Designers: Adam Sadler (Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2nd Edition, Heroes of Terrinoth, Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game The Force Awakens Core Set), Brady Sadler (Heroes of Terrinoth, Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game The Force Awakens Core Set, Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game)

Artist: Henning Ludvigsen (Android: Netrunner, Arkham Horror, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, BattleLore 2nd Edition, Battles of Westeros, Blood Rage, Bloodborne: The Board Game, Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, Cosmic Encounter, Dead Man’s Cabal, Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2nd Edition, The Everrain, Folklore: The Affliction, A Game of Thrones: The Board Game 2nd Edition, A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Mansions of Madness, Merchant of Venus 2nd Edition, New Angeles, Nexus Ops, Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Star Wars: The Card Game, Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game)

Publisher: Blacklist Games (Brook City, Street Masters)

Genre/Mechanisms: cooperative play, deck building, dice rolling, grid movement, hand management, miniatures, modular board, variable player powers

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Altar Quest is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total 6x the initial funding goal.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About: A deck-building dungeon crawler from the designers of Brook City and Street Masters, using the same “modular deck system” designed and implemented in those games, with improvements. The Kickstarter-only version also includes an expansion, Call of the Lunarin, designed by Isaac Childres (Gloomhaven).

How It Works: This dungeon-crawler focuses on three things: campaign-style adventures, one-off adventures, and custom decks. Any adventure begins with the players selecting various hero decks, threat decks, quest decks, and villain decks, giving both the campaign and one-off adventures their variability and replayability. In addition to the base game content, the Kickstarter packs in an exclusive campaign from Isaac Childres and offers an additional expansion campaign as an Add-On. By the time this Kickstarter ends, Altar Quest should surpass Blacklist’s previously most popular campaign for Street Masters: Aftershock. Considering this is an original IP owned by Blacklist (so there are no licensing rights to have to navigate), it certainly seems like a safe bet that Blacklist will continue to support Altar Quest with future content.

Comparisons:  The Sadler brothers are huge fans of HeroQuest, where this game draws mush of its inspiration. Yet gameplay is different, and adheres more towards the standards of current dungeon crawlers and their mechanics; the Sadler brothers both worked on the 2nd Edition of Descent. But the modular deck system is Blacklist’s own alternate take on deck building, and both Brook City and Street Masters feature the modular deck system as well. 

What Should I Pledge?:
$109 Quest Tier: includes the Altar Quest base game, all unlocked stretch goals, and the KS-exclusive Call of the Lunarin Expansion by Gloomhaven designer Isaac Childres.

Add-Ons:
$5 Hero Dice 5-Pack
$5 Base Ring 12-Pack
$20 Neoprene Board Mat
$25 The First Four Hero Pack
$35 Rules of Arkenspire Campaign Box

KS Exclusives:
In addition to the KS-Exclusive Call of the Lunarin Expansion, the following stretch goals are also KS-Exclusive: the Prisoner, Queen Valory, Huey, and 4 Trap miniatures (upgrades from tokens), 5 new Altar Dice, the Blake Miniature with 35 Hero Cards and 1 Divider, and the likely-to-unlock Blake Gallows & Leyson Pines Ally Cards.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $109 for the Quest Tier, $20 for the Neoprene Mat, $25 for The First Four Hero Pack, $35 for the Rules of ArkenSpire Campaign Box, and $20 in shipping, for a grand total of $209.  

Altar Quest completes its Kickstarter on Tuesday, June 25th and tentatively ships in June 2020.