Join the ROBA Riot!
over 5 years ago – Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 07:21:45 AM

The End of the Beginning

The ROBA Kickstarter Campaign may be coming to an end, but we're just getting started!

From the very beginning of this project, we envisaged ROBA as a game that brought people together. Many of my strongest friendships were forged through this hobby, and that's a spirit and a tradition I'm keen to pass on. We're not just releasing a game - we're building a new community, one we hope to see flourish and thrive in the months and years to come.

For our first community event, let's send this campaign off with a bang! The ROBA Riot is a daylong event in which we say goodbye to Kickstarter and hello to each other! How do you participate? That's easy!

Sometime in the next 29 hours, Simply write a post on your favorite social media platform using the hashtag #ROBARiot. Say something about who you are and why you backed to game. Maybe tell a story about a demo game you played, or share your favorite piece of ROBA artwork. Be sure to share a link to the kickstarter so that our community can continue to grow as we charge towards that finish line. And then- and this is the most important part - take a look at some other #ROBARiot posts, and say hi to another player!

You can also join the ROBA Riot event on Facebook!

Live Countdown Stream

ROBA is Geek and Sundry's Kickstarter of the Week!
over 5 years ago – Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 09:50:59 PM

The good people at Geek and Sundry have published a really wonderful article about ROBA. You can check it out right here:

"RADIANT OFFLINE BATTLE ARENA IS THE ULTIMATE MOBA FOR YOUR TABLETOP"

This is an incredibly exciting moment for all of us here on the the ROBA team. Getting featured in a venue as well regarded as GNS - a site that all of us are followers and fans of - is really a dream come true. Life goal achieved!

There are some great insights into the game contained in the article too, including an aspect of the game's history that hasn't been discussed anywhere else!

So please check it out, and even better - Share the article on your social media. Let the world hear about ROBA. Only 42 hours to go!

Expansion Heroes Revealed
over 5 years ago – Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 01:27:37 PM

During last night's AMA I promised a more detailed look at the three expansion heroes when we reached €18,000. Well, that time is upon us, and I am a man of my word.

The Hero Cards

You might notice something surprising about these three Heroes: all of them are blank on their basic side. "Jack," you might say "why stuff your first expansion full of blank heroes?" It's an important question to address and it's one with two answers.

The first answer is to do with environment design - looking beyond individual heroes or how cards in a deck interact with one another, and looking at the bigger picture of how decks interact with each other and what options are viable from a strategic point of view.

Coming out of the Core set, which only had space for nine Heroes, there were certain unavoidable holes in the roster. The Core-only environment had to be a fun and balanced format in its own right, but it also had to contain interesting characters who would serve as a hook to get players into the game, who would do a good job of introducing the game's mechanics and it had to establish a baseline for what ROBA was and what a "Standard" game of ROBA looked like. Given as all three heroes contained in this expansion are aberrations of a sort - possessing stats that break the mold compared with other Heroes in their class, they weren't ideal for inclusion in the core set.

However, in balancing all the various elements I just mentioned, certain gaps were left in the core set in environment. For example: Mato is a Hybrid Tank. Octavian and Eleanor are both strong defensive options, but while Mato is a powerful Hero, his exact role is a little murkier. To round out drafts, it was necessary to include a Tank Hero who was closer to the ideal of the class - which how we got Ichiro.

The second reason is a lot simpler: Some people really like smashing stuff with giant dudes.

Don't let the simplicity of these Hero's basic versions fool you - each of them is a blast to play in their own ways, and once they are Leveled Up, they have some of the more interesting and fun abilities currently on the roster.

The Skill Cards

There's nothing blank about these cards! Free from the confines of Core set design, this first expansion is where we got a chance to start introducing some of our more out there, exciting and unusual skill cards. These Hero's decks offer both new synergies to exploit and new challenges to master. Each of them helps to create the unique identity that defines every ROBA hero.

As mentioned in a previous update - Overkill might be my favorite Ultimate skill in the entire game. It's got that wonderful combination of "Fun" and "Devastating" that just warms me from my head to my toes.

Almost There!

So there we are - the entire contents of our first expansion pack revealed to the world for all to see. We love these Heroes, and we love how they build upon our core set and broaden the scope of what is possible in our drafting format. We want to see these Heroes in your hands more than anything - so please, be sure to spread the word and help us hit that €20,000 Goal!

AMA On VOD!
over 5 years ago – Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 11:44:09 AM

Last night's Facebook Live AMA was a great success! Lots of interesting questions were asked and answered, and it was a lot of fun to do!

If you missed the live event, you can catch up right here.

Hero Preview - Iskandar, The Sorceror King
over 5 years ago – Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 07:07:54 AM

Introduction

The Hero Card

Iskandar's ability is focused not on card advantage, but on card quality. In fact, he is the only support Hero in the ROBA Core set who does not offer a straightforward card advantage mechanic through his hero card or skills (but more on that later). The pay off for giving up this important consideration is that Iskandar helps to make sure that you draw the right cards.

Leveling Iskandar up enhances his core strength by giving you even more control over your draw, allowing you to forge the perfect hand over successive turns.

If you're really smart (smarter than me), Iskandar genuinely lets you see the future. If you're confident in your powers of memory, you'll get a perfect knowledge of the cards that are on the bottom of your deck. This can be pretty useful information in games that stretch on into the supreme late game.

The Skill Deck

Iskandar's skill deck is full of extremely powerful effects with significant costs, drawbacks and conditions.

Stasis is an extremely powerful board control effect - the ability to remove an enemy hero from action for an entire turn is valuable throughout the game, but can be especially devastating when Deities are in play. It has two key drawbacks - your opponent picks which Hero will be spending time in the ice box. This isn't as bad as it sounds, because their choice is limited to ready heroes, giving you some say in who is a valid target. The second drawback means that - unlike Corvus's Horrify - Stasis cannot be used to get a pesky blocker out of the way right this very instant.

Evocation grants a huge boost to your power, but costs an entire turn to cast. You can get a lot done with 5 Power - it's enough to Buyback a hero, it's enough to Level Up Mato, it's most of the cost of a Spark of Divinity. Evocation asks some really big deck building questions - and those questions can be a lot of fun to answer.

Unravel is a unique card. On its own, it's almost completely worthless: a weak clash with no abilities. Bring it online however, and things start to look a little different. Combined with Iskandar's ability to run through your deck, and Unravel has the potential to become a second Ultimate skill.

Iskandar's Ultimate skill is a game changing card that gives you a 5 Action turn for the price of 3 Power. There's a lot you can do with 5 Actions - this card is great for outmaneuvering your opponent in the mid game, and really great for pushing through to a deity in the late. Pay attention to some of the funny synergies this creates with cards like Rin's Blademaster.