Nova Aetas: Renaissance

Meet the Mediceo!
almost 2 years ago – Sun, May 15, 2022 at 11:51:29 PM

Hello guys!

After the important update two weeks ago, let's start to let you take a closer look at the material that will be shipped with Wave 1. After the 3 Enemy factions from the Core Box (Fauns, Venice Republic, Rome), it is now the turn of the Heroes, to show you their skills, their strategies, and how their rules have evolved in these months of Design and Playtest.

Obviously, we start with the most badass Mercenary of the Italian Renaissance: The Mediceo!

Let's have a look at his Hero Sheet!

As you can see this game element has changed a bit from those shown during the Kickstarter; from the feedback received during playtests, we changed some ergonomic aspects, game elements, and rules.

Now the Heroic Points have their own Track (bottom left), an acrylic cube will allow you to keep track of these points. Each Hero collects Heroic Points in different ways and you will need them to activate their Heroic Skill, a "super-ability" that can be used only once per Mission, but using it wisely can turn the tide of a battle!

The Mediceo gains Heroic Points every time he deals damage using his Rifle and every time the Kid inspires him. When he has accumulated 4 Heroic Points he can activate his Heroic Skill "Defensive Exploit", which cures him of all negative statuses and provide him a series of very powerful positive statuses.

Stats management also changed from the first version. Now 2 Stats can be upgraded once when your Hero moves to one of the 2 Advanced Classes.

This change improves balance with the Heroes' growth and keep the focus on Skills upgrades. Playtest sessions with external players were really valuable and allowed us to make the Heroes' growth system more interesting and rewarding.

The Mediceo begins the campaign with the Hunter class; thanks to its skills and equipment he can be considered as a sort of Ranged-Tank, capable of inflicting serious damage from a distance, attracting the attention of the Enemies, and resisting their attacks. His rules are based on two unique mechanics: Kid's Inspiration and Da Vinci Equipment.

Inspiration focuses on the Kid's latent magical abilities. The baby Faun that the Mediceo protects is actually a powerful psionic. The Kid did not receive a proper training yet, so he can't control well his abilities, they can only be triggered by certain events.

The Da Vinci Equipment represents all the extraordinary inventions of the famous Renaissance genius. The Mediceo will be able to improve his basic equipment by inserting in his armor and weapons a series of ingenious gadgets, such as flamethrowers, telescopic sights, and much more!! And yes, you will be able to equip even a rudimental "Jet Pack"... we already know you were going to ask for it!

The 2 Advanced Classes focus on one of these mechanics.

The Guardian focuses on Da Vinci's Equipment, making the Mediceo a true war machine, with the right gadget for every occasion.

The Awakened relies more on the Kid's magical powers to overcome his opponents. When the Kid wakes up the Mediceo can unleash a series of effects that will leave you speechless!

All Heroes have mechanics that make them unique and fun to play; learning to master them will make the gaming experience very rewarding and always different, even if you decide to play the campaign for a second time using the same Hero! And that goes for all 11 Heroes at your disposal! We're confident NAR will keep you busy for a long time, rest assured!

Let us know what you think about the Mediceo, is he going to become your favorite Hero?

Before concluding this update, since many have asked us this question, we want to clarify that we're working to deliver Wave 1 in all languages available for NAR at the same time (not only the English version). 

That's all for today! See you in a couple of weeks with a new Hero and development update!

Very Important Update
about 2 years ago – Sun, May 01, 2022 at 02:42:29 AM

Hello everyone,

We have prepared an update with lots of information and important news.

First of all, we want to tell you about the state of the work and the development of the game.

Project Status

We finally managed to complete the core box, it was a long and complex job that took much longer than expected due to several factors, which we will discuss below.

The positive side is that this additional development time has  several improvements to the game originally proposed on KS, let's go through them in detail.

The Enemies: in the original project, the intent of the alternative poses unlocked with the stretch goals was a purely aesthetic impact, without touching the gameplay. Already during the KS, taken by the enthusiasm of the effect of the new poses, we decided that with 2 additional cards per enemy we could make better use of these new models. So now each enemy has a unique profile and peculiar abilities, adding considerable variability at matches.

