Moonstone: The Interview
After their first Kickstarter success Goblin King Games are back with the follow up, I caught up with them to ask them a few questions.
Moonstone Kickstarter
The style of these models remind me of Labyrinth and the artwork by Josh Kirby and Paul Kidby from the Diskworld books, is this what was intended when you set out to design them?
GKG: Absolutely! All of us at Goblin King Games have a very strong appreciation for the aesthetics of superb artist such as Brian Froud and Paul Bonner, and growing up as children of the eighties and nineties both Diskworld, and The Labyrinth were heavy influences in our lives. It makes sense that as we grew up we pledged ourselves to following this artistic style forward with our own imaginations.
The game has some pretty interesting mechanics including picking the type of attack you are going to attempt and then both players revealing them simultaneously. I expect this has led to some interesting battles in development?
GKG: Ha! You are not wrong there! So many of our games have resulted in truly cinematic experiences, where one character, against all the odds is close to death sealing doom for that troupe. However, through careful tactics, and anticipation by the player, they have been able to swing the tide in their favour, parry away the incoming attacks and strike into the heart of their attacker, before quickly grabbing the fallen Moonstones and claiming victory, of course.
Bluffing is another great new mechanic in this game, can you go into any detail about all the cool things that can happen during the arcane actions?
GKG: the bluffing mechanics makes for extremely interesting interactions, why just the other day we had a situation where Firespitter, our Flamethrowing Goblin, was trying to pick off a Human healer. He lined up the shot and released a torrent of flame. The player tried to bluff his way to get a nice damage modifier to get rid of that pesky healer, but his opponent was having none of it, saw through the bluff and managed to turn the attack into a catastrophe! Instead of burning the target to a crisp, Firespitter’s fuel-line ruptured and exploded, dealing Firespitter a nasty amount of damage, and even killing Shabbaroon, a neighbouring Goblin who got too close to our beloved Firespitter!
Can you tell me about how you felt during the success of the first Kickstarter for the Firespitter? It must have been great to see your ideas come to life.
GKG: There are no words to say just how exciting, honouring, humbling, and terrifying it is to see that funding goal not only met, but broken and smashed.
We entered our first campaign having no idea if people would like our art direction, but to see the number of people who not only like your work, but they like it enough to put their own hard earned cash behind it… Well, as I said, there are no words to describe that feeling.
Do you have any advice to people who want to bring a dream design like this to reality?
GKG: This might sound a little hokey, but honestly, the best way of getting started is to do exactly that, get started.
It doesn’t matter what it is you like doing, be it creating a world setting or writing a rule set, get started and throw your ideas into the universe and see what sticks.
With social media and digital distribution the way it is, you will quickly find out if your ideas can gain traction, and if so then keep going!
But like with many things, it is always easier to shoulder a burden if you have someone else to share the weight with, so find someone who you can work with, the ying to your yang, the bottom up to your top down, and get working, and before you know it, at the very least you will have a game system that you and your friends can sit down and enjoy, and at the end of the day, isn’t that what we’re all here for?
Before we go, where would you like to direct people who want to follow you on social media?
GKG: Thank you! We can be reached at the following places:
Beta rules and all the tools required to play the game here
~ A jousting goblin riding a pug, what madness is this?
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Chilvers Industries
