Why the UnderQuest Crowdsale was cancelled and when it will return.

Most of you know by now that the Crowdsale for UnderQuest was cancelled. The sale was moving along better than I had expected at the time. Dustin Cox (from the Game Knight YouTube Channel) reached out to me after having played it a few times and he had some suggestions. UnderQuest was at a good point during the Crowdsale, but Dustin had a few ideas that could make the game a bit crisper. I toiled over it for a day or two and ultimately decided I wanted the best version of UnderQuest possible to be put in the hands of customers, so I cancelled the release in order to make changes to the game. It was a humbling experience for me, but I knew I had to do it in order to make UnderQuest the best it could be.

I have been trying to make a post about this on the site for a few weeks, but I had issues logging into this account until today. That is the reason it has taken a bit of time to post something here. The silver lining is that in this time I have worked very hard with Justin Cox on making UnderQuest a fantastic game that I can be very proud of. I have decided to make Dustin a co-designer of UnderQuest for his efforts and ability. So let’s take a look at a few of the issues we were dealing with and our solutions.

MAGIC DAMAGE. Probably the biggest issue was the damage system for magical attacks. The player was simply doing too much damage once they got their hands on a magical weapon. The solution was to adjust some f the damage output of some weapons and alter the way magic damage is dealt. We have dozens and dozens of playtests in with these changes and the system works flawlessly. Before combat was closer to that of iron Helm, where you could often one-shot enemies. This system has most battles having a good back and forth fight, which feels better than before.

CHARACTER AND ENEMY HEALTH. Before enemies and your character has less health than they do now. Combat is more manageable now. You are not going to one hit enemies as much and you will be able to take more damage. Characters will start with about 10 extra health, which is the perfect amount. Enemies used to add the dungeon level to their health, now they add double the dungeon level to their health.

MORALITY SYSTEM. The morality system in UnderQuest was certainly better than it was in Iron Helm, but it wasn’t perfect. Often making the evil choice was better in the long run. We made some changes there by altering a few cards and adding some new cards like the ones below. Having negative morality will now haunt you more than before, while making good choices can lead to some great rewards. That was always the goal. Being evil helps you in the present, and being good potentially pays off in the end. Kind of like real life.

STARTING WEAPON. We also decided to give each class a starting weapon, so the player didn’t have to spend gold at the beginning of the game on a weapon. We also replaced the starting trapping on the race card with a simple bonus item like a ration or ingredient. We designed two new trappings cards for this purpose.

We also got rid of the smaller tracker cards and replaced them with larger ones which also now include a way to track your encumbrance. Doing this is what also freed up 7 poker-sized cards for the five new cards above and two more that we will dive into next. Here is a look at the 4 jumbo tracking cards. Also included now will be 3 blue dice for keeping track of your stats of Agility, Brawn, and Mind.

With the final two cards I decided to tip my hat to Dustin for his hard work and we added a Ziggy companion reward card and an encounter card that introduces him. Ziggy is a faithful companion that will warn you of an ambush.

There were also a few other small changes to some encounter cards to help balance the morality system and to some items to make them a bit better. The vast majority of the game remains the same. I am so glad I decided to cancel. I am sure everyone wants the best version of UnderQuest possible and we have it now. I am finishing up a few things like making final changes to the rulebook to reflect some of these changes. We are aiming to relaunch the Crowdsale in January. Stay tuned for that. We will have many videos out prior to the launch for folks to watch and see the new changes in action. Thanks for all of your support! Thanks!