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Woah, really?? I love this so much, it's amazing Maia!

You are the first to connect them, too... well done.

Woah! Beautiful choice of rocks!

Hey, thank you for playing Anyaaaa! I appreciate your thoughtful review, and am glad you enjoyed the front you played.

I think you accurately captured my design intent: a quicker, more narrative, and easy to learn game. If you want the nuance or granularity of FitD-style position and effect, this will probably fall short. 

But you 100% nailed my intended tone of  "telling a bleak story of struggling to defend your home." 

Thanks for sharing!

Awesome, thank you for sharing that!

Hey luminous, there aren't community copies but send me an email at help@deepdark.games and we'll figure something out!

Thank you zerodan!

Wow, this is beautiful! Thank you so much for the kind words, and for playing.

Using shells as islands is a really good idea, I would love to see what you come up with if you do that!

Awesome, I hope you enjoy it solo, and glad the sense of loss is coming through!

Just to help clarify, here's how the Locations work, and how they can be destroyed:

1. At the beginning of the game, player chooses a section of the map to be their home and draws 5 Locations (cities, important infrastructure, etc.). One of those was lost in the "pre-game story", so you cross one out, leaving only 4 to start the game with.
2. If you cannot kill the Front 1 Kaiju, it will destroy 2 more Locations after the battle at the end of Front 1. This may leave you with 2 Locations, or 3 if you choose to destroy your Upgrade instead of a Location. Then you move to Front 2.
3. The blockade doesn't count as a Location, it's just extra world building.  
4. There is one special rule (page 36) where if the Kaiju survives and escapes back to the rift, it can destroy 1 extra Location next Front. 
5. But in the worst case scenario, the earliest you can lose all your Locations is by the end of Front 2 (and then you can become a Ronin Pilot, see page 32!)

There are a couple videos on my website too, if those help.

Thanks again for playing, and just reach out if I can help clarify anything else!

Hey, thank you for playing! So awesome to see HOME being played in Brazil!

Yes, it's designed to be "hard" game: you may lose a lot of locations and mechs by the end of Front 3. You can't lose all locations in Front 1, so that might have been a rules mixup. Each player starts with 5 locations in their home (so 3 players = 15 locations) and at worst, each player may lose their mech and 2 locations after Front 1. 

As to why it's designed to be hard: a core question of the game is "how do you continue to fight after terrible loss?" Losing all your locations after Front 3 isn't losing the game; it's asking you to imagine what your home and people are like in that terrible fate. Are the previous Mechs and Pilots considered brave heroes, or weak soldier who couldn't save your home?

Hope that helps, and just reach out if I can provide any more rules clarification for you!

That was a wonderful write up, thanks for sharing it! Glad to see CycloToad  found their freedom again.

Hey, thank you for these kind words! I'm thrilled that you and your wife enjoyed the game.

And yes, we can absolutely talk about sharing your translation. Please send me an email at nick@deepdark.games and we'll make something work!

Thank you for the kind words, and for playing!

Hey, thank you for buying it! Itch gives creators the most money, and I appreciate you asking.

You are very welcome, I hope you can save your home!

This is a beautiful little game, thank you for sharing this!

You're welcome!

Thank you! I appreciate that.

You are very welcome, thank you for the kind words!

Thank you!

This is amazing! I'm very jealous of this journal... 

Thank you for the kind words, and I'm so happy you enjoyed the game.

That sounds awesome, and watching the new populations change is really fun addition too.  Thanks for sharing this!

Thank you, I really appreciate that!

I was originally trying a different game loop that just wasn't working, and it finally clicked when I reframed it to use the Artefact waiting mechanic.

Thank you zerodan, that's really kind of you to say!

Thank you! I look forward to the one-page jam every year.

If you are optimizing while playing, you'll have 2 upgrades by Front 2 that increase a single prep move. That will give you 3 boon dice (1 you start with & +2 from the upgrades), and rolling 3 dice only has a 12.5% chance of only getting a 1, 2 or 3 as your highest. Add in 1 bane die from the front danger level and the odds get a little worse (around ~32% i think, but would need to recalculate it), and that's not including any special move rerolls.

But yes, I won't deny that it can be a game that feels difficult to beat the kaiju! Emerging completely unscathed is really difficult, and that's the intent of the design: what will your pilot do when the odds are stacked against them? Which parts of your worldbuilding will be destroyed, and what will remain in the ashes?

It's a game that asks you to be ok with losing these things, and still finding the story within it.  It's not something that everyone enjoys.

Hey, thanks for playing and commenting!

For your questions, you are correct: you only build one upgrade per front, the prep moves don't add any more upgrades/structures.

And for the prep rolls being really bad, yeah that can happen if you are unlucky with your Bane dice rolls; just make sure you are only adding 1 Bane die to all rolls in Front 2, and 2 Bane dice to all rolls in front 3.  The probabilities definitely get tougher in Front 2 and 3, but they aren't impossible.

I try to switch my mindset a bit when I roll poorly, and focus on the tragic story that's unfolding. Will your Pilot sacrifice themselves if things are obviously so dire? How does your home and connection react to the terrifying destruction of the Kaiju? What does it mean to persevere against such terrible odds? What will be left after Front 3?

Hope that helps!

Thank you!

Stormdra: Water + Serpent, evolved from Cloudra. Abilities are Fog Crush and Crystal Shield. Found in Hana region near waterfalls.

Want to add to the Wildkin index?

Please reply to this comment and share your Wildkin below!

Hey!

1. I'm Nick!
2. This is my second year doing the jam, last year I made A Perfect Rock.
3. One of my kids has been watching Pokémon and the nostalgia is strong, so I'm exploring the monster-collection genre.
4. I want to make a hack of Artefact/The Skeletons, so my goal is to condense those rules into a single page without losing any of the awesome design of those games. 

Looking forward to seeing everyone's submissions!

I love this write-up! Super cool worlds you made, thanks for sharing this.

Ooh I like that! I wonder if they'll ever find it?

Thanks for the kind words, and I love that you might use your post-Kaiju world in another campaign!

I like that idea for changing up the third front too, I might keep that in my back pocket for later...

I love that you are taking your time with it, especially if you are playing solo. You can really explore the world and consequences from the battles. Thanks for the kind words, and I hope your home survives!

Thanks for the kind words! That's really similar to the vibe when I play too, I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks for checking it out, and the kind words! Hope you are feeling better too.

I so happy you both enjoyed it, thanks for letting me know!

Thank you for sharing this link! I'm thrilled this was part of your book club.

Rank does two things: 1. you can use Improvise once per pilot rank (so a veteran pilot can improvise more often), and 2. you can roll more dice when Detonate Your Core (so a veteran pilot is more likely to kill the Kaiju when they sacrifice themselves). 

Glad you enjoy it!

You are welcome! And yes that's exactly right, you should always start the fight at the "furthest" current front.
In Front 2: The Rift you'll start inside the rift, and in Front 3: The Source, you'll start deep in the rift, probably near whatever your source is.

If the Kaiju does enough damage to kill the Mech, then yes it'll start destroying locations in your home.

The Mech health is linked to the fronts, so if the Kaiju reaches your Home Front (basically at your doorstep), your Mech should have 1 health left. After that it's a dead mech and dead locations.