New Upgrades, Better Rules, Better Flow

Hi! I'm going to be making a supplement zine for this game that adds journaling and heft to each item you convert to energy. Before making it, I decided to play the game again, and I ended up making some pretty serious changes.

If you enjoy the original version, don't worry, it'll always be there too! But this new version is quite a bit better :D

The changes I made are as follows:

Upgrades

These were the biggest change. When I played the game, I often forgot to use them. And there wasn't much choice in the matter, really. Heck, I'd often finish the game without getting them all, and they weren't really fun. So I changed that! Now the upgrades each have a trigger and can be used whenever the trigger happens. For example, you start with A Little Nudge, which lets you add or subtract 1 from your roll if you get two of a kind on the dice. In one of my test games, on the very first round this happened like 6 times in a row even though there's only like a 14% chance of it happening each roll. 

I found it a lot more fun to have a reason to focus on the rolls than just placing a cube. By the end of the game, you're looking for straights, pairs, and even sneaky explosions that work in your favor!

You also now need all of the Upgrades purchased to win the game. Kinda like fully fixing your ship!

Banking Energy

Originally, you would have to use Energy to buy things all at once, aside from Energy Cells which could use your rolling total energy.

I didn't really like this as the game is very swingy. Even without powers, one Round might give you a great total, and then another two or three won't at all even with all of them. And it's not fair to punish players for something that's out of their control.

Now, you can't bank any Energy until you buy the first Energy Cell. It only requires 15 Energy though, and you start off with an Upgrade, so it isn't too tricky. AND you'll even have another Upgrade you can purchase with only 8 Energy that gives you Energy from the Damage Cubes! 🥳 

Once you get that first Energy Cell, you can bank anytime, and you can combine that with what you earn in a round freely. BUT the first Energy Cell is damaged, so you lose half of what you bank. 

The second Energy Cell is one of the most expensive purchases because it gives you 100% of what you bank. And once you have it, it won't take long at all to get the Energy to buy the third Energy Cell.

Cubes

There used to be a track where every time you busted (got 0 Energy) you would get one more max Damage Cube. I got rid of that. It's annoying to track it and remember. I would often use all of the cubes by mistake... whoops!

Plus, having 8 Damage Cubes makes it nearly impossible to ever run out of them again. Six seemed like a nice sweet spot: you're down to 5 after setting up each Round, and then it only takes two bad rolls to bust if you reroll Damage Cube numbers!

I also reduced the number of Energy Cubes. I hate asking people to have so many cubes in the first place: this game requires over 20 of them, plus the three dice. So now you only need 10 Energy Cubes (instead of 15). And, best of all, if you get all of them on the number grid you immediately bank 40 Energy on that item! I did it once while playtesting and it felt great! By then I had all of the Upgrades unlocked, which leads to some really fun, strategic moves that make you feel clever :D

Rules

All of these changes meant rewriting the rules. I also edited them a bit to make things a little clearer. For instance, I noticed I never once said that you should put the cubes on the numbered grid 🤣 I hope people figured that out but even in the simplest cases, the less clarity there is, the more anxiety over playing wrong happens...

And That's It!

So yeah, those were the changes I made! They can all be found in the "Their Shadows Slumber" PDF. And again, you can find the original version in the "Their Shadows Slumber - ORIGINAL" PDF. 

If you have any ideas for the game, for a sequel, for an expansion, etc. let me know. Or make it yourself and then let me know, I'll link to it! :D

And hey, I'm actually proud enough of this game for the $1 price tag now!