Loka /Riverhorse+Mantic

[Duncan_Idaho]

Loka

Einige dürften ja noch Shuuro und Turanga von Alessio Cavatore kennen. Loka ist nun die konsequente Weiterentwicklung der Verschmelzung von Schach und Tabletop.

We are pleased to be working with Alessio Cavatore on River Horse†™s new game †“ Loka: The World of Fantasy Chess, coming soon!

Loka is a new fantasy chess-wargame with elemental chess armies, fantastical terrain and a simple combat system to resolve the fights between the pieces based on mutual support and rolling polyhedral dice.

The Queen of Air Army

River Horse has designed the game, from the rules to the fantasy chess sets based on the four elements: Air/Wind, Earth/Wood, Fire/Lava and Water/Ice, sculpted by Wojchiek Flis. These figures are designed for plastic production and are clearly identifiable as the Chess Pieces they represent.

A Pawn of the Earth Army

Mantic Games will be publishing the game, handling all of the manufacturing and distribution leaving the Mantic Design Studio free to complete the Kings of War and DreadBall Kickstarter models.

Everything you need to know about Loka: The World of Fantasy Chess will be revealed later this week †“ don†™t miss it!

[Aun Jan Kauyon]

Klingt auf jeden Fall interessant und ist sicher leicht erlernbar.

Vllt auch mal was um es unterwegs zu spielen?! Das fehlt mir für die Sommermonate, wo ich doch lieber draußen am Wasser bin.

Mal weiter beobachten. Danke. Jan.

[Duncan_Idaho]

Fire Bishop

Wenn du Schach kannst, dann hast du schon mal die wichtigsten Grundlagen. Der Rest ist einfach zu lernen, spielt sich aber trotzdem deutlich anders.

Fire King

bearbeitet 20. Februar 2013 von Duncan_Idaho

[Duncan_Idaho]

Icy Undead Pawn

[Duncan_Idaho]

Loka Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/loka-the-world-of-fantasy-chess

Hi,

With Alessio’s wonderful ‘Loka – the World of Fantasy Chess’ about to launch on kickstarter, I thought I should bring the Mantic fans up to speed with what this means (and what is doesn’t mean too!) for them and us.

Firstly, why are we doing this, and what does Mantic’s involvement mean?

Well the first bit is easy to answer – I think this is a fantastic product and it is dripping with innovation – both things Mantic is always keen to work with. I know since I started collecting miniatures I have always dreamed of making a chess set from my fantasy miniatures (and have actually started on at least 2 occasions!). Each time I found what I had in my head was very difficult to actually deliver – so when Alessio spoke to me about his vision for Loka it was something I knew Mantic could support from the onset – when I saw the quality of the sculpts, and the great ideas he has for the Loka rules I knew we had to help him get this made. Since we first discussed it, I think Alessio has shaped the range to be a clever mix of great models (that you’ll want to paint) while keeping each one clearly able to still work as a chess piece. Not an easy task, but one he has pulled off with style.

The second reason we had to be involved is because over the past few years Mantic has built an excellent operation that makes tools to produce world class minis, and a despatch operation that can ship and deliver great products pretty much anywhere in the world, and all the sales and accounts support an operation like this needs. It means we are in a great position to help creative sorts (like Alessio) by bringing the business infrastructure we have to help them bring innovative and cool ideas to life – especially when this is combined with the power of the community too, like with kickstarter. It means Mantic can handle the logistic and tooling end, and it frees up the creatives to be, well…creative!

The other major benefit of supporting Alessio (and hopefully others) in this way, is that it means the Mantic studio is not tied up with these other projects – so it can focus its time and effort on delivering all the Dreadball, Warpath and Kings of War releases, and lets our sculptors and designers keep working really hard on Dea…oh, sorry that one is still a secret

I am really interested to see what happens with the LOKA kickstarter, because while I know that we have built up a fantastic community of wargamers over the past 4 years, I don’t know how many play chess, or want that ‘Wargames Chess set’ that I know I have dreamed of. However, I do think it is something that quite a few of us will back directly, and I am sure an idea this splendid will excite the community at large – and many who have never even thought of playing a wargame. All that said I hope those who don’t want to back Loka directly will still be happy to help us deliver Loka for Alessio (who as well as being a very splendid games designer is also a very nice chap). So even if the kickstarter isn’t directly for you please send the link round to friend’s and club members, and let’s make Alessio’s dream a reality.

