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The Butchers Festival's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity/Uniqueness | #25 | 3.373 | 3.556 |
| Use of This Year's Theme | #25 | 2.583 | 2.722 |
| Clarity of Rules/Mechanics | #27 | 2.635 | 2.778 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Includes Law of Root?
No
Includes PnP?
Yes
Includes TTS files?
No
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Comments
You have some really cool ideas here! I think there are a few things that could be worded a little more clearly. It took me quite a while to realize the Festival was a clearing similar to the Burrow, but I think that's a really cool mechanic. I also didn't quite understand Lost to Violence, but I think I get it now. It's a way for enemies to remove their warriors from the Festival when the Revel token is undefended which I think is really clever. Succumb to the Revel is also a little hard to understand on first glance.
But all in all some really creative theming! Nice work!
Really interesting ideas here! It took me a minute to wrap my head around what they were doing, which always means someone has tapped into something new. I feel like it would feel so good to craft Coffin Makers and double dip on the captured warriors ;-)
Just curious what the role "Uncontrollable Hunger" plays in the faction? The purpose there wasn't really clear to me, outside of forcing you to move to more clearings (which you probably want to do anyway, to maximize the opportunities to Beckon)?
Thanks for the kind words! While it's true that the Revel wants to move around a little, it seemed fairly easy to keep shuffling it between two clearings with abattoirs and still get lots of range and power on succumb to the revel, so Uncrontrollable Hunger forces the Butchers to defend both the revel and abattoirs while also freeing up the revel to move to more of the board.
Ah, gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for clarifying!
The more I dug into this faction the more my questions were answered. It really reveals a lot about how you've planned each step through! I was wondering why you would build, but it does feed directly into the way they gain VP! It's also really thematic especially with regards to swarming which I find really fitting.
Just from personal experience when I worked on my Crocs faction (they also used to score by having other warriors around), it sometimes is difficult to balance a faction that scores off of an abundance of other warriors (and their removal from feast). Just since there's so much variance in warrior count on some games, and it kinda de-incentivizes getting involved in conflict with your own warriors.
That's def not a knock against your faction, and now something that can be monitored for through playtesting... Which you absolutely should keep working on these fellas cause there's a lot that works here!
Great stuff :)
This is a cool faction - love the idea of the festival as this hellish gladiatorial limbo! What guise would the festival take physically? The manifest mentions a festival board...
A couple of questions:
When you succumb to the revel, are you just moving your warriors to the festival, just enemy warriors or any combo?
As I understand it, you can have your own warriors and any other player's warriors in the festival. In Feast, it says you choose the attacker and defender to battle, suggesting you can force two enemy factions to fight each other. You then score 1VP per enemy warrior removed. If this is correct, then why would you ever pick your own faction to attack in the festival? Surely you would get more VP by making two enemy factions fight each other? Would you just battle with your own warriors in a situation where there is only one enemy faction in the festival? I might be missing something here.
Anyway, really interesting faction. I like how their Evening actions all focus around battling and the bloody chaos of the festival. Even having card draw linked to battling seems very thematically sound for this faction. On the theming, I wonder if there could be something else involving removing warriors to do with the abattoirs. At the moment, they are just used for recruiting and crafting (I think). But an abattoir is where things are killed, so it would make sense to me that an enemy warrior finding themselves in an abattoir clearing would not fare well! Just something to think about - perhaps another opportunity for blood to be spilled during The Butcher's Festival!
Thanks for the feedback! The idea is that the festival board is like the Burrow for the Underground Duchy, a seperate "clearing" that is adjacent to the Revel Token, it would sit in front of you, like the burrow.
When succumbing to the Revel, you can move both your warriors or enemy warriors, although you would want to draw in enemy warriors most of the time.
Using your own warriors to fight in the Revel is supposed to be a last resort, as it gives you half points, but it could give you a few extra VP or make sure no warriors get returned after the Feast.
Abattoirs are mostly important because they increase the strength of succumb to the Revel.
Thanks for clarifying. I haven't actually played as moles yet, so if I had, I'm sure the comparison of the festival board to the burrow would've been a pretty clear one.
And of course, placing abattoirs reveal the icon that moves more warriors into the festival for bloody skirmishes - well thought out faction!