An obvious addition any expansion pack brings is more. Fundamentally, people who buy a game expansion are fans of that game. They want an excuse to return to a game they like and rekindle the fond memories of their first few playthroughs. While it’s nice to talk about ways to reinvent a game through an expansion, it’s essential to add that contingent of extra stuff to the core mechanics. However, doing so risks unbalancing the game. As a follow-up to our description of the Hollows terrain, I want to share some of the smaller additions that are coming in Far Away: Corporate Espionage and how we are ensuring they are net-positive additions.
Far Away’s creatures play a huge role in the game. They serve as a main antagonistic force and make the world live dynamic and alive. Obviously, we are adding more creatures with the expansion. Several of these creatures have new abilities that play with different mechanics, such as creating ORBs, moving characters around the map, or exploding. We also have a new status effect, “Camouflaged”, that makes success in combat less deterministic. We keep careful track of the overall creature balance in the game (big shout out to Excel PivotTables). As we add small, carnivorous jellyfish, we make sure to add a giant herbivore frog that wants to hug you (forever). In the same vein, we have also added a optional ecosystem balancing mechanic for players who want to avoid planets overflowing with opportunistic parasites. Players have the option to redraw new creatures once the limits on a particular diet or behavior are reached.
Another source of the game’s sense of discovery is the anomaly deck. We left the outcomes pretty straightforward in the base game; using mission-specific CARDs to add weird outcomes. Now, there are several landmarks that follow the same good-or-bad feeling of the original CARDs, but that you will only see occasionally. These will add more little moments of uncertainty, as well as providing interesting combinations with the specific mission or creatures to give you another interesting moment in the story. Beyond the general need for more variety, we also wanted to address a long-standing concern that the creature action phases ramp up too quickly and take too much time. By tweaking this deck, we should slow the progression of Den creatures, which means there will be slightly fewer types of creatures in the early-to-mid game. This should compensate for the additional creature slot added by the Hollows.
All the other Far Away CARD Board decks are getting an injection of content too. The explorers will see more injuries, artifacts, and gear. We’re also adding variants to all the basic resource landmarks. Previously, finding one of those meant getting a reliable source of the associated resource. Now, they won’t be quite as reliable. We hope this not only mixes up the exploration experience but also encourages players to explore new strategies for resource acquisition. Currently, the most common way to get resources is to run around new HEXes until you find a resource landmark. Less certainty in those landmarks means explorers should consider investing in building their own resource generation facilities or tempt fate in the Hollows.
Every CARD has a deliberate intent behind it. There is not a quota we are trying to reach so the expansion weighs enough for the price tag. We hope players open FA:CE and resonate with the implications of the more, instead of just having the baseline felling of more. If you have looked at the print-and-play, please let us know how we are doing in that endeavor.