Thanks for reading,

Ronnie

[Duncan_Idaho]

Kickstarter funded!

Das hätte selbst ich nicht erwartet... innerhalb von 6 Stunden nach Start die 25K gesschafft.

Tile Concept Art

[Duncan_Idaho]

Erstes Stretch Goal erreicht

Das Softcover-Buch ist freigeschaltet. Nächstes Ziel: Earth Set bei 50.000.

Aktueller Stand 40.900.

Fire Pawn

[ViperX]

Und was ist daran jetzt so großartig ? Nehmen sie nicht im Grunde genommen Schach, und entfernen alles was Schach toll macht ? (kein Zufall, ausgeglichene Truppen, minimalistisches Gameplay)

Geschmäcker sind wohl wirklich verschieden ... (Es sei denn die Leute backen das nur wegen der Figuren, aber ein Schachspiel mit TT Figuren könnte man sich bei der Flut von Anbietern auf dem Markt eigentlich auch individuell zusammenstellen.)

[Duncan_Idaho]

Alessio's Developer Diary: 1- The Rules

With funding secured yesterday for the LOKA Rulebook, Alessio has put together the start of a developer's diary - a mix of great blog posts and cool videos showing you the ins-and-outs of LOKA.

We kickstart this morning off with Part 1 of Alessio's focus on the Rules...

I was reading quite a few comments about the rules for Loka, and fear not, videos focussing on each of the main points of difference between Loka and chess are coming!

In the meantime, I will use this update to take you through my thinking on the rules design of Loka, which is about modularity. You see, when I was learning to play chess as a kid, I remember going through a beautiful illustrated book that taught you the moves of each piece and then had a little exercise mini-game that used only the pieces you already had learnt to use to that point.

The core rules

The core system of Loka is chess, which is why the rules for chess will be included in the rulebook. If you know the rules of chess, you know a good 80% of the rules of Loka. More importantly, you can play just that, normal chess, using the cool elementals of Loka as normal chess pieces. And I expect quite a few people are going to do just that. Alternatively, you can continue your journey and learn the next step, which I’m gonna call a ‘bolt-on’ rule. You can learn the bolt-ons one at a time, and, even more importantly, once you have learned them all, you can choose which ones to use in your games, IN ANY COMBINATION!

If you use all three bolt-ons, you are playing Loka as I envisaged it – a full fledged hybrid chess-wargame. If not, you are playing something that is more or less like chess… the choice is yours.

Bolt-on 1 – Build your army

Instead of having the fixed pieces of a chess set, you start with just the King, representing yourself, the player, and a number of points, representing the elemental energy available to the King to summon his warriors.

Each piece has a point value, based on traditional chess theory, and you can decide how to spend your points and build a different set. For example, I’m thinking 10 pts for a pawn, 90 for a queen, and so on… You can have as many p[ieces of a certain type as you want, within the limit of the points values. The only pieces I have to limit (because they are too cheap and they could fill the board!) are pawns, of which you can only have up to 12).

By using different amount of points you can have bigger or smaller games, and by having an unbalance of points between the two players, you can offset differences in skill (say I give you 1000 points and I give a chess Master 300 points… can you beat him?)

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

[Desaster]

@ ViperX:

Ich denke es gibt zwei Gruende, das hier zu backen: Es ist ein Mantic Kickstarter und Shuuro ist ein Klasse-Spiel

[Darkover]

Loka wird sich wohl ein ganzes Stück von Shuuro unterscheiden. Wir haben heute ein längeres Interview mit Alessio online, in dem er ein wenig dazu verrät.

Hier geht es zum Interview bei Brückenkopf Online

[Duncan_Idaho]

Ice King

Air Queen

[Desaster]

Interview auf Bell of Lost Souls mit Bildern aller vier Koenige bemalt:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/03/interview-alessio-cavatores-newest.html

[Duncan_Idaho]

Loka Gameplay Video

http://vimeo.com/61187405

[Duncan_Idaho]

Air Set

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/883103_552482348106683_1881399703_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/882675_552482378106680_1289686942_o.jpg