kickstart this morning off with Part 1 of Alessio's focus on the Rules...

I was reading quite a few comments about the rules for Loka, and fear not, videos focussing on each of the main points of difference between Loka and chess are coming!

In the meantime, I will use this update to take you through my thinking on the rules design of Loka, which is about modularity. You see, when I was learning to play chess as a kid, I remember going through a beautiful illustrated book that taught you the moves of each piece and then had a little exercise mini-game that used only the pieces you already had learnt to use to that point.

Following that way of thinking, I will present the rules of Loka in a way that makes them both very easy to learn, to teach to young ones, and to customise to your own taste. The best way of explaining this is to borrow some language from the phone industry:

The core rules

The core system of Loka is chess, which is why the rules for chess will be included in the rulebook. If you know the rules of chess, you know a good 80% of the rules of Loka. More importantly, you can play just that, normal chess, using the cool elementals of Loka as normal chess pieces. And I expect quite a few people are going to do just that. Alternatively, you can continue your journey and learn the next step, which I’m gonna call a ‘bolt-on’ rule. You can learn the bolt-ons one at a time, and, even more importantly, once you have learned them all, you can choose which ones to use in your games, IN ANY COMBINATION!

If you use all three bolt-ons, you are playing Loka as I envisaged it – a full fledged hybrid chess-wargame. If not, you are playing something that is more or less like chess… the choice is yours.

Bolt-on 1 – Build your army

Instead of having the fixed pieces of a chess set, you start with just the King, representing yourself, the player, and a number of points, representing the elemental energy available to the King to summon his warriors.

Each piece has a point value, based on traditional chess theory, and you can decide how to spend your points and build a different set. For example, I’m thinking 10 pts for a pawn, 90 for a queen, and so on… You can have as many p[ieces of a certain type as you want, within the limit of the points values. The only pieces I have to limit (because they are too cheap and they could fill the board!) are pawns, of which you can only have up to 12).

By using different amount of points you can have bigger or smaller games, and by having an unbalance of points between the two players, you can offset differences in skill (say I give you 1000 points and I give a chess Master 300 points… can you beat him?)

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

UPDATE 4:

It’s Day 4 and all I can say is this has been incredible. Thank you so much for supporting LOKA.

I always had the ambition to get all four Chess Sets tooled and it looks like we’ll have the Earth Set done in the next couple of days, which is simply fantastic.

To celebrate the landmark achievement of reaching $50,000, not only will we upgrade the second Fire Set to the shiny new plastic Earth Chess Set, we’ll include a free Fire King and Earth King in every pledge of Bishop ($50) and up.

This characterful piece is great for collectors and practicing painting on – going forwards, we’ll include a free King in for each additional Chess Set that gets tooled!

Moving forwards, we’re putting together some great new add-ons and I've been working on the “Bolt-on” rules and part 2 of developer diary, talking about fantasy terrain. This will be coming later today, and leads us nicely to our next stretch goal…

$55,000 – LOKA Scenery

War rages across the world of LOKA as mighty elemental armies invade the lands of their enemies. Whether it’s through the dark mountain passes that lead to Tushaara Castle or battling over the Great Lake of Tears, the landscape is often as dangerous and unpredictable as the warriors stood before them…

Examples of Scenery Tiles. Concept Art by Heath Foley - Design TBC.

We will be able to design and produce the LOKA Scenery and include a sheet in every pledge of Bishop ($50) and up! This card sheet will feature 8 different types of Scenery in glorious full colour artwork!

And finally…

If you’ve got a popular blog or podcast, or have a friend that does, get in touch and I’ll arrange an interview!

Thanks,

Alessio

UPDATE 5:

In the West of Loka, on the foothills of the Wall mountains is the verdant Forest of Prithvi. Its benevolent King is a master of the elemental power of Earth – the gentle green energy of all growing, living things. Normally an oasis of peace, when the wooden glades are threatened with invasion, they explode with all of the unbound fury of a wounded beast, and the life-giving magic of the Earth turns into the crushing fury of stone and wood.

Let me now take you on a journey through the design process of the Prithvi.

First of all: this is the brief I have given to Wojciech when it came to sculpting the pieces.