The cons are that most of the missions ready at the time of the KS had to undergo a new phase of playtesting, to make sure that the inclusion of these new enemies was giving good fun and diversity while maintaining the balance of the game. The different types of enemies inside the base box were originally a total of 12, now they have grown to a whopping 18.

Crafting objects (Formulae): in the original project we had approx 30 objects, we have now reached over 50!! We have added new hero class specific objects and new generic items, we have also added a new category of items called "Oils", with effects that can last for the entire mission, unlike potions which are instant single effects. All of these items have been tested and the enemy reward system has been re-balanced. Obviously, all these additional objects needed to be conceptualized and illustrated, we hope you like them!

Achievements: this category of cards includes both the Achievements, obtainable through different actions during the missions, and they usually do not affect the tactical part of the game but only the options and the odds of the players, and the Rewards, which are real nice objects usable during the various missions. In the original project we had 15 Achievements and 6 Rewards, today we have 29 Achievements and 8 Rewards.

Tiles: we have added 2 new ones, with a water effect side and a mud effect side. These two new tiles obviously have in-game effects and those may vary from mission to mission.

Missions: In the original project there were 26 missions, we increased them to 28. We did it to make the plot and the interweaving work better. Of course those add further longevity to the core box.

Plot book: last but not least, this book was initially a volume of about 100 pages in A5 format, now it reached about 300 pages (!!). Our graphic designers are working on the layout of its final version, changing to an A4 format of about 150 pages, presumably with spiral binding. The work on the plot book was one of the biggest efforts, with numerous corrections and reworking that came out during the playtest sessions. To make you understand better, every time a new idea intervened (on a mission, on objects, or on narrative plots), or changes were made to improve the clarity and usability of the texts during the tests, it was necessary to re-check and pontentially modify all previous closed and already paginated missions. We never managed a plot book like this before, we admit it was far more complex than expected.

Mea culpa, as the Latins used to say.

All these implementations, which here in the studio, generated enthusiasm thinking about the final version of the product, caused delays in development.

The situation in the recent past did not help, we already told you about the difficulty in carrying out the playtests, with live sessions blocked for months and with jumping sessions due to various absences due to illness and various isolations, and then the need to re-work on so many of the missions, which passed the internal playtests, but then failed during the external tests.

We must honestly admit that we underestimated the overall work needed, the integration of the stretch goals released, the solidity of the internal playtests carried out before the KS, the impact of the finalization work, and the consistency of the plot book. We must admit that even if there was no pandemic, we would still have had serious difficulties in completing the work on time.

It is our duty to take responsibility for this.

It is also our duty to apologize for failing to communicate: often in the hope of being able to catch up with delays and bring you good news, we have slowed down the pace of communication on development, actually doing worse. In any case, we should have kept you updated on the positive news, on the difficulties, on the options developed to overcome them, and on the impacts on the timing. This project exists and will see the light only thanks to you, and this transparency was therefore due to you.

Let's start right away, by communicating two important decisions just taken, regarding Updates and 2 Waves shipping.

Updates: Starting from May we will release 2 monthly updates, in order to keep you constantly updated on the status of the work, development, and production.

We will share images related to the playtests and images of the graphics of the various elements of the game, and we will of course give you insights on individual features and special elements.

2 waves shipping: This is the biggest news today. We did an accurate estimate on the time it takes us to complete the expansions, part of the stretch goals, and then localize NAR in the 5 promised languages. Given the amount of text on cards and the various Plot books (yes, even the expansions have their own Plot book!), the timeline looks very long to complete all the translations, so sending everything in a single shipment would lead us to deliver everything around mid 2023.

We have therefore decided to split the shipments in two waves, in order to deliver part of your pledge to you more quickly, to let you start playing while we finish the work on the second part.

The additional costs for the management of the two waves will be absorbed directly by us.

The first wave will include not only the core box, we are also working to add all the following material: Hyperion, Draco, The Mediceo, Minotaur, plus all cosmetic add-ons (Artbook, Card Holders, Dice sets). We will also include Magister pledge stretch goals for everyone, this means that Magister pledges will be fully delivered, together with all BRW crossover material.

Shipping Timeline

Production of the first wave will start in June, we plan to load cargo on ships in China by the end of the year, we are awaiting feedback from the factory to confirm these dates.

