Middara: Unintentional Malum - The Complete Trilogy
Created by Succubus Publishing
An epic adventure for 1-4 players set in a unique alternate world fantasy setting.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Delivery Projections
almost 5 years ago
– Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 02:12:14 AM
DeliveryProjections
Hey friends, Alex here.
It's been a wild year and we're only 4 months in. We hope that everyone is staying safe and doing the best they can to remain positive in these difficult times.
With China finally staggering back to work after their shutdowns from COVID-19, we have finally begun the mass production process for everything on Wave 1. Obviously, this is a lot later than we had hoped for.
We do want to take some of the fault on ourselves as well. We wanted to begin mass production long before Chinese New Year in late January, but we got so much feedback from backers about the first edition of Middara Act 1, that we couldn't allow ourselves to go into print without implementing everything we saw as crucial.
We feel very proud of Act 1 as it stands now and we know you'll all have a blast playing through the story.
With that said, we have been given confirmation that games should leave China by late summer. Throw another 4 weeks on there for ocean freight travel and localized shipping and we're looking at an early fall delivery.
We will keep you informed of all the milestones along the way and we really appreciate your patience and support.
Wave 2 and Beyond
We've been using this time to really start hammering out the development of Acts 2 and 3, plus all the other expansion content and we can't wait to show off what's in store.
With the landscape of boardgames getting more vast and creative, we want to stay competitive and continue to carve our little niche of JRPG dungeon crawlers by going all-out with some crazy ideas for the Wave 2 expansions.
Every day I get an excited call from Brooklynn asking me if an idea he has is too crazy for Middara. I always say "no, let's do it."
Thanks for checking in and we wish you all the best!
Tabletop Simulator Mod Ahoy!
almost 5 years ago
– Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 12:41:25 AM
Hey everyone!
We got our Table Top Simulator Mod out and ready to play. You can find the information for the mod here. It is currently under active development. However, the progress so far is very impressive.
We've got a very active community giving feedback as we speak. If you have some experience with TTS or are interested in taking the dive, go ahead and join the Discord group here.
Table Top Simulator as a Tool
We're very excited to use TTS as a way to proof and playtest future content with our backers, fans, and friends. Embracing this tool will allow us to not only provide a fun way to play Middara for those who are remote, but also a way to improve the physical products we produce at a pace we couldn't otherwise.
We're just about ready to pull the trigger and start up those printers for our game. We're simply approving all the documents (double-checking spelling errors, etc) and then it's off to the printers. For all those checking out the TTS mod, the files are all identical to the ones we've submitted to our manufacturer. If you find any issues in the narrative, on the cards, or on any of the Encounters in the next week, please let us know. That would help us out tremendously.
For those willing to help with such a task, go ahead and send anything you find to [email protected].
(Note: Just a reminder for those unfamiliar with Table Top Simulator. We recommend this program to those who have friends who they want to play Middara with who also don't live locally. Or, for those who are familiar with either TTS or Middara. However, if you must, we recommend playing a game you're already familiar with to learn TTS before jumping into Middara.)
Thanks for your support and we'll keep you posted on any production news as it unfolds!
A Quick Update
almost 5 years ago
– Sun, Mar 01, 2020 at 02:35:05 AM
Where is that timeline at?
Hey everyone,
We wanted to put out a quick update about our reluctance in sharing a timeline. With the Coronavirus active in China we've been seeing a lot of other board game companies receiving a wide range of speculative delays.
Meanwhile, we've been actively working with our own manufacturer to monitor the effect this dire situation will have on our timeline. Unfortunately, we're at the mercy of winds outside of our control. Our manufacturer is optimistic and is a very large and multifaceted company capable of pretty incredible feats. They have assured us that a delay isn't very likely given the stage we're at with our digital files. However, based on what we've been hearing from industry friends, it's a real possibility that we will run into some degree of delay due to Coronavirus.
