HEXplore It: The Domain of Mirza Noctis is live (The Domain of the vampire)
Update: HEXplore It: The Domain of Mirza Noctis has launched on Gamefound and the campaign will run for 30 days. You may pledge for a copy of the game, or also add any previously released volumes and accessories to your order.
Our preview post below was published on April 3.
HEXplore It Volume IV: The Domain of Mirza Noctis will launch on Gamefound on April 7. All volumes of the series are stand-alone and six should be released in total.
HEXplore It is a series of board games offering a sandbox RPG-ish experience in which you wander around a land defeating enemies, gearing up, and leveling up to stand against the evil Overlord- a different one in each volume of the series. Although you can play it “pure solo” with a single character, it is recommended to play with a party of at least two characters that you will simultaneously manage.
To create your character, you must pick a Role, a Race, and optionally, a Trait and an Aspect. The choice of Role is the most fundamental as it gives you a set of fixed abilities that you will use throughout the game, as well as the starting values for the different stats of the game. The Race adds modifiers to these stats, and a “Favored opponent” against which you will have a bonus while fighting. Traits and aspects add further stats modifiers and potential new abilities, or even starting possessions (e.g. the Noble starts with more gold than the regular profiles). During the game, you can perform quests, defeat mini-bosses, and visit cities, with each city being different and offering its own specific set of goods for you to purchase. All the volumes also add different mechanisms and more variety overall.
On each turn in the game, you first move up to four hex spaces, then perform three skill checks: one to see if you correctly landed on your destination (otherwise you must wander on a neighboring hex), one to see if you can find out hidden treasure, the last one to see if you manage to secure food from your surroundings – if you fail, you must feed on your own reserves. There are also five encounters on display: roll a die to see which one you will be facing on that turn. It can be a foe you must fight, an event, a weather condition, a curse, etc. If you roll a six, you’ll draw a random card.
Combat is enacted in a succession of rounds. In each round, all of your heroes must pick an action: attack, defend, or one of your two masteries (the role-specific abilities) if you can afford their energy cost. You then roll the die to see your enemy’s action, as specified on its encounter card. All the fight events are then resolved simultaneously. There is no experience per se in HEXplore It, but you can earn Power Up cards that allow you to improve your stats.
In Mirza Noctis, you roam the land of Krastlevania Krasvetelia, a gothic fantasy setting with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, witches, and the like. Your goal is to defeat the Vampire Overlord Mirza Noctis, who gathers blood in secret: when enough Blood has been collected, Mirza Noctis will show up for the final confrontation, so you must stop this from happening as much as you can. You can conduct Investigations that will grant you Runes; the Runes you gathered will affect the reward you get from them (Gold in Villages, Power Up cards in Monasteries, Blood Magic in Crypts). These Crypts are locked in the beginning, so you need to purchase the matching Key in a Monastery.
Crypts are randomized dungeons that are played beside the main map on their own specific tiles. Among the other new mechanisms in this Volume are the Day and Night cycle, each associated with its own deck of encounter cards (the Night one being more dangerous), and you can now resurrect as a Ghost or a Zombie, feeding on your living enemies to heal yourself. New roles include the Inquisitor, the Witch, the Cursed One, and the Warlock. The game also introduces Familiars to accompany your character.