Production of the second wave will start before the end of the year and, considering the Chinese New Year that blocks factories for about a month, we think we can load cargo on ships between April and May next year.

Let's add a clarification note about working on new projects while other projects are still under development/finalization. Some of you, understandably, expressed doubts and concerns about this situation. We want to give you more clarity about this topic, the work teams are different, people work in parallel on multiple projects, and the overlaps that can really slow down the work can happen in very few occasions. Let's go into our specific situation: at the moment, as many of you know, the creative group of the Studio is working on three projects: "Nova Aetas: Renaissance", "Black Rose Wars: Rebirth", and the new arrival "The Breach". Regarding the game design, Andrea Colletti and Luca Bernardini (the authors), Diego Fonseca and now Marco Presentino are working on NAR, Marco Montanaro (the author) is working on BRW: R, Michele Morosini (the author) is working on The Breach. The internal playtests are managed directly by the game designers, for the external playtests each game design group moves its tests independently as needed. Regarding illustrations and sculptures, the work on NAR has been completed months ago, the work on BRW: R is done and we are in an advanced stage of reviewing the print files with the factory, it is on The Breach that illustrators and sculptors are now engaged. Regarding the graphics work, we have 4 people at the moment who follow the different projects, each person with his/her specific focus.

This is just to give you more evidence that, for example, not releasing The Breach would have no impact on speeding up NAR. We hope that this brief description will help to better understand the internal dynamics and to reassure you that NAR is not and will never be a parked project due to new initiatives.

Last note, now that here in Italy the security measures related to the pandemic are finally reducing a lot, if you want to come and visit us here in the Studio just contact us and you will be welcome! After so much forced distance it will be a pleasure to have the opportunity to chat and show you the work in progress. Of course, we are not really within the reach of all of you, but never say never :)

That's all for now, we hope that this update has transmitted to you the commitment and passion we are putting into developing this ambitious game.

We'll be back in two weeks!

Designer Diary - Mission Design and Work Progress
about 2 years ago – Sat, Mar 19, 2022 at 06:52:19 PM

Hello Guys!

Here we are at the March Update, which as we had anticipated will be dedicated to the development status!

First of all, we will let you take a look at the Missions design.

The system we have developed for the missions will allow you to have a deep gaming experience and very high replayability!

Mission cards allow you to prepare and manage missions in a simple and fun way.

During a mission, you will find yourself passing from the cards to the Plotbook, where you will find narrative passages that will illustrate what is happening and will put you in front of choices or tests of skill to overcome particularly challenging situations.

The location system will allow you to explore the mission maps in a way never seen before, when you enter a house or a dormitory of the guards, you will have many choices to make, such as looking for objects important for the success of the mission (Achievement) or talk to the many NPCs you will meet and who will give you useful information and insights.

As you know the heart of each mission is the deep and solid tactical combat system, where you need to use your skills to try to get out of challenging encounters with enemies and bosses alive.

We are sure that you will like the system, we are having a lot of fun creating and testing each mission, even if the development and the correct balance of each of them, of each character, each enemy, and each object is very challenging and inevitably long.

Here is an outline of the creative process behind each mission. 

As you can see, this process involves a series of steps that end with the External Playtest, in many cases, they are repeated cyclically until each mission reaches the quality level we want.

Considering that this process must be applied for as many as 27 Missions for the core box only, you can understand how the development of the core box and all the expansions is taking a great amount of time.

Following the delay accumulated in 2021 due to the impossibility of carrying out live playtests, given the anti-covid restrictions applied in Italy, we have increased our staff, added new people to the development team, the Illustrators team, and the Graphic designers team; this restructure is giving positive results and fruit and accelerating the development processes.

This table shows the current status of the work on the Missions. We have not included any other game material such as miniatures and punchboards, simply because these are completed and ready for the mass production.

Currently, there are only few external playtests left to consider the Core box completed and begin the translations of cards and plot book. The Rulebook is currently in translation and we will soon share it on our web app (app.ludusmagnusstudio.com) to allow you to read it in advance and be ready to play as soon as you receive your pledge.