The reality is that we're unsure of the degree of delay at this point. It could be a day, it could be a month. But, it isn't all doom and gloom. In fact, we're still working stateside with our manufacturer to proceed with the digital proofing process so that when the time comes, they'll be able to hit that big print button on their industrial printer.
Of course, we're very concerned for our friends overseas and are hoping that everyone is sympathetic given these circumstances. Because, at the end of the day, we're talking about lives, not games. As soon as we have more information to share, we will. For now, all signs still point to a delivery sometime this summer. When we have a confirmed accurate timeline on delivery that we feel confident in, we'll post it.
Table Top Simulator
I spent an afternoon this week playing a game of Middara on Tabletop Simulator. It's really neat. After a short learning curve on how to manipulate the program itself, I was easily playing Middara. The creator of the Mod, Ken, has been hard at work. He requested another week to solidify some things before we open it up to testers and start inviting people to the Discord. As soon as he's ready, we'll make sure to post it here on an update with a link to the Mod as well as the Discord server for those that want to get together and play through the start of the game.
He'll be actively looking for bugs and suggestions for improvement. Middara is a large game, so getting as much done as he already has is very impressive. He's working on scripting out the entirety of Chapter 1 and 2 so that you can simply click a button on the Adventure Book and have the entire encounter load for you.
Ken is even working on a video tutorial to explain how to do some of the more specific manipulations in the program unique to Middarra. I know it would help me out when playtesting with my own friends in the future, so I'm glad he's going the extra mile to make that a reality.
In either case, we'll keep everyone up to date on this exciting mod.
Wave 1 Pre-orders
Lastly, our little pre-order event for Wave 1 will end tomorrow night (March 1st) at 10PM MST.
Whether you're a new backer to Middara, you've been a fan for a while, or you're just popping in to see what's up, we have quite the update in store for you today.
(Here's an FAQ if you have questions regarding this update!)
Valentine'sPre-order Event
Pre-order deals for all Wave 1 items are now open! The store will be open until March 1st, 2020 and then will close to tie up manufacturing and start the shipping process.
Pre-orders will reopen sometime later in March but without all the tasty deals!
We have a limited quantity of products, so everything is while supplies last.
Get what you need before it's too late!
All pre-orders will deliver around the same time as the Kickstarter campaign (late spring / early summer 2020).
NOTE: This pre-order will not include any of the stretch goals from the latest campaign. These will go up for sale at a later date.
These pre-orders will ship from the region they were purchased. This means there will be no customs fees!
CardCounts
For those of you that want to sleeve your game when you receive it, here are the card counts for each product!
Middara Core Game
5x6 Large cards = 100
Standard Euro = 390
Mini-American = 368
Tarot = 12
KS1 Promo Pack
5x6 Large cards = 3
Standard Euro = 6
Mini-American = 3
Tarot = 19
Art Book Vol. 1
5x6 Large cards = 4
Mini-American = 4
Announcements and Collaborations
TabletopSimulator
This monster of an undertaking is being done by one of our backers. Ken Cunningham is a master at these sorts of things. He’s helped so many companies bring their games to Tabletop Simulator in a professional way. I cannot recommend him enough if you’re looking to get a board game on that platform.
Some special notes about TTS (Tabletop Simulator):
This mod will contain everything from Chapters 1 and 2 for free (the first couple dozen hours of the story). However, the program itself is a boardgame agnostic utility that is not free. This is a fan-made product and its functionality is dependent on your knowledge of TTS and how comfortable you and your gaming group are with TTS itself. If you've never used TTS and haven't also played Middara on a real table there will be a significant learning curve as you try and learn both a complex tabletop game and a new program.
Really, we recommend this program to those who have friends who they want to play Middara with who also don't live locally. Or, for those who are familiar with either TTS or Middara. However, if you must, we recommend playing a game you're already familiar with to learn TTS before jumping into Middara.