Each type of piece (all Kings, all Queens) must have something that makes them easily recognisable, regardless of which army they belong to (e.g. all queens are clearly female, all Kings have a crown and are sitting on a throne, etc.). These common elements are defined here:

KINGS
Large base, tall piece.
Sitting on a throne and wearing a crown.

QUEENS
Large base, tall piece.
The only female piece. Imposing and scary, feeling of great power.

BISHOPS
Medium base, medium height piece.
Wizard/priest holding a staff.

KNIGHTS
Medium base, medium height piece.
Beast (unridden) with some element of four-legged creature, possibly horse.

ROOKS
Medium base, medium height piece.
Elemental. Vaguely humanoid, slow and lumbering creature.

PAWNS
Small base, shortest piece.
Footman. Shield. One-hand weapon (sword, axe, etc.). Light armour (no close helmet), must look like foot soldier, not knight.

This info is generic and it applies to all four armies (or indeed any future armies we might design…). It forms the very important logic behind the pieces. All armies follow this same logic, so that it’s what helps the players recognise the pieces regardless of what faction they belong to.

Then it was a case of altering this ‘core design’, adding a ‘skin’ that made it more specific to each of the armies, to each of the four elements, and therefore much more evocative and ‘cool’. You should see the face of a sculptor when you ask them to sculpt ‘cool’…

Here’s the brief for Prithvi:

PRITHVI – EARTH – GREEN – WEST
Keywords: Good, Forest creatures, Elves, Dwarves, Celtic, Irish-Welsh-Gauls, Woods.
King: Elf lord on tree/vines/leaves throne. King of the Forest. Lord of the Dance.
Queen: Dryad.
Bishop: Druid, shapechanging, animal elements (hoofs? tail?), sickle.
Knight: Centaur.
Rook: Earth elemental, rock and tree roots, moss, the thing from the swamp.
Pawn: naked Dwarf fanatics with celtic war-paintings, golden torcs and hex-shaped celtic shields. Short straight stabbing swords (not axes!)

From the general brief and the specific Earth brief, these are the concept Wojciech drew and that we tweaked into the final designs, which he used for the sculpts and then were also rendered in the online game Shuuro–Wrath of the Elements.

PS: We're going to come back to the Fantasy Terrain entry a little later - we figured this one would of more interest to you guys at the moment!

UPDATE 6:

After a great night on Friday we’re soooo close to the Earth Chess Set we can almost taste it, and after a little back and forth over the last two days we’ve got a couple of tasty updates coming up.

Firstly, let’s turn the heat up, and thank you all for supporting us and getting us to this monumental place!

When we hit $50,000 we will tool the Earth Chess.

We’ll also add in an additional Fire King and Earth King to Rook and up and:

- At Rook ($25): we'll add 4 additional Pawns from one faction of your choice, raising the model count to 21!

- At Bishop ($50): we'll add 4 additional Pawns from one faction of your choice, raising the total model count to 40 for passing this level!

- At Knight ($100): we’ll add in 8 additional models from one faction of your choice! 1 Queen, 1 Rook, 1 Knight, 1 Bishop and 4 Pawns, raising the total model count to anincredible 78 figures for passing this level!

With the Army Selection Rules that now feature in LOKA you’ll have extra pieces to configure your army of choice with!

Extras
We’ve also put up a number of nice little extras that you can add on to your pledge:

The LOKA T-shirt is made of Polyster (like our DreadBall T-Shirts and Football Jerseys!) and is available in Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, XXL and XXXL

These upgrade packs are great if you want to expand your additional chess sets. Note that if we were to do the models as singles the Bishop, Rook and Knight would retail for $3.50 each whilst the King, Queen and a set of 4 Pawns would be $5 each!

This Chess Clocks works with up to 4 Players (particularly handy if LOKA gets multiplayer rules hint hint!) but can also be used for 2 Players. Each of the colours relates to one of the elements too – handy!

In addition, don't forget we have:

Model Previews
We’ve been asking you over the weekend: which Chess Set do you want to see next? Well, we want you to let us know in the comments and, to help out, here’s a couple of previews from the Ice and Air Sets!

Ice King

Air Queen

And finally…
In order to build momentum we need more people to hear about LOKA and one of the best ways of doing this is by becoming a Fan on Board Game Geek, as this will push us up the Hotness list. Please head on over and become a fan - and watch for the competition that starts next week!

