Rosethorn Keep is destined to be the stronghold from which the final attack against the Demon Lord is launched. But first, you’re going to need to spruce it up a bit.
Inside
Recently played: Rosethorn Keep
Game Design Thoughts: Win Conditions
Updates: Godspark Production
Content Corner:
Recently played: Rosethorn Keep
Rosethorn Keep is a one-player TTRPG created by Kaydevs and Charlotte Laskowski. In it, you are tasked with reclaiming a ruined castle, the titular Rosethorn Keep, so that it can be used in the war against the Demon Lord.
The game is a 20-page PDF presented as spreads in a landscape orientation. The layout is clean, and the pixel art is fantastic:
During the game, as the manager of Rosethorn Keep, you will recruit companions (like those seen above) to aid with rebuilding the castle. You start with three companions, and you can recruit more as you upgrade your keep. There are five different types of dungeons to explore, and each dungeon type gives a different type of resource. These resources can then be used to upgrade and expand Rosethorn Keep.
I like how the dungeon delving was not connected to maps. Each time you venture into a dungeon, there are a number of encounters equal to the number of companions that you have with you. This way, as your party grows, you explore more of each dungeon area and earn more resources. Also, as your keep is upgraded, the difficulty level of the encounters increases, as does the strength of the companions that you can recruit.
There are a couple of mechanics in this game that I really liked. The first was how you “win” each dungeon encounter. At the beginning of each delve, you roll a D6 for each of your companions and save the number. Then, in each encounter, there is a target number that you are trying to meet by choosing a companion and adding the rolled number to the relevant attribute score. This makes each companion have a different strength and a different ability to contribute each time you take them into a dungeon. It also made certain dungeon delves very difficult when I rolled poorly at the beginning of the delve to boost the companions’ stats.
I also really liked how the castle upgrades affected the dungeon delves. There are five different parts of the castle, and each one grants a different bonus to your adventuring party. Some were more useful than others, and some I abandoned completely after boosting them by one level. In any event, the way in which the base building directly affected the party’s ability to complete the dungeon levels made the base-building aspect of the game much more interesting.
In summary, I really enjoyed playing Rosethorn Keep. It had a video-gamey feel to it, especially with the grinding of dungeon levels that you need to do to upgrade your keep before attacking the Demon Lord. From the pixel art graphics, I would guess that “video-gamey” was what the creators were going for, and if so, they nailed it.
Game Design Thoughts: Win Conditions
One thing that comes up in Rosethorn Keep, as well as in some other solo tabletop games, is the win condition. In Rosethorn Keep, you need to create a team and keep strong enough to defeat the Demon Lord. In my recent release Moe’s House of Meat, you need to reach the Exit or defeat Moe. Both of these games have conditions that you need to achieve to win the game, and the decisions that you make during the game influence the likelihood of meeting those conditions.
This is in contrast to another game that I played recently (and talked about in a previous edition of Ink & Dice), One Page Left. In this solo game, there is a chance of your character surviving the game, but there are no decisions that you can make to influence the chances of that ending occurring. It’s all down to rolls of the dice.
Which brings us to a question. Do all games need to be about winning? I think the answer there is “no,” but different players will have different opinions about that. And it all comes back to what each player is looking for when they play a game. I am happy to play open-ended story games when I am with friends since the fun is in the playing, but when I play a game by myself, I like to have a goal, a quest, a target. These differences highlight how different games handle player agency, and for a detailed discussion of that, I will direct readers to a recent Skeleton Code Machine post.
Updates: Godspark Production
Production work continues on Godspark in the wake of the successful Kickstarter campaign! The game is complete, including the 2-player rules unlocked as a stretch goal in the Kickstarter campaign, and a proof copy of the completed game has been ordered. Once that comes in, the game will get one more editing pass and be sent to the printer for the full print run.
Other components have been ordered, and they are starting to arrive, including the stickers of the god skulls that were also unlocked as a stretch goal.
The pre-order store is also open, so if you missed the Kickstarter campaign and want to get in on the first shipment of games, head on over to the BackerKit page to grab your copy.
Content Corner:
A small cursed item this week. It is based on themes from MÖRK BORG, but the idea is easily translatable to any TTRPG that uses any type of currency.
Thank you!
That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading, and I’ll be back in 2 weeks with more Godspark updates and other TTRPG thoughts and content.
—MAH
Enjoyed the discussion of victory conditions.
It's a fun topic to think about and, like many gaming topics, there's probably no wrong answer. The best discussions I've seen online are "Do board games need victory conditions?" by Amabel Holland (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxZcDZ1MUjk) and "A Defense of King-Making in Board Game Design" by Cole Wehrle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UraJElx1ebg).
I've considered doing a Skeleton Code Machine post on the topic, but I don't think I could add anything of value beyond what Amabel and Cole cover above! :)