Far Away is the best-selling Cherry Picked game to date. We’ve been floored by the critical and popular reception. As we’ve previously alluded to, we’re working on both a reprint and an expansion. It’s still early in design, but we wanted share out our thoughts on the expansion so veteran explorers know what to expect.
What we are adding
· More missions: Far Away is fundamentally mission-based. We’ll add at least 4 missions with the expansion; probably more. We want the new missions to be as diverse as the original set, so we’re not going to add “filler” missions.
· Added challenges: We want to let players replay the original missions with new challenges. The plan is to introduce new mechanics in the new missions, then use the unlock mechanisms from the base game to give earlier missions those same, more difficult mechanics. The first one we’re testing out is a strict resource limit. It should add a lot more tension to early missions.
· Alternate creature AI: We’re well aware that the creature roleplaying doesn’t resonate with everyone. While it was a known facet of the game during development, we think the expansion is a good place to present an alternate creature control mode. We’re exploring how to best integrate the existing creatures with some sort of deterministic behavior list. This may take the form of dice and lookup tables or creature action decks. This system is something we’re working carefully on, since we want to present a different option for certain groups, not define the new canonical way to play.
What we’re probably adding
· More terrain and resources: In all likelihood, we’re going to add at least one terrain type and an associated resource. We need to test how inflating the terrain hex deck affects the original resource distribution. Too much new stuff could make it annoyingly hard to find a plant to eat.
· More gear and buildings: It’d be nice to add another building, like the Computing Core or Xenobiology Lab, and give it some gear for the explorers to play with. The challenge here is making stuff that’s useful, unique, and not overpowered.
What we have no idea about
· More creatures: Full disclosure: I, Alex the game designer, want more creatures. The couple people I’ve mentioned this to reacted with shock. Maybe the provocateur in me just wants to add more tiny baggies of tokens to the game.
· Community created or sponsored content: We love the “add your X to game” tiers in our Kickstarter projects. Some of the best creatures came from the community. 6 out of the 8 missions in the base game were crowdsourced in one way or another. Perhaps it’s the improv comedy background that demands a prompt. However, we’re not sure how constrained we’ll be on price and space for the expansion. And that’s because…
· Price: Our instinct is that the expansion has to be cheaper than the base game by a notable margin. There’s only so much that can go in the box before that’s not true. As we keep pushing the boundaries of what can be done in a mission, each one will become more extravagant. As piece count per mission goes up, we’ll either need to reduce the mission count or increase the price. We realize this is a basic premise, but we want to highlight that we’re still early in the design and can’t commit to a cost yet.
That’s where our expansion brains are at right now. It’s been fun slipping back into the world of the Federation Alliance. But ultimately, we’re making this for you. What do you want in the Far Away expansion? Let us know in the comments here or BGG.