PS: Some of you have been asking us at what levels the Air and Ice team will be coming at... all we can say is stick around and stay tuned, we've been talking to our tool makers all weekend, and we will be able to tell you very soon!!

UPDATE 7:

Hi, here’s an update to mark the end of the first week of LOKA on Kickstarter.

Well Loka has got off to a flier on launch, and over the weekend Alessio and I got chance to talk through what this meant and where we should go next.

When we first put it up we were uncertain whether everyone just wanted a straight chess set, with 2 nicely sculpted sides, or a complete 4 player experience with all 4 sides themed and sculpted. After raising over $50,000 in just a week its obvious that there is support for us to take this chance to fund the full Loka vision.

The Earth Set was funded last night.

It is clear to really make this rock everyone wants us to get all 4 ‘armies’ funded as quickly as possible, so that’s what we will do. Although progress over the last few days has been slower than we'd like, I think the stretch goals and upgrades, plus adding some more models to each set to really give choice when it comes to army selection will drive this through the new couple of goals. We’ll then get on to the other facets of the game.

Yesterday we put up a selection of upgrades and extras that you can add-on to your pledge to get the full Loka experience, such as t-shirts, faction upgrades and a chess clock (thanks for all your feedback again here!) and today we have the new Earth Upgrade Set and Paint Set for you to add-on to your pledge:

We are also publishing the steps to get us to complete the tooling of the LOKA game system, with a few extras and upgrades along the way!

These are the next 5 steps to getting Loka done…

We have 19 days to get that done, and bring all 4 of Alessio’s factions to life. So, please dive on in and help us bring the complete Loka experience to shelves this winter, get yourselves the first copies hot off the press and a dream chess set too!

I hope this gives us the momentum to drive this to the next few stretch goals and get all of the tooling finished. Please keep your great ideas and comments coming, we read them all, and thanks for your support. None of this would be possible without it.

Thanks,

Ronnie + Alessio.

P.S. we have been asked about the MSRP/RRPs on these lines when they hit retail. We have not quite finalised these yet, but if they are released as singles I believe that the Bishop, Rook and Knight will retail for about $3.50 each and $5 for the King, Queen or 4 Pawns - that means the miniatures in Bishop ($50) alone are worth over $100 and Knight ($100) over $180!

UPDATE 8:

Super update for you today as I sit down in front of the camera and show you the core mechanics of LOKA.

Note - please remember that all of the components featured in the video are prototypes and not representative of the final game.

In addition, check out these fancy paint jobs from Golem Painting Studio that have come into my inbox…

The Air Chess Set gets funded at $60,000

Earth Pawn

We want to hear what you think, so please let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Alessio

UPDATE 9:

Thank you all so much – that’s the LOKA Scenery locked in and included in the game box. Get in!

Yesterday we posted some new shiny photos of the Fire and Earth set:

With the $55,000 goal smashed, we’re now hunting down the Air Chess Set…

$60,000 – Air Chess Set

The Floating Isles of Vayu are magically suspended over the Eastern Sea by the spells of the noble King of the Wind-Kin, the unchallenged master of the Air element. His great hosts of winged creatures can strike anywhere in Loka, as sudden as a thunderstorm, as violent as a tornado.

If we hit this goal, you’ll allow us to tool the Air Chess Set: the third LOKA Elemental Chess Set. You’ll be able to pick it as your main set at Rook ($25), as one of your additional sets in Knight ($100) or as an add-on.

You'll also be able to choose models from the Air Chess Set as your bonus miniatures already included in Rook (BONUS: 4 Pawns), Bishop (BONUS: 4 Pawns) and Knight (BONUS: Queen, Bishop, Rook, Knight + 4 Pawns.) Not only that, but we’ll also include aBonus King in with the Air Chess Set in all pledges of Rook ($25) and up!

You guys have been incredible and getting all four Elemental Sets looks like a distinct possibility! We’re going to keep pumping the value up – 79 figures in Knight and 41 in Bishop doesn’t quite sound enough to us just yet… so at some point we’re just going to have to give you more!

Alessio has also been on the phone this morning talking about foam and four-player games - perhaps a sign of things to come?

Please keep helping us spread the word and let’s find out!

And finally – Avatars!

We’ve made some new Avatars for you to show off LOKA with – You can upload these as your Kickstarter, Facebook or Forum profile pic (Right click the image, press Save Image As) and help us spread the LOKA word!