In the meantime, we have started work on the missions of the Expansions that inculde new campaigns (Vesuvius and Under Siege); to make the work of the translators more fluid, we will leave the development of the expansions that add secondary missions (Hyperion, Catacomb, Minotaur and Draco) for last. 

The Mediceo is completely finished and he is already sowing panic on our Battlefields! We will show you its rules in one of the next updates.

Based on our estimates of the work done and what remains to be done, and the time it will take to translate all the huge amount of material into 5 languages, we aim to start mass production by summer 2022 and start shipments by the end of the year.

Before concluding this update, we are happy to inform you that tomorrow we will be guests of the Twitch channel JocoGameStudio to play one of the Core Game Missions live! (spoiler alert)

The live broadcast will start at 04:00 PM (CET) and will be in Italian, but we will also answer questions in English. We hope to see many of you, answer your questions, and show you a lot of preview material.

That's all for today! See you tomorrow on Twitch and in a couple of weeks for a new update!

Designer Diary - Factions: Venice
about 2 years ago – Wed, Mar 02, 2022 at 01:54:02 PM

Hello, guys!

The last appointment with the Designer Diary, dedicated to the NAR Core Box enemies factions, today is finally La Serenissima's turn.

The antagonist of the Papal state during the war of the League of Cambrai, Venice will be a formidable opponent for our Heroes. 

Its mercenary troops will count on a high versatility and their skills will put the Heroes in front of many different situations.

A small historical clarification. Despite making extensive use of it, Venice not only had mercenary troops on its service but also a regular army of its own. However, we decided to give a more exotic and diversified look to this faction, taking advantage that historically, among their ranks, there were many mercenaries very often coming from Eastern Europe, where Venice exercised its strong influence. 

Among its units, you will find Gypsies, Moldavians, and other Mercenaries hardened by a life of bloody contracts led by Venetian Patricians eager to show off their skills.

But let's take a look at some of these dangerous mercenaries!

The Moldavan Guards are the heavy troops of this Faction. With excellent Defense and Mental Physical values​​, and the Shield ability, they are very tough, but also their attack is not to be underestimated. Few Heroes will be able to avoid it in, with the bad prospect of receiving a Poison token.

It will be better than the heroes with the best defenses be sent to fight them... or hope that Vincenzo and Gregorio are ready to use precious Action Point to cure the annoying negative status!

The Gunners are the perfect skirmishers of this faction. They are able to be dangerous both at range and in melee thanks to their Eclectic ability, they can inflict a considerable amount of Wounds, and they have the bad habit of poisoning their daggers.

As for a little reminder for you, a Hero with a Poison token on their sheet will always roll one less die (up to a minimum of 1 die) for any test they must take. A harmful effect for the Heroes that also has the bad characteristic of being able to be discarded only thanks to the use of specific equipment or skills.

Finally, we conclude this brief rundown with the iconic Gipsy! 

This fascinating enemy also presents in the first version of Nova Aetas, is the Mage of this Faction and will oppress the Heroes with terrible mental area attacks that will also inflict Fire on those who have the misfortune to be in the area of ​​effect. Also, thanks to the Shooter's skill, this nice girl can target the Heroes ignoring any obstacles between her and them ... it will be really difficult to escape her burning gaze!

These are only three lethal units available to La Serenissima, but enough to make you understand that you must be very careful when facing this faction. 

But you know, Venetians are good negotiators, maybe you will succeed in an agreement, or maybe you will be made an offer that you cannot refuse!

Who knows? The paths of destiny for the heroes of NAR are many and you decide which one to take!

That's all for today! Yes, this update is a little shorter than usual but for March, instead of the usual update at the end of the month, we have planned 2 of them, in which, in the one of mid-March we will also take stock of the state of work and the NAR production.

We know that many of you are concerned about the delay and we want to keep you as informed as possible, reassuring you that we are working at full speed and expanding our development team to make up for the time lost due to the pandemic last year.

Apart from this, in the next Designer Diary, now that we have finished with the Core Box Enemies, we will start to show you the (new) Heroes of NAR, who, following the development and the playtest to which they have been subjected, they have undergone many changes and adjustments to be all balanced and fun to play!

That's all for today! See you in mid-March!

Fireball!

Designer Diary - Factions: Primaevi
over 2 years ago – Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 10:33:00 PM

Hello, guys!

