Ravage - a dungeon crawler with a twist

Guest writer, Ian Schofield writes about the game he designed and illustrated - Ravage, in this post. I first met Ian last year at the UK Games Expo, and he is one of the most modest and nicest guys I've met. He decided to cancel his first campaign, re-work it and relaunch it. I can safely say that this game looks amazing having seen the components and gameplay in the flesh. I'll let Ian do the rest....

Hi I am Ian Schofield and I have designed, illustrated and organised playtesting of my game Ravage - Dungeons of Plunder, which is on kickstarter now.

Where did it all begin?

Like most of you no doubt with Heroquest, I had to wait for my brother to leave the house before I went in his room and kept reading the D&D red box book, oh bugger I just looked that up it was 1983! Don't panic this game has not been in development since then. I played tons of shadowrun and dnd in the years to follow then fell out of the hobby it was replaced by computer games most of which were essentially high fantasy, the likes of Neverwinter and Baldur’s Gate and later Diablo, fast forward a few years and some friends and I started playing board games again. I made the decision to change career and started illustrating for Modiphius on Achtung Cthulhu and Rainn Studio’s TerraTiles sets. All these projects were great however the big dream was always to illustrate a high fantasy board game, so I waited and waited and waited... it never came. So I decided life was too short and I would just have to make it myself, that was 3 years ago.

I read up on game design, joined forums, Facebook groups and have met some great people along the way. I started by writing in pen on cards and playing with friends, working out sections of the game that worked and sections that didn't, quickly learning what was broken. Feedback from these sessions was invaluable and the game wouldn't be what it is today without that great feedback. I have 2 sketchbooks one with ideas written in it and another with most of the sketches for the characters monsters and design elements in the game. I also have a spreadsheet that made my head hurt as I worked out the dice power for each of the monsters worst case and best case scenarios.

All along the theme was driving the game. I wanted it to have a classic feel to it but wanted to turn it on its head I wanted the main characters to be Orcs and the currency just had to be teef. I found by playing with several groups that some people like vs play and others that just wanted co-op and would instantly dismiss games that weren't. So I created the game to have several modes:

• Solo Delve

• Co-Op

• Co-Op with Dungeon Master (1 vs Many)

• Treachery (vs)

The game features agro, attacks of opportunity, looting and critical hits, as well as levelling up skills and the Shaman can even summon his own undead as minions to fight for him.

There are a couple versions out on tabletop simulator if anyone wants to play please give me a shout I would be happy to organise a time.

Thank you for taking the time to read the ramblings of an artist / game designer.

Ravage is on kickstarter now!