Divinity: Original Sin – The Board Game Update #20

The board game adaptation of Larian Studios’ turn-based RPG Divinity: Original Sin is just about ready for some playtesting. The game’s latest Kickstarter update shares some new information about that, describes the expanded crafting system and the rune stone cards, and shows off some new art.

Here’s the video part of the update:

And here are the text parts:

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Kickstarter update number 20!

It’s just over a month since our last update, The Road Ahead. In that update we discussed the need for a delay on the game’s release, with the new release date being set for Summer 2021. Thank you, for understanding our desire to take the extra time to iterate and make greater improvements to the game.

We’ve been listening, and we know one of most common requests from the community is to hear from us more frequently. We want to keep you fully informed, so from now on we will be doing monthly updates just like this one! You’ll be hearing much more about how the development, playtesting and art processes are going as the project continues. Here’s Kieron to give you more details[…]

The team is making great progress with the new art direction that will bring the quality bar of the card art to the next level. The extra time is also necessary for us to complete a really comprehensive series of playtests, to get the feedback from those groups, and to alter game design and aesthetics, implement changes, and rework systems before the perfect version of the game can be placed into your hands.

Playtesting

Playtesting is ready to begin! In the coming days, 10 copies of the game will be shipped out to various volunteer playtest groups. They’ll be battling foes and forging fellowships in the world of Rivellon, and when their adventure is complete, they’ll fill in a questionnaire with all their feedback about their experience.

This first playtest version of the game will be with those groups for 6-7 weeks, giving them plenty of time to explore the different options the game has to offer. Because of this, the feedback we receive will be a fantastic body of information that we can use to iterate on the game for the second round of playtesting.

Stretch Goal – Expanded Crafting

We’ve also been working on expanding and testing all the stretch goal content you unlocked during the Kickstarter campaign. Today, we wanted to look at the Expanded Crafting stretch goal and how that’s changed the options you have for crafting in your games.

If you take a look at the graph below, you can see a before and after comparison of the game’s crafting mechanic, thanks to the Expanded Crafting stretch goal.

All the items and materials in black were present when we launched the Kickstarter, while the red are new developments thanks to the unlocked stretch goals. There are now four new kinds of materials to give you more options. Thanks to these additions we’ve nearly doubled the amount of items you can craft!

Rune Stones

Crafting items are all single-use cards, and each appears once in the crafting deck. However, Rune Stones bring something new to your party’s arsenal. Once crafted, they can be reused and kept with you for the entire campaign. As such, there are multiples of each Rune in the crafting deck.

Runes are items that are slotted into other items. Each weapon, shield, helmet, or armor in the game can be slotted with one Rune, which will modify its properties in some way. Rune cards are double-edged, letting you use the edge that matches the type of item you slot them into.

One edge of a Rune is for shields, helmets and armor, and modifies that item’s corresponding resistance value. This is useful to shore up any weaknesses among your six resistances. The second edge of the Rune is for weapons. When slotted this way, the Rune overwrites the weapon’s damage type and critical effect. For the example shown, you can use this to turn a physical weapon with no critical effect into one that deals Poison-type damage with a chance to inflict the Poison status for additional damage over time.

New Artwork

As part of our last update, we revealed some of the new artwork, and were delighted to see so many of you love the new direction as much as we do. We have a team of over ten artists working together to deliver pieces with that same striking style for the game.

Every month we’ll show you the progress they are making. We’ve also started work on the various enemy cards in the game, so for this update, check out the Magister Guard above, garbed in steel and unsheathing his blade!

See you in August!

In our upcoming updates we hope to focus on other elements of the game like boss encounters, more stretch goals, choices within the story, more art, and of course the progress of playtesting. Thanks, and stay safe everyone!