Hello Again Folks!

I just wanted to give another update as it has been awhile since my last one. Things feel behind schedule given everything that's been going on lately, which just meant I did not have as much time to devote to completing the game as I would have liked. As of today though, I have some exciting news regarding the state of Crisis Council that I think you'll like!

Content Finalized

That's right, all content for Crisis Council (at least for a base product, there's room for more down the road) has been finalized! Here's a breakdown of everything that will for-sure be in the game (though some things are still subject to minor change/clarification):

• 8 Council Member role cards
  • 3 of which are duplicates (used for BASIC game, but work for a regular game)
  • The others are all unique and either dramatically change your personal objective to win or provide some kind of benefit. These are minor and either help you primarily with a minor trade off or assist the entire table with no downside.
• 6 Mayor role cards
  • Each features a different number of starting dice, tax rates, and sometimes more
• 18 Emergency Policy cards
  • At the end of each round the Mayor will draw (4, 3, and 2 respectively) cards and play 1. All cards change the game state, usually in the player's favor but not always. Total drawn without intervention of other mechanics is 9 per game.
  • 12 of the cards are duplicates however, but this is for balance reasons. The more unique cards tend to be more powerful but situational while the more common cards aren't as good but provide more consistent effects.
  • One final note on the Policy cards, these are the most subject to change during testing as the quantity of cards and their effects may need minor adjustment.
• Player board for the center of the table
  • This will track Threat Level, Civil Unrest, and the Policy cards played (acting as a round counter)
    • When elements are not covered, it will remind you of key rules for setup and act as a play aid
  • Additionally, this will house the less frequently used components and discarded dice as the game is played. A clean play space is important people!
• Full rulebook with image references, examples, and better clarification. The current rulebook was made to be concise to get the product out. It does the job, but it is far from what I'd like to see the final product looking like. This will be hyperlinked so you can easily access the parts you need digitally or see what a term means, just like my other products. No estimated page count at this time.

I'm working on finalizing the physical components for print-and-play as well as physical printing. This will take another week or two as I have other items to work on alongside this one. The play aid and rules will likely take the longest out of the above items. I have a mock up done in paint for the play aid I created in like 5 minutes, so you can kind of see what I mean. Obviously, the final version will be way cleaner and contain better information.

Changes to the Game

You probably noticed above I made mention to several things that you will have never seen before if you've looked at the BASIC game or the previous updates. Here's what's new!

• I changed the following terms:
  • Arbiter is now referred to as The Mayor. Their role in the game is unchanged but this change has been made to better match the theme the game now has (not that it didn't before, I just have a more solid image of the final product at this time).
  • Non-Mayer players are now referred to as Council Members instead of just players. This is to cut down on confusion when it comes to language. It is now clear when I am referring to The Mayor, The Council, or everyone in the rules text.
  • When referring to all players, the term "players" will be used. This is pretty self-explanatory.
• The following mechanics have been added/modified from the BASIC version:
  • Threat Level now indicates what numbers cause you to lose dice. This starts on 2 and normally goes to 5 in a BASIC game. Under the advanced rules this may drop as low as 1 and raise as high as 6. The game is lost if it ever reaches 6. I made this change to make the danger numbers obvious and easy to remember as well as provide another point of tension in a full game.
    • Going with this, the BASIC role for Council Members is an "always on" effect that allows said player to treat the Threat Level as one lower during the game's final phase. This should mean games end with higher dice counts and feel better overall when playing the BASIC version while still being a potent role to get in a full game.
  • A new "Civil Unrest" mechanic has been added to both versions of the game.
    • Each time a die is lost for any reason (unless indicated by a card or ability), the die is placed on the Civil Unrest track. If Civil Unrest exceeds a certain amount, the game is lost for all players. This needs playtesting still but the estimated thresholds based on calculations to have the game sit where I want it are:  25+ for the BASIC version and 20+ for a regular game. Expect this number to move about 5 in either direction based on testing.
      • Additionally, I am considering a mechanic where "after x threshold is hit" before the max amount, some element of the game gets harder. Again, this will depend on testing and is not a direction I feel strongly about compared to the base idea. After a few games I should pretty easily be able to tell if this needs to be added or if I can scrap it. I just have it as backup if needed.
  • The game is now lost for all players if The Mayor does not end the game with at least as many dice as they started with. In a BASIC game, that's 5 dice. This is far easier to achieve than you likely think, but the extra pressure here encourages a better play experience with previous testing.
  • So it is stated, the game is still lost if a Council Member hits 0 dice for any reason.

That's it for Now!

I will be working on this over the next week or two to get everything as close to finalized as possible for playtesting purposes. If you are interested in becoming a playtester please contact me here or via any of my other public channels (you can find them very easily poking around my profile). Thank you for your interest in the game and I hope you are as excited as I am for the final version!