In either case, this mod is slated to be released on the Table Top Simulator Steam Workshop by the end of the month and contains high-resolution components and tons of fully scripted content (such as setting the board up for you.)
While Tabletop Simulator mods cost money to make, but we’ve decided to provide Chapter 1 and 2 free of charge. That way, backers without the game can get started, and those who have friends that don’t live nearby don’t have to make their friends sit out of the fun.
We hope to one day be able to find a model where we can provide a polished digital version of our game while covering our costs. For now, though, we appreciate everything Ken has done for us, our backers, and the board game community.
Perhaps we can work with everyone to playtest future products using TTS or a similar method in the future.
Forteller Games
We are proud to announce our partnership with the good folks at Forteller Games! These guys are a start-up just like us and Alex was able to have dinner with them at PAX Unplugged in November.
It was clear that Forteller and Middara would be a perfect fit.
They've got an impressive catalog of games coming to their platform in the coming year.
Forteller is live now on Android, and will have a release soon on iOS.
In June 2020, we will officially be retiring our admittedly buggy audiobook app and moving all of our existing audio files to a new home on Forteller Games' platform!
These audiofiles will still remain free to use!
We will leave the audio files on our website for those that preferred it on their browser.
As we progress through the epic saga of Act 2 and 3, we will be working closely with Forteller to bring you the most immersive Middara gameplay possible!
Our pie-in-the-sky ambitionswith Forteller...
Below we have a sample that Forteller sent us of what we'd like to ultimately make happen sometime in the future with a "premium version" of our audiobook.
We absolutely love this, but an audiobook of this scope is currently our of our budget to produce. Regardless, we wanted to show off what Forteller is capable of!
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this sample and see if you feel like something like this would improve your overall gaming experience of Middara.
You can learn more about Forteller on their FB page here.
TheBroken Token
We can't even count how many emails, comments, and messages we've received from backers telling us to collaborate with The Broken Token.
Middara Act 1 clearly needs an insert and The Broken Token are pros in creating organizers for large games like ours.
So, we're gonna make it happen!
For this update, Derek from TBT busted ass this past month and made an initial prototype:
...Isn't it beautiful?
Just to be clear, these inserts are still in development and we expect a release date for them to be sometime in April this year with an estimated MSRP of $89.99.
We'll make sure to let everyone know when this is available!
Also, this insert fits everything back in the box!
For backers that pledged above the "Through The Portal" level, we will still be including an insert for free with Act 2 + 3 that will keep all three Acts organized.
The insert we include will be more functional and serve more as a storage solution whereas The Broken Token organizer will be like the Gucci version of ours.
The Broken Token organizer featured here will be made only for Act 1. In the meantime, and upon the delivery of Act 2 + 3, we will be working with TBT to offer a compatible organizer for all corresponding expansions.
Stay tuned for updates on this!
Darkstone Awards
Darkstone is a Spanish community of boardgamers that is currently running a contest and Middara has been nominated is following categories!
Best International crowdfunding campaign 2019
Best crowdfunding game delivered in 2019
Sergio from Darkstone has been a great friend to us and has been supportive of us from the start. We are stoked that this community loves Middara enough to nominate us!
If you feel so inclined, visit the voting page here and give us a vote!
2020 Convention Circuit
Guess what!? We're actually going to be at some conventions this year so mark your calendars and you can meet us in person and hang out!
Gen Con - July 30th - August 2nd, 2020 - Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Essen Spiel - October 22nd - 25th - Essen, Germany
We will be demoing Middara, showing off new miniatures, blasting glitch-hop, drinking coffee (only the finest), and shooting the breeze with our backers!
We will also be doing our best to make the booth look awesome!
Here's some new promotional artwork we've been working on...
Echo and Zafir Poster Idea
"Heavy Metal Middara"
Hopefully we'll see some of you in person this year!
Development Progress
Our team of artists have been hard at work and we're now excited to show off some of the new stuff!
