Raid - A Viking Card Game

Raid Dev Diary #1
over 5 years ago – Sat, Nov 07, 2020 at 07:34:59 PM

Hello! My name is Brennen Peters, the lead game designer on Raid for Modern Games. I wanted to use the Dev Diary as a place to share interesting points about the decisions we made during the creation of the game and also interesting tidbits about how to play well against your enemies!

When to raid, when not to raid

In this first chapter I wanted to talk about the main mechanic that makes Raid special: The trade off mechanic between when to keep a warrior on your longboats and when to send them as raid damage.

During the course of battle we wanted players to go through “waves” of feeling like they had the advantage and then back to feeling like they didn’t. I personally am not a fan of games that feel like you can snowball your way to victory. In Raid it’s much more difficult to do so. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t crush your opponents and score 40+ raid points to their mere 10, but it takes much more strategy and a bit of RNG to make that happen. Raid was designed to constantly rebalance the playing field, because when you take the advantage you have to choose to then score points by making yourself weaker by removing your warriors. This constant choice is the crux of the entire thought process, of how to win well in Raid.

The best way to score points and keep an advantage is to send low power warriors through Raiding Parties while keeping stronger warriors on longboats to defend. An Axe Thrower (1 power) is worth just as much raid damage as a Giant (9 Power), so when given the choice, sending the Axe Thrower as raid damage is preferred.

When given the opportunity to send an Elite Warrior (worth 2 raid damage) it’s typically worth sending them. Most of the time players are holding onto Jarls and Valkyries in an attempt to kill these Elite Warriors that remain on your longboats. By not giving them a chance and sending them to Raid, you get to score points and don’t allow your opponent to more effectively use their Elite Warrior powers. However, if you have a pair of Elite Warriors and know the enemy may not have a Jarl or Valkyrie it makes much more sense to keep them on a longboat and use their strength to continue to keep the enemy longboats down.

In most card games knowing what the enemy has in their hand is vital information, however, in Raid (mostly when playing a single shared deck) it’s not just vital but necessary to win handily. Since the game has a fixed amount of cards, card counting can actually help you figure out what your opponent has and doesn’t have. This information should be used to determine what warriors should stay on longboats and what warriors are best to send to score raid damage.

Another big factor is keeping combos on longboats alive using low power warriors. Think of these cards as second rate oarsmen. :) Having a triple set of Axe Throwers (1 power) warriors is a very weak boat, but with a single Elite warrior or high level warrior with it, can make it a really great “trash boat” cleanup. At certain points, your opponent will throw out single warrior trash boats to protect themselves as they wait to get their hand in order. This low triple + high longboat makes a perfect strategy to remove those weak boats and allow you to ferry other warriors as raid damage.

There are many, different scenarios that will make you think about that simple choice: to raid or not to raid.

Good luck friends and can’t wait to see you in Valhalla!

First unlocked Stretch Goal (God Illustrations) & other updates
over 5 years ago – Wed, Nov 04, 2020 at 04:37:12 PM

Hello Viking Warriors!

We had intended to send out a couple updates prior to today, but the past week or so has been crazy to say the least.

Justin & Amanda (two founders of Modern Games) and their daughters + pups had to evacuate their home due to a wildfire in Southern California last Monday. It was dicey for a while and there were hotspots just feet from their home, but the firefighters did a great job and managed to save all the homes and buildings in the area.

That surprising set of events coupled with other circumstances pushed out a couple updates and as we were approaching our first stretch goal we decided to hold off on any updates until after that unlock.

So, here we are! The news of the day.

Thanks to all of you backing Raid and spreading the word to your friends and family, we have officially eclipsed $50K in pledges and therefore unlocked our first stretch goal. 

Now that we have achieved this milestone we will add unique God illustrations to all of the God cards including both the Midgard and Asgard decks!

We are incredibly excited about reaching this stretch goal and couldn't have done it without all of you.

We are working on some of those illustrations right now and plan to unveil some of the Gods along with other content updates related to KSE and Asgard early next week.

In the meantime, look out for some game dev updates in the coming days and if you're in the US... get out and vote today!

Thank you all for you patience and support!!

The Modern Games Team

Funded in less than 24 hours & Stretch Goals!!!
over 5 years ago – Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 05:13:51 AM

It's official!! Raid funded in less than 24 hours and we couldn't have done it without you. 

Whether you are a past backer of Beasts of Balance joining us for the launch of Raid or you're completely new to the Modern Games community, we are so grateful to have you along for the journey. Thank you for trusting us to deliver an amazing game!!

Everyone on the Modern Games team, whether it's Brennen who as lead game designer has worked tirelessly to bring the game to life over the past couple years, Nathan whose beautiful art is on display in the campaign or the rest of us who are here to support every other facet of the Raid launch—we are overjoyed at the successful funding.

And now that we've passed this initial milestone, we are excited to announce the first set of Stretch Goals! The team has worked hard to come up with Stretch Goals that will enhance the game in delightful ways and expand upon the already beautiful art.

We hope that you'll join in spreading the word about Raid so we can bring these Stretch Goals to life.

Once we hit the first goal of $50K, we will ask all of our backers to choose two of the Gods for us to illustrate first and share them as the campaign progresses. We want the community to have a hand in bringing Raid to life as well and look forward to collaborating!

One final note before we jump back into the work of getting Raid to you. In the coming days, we are evaluating a variety of shipping options in order to find efficiencies in shipping costs around the world. It is our goal to deliver Raid to you as cost effectively as possible and we hope to update the estimated shipping costs with lower rates soon. 

The balance for us is to ensure we don't overpromise. We will always prioritize transparency and and do our best to underpromise and over deliver.

Thank you for your support! We can't wait to break through these Stretch Goals together and share lots of fun updates over the coming weeks and months.

—The Modern Games Team