Quests: Heroes of Sorcado is live (Save Sorcado from the dark lord)
Update: Quests: Heroes of Sorcado is live and the campaign will run for 20 days. You may pledge for a copy of the game, with or without the playmat. Minis and a "prestige package" with deluxe components are also available.
Our preview post below was published on May 20.
Quests: Heroes of Sorcado is a cooperative narrative-based fantasy adventure game in which you lead a party of six heroes to fight Darkness across the land. The rulebook summarizes the game as: “Read stuff. Draw cards. Roll dice. Make Choices”. It will launch on Kickstarter on May 25.
To start the game, you must choose six heroes out of the eight available. Heroes are then arranged into a circle around your player board so that adjacent heroes can support the “primary” hero when the fight is too dire. Each monster comes with a Skull Level that determines the number of heroes taking part in the encounter, from one to all six of them. Each hero has a unique set of starting stats values (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom), Health Points, and gears up individually, but the party shares a common pool of potions, loot tokens (akin to gold), and backpack for unequipped items (with a capacity of 6).
The game is driven by the Campaign book. It instructs you to go through Locations to complete an Adventure. The whole campaign consists of eight Adventures in total, plus a tutorial. You then draw face-down cards from the deck corresponding to that Location, one for each hero. Playing clockwise, each hero reveals their card and resolves it. It may be a trap, a fight, an event, etc. Once all heroes have resolved their card, the location is cleared and the game moves on, as per the instructions of the Campaign book.
Fighting a monster is straightforward. The monster has a “target stat” value, that comes in one of the four stats. You then tally up the total for that stat over the involved heroes (the one that flipped the card, plus additional heroes as per the Skull level of the monster), roll a d20 to add to that total and see if you beat the number. Whatever happens in case of a victory or defeat is outlined on the monster card. But if you lose, once you have resolved the negative effects of a defeat, the monster will move on clockwise to the next hero until you finally manage to beat it. Defeated encounters have a vault level. If the vault level is below the Adventure level, the monster is removed from the game for good: in that way, the Location decks are progressively culled of their weaker cards.
During the adventure, you may encounter the Peddler, with whom you can trade gear items for loot tokens. You can also buy potions from him, repair your Armors (otherwise they can break and be removed from the game!), get some healing, or have a curse lifted. You may also find the Altar of the Lesser Gods: by offering them loot tokens, you may earn potions according to the result of a die roll.
At the end of an Adventure, you will face a Boss. The Adventure book will specify how the boss works and how it can be defeated. Once the boss is slain, each hero gains a Perk token that can be spent to upgrade the character. If you don’t succeed in the adventure, you can restart it anew without going through the whole campaign again.
The Adventure book also features travel entries, Nemesis encounters, and side quests you may attempt to fulfill.