Since we were old enough to roll dice, we have played board games. Now we finally face up with the challenge to publish our own! In this we do not only create a game, we are also building a world. In our first blog post we introduce you to the background story of Hidden Leaders and the core idea of our game.
The Story: An Island State in Civil War
Caerlon is at the brink of civil war. While the league of the Lordprotector (red) and the royal rebels (blue) fight for dominance, the neutral alliance (gold) wants to maintain the delicate balance of power. However, in the shadows the dangerous cult of the snake Goddess Ourobora (black) is lurking and tries to throw the land into chaos.
In such times only true heroes can decide the fate of the country. In our game you take the role of one of six unique leaders. You recruit heroes in order to influence the conflict and to determine your affiliation with one of the factions. In the end, one of them will triumph. Yet who will become the new ruler of Caerlon?
Some preliminary artwork created for us by Nicoleta Stavarache
The Gameplay: A Quick Deduction Card Game
With Hidden Leaders we are focusing on a quick, light and fun gameplay with great replay value. The game combines tableau building and deduction elements. At the beginning you receive a leader card that determines your (secret) winning condition.
The 60 hero cards make up the core of the game. They are played into your party like action cards and come with unique abilities: They influence the power struggle, gather hidden information, kill enemy heroes or rise dead ones from the grave. Aside from their immediate effect, they will also strengthen your alignment with the corresponding faction (colour). Only if you are the greatest supporter of the winning faction, you will be victorious too.
Closed testing of Hidden Leaders on TableTopia.com
BFF Games: Who We Are
We are three friends that love playing board games, pen&paper and Live Action Roleplay (Larp). For 15 years we have built board games and own a shelf full of self-made prototypes. Of this quick-to-play game we never grew tired, so we decided to invest our spare time into publishing it. Therefore, we combined the games unique mechanism with a fantasy world that we know inside out. The setting of Hidden Leaders is based on our carefully crafted Larp story built with historical expertise. This low-fantasy world brings together insidious leaders and foolish heroes in a world full of political complexity and social curiosities. Therefore, each character in Hidden Leaders is not only a card, but a fully-fledged hero within a much larger story.
As you can see, we are passionate about our game and we are happy if this spark lights up in you too. We are currently posting a lot of artwork on our social media sites and would love to hear your feedback! Furthermore, we are always looking for play testers and are glad to get in touch with like-minded people. To us, it is important to create a game not only for, but also with a community of players. So join our laboratory! Subscribe to our newsletter, join the discussion on Twitter, participate in our Facebook group or reach out to us via email at any time. You can be our game changer!
Stay save and keep the dice rolling!
Markus, Raphael & Andreas
(Marath, Jovius & Kurk of Wurmburg)