Miniatures
NOTE: On the following miniatures, our sculptor went the whole nine yards.
Her name is Layna Lazar and she looks like she should be a character in Middara.
She is super passionate about the project and loves to go as far as fully coloring the renders. Just a disclaimer, they won't come painted! She just did this for fun!
Brooklynn and Alex are hard at work getting Act 2 + 3, and all the other content from the campaign designed, developed, playtested, and ready for production.
In the meantime, we have some goodies for you.
1.1 Update Print and Play Files
Already own Middara? Don’t want to wait for that update pack but still want to play with it before it delivers?
We’ve got ya covered.
With the final files being delivered to our manufacturer we’ve got the digital versions of the entire Update Pack being delivered in Wave 1 uploaded to our website.
For simplicity, we’ve decided that the Update Pack will include every card in the base game. Despite not every card seeing a change, it’s much easier for everyone if all you have to do when you receive it is to replace all your cards. That way you aren’t digging through some long list of specific cards you need to swap out.
We recommend sleeving all your cards and tucking the new versions in. We use the 5x6 cards with no sleeves on a regular basis for playtesting and haven’t had any issues. However, if you’re concerned, you can print them on a thicker paper.
Alongside the contents of the Update Pack being posted, we’ve also got our Final 1.1 Rulebook uploaded. Of course, games this large are always a work in progress. But we feel confident that the Rulebook is better than ever.
We've posted this video by Shea Parker before. However, we felt that its still the best how to play video that covers the bare basics in the quickest time possible. It really does give you a good idea of how the game plays.
While the update has made a few aspects of this video obsolete. (Notably outdated cards and how Materials & Upgrades work.) The vast majority of the information will still save you a ton of time when learning Middara.
Regardless, we are working with Shea to update this video and will do so around delivery.
Take a look if you haven't already.
For those wondering, Brooklynn will be updating his very in depth how to play series for 1.1 before delivery. When this is closer to completion we will let everyone know. This video is better suited for people who really hate reading rule books. It nearly circumvents all required reading short of referencing Tags.
Act 1 Spark Notes
Not in the mood to read to entire narrative? You're in luck! We've finished the last two chapters of Act 1!
You can find all 5 chapters condensed into bulletpoints here!
File Templates!
Here at Succubus Publishing, we love user-made content!
With so many possible stories to tell and locations to visit we wanted to provide an easy way for our community to create their own Creatures, Encounters, and Characters. We’ve finally finished the first drafts of our official templates for those with a creative itch.
We’d love to play characters designed by others, or play through encounters made by passionate fans. Perhaps we might even see a whole Adventure one day!
Feel free to share your own creations with the community on boardgamegeek!
Right now we have the templates for our Large Cards and our Medium Sized Cards. By the time you have Middara we'll have Templates for Encounters, Scenes, Small Cards, and even Tarot!
The translations are moving along smoothly! The translations for Spanish, German, and French will be finished this month. Then, these translations will be transposed into PDF format and then will be uploaded on our website as a free download! The current completion date of these three languages is April 2020.
For Italian, we will have the translation complete by mid-summer, and we will have all the PDFs ready to rock somewhere close to the end of summer!
Narrative Branches
We had some people ask how we lay our stories out or how many choices or options there are. Our stories are complexly intertwined monsters with real ramifications that affect not only the Adventure your playing, but also the Adventurers you might one day play.
With Brooklynn doing so much flow chart planning last month, we thought we’d show off some of the end results of that process. We had posted this a while back on our first campaign years ago and thought it would be fun to show everyone the flow chart for Act 1 of Middara. Of course, the resolution is so small you won’t be spoiled. But each box is a scene, encounter, story round, flag, ending, or important decision. The lines indicate how they all connect.
Act 1 Flowchart
Etched Dice
For backers that purchased the Etched Dice on our BackerKit pledge manager in October, you can pretty much ignore this section!
But for those that purchased them on the first campaign...
