Expand Root with rats, badgers, and a host of hirelings.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Second Print-and-Play: Hirelings and Advanced Setup/Draft Mode!
about 3 years ago
– Fri, Mar 05, 2021 at 01:41:13 AM
Hello!
Today we are releasing the Kickstarter's second preview kit. With this kit, you'll be able to use 6 of the upcoming hirelings as well as try out the new advanced setup system / faction draft. Both the hirelings and the advanced setup / faction draft systems are built for players who are already comfortable with Root. So it's best if everyone at the table has played the game a few times. These options can be used at both low and high player counts but we recommend them for use in two and three player games.
The new systems do not need to be used together. You are welcome to play with just the hirelings or just take the new setup/draft for a spin. And, if you've never made a print-and-play kit before, this one is probably the easiest to build yourself.
As with the previous kit, we've also created a TTS Saved Object which you can easily import into your Root games. The TTS Object can be found here.
Livestream Today
This afternoon at 2pm central US time we'll be hosting a livestream with Cole (Cats), Nick (Duchy), and Marshall (Eyrie) and a host of hirelings and maybe even a landmark. If you'd like to see the hirelings in play, make sure to tune in here. As with our other streams, we'll be sure to post it to YouTube within a few days of its broadcast.
That's all for now, as always, if you have any specific customer service questions, feel free to email [email protected]. And we'll of course be happy to answer your comments about the new hirelings and setup system here.
Clockwork Development Diary
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 01:59:23 AM
Hello Folks, my name is Marshall Britt and I’m the Operations Director at Leder Games. In addition to my administrative role, I’ve had the opportunity to work as a developer on a few of our projects including Root: The Clockwork Expansion. During the Underworld campaign, I wrote a bit about the initial process of developing designer Benjamin Schmauss’s “Better Bot Project” into an official Leder Games product, you can read that update here if you’d like a bit more history.
When Benjamin and I began working together on the first offering of Clockwork factions much of my work was trying to simplify the way the player operated factions and adapt the language to the Leder house style with the help of our talented editor, Joshua Yearsley. We collectively turned what had been a passionate thread into a set of solo and co-op automated faction boards that also allowed players enjoying a regular game of Root to fill out smaller player counts with factions that introduced the level of noise consistent with higher player count battles in the forest.
What we’d planned initially was an artless tuck box for these boards, but a mix of things expanded the product profile including the need for priority markers, trait and difficulty cards, and wonderful artwork from Kyle Ferrin. We decided to give the Clockwork Expansion a home in the Root line with a full art box and continual support. Reading comments about the Clockwork Expansion allowing folks to enjoy Root at various player counts or in certain solitary circumstances (especially this past year) has really validated that work and the ongoing support of this endeavor. With all that being said, let’s talk about Root: The Clockwork Expansion 2.
Currently, there are four published factions that will gain Automated support with the release of The Clockwork Expansion 2. Automated factions for the Lizard Cult, Riverfolk Company, Corvid Conspiracy, and the Underground Duchy have all been in development for over a year. Benjamin has cleverly adopted a style much closer to ours which has improved our development communication vastly over the last 18 months. I’ll talk a bit about the challenges and process for each faction, with the disclaimer that we are still in the development cycle and once the Kickstarter ends we’ll release closer to final versions to our wider testing gamut. I’ll be referring to these factions by their working titles going forward, just a reminder that these are subject to change.
The Lizards of the Cogwheel Cult are a faction that has seen a number of slight revisions but ultimately arrived fairly close to fully cooked. The conspiracy track was an area where we ran into some challenges around empty actions but Benjamin quickly adapted the track to remove that possibility. As with all automated factions, priority is incredibly important but the Cogwheel Cult highlighted the difference between solo play and adding the faction into a 3 or 4 player game. Benjamin shifted the priority to avoid the Cogwheel Cult potentially targeting a player in the least powerful position. This faction is still in the development cycle but likely has the least potential for major changes.
The Otters of the Rivetfolk have seen some fairly major revisions due to the nature of the faction and their open hand. The earlier drafts included an investment track that just didn’t fit the ethos of the automated factions and was eliminated in favor of quicker operation for the player running their board. Opponents of the Rivetfolk currently place their warriors into the payments box, offering the same tension for factions as a live Riverfolk faction player might. Players can destroy trade posts to take half of their warriors from the box, allowing the Rivetfolk to interact seamlessly in a higher player game without much effort to operate. The current version of the Rivetfolk is possibly my favorite to add to games with live players because it injects the tension of cards your opponents can potentially obtain before you or use against you.
The Crows of the Contraption Conspiracy arrived in a nearly completed state as well minus a number of minor clarifications and changes that mostly surrounded how the plot tokens operate. The Contraption Conspiracy recruits and spreads tokens in a way that mimics the result of live play, without the need for the operating player to peek at tokens. There is a trade-off here, due to the randomness of the token placement, the Contraption Conspiracy does not require a warrior in clearings with their tokens to flip them. This means that players must choose to either leave certain tokens face up or remove them through battle, as exposure is not possible against the Contraption Conspiracy.