Welcome to the first update of 2022 that continues the series dedicated to the Enemy Factions of the Core box. As winners of the survey launched in the latest update, it will discover the secrets of the mysterious Primaevi!

This People, closely related to Gaea, are made up of various races: Fauns, Spriggans, Centaurs, and the fearsome Bully.

In the world of NAR the Primaevi are organized into tribes that include mixed elements of these races, and to escape the eyes of men they have chosen to live in the depths of the thickest woods of the Italian peninsula.

They generally try to keep themselves out of the disputes of the more "civilized" kingdoms, but the events of the main campaign will take them to the field to protect their most precious of artifacts, the Blood of Gaea; the object of desire for both Rome and Venice... and our heroes will find themselves in the middle of this dispute!

As you know,  NAR main campaign may lead to very different events depending on the result of the missions you play, and therefore your Free Company will be able to clash or ally with the Primaevi, based on the progress of the main plot.

But let's take a look at some of the models in this Faction!

Among the troops, we find the small but deadly Slingers, who will give support from a distance to their companions.

While they may seem less threatening than their larger mates, these little Primaevi are not to be underestimated. With Horde 3, they will always arrive en masse and their ranged weapons inflict Poison, an annoying negative status that will always make the heroes who suffer it roll one less die, and only a potion or the intervention of Vincenzo and Gregorio can get rid of it!

The stoic Marauders stand out among the Primaevi elites. 

These shock-troops are formidable adversaries for any mercenary, able to weaken the attacks against them thanks to the Shield ability. Also with Phalanx, their attacks will be much more effective when made against heroes adjacent to other Primaevi. You will therefore have to be very careful not to get crisscrossed in order not to meet an inevitable and premature end!

The Primaevi are the only faction of the core box to have a model from the Monster category, the massive and decidedly lethal Bully.

Longtime fans of LMS games know our passion for minotaurs, and this new version of the Bully keeps our tradition high!

Undoubtedly the deadliest "generic" Enemy of the campaign, this colossus will be difficult to kill with physical attacks, and his ax will take victims upon victims if you don't find the right strategy to stem his fury.

With Charge, he will be able to move and attack heroes within 4 squares of him, and his attack in addition to Stun the unfortunate hero will push him back one square. This effect may seem secondary to you, but in NAR missions time is of the essence and even a square could be crucial in determining victory or defeat at the end of a Mission!

We conclude this roundup with another Elite unit of the Primaevi, the mystical Witch!

In the Primaevi society, only women may have magical powers (well apart from a few rare exceptions, such as a mysterious puppy cared by a Florentine mercenary ...), probably because they are the closest to the spirit of their patron Gaea.

Witches are rarely seen in the Primaeval ranks, but when they appear, the minds of humans are put to the test. Their mind attack won't do much damage but will inflict Curse, a powerful debuff that will increase the difficulty of all your tests by 1. In addition, with her ability Heal 4, at the beginning of each activation, all Primaevi within 4 squares from her will recover 1 wound. If you don't want to go to a bad end you will have to find a way to eliminate it quickly or there will be serious trouble!

What do you think? Do you feel ready to face the primordial force of nature? Or do the woods still scare you?

Before saying goodbye, let's also take a look at the progress of the development work of NAR!

The work is progressing at a rapid pace between playtesting sessions and writing the texts of the narrative part of each mission. 

We are paying a lot of attention to this part of the project, we want the stories you will live playing NAR to give you the same feeling that would let you see a good movie or read a great book .. and why not! Play an epic video game. 

We will cover this aspect in more detail in the next updates, but we can tell you that we are excited by the material we are making, and we can't wait for you to immerse yourself in the world of NAR, with a level of depth never seen before in our games!

Regarding the artistic development, to speed up the times, even more, we are happy to inform you that we have added a new concept artist to our team. The talented Eleonora immediately set to work on the production of the dozens of props and environments that will enrich NAR cards and rulebooks.

We show you some of her works to make you understand the level of artistic quality we are aiming for!

We hope you like them, but don't hesitate to leave us your feedback!

That's all for today! See you in February with a new update dedicated to the last faction in play on the chessboard of the Renaissance: Venice the Serenissima!

Fireball!