We've revised the Etched Dice to be correct (hooray!).
Everyone from our first campaign that purchased these dice will receive a brand new, correct set. These will deliver alongside Wave 1!
It's time to take a deep breath and let loose a sigh of relief as we close this dark chapter of the Etched Dice and move on with our lives!
For years, White Wolf has been gracing my life with some of the best horror imaginable. From a young age, their vivid and culturally relevant modern take on vampires, werewolves, and all the other things that go bump in the night grabbed my very soul. Vampire the Masquerade taught me that not all Role Playing Games had to be about combat, numbers, and crunch. Meanwhile, VTES (Vampire the Eternal Struggle) taught me that not all competitive CCG’s had to be money pits. And Bloodlines taught me that video games could tell stories just as captivating and gut-wrenching as any novel or movie.
When I learned that Flyos Games was working towards a fully narrative-driven board game within White Wolf’s wonderful Vampire universe, I was ecstatic. This wasn’t something I could pass on. Thomas and Gary (the founders of Flyos Games) and I talked about business and Crowdfunding. It wasn’t long until we were planning a trip to hang out and play some games.
I’m overwhelmed and humbled to announce that we’re officially collaborating with Flyos Games and White Wolf (with no financial incentive), to be a part of Vampire: The Masquerade – CHAPTERS. The specific contribution is something that will be announced at a later date on their campaign.
They’re absolutely slaying it on Kickstarter right now. So, if you want a spooky coop game to play with your friends, check out Vampire: The Masquerade – CHAPTERS.
Tanares Adventures + Arena: the Contest 1.5
Our very own Nyx is crossing dimensions yet again and will be included in Tanares Adventures as a playable character with a miniature!
These guys are killing it right now, so make sure to swing over to their Kickstarter campaign here and go check it out!
We will show you the progress of their version of Nyx as they finish developing her!
If anything is left unanswered, shoot us an email at [email protected].
Thanks for checking the update and we'll see you soon!
Pre-orders, Audiobook, Events and Other News! Happy Holidays to All!
about 5 years ago
– Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 01:31:28 AM
Happy.....And sexy holidays to you all!
We apologize for our sparse updates lately, we've been very busy getting all the files proofed and submitted to the manufacturer for print.
We are happy to say we're finally done and the production process is now underway! As more relevant information regarding delivery comes up, we'll be sure to keep you posted. For now, it's the old waiting game!
Pre-Orders
Pre-orders will be going live on Valentine's Day, February 14th! For now, the store will only contain products from Wave 1, excluding the resin kits.
This pre-order store will include:
Middara Unintentional Malum Act 1
KS1 Promo Pack
Playmats (Set of 4)
Art Book Vol. 1
Extra Set of Dice (17)
5x6 Sleeves (Pack of 100)
1.1 Update Pack (only necessary for returning backers)
1.1 Extra Rulebook (only necessary for returning backers)
Since our numbers are set with the manufacturer, these products will be while supplies last so get what you missed before they run out!
For those wondering about everything on Wave 2, we will be opening up pre-orders for those later on as we get closer to production on them.
Valentine's Day 2020
We have so many cool things to share.... but we are maliciously holding it all hostage until Valentine's Day! Hahaha!
Make sure that you keep an eye out for the V-Day update because we are going to hit you will all the goodies! New art, new collaborations, new frontiers! 2020 will be the year of Middara!
Audio Files
We are happy to announce that all the audio files for the entirety of Act 1 are available now on our website for your listening pleasure!
We are hoping to close out this chapter of the cursed Etched Dice! Our tentative plan as of now is to completely replace all dice sets to backers of the first campaign. The dice were printed wrong due to an error in proofing and we have no one to blame but ourselves. It's an expense that we wish we didn't have to include in our budget, but we want to make things right! All new orders of these dice will be correct!
Our plan is to deliver these with everything else on Wave 1.
That's it for now! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
