Designers: Eric Bitterman (The Stonebound Saga), Sean Craten, David Yanchick

Artist: Muhamad Faizal Fikri

Publisher: Sky Kingdom Games (The Stonebound Saga)

Genre/Mechanisms: action point allowance system, campaign/battle card driven, cooperative play, deck building, hand management, storytelling, variable player powers

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, The Isofarian Guard is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total more than 3x the initial funding goal with 7 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-2

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About:  The Isofarian Guard contains 4 unique campaigns of 30-50+ hours of gameplay. The campaigns can be played solo or with 2 players, and the main objective is for players to play through all 4 campaigns, each with a set group of characters, to discover the larger source of corruption spreading across the land. The game can be played with or without the additional Forteller narration app.

How It Works: Gameplay is split into 3 phases: Exploration, Combat, and Narrative Events. Exploration involves characters exploring the map and making narrative choices, but the game also incorporates a bag-building/chip-drawing system to help randomize some of the narrative pathing.

Combat largely involves an action point system based around AP cubes that the player can use to take various actions as well as hand management and card abilities. Characters can also use Speaking Stone Abilities that include more powerful attacks and abilities. And they’ll be doing some resource management using their character dashboards.

Narrative Events function much like those in the aforementioned Mansions of Madness, with various chips populating the board that trigger story progression.

Comparisons:  In terms of app-based gameplay, people may immediately think of the likes of Mansions of Madness and Descent. And as with those games, much of the gameplay here is exploration and story-driven. But the cast of variable characters depending on the campaign being played may also draw comparisons with Gloomhaven its rotating cast of playable characters, whereas the narrative/exploration focus also has much in common with the likes of The 7th Continent, The Tainted Grail, and Etherfields. Man vs. Meeple noted similarities to Skyrim and other video game RPG’s as an influence, and much of the character design and world-building seems to be drawing a bit from Game of Thrones as well.

What Should I Pledge?:
$79 The Isofarian Guard: the Core Game with all unlocked stretch goals.
$94 The Isofarian Guard + Forteller: the Isofarian Guard pledge, plus access to the Forteller app with Isofarian Guard Narration.
$109 The Isofarian Guard – Stonebound Edition: The Isofarian Guard + Forteller pledge, plus the digital soundtrack and the Isofar Map Stitched Playmat.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives:
None.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $109 for The Isofarian Guard – Stonebound Edition pledge plus $20 in shipping for a total of $129.

The Isofarian Guard completes its Kickstarter on Thursday, October 3rd and tentatively ships in December 2020.