Announcing The Changing Seasons Expansion!

Heya folks, I wanted to let you know a few things now that the jam period has ended and Into the Woods... has officially wrapped up. First off, thank you very much to everybody who has been checking the game out! This has been my most successful project on this platform and a lot of folks really seem to enjoy it. Seriously, all of you are awesome :)

You may recall that I was considering doing some expansions for this game based on reception and feedback. Well guess what! The first one is already in the works. It's titled, "The Changing Seasons" and will offer a whole new way to play Into the Woods... I know you probably have some questions so let's address those now:

Q: How will this play?

The answer to that one is pretty simple. In this expansion you will now face a very special event at the end of every season, for a total of 4 events in a single year. This will kind of be like taking a normal turn as you will need to pay food as normal, but instead of flipping cards over from the year deck, instead you will be utilizing your discard pile. This represents the increasingly unkown nature of the forest. Will the forest twist and contort into an unending nightmare, or will it grant you its blessing? Only time will tell!

Q: How much content will this add?

That's a really good question. I've just started outlining everything I want in this expansion so I can't say concretely but here is the rough estimate:

• An estimated 200+ page compendium, with the rules fitting on under 5 pages. This will be almost all content!
• Over 100 brand new, and totally unique events!
  • Each season sees you pulling 1 card from the discard pile at random, so that is up to 52 unique events per season. I do have some duplicates (to make some of the longer quest chains more likely) but that's still a LOT.
  • The focus of these events is to provide just enough to get the player's imagination going but stopping just short so you have room to tell YOUR story. Each event has you performing a skill check or making a choice (at least so far), so your fate is very much in your hands. You should never be forced into anything entirely bad, I can promise that!
  • There is one caveat to what I just said, Winter is a unique case. Since the game ends after Winter is over (unless you choose to loop around again or use any of the listed variants for play), these events will be more climatic in nature. They will still be open-ended enough to allow you to continue, but if you want to write an ending for your character you should be able to do so here.
• All new traits, equipment, and bestiary entries!
  • Some of these things will expand content found in the base book, while others will be entirely new.
    • This will bring with it some new mechanics as well.
  • My goal is to add more equipment in this expansion, it was one area that was really underdeveloped in the base book. Besides, who doesn't want to have more cool stuff? Right now I have plans on how you can utilize traps (yes the ones in the bestiary!) and a few other goodies outlined, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you have any suggestions? I'm open to 'em!
• Room to tell even better stories and expand the lore/mystery behind this strange evolving forest.
  • I want to give the player opportunities for incredible moments that feel one of a kind. With so many new events I think this will get us all the closer to that goal.
  • When it comes to the lore and mystery to why the forest is changing, I never really addressed that much in the base book. I will be sprinkling some of that in here, but as one of the core design tenets of this game, a lot will be left up to the player to completely fill in.

What this WON'T be adding, which I think is something really important to mention here:

• A lot of complexity. This will be something that only adds a few extra minutes to each season. Estimated 10-30 minutes of additional playtime depending on how much you journal.
• More player demand. You will not have to do anything more than you would in the base game.
  • To aid with the volume of content here, everything will be all linked up with easy to navigate bookmarks.
  • Page numbers will always be listed for manual lookup.
  • Tables will be easy to read since I don't have to worry about some things the base book had to worry about.
• Lots of fluff. I will aim to keep this as lean a product as possible to avoid inflating the page count. This book will already be quite large!

Q: Sounds great! When will this release then?

Right now I do not have a planned release date beyond sometime 2019. I've completed about 13~ pages of the book so far, finalized a lot of the art, and the general layout. All of that covers exactly 1 event and the rules so far, so as you may have guessed, it will take me awhile to get this finished up in its entirety. If I am able to really sit down and focus, I will probably have this done mid-August or early September. Beyond that, it is just too early to say. Hopefully I can go faster but I'm only one person after all.

In the meantime, you can download the base book and give that a try. Being familiar with everything there will make adding all of this content even easier. You can download Into the Woods... for free via this link or you can utilize the download button for the same files on this devlog entry. If you think you have a cool idea for this book, leave a comment or contact me using any of the methods listed in the book. I'd also love it if you could rate and share the base book around too of course! ;)

Q: What will this cost?

Here's where I have to be kind of a downer folks. Unfortunately, I don't think I can afford to give this final product out for free. It is just going to add way too much content and take way too long to finish for me to do that. I need to respect my time and energy here so this product is going to have a price. Right now, I haven't fully decided but I'm estimating $2.99-4.99 US dollars. That's about the same cost as the suggested donation for the base book, which is free, and will always be free!

I'm basically unemployed (I make $60-80 dollars a month through services I provide my church) and find getting work extremely difficult due to my disability. I hope you guys understand the necessity behind this decision when it comes to changing my initial promise in the last update. This is something I do to keep myself occupied and as a way to generate some extra income so I don't overburden the folks who help me out a lot. I appreciate anybody who has frustration over this decision, but also hope they can find some happiness in the next paragraphs.

I have good news though! While this isn't a hard promise, I should be able to release a "lite" version of this expansion. Instead of the full 52 item charts and tons of extra stuff, I would cut it down so it is a D6 table for each season. This would give you a sample of the final product (don't worry, I'd highlight some of the cool stuff) while still providing something for users who don't wish to, or just can't, support the final product. This would be something I do when I'm approximately 50% of the way through finalizing the full rulebook.

This wouldn't be a lot of effort on my part and would be a win-win for all parties involved. Like I said, I can't promise that I'll do this for sure, but at this time I don't see why I wouldn't. The page for this product would likely go live with this rules lite version as well, since this would also act as a preview for the full version. With this, I'd be able to fulfill my initial promise while still generating some needed income.

Thanks for Reading Folks!

I hope you will look forward to this exciting new product! Until then, enjoy yourselves and be careful as you journey ever deeper Into the Woods...