We are a bit over 24 hours in now and 90% funded exactly. $6750/7500! That is fantastic, and we have a lot more ahead. I want to point out our goals beyond our funding, including stretch goals to add more bosses, more cards, new classes, and more! There's also an achievement Boss we can unlock if we get the Pub Gob bluesky account to 1000 followers during the campaign, which will be more doable than you think!
So please, share the project to friends, family, and gaming friends! We, Salty Water (our artist) and I would both love to add even more art to this game, and that's what most of the stretch goals do.
But first, let's talk about the incredible art in this game.
Salty Water approached the Caged Wraith first, thinking deeply into the concept. From Salty Water themselves, (lightly amended for language differences)
"For this one, I'm looking into the aesthetic of ancient egypt, combined with the cold metal of the torturous equipment to emphasize on the weakness and suffering of the flesh... I really surprised with the choice of mole as this character, but it should work well with the contrast between the soul form as a mole and the actual physical body as a naked mole rat that is barely alive. Upper body with a cage in the fashion of an egyptian coffin+iron maiden forged into flesh and using metal/gold/iron (depend on the overall color scheme) as reinforcement to the body to hold it together with engraving and patterns on it, referring to the mask and prosthetics of those post-war soldiers. I believe this design is suited for a prisoner kind of feeling and showing the torture on the physical bodies as hint on the reason they have their soul trapped in the body, and maybe the ability to separate from the physical body is a form of punishment (or maybe a form of religious belief?) For the soul form be in a glorious form with various accessories on body, can be good referring to the appearance of the ancient Egyptian priest and gods, such as Anubis."
"For the caged wraith, I turned the Egyptian motif more visible in soul form, but keep the cage and imprisoned vibe more in physical form, using the metal strips all over to form the cage and the contour of the character, like bandages to wrap part of the character. It’s almost skin-bone looking, and I also added the jester look to the physical form. Idea still bit rough, but I think using metal strips like it’s skeleton can be better than literally put a cage there... I got the caged wraith draft refined, thinking about using the visual image of steam train boiler explosion as how the wraith form when release from the cage, and the overall look of the physical form is using metal strips as the main element, both for cage and the contour of clothes, using it as the equivalent of bandage on mummies so that the physical form is all flesh and the cage fixed onto the flesh directly."
It was important to me in my early work on this game that the classes here were not the standard ones you might ask of an adventuring party. That they had more specific stories to them. I didn't want a general class you could interpret how you wanted, I wanted very specific entities that relate to the world, their culture, and their lived experiences. The Caged Wraith was an early contender from my list of potential roads, which goes beyond the ones you see below.
Notes in my original thoughts document
The Caged Wraith always struck me as a character who is tragic. Either a character whose soul wants free from their body, and who hates the wretched form they drag along with them; or one who has a wandering soul they are desperately trying to keep within their waning body. In both cases, the theme here is desperation. And in making use of this wandering soul, the mechanics associated with the Caged Wraith are innately about high risk moves, extreme frailty, and the ability, of course, to roam the world as a soul alone.
The Caged Wraith can sneak ahead without being detected, look through walls, pass through objects, and of course, damage souls directly-- a generally quite rare power. But the trade off is the way they leave their body unattended, either needing to be carried by allies or left undefended, easy prey for hungry creatures in the dark.
Yesterday, this class was winning in people's most interesting/favorite class poll. But now the Organ Eater has overtaken it! Go vote now, and help me pick which class we will take a closer look at next update!
Thanks for the amazing first day everyone, let's see how far we can get!
