Announcing Tempest: Shards of the Gods

We are pleased to announce the birth of our first card game, Tempest: Shards of the Gods, where you can fight mythical battles in a shattered world.

What is Tempest all about?
In the world of Tempest, the apocalypse has come and gone. The world as it once was has been shattered into countless shards of what once was. The only things that remain are the gods and what pieces they could salvage before the end came. Players take the place of a god of ancient myth: Egyptian, Greek, Japanese or Norse, fighting for dominion over what is left, conquering enemy shards to piece together a universe for themselves and fending off attacks from rival gods.

How does it play?

Tempest: Shards of the Gods is a deck-building strategy game. Each player begins with the same deck of cards: 5 ‘Rites of Worship‘ (a basic Resource), 4 ‘Conscripts’ (a basic Troop) and 1 ‘Border Fort’ (a basic Structure). However, each player also has access to a second deck, called their Research Deck (constructed before play begins). This contains all of the Troops, Tales, Upgrades, Structures and Events that they can play during their turn.

On each turn, players discard any number of cards from their hands to gain a resource called “æther” (the air of the gods). Aether can then be spent to research new cards from the Research Deck, to play cards from the player’s hand, or to charge up certain cards to make them more powerful.

You must advance your Troops from your Temple Shard into your Battleground Shard, Neutral territory, then into your opponent’s Shards. Winning at your opponent’s Temple Shard secures you victory.

However, there is another way to win. Certain cards (Tales and Demigod Troops) can accomplish “Labours” in game. For example, if the Patroclus, Brother in Battle Demigod Troop is killed while he has the Armour of Achilles Upgrade attached to him, he accomplishes his Labour and scores 1 Legend Point. If Achilles, Hero of Kleos hunts down and kills the Troop that killed Patroclus, then you will complete the Wrath of Achilles Tale and score 2 more Legend Points. Then if Achilles falls to a Troop with the “Ranged” ability, he will score you 1 more Legend Point, leaving you needing only 1 more (5 total) to win the game.

The game is a race against your opponent to complete your Labours first, while holding back the oncoming tide of enemies and investing your aether wisely.

What are we up to?

We are currently in the process of playtesting Tempest to make sure all of the rules play nicely together and that it isn’t confusing for new players. Our goal is a game that two players can pick up and play within an hour, and that can be learned in half that time. Once the main rules have been tested, we will be testing each of the four factions to make sure no one faction is the “go to” choice for victory.

At the same time, we are commissioning a number of pieces of art to use on sample cards. Right now we are playtesting on crayon drawings, which work but don’t exactly lend the kind of atmosphere we are looking for!

What are our plans for the future?

We plan to run a Kickstarter campaign in January of 2016 to raise enough preorders to do a full run of at least 1000 games. By the time the Kickstarter comes around, we aim to have 20 pieces of art completed to show off during the campaign. Once that initial run of 1000 games is secured, any additional funding will go to commissioning art to use on the cards. We have ~110 unique cards requiring art, so that will likely be the primary cost. Any art that remains to be commissioned will be done in house – but don’t worry, it won’t be crayon drawn!

You can follow us on Facebook or Twitter to get updates on the progress of Tempest and join the conversation.