The Mechiavellian Moles take over the Underground Duchy with their amazing drill-powered noses. The art for this faction is absolutely my favorite transformation that Kyle has done thus far. The main concern during development for this faction was movement. The Mechiavellian Moles create substantial forces fairly quickly, but initially were not moving in a way that felt natural and at times were forming massive balls of Moles that wouldn’t leave their clearings. Benjamin cleverly adjusted movement in their minister track and that was the springboard to the current rendition. The moles use their order card to do everything from digging to swaying ministers. Players will need to destroy buildings if they wish to remove the most powerfully elected minister of the Mechiavellian Moles.
Clockwork One Notes
The goals of the initial development of the Better Bot Project into the Clockwork Expansion were to adjust the language to our style, make the automated factions as simple to follow as possible, and try to allow them to operate in a way that felt as close to a game of Root as they were able. Benjamin’s initial four Automated factions arrived incredibly balanced, to the point they scored at almost identical intervals. This was a really clever way to design AI for Root, but in testing, I felt the consistency of the opponents created a situation where solo games simply felt too consistent compared to live games of Root. We reduced the power levels of some of the factions and shifted the difficulty lever to the cards that we now use, we also added trait cards that allowed some of the initial design changes or fun challenges to be added by players at their discretion.
These changes led to needing two different branches of The Clockwork Expansion, our final released product, and Benjamin’s ongoing development branch that needed to remain fluid for the design of the Clockwork Expansion 2 factions. This is extremely uncommon in the publishing world, but due to the nature of Benjamin’s design process and the passion fans have shown for Root’s Automated factions, it only made sense to allow a development branch to be publicly tested. One thing that the development branch uncovered was that I was unhappy with how the Electric Eyrie was functioning, in part due to a change I’d made to make their function easier to understand. This change caused them to behave erratically in certain situations and play a sub-optimal game. I consulted Benjamin and we agreed to add errata to prioritize how they move, battle, and build in a way that was both easier to understand and did not have the same potential to create erratic behavior.
Due to this change and our ongoing desire to support the Clockwork family of products, we’ve previously made a sticker available and will include an updated Electric Eyrie board in the first printing of The Clockwork Expansion 2. In addition to this, we’ve been working on a few new trait cards for the first four factions that add in a few more of Benjamin’s design choices for players to add at their discretion. We greatly appreciate all the support and feedback from our fans, it truly makes working on a product like this a special experience while communicating with our community.
The Week Ahead
about 3 years ago
– Tue, Mar 02, 2021 at 04:59:57 PM
Hello backers,
We have a jam-packed week ahead of us. Today, I want to offer you all a little overview of everything we have on the schedule.
Tuesday, Patrick and I will be doing our monthly designer chat. We try to do these on the first Tuesday of every month. We'll be talking mostly about Root and other upcoming projects. But, we like to keep these streams pretty loose and casual so feel free to come with your questions.
Also, if you missed our livestream from last week, we've uploaded it to YouTube:
Then, on Wednesday, Marshall Britt, the lead developer for the upcoming Clockwork expansion, will post his developer notes. We've gotten lots of questions about these, and we can't wait to show you all more.
Thursday, we'll be releasing the second preview kit, which will include a bunch of hirelings, the new setup system, and the new draft mode! As with the first kit, we'll be providing this both as a PDF print-and-play and a TTS object. We've
Finally, on Friday we'll be revealing Kyle's amazing art for the hireling box.
Okay, that's it for now. I hope to see many of you tomorrow for the livestream!
Announcing our Root Fan Art Celebration!
about 3 years ago
– Tue, Mar 02, 2021 at 10:19:49 AM
Why should filmmakers have all the fun? We want to see your doodles, your baking, your cosplay … anything and everything you’ve created in celebration of Root! Make something new or dust something off. Post with the hashtag #RootFanArt and tag us!
Entries are due by midnight, CST on Wednesday, March 10th.
Selected submissions will be featured on our Root Fan Festival Livestream, happening in March! (Details coming soon!)
If you need assistance, please email us at [email protected] and we'll help you out! Please refrain from using the Kickstarter messaging system for questions or assistance.
The Woodland Warriors Discord
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 03:42:18 AM
Hello everyone,
Today I wanted to take just a moment to spotlight the Woodland Warriors Discord Channel. Because we are lucky enough to have a big community of players here in the Twin Cities, we hadn't thought about building an online player base. However, as the pandemic shut down our local groups over this past year, we found ourselves coming to rely more and more on Discord to help us gather players.
Thankfully, we didn't have to start from scratch! In the years since Root's release, the Woodland Warriors has grown into a huge community of players interested in Leder Games and the wider hobby. If you are looking for players, whether for a game of Root or Vast or Fort or Oath, this is probably the best place in the world to find them. We also share lots of early sneak peaks into upcoming designs.
The Discord also hosts a very active community of designers working on fan variants and even full games as well as lively discussion about games of all types. If you use Discord or are just looking for more ways to play our games, check it out!
That's it for now! Next week we've got a lot of fun stuff in store, including more details on the hirelings, the new bots, and a designer chat with Patrick and I and a couple other surprises. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact [email protected].
