Designers:  Jett Ryker, Ty Vance

Artists:  Dennis Dorrity, Michael Hancock, Milla Hancock

Publisher:  Highborne Games

Genre/Mechanisms:  action/dexterity, adventure, cooperative game, dice rolling, exploration, fighting, storytelling, tile placement, variable player powers

Funding Status:  At the time of this posting, Dawnshade: The Watchers Prophecy is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than 1.5x the initial funding goal with 5 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count:  1-4

Solo Mode:  yes

Complexity:  medium-light

Risk:  HIGH

What It’s About:  “An endless, open-world cooperative RPG action-adventure in a box.”

How It Works:  In the default normal mode called Trilogy Mode, players choose from Easy, Normal, or Hard. Once they reach a Threat of 19 in Easy (or 16 in Normal or 13 in Hard), they’ll trigger the game’s Major Threat at the Kinship’s location on the Quest Mat, and players will fight the final battle of the game.

At the beginning of the game, players create a unique Quest Deck of 10 of the game’s 42 Quest Tiles, placing the Starting Village on one of the Quest mat’s 19 hexes. Play then proceeds in turns, made up of the following steps:

Move the Active Player Marker clockwise. Move the Kinship (the party of adventurers) to a newly drawn Quest Tile, the Starting Village, or a previously revealed Outpost. The Kinship may not stay static in the same location from the previous turn. Increase Threat by 1 for every space the Kinship has just moved. Complete the Quest on the current Quest Tile. Earn Rewards.

Five Outpost locations offer different activities to the band of adventures, or Kinship. At the Guild Hall, players can upgrade their stats. The Tavern allows players to gamble in a game of Double Doubler’s Dice or Watchers Runes. Players shop for wares at the Mercantile. The Foundry features Transmuting Tawny (money), and purchasing Cogbot Fighters or a Cogbehemoth. And the Boomshot Gallery is where players test their skills by launching Cogbots at targets. Event Quest Tiles feature Stat Challenges, Combat Challenges, or Treasure/Trap Challenges. All of these activities and challenges involve some combination of dice rolling or dexterity games with Dawnshade’s plastic chips.

Once the Major Threat has been revealed (which either happens as a Quest Tile draw or as a mandatory reveal if the Kinship has reached the Max Threat for their game session), players fight the final battle, which involves dice rolling using different methods of dice allocation and mitigation. Players can trigger Special Attacks using their dice rolls, Character Ability from their cards, or use their dice roll misses to charge up their Overdrive Meter. After battle, players will consult The Logbook to see how their Victory or Defeat effects future sessions through the end of their campaign.

Comparisons:  On a superficial level, with its stitched-edged playmats, chunky designer dice, stackable chips, and overall production value, Dawnshade definitely seems to bear more than a few comparisons with Too Many Bones. But Bones is ultimately an RPG with upgradeable character trees and tactical combat, full of puzzle-solving and crunchy choice-making.

Dawnshade is something different. The default gameplay mode of Dawnshade called Trilogy Mode consists of a 3 chapter campaign. While players can upgrade their characters (but to a much lesser degree than Bones), the focus isn’t so much on solving the puzzle of expanding character abilities or those of tactical combat challenges, but rather on navigating quest tiles and a slew of mini-games, most of which involve dexterity games of one kind of another. So while the production value of Dawnshade may be looking towards that of Chip Theory Games, the gameplay is much more casual and family-friendly, and Dawnshade’s gameplay often veers into the realm of party games.

What Should I Pledge?:
$98 Kinship Pledge: includes the base game with all unlocked stretch goals.
$148 Watchers Chosen: includes everything in the Kinship Pledge, plus Upgraded Weighted Token Chips and Upgraded Weighted HP/Shield Chips.

Add-Ons:
$25 Upgraded Weighted HP/Shield Chips: includes (100) HP Chips and (50) Shield Chips.
$30 Upgraded Weighted Token Chips: includes (36) Vaki Chips, (75) Currency Chips, (36) Condition Chips, (24) Watchers Blessing Chips, and (1) each Kinship Chip, XP Chip, Threat Chip, Level Chip, and Active Player Chip.
$45 Neoprene Game/Character Mats: includes (3) Game Mats and (4) Character Mats.
$35 Neoprene Game Mats: includes (3) Game Mats: Vaki, Quest, and Battle.
$20 Neoprene Character Mats: includes (4) Character Mats: Ash, Flash, Ptolem, and Wysp.
$2 Promo Active Player Marker

KS Exclusives
None.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $148 for the Watchers Chosen pledge, $2 for the Promo Active Player Marker, and $25 in shipping for a total of $175.

Dawnshade: The Watchers Prophecy completes its Kickstarter on Tuesday, June 16th and tentatively ships in February 2021.