Railroad Ink Challenge

Challenges #3 and #4 results, a new stretch goal, and an "artistic" Challenge #5!
almost 4 years ago – Wed, May 20, 2020 at 09:46:08 PM

Dear backers,

we're receiving more and more score submissions at each challenge that we introduce, this is just great! We love to see that you're enjoying playing the game so much. We'll make it short: the stretch goals for Challenges #3 and #4 have both been unlocked!

You unlocked the Galactic Invaders Expansion only through the sheer quantity of the scores that were submitted for Challenge #3: we received only 3 scores higher than 70, and the highest (and most beautiful) was sent by William, one of the most enthusiast members of the community (and already author of the gorgeous board that we showed in update #3), with a very good score of 77 points.

With Challenge #4 your really surprised us. It was revealed just about 24 hours ago, and yet, you already managed to unlock all of the Fan Boost Prizes that were available, more than enough to unlock the set of 3 Teleport Goal cards! We received many scores with 67 points (which was the maximum amount of points you could achieve with this challenge), a Longest Highway worth 27 points, and no Errors, all in the same submission (this was basically the "perfect game")!

We also noticed that many submissions reported scores slightly lower or higher than 67, that would actually fall in the "perfect score" category, too, if only the players who submitted them didn't miscalculate the points for one reason or the other. That's why we would like to highlight the most common mistakes we found when calculating the points for this challenge.

The first common error that we noticed was counting the points for Villages wrong. Remember: Villages are worth points only if you build a Station inside their space: the other kinds of route don't trigger their special effect! To achieve the "perfect score" above, you needed to make 0 points with the Villages (as the only Station available for the Challenge was needed in the top right corner of the board).

For an overview of the other common mistakes we noticed, take a look at the pictures below!

Another (but more uncommon) error: you score points for each separate network of Exits on your board, not just the biggest one. In the board above sent by Leonardo, you can see that he marked the Exits belonging to the two networks with an "A" or a "B" respectively to make it easier to track (as suggested on the rulebook itself): the "A network" has 3 exits and is worth 8 points, the "B network" has 6 exits and is worth 20 points, for a total of 28 points.

Many players also miscalculated the Longest Highway and the Longest Railway. In this board, Paul marked the right way to calculate Longest Highway very well: starting from the middle highway exit on the right side of the board, you can follow the orange line until you get back to the t-junction that was placed in round 2, for a whopping total of 27 points! Note that it was actually possible to make a longer one (with 28 spaces), but to do that you needed to connect the two networks together and you would leave more errors and score less points in other areas, so the total overall score would be lower than 67. The Longest Railway, instead, is worth 6 points: it's the one in the top right corner of the board, starting with the overpass placed on round 6 and going all around to the t-junction station, also placed in round 6!

For some reason, some of you also miscalculated the points for the Central Spaces! As you can see in the detail above from the board sent by Dave, there are 6 Central Spaces that were used in the "perfect game" so the points for the Central Spaces in the "perfect game" was 6 (and not 5, as many wrote on their boards: we think that those who did this mistake forgot to count the railway dead-end to the left).

Errors and miscalculations aside, we've also been receiving a lot of boards enriched with personal notes and nice messages... it was very funny to read your thoughts and comments!

Some of you have also been very creative when using the boards from the classic Railroad Ink games to play the Railroad Ink Challenge games... the self-made score pad below was made by Justin:

Again, we would like to thank all those who joined these Challenges, it's great for us to see such an enthusiastic response from the community! As we said, we'll keep making new ones for the whole duration of the campaign, or at least as long as you'll keep enjoying them. Which brings us to the next point... here comes Challenge #5!

Given the artistic ambitions demonstrated by many of you, we decided to make a special "art contest" challenge... but a very relaxed one, don't worry! This time, we'll play a full game without expansions. Ready a blank board and check the image below to see the routes available each round:

These are the Goals available for this challenge (you already know 2 of them):

•  Goal F: Create a "loop" (a circular route that starts and ends at the same point) before the end of the 3rd round to obtain 3 points.
•  Goal C: Draw a Route in each of the 7 spaces of a single row or column of your board (they don't need to be  connected, just adjacent) before the end of the 4th round to obtain 4 points.
•  Goal O: Connect two "middle" Exits from any side of the board to the same network before the end of the 5th round to obtain 5 points.

To be eligible for the challenge, you just need to add a personal "artistic touch" to your board, no matter how good or bad (art is subjective anyway). Just make it personal! Something like the board below, created by Flavio, our Production Manager, will be more than enough to qualify as an "artistic effort"! We will also determine the "winner of the challenge" by sharing the highest score received, of course, but this will have no impact on the overall result of the challenge, it's just for fun. Try to send the best score you can!

This challenge is tied to yet another stretch goal: the Rainbow Expansion!

The Rainbow Expansion will be unlocked if we will receive at least 80 "artistic" score submissions for Challenge #5 (no matter how good or bad, we will appreciate any kind of effort to make your board fun with anything ranging from rough doodles to proper pieces of art).

This expansion is sort of inspired by one of our previous games, Unicorn Fever. It will be included with all pledges at the Basic level or higher, and this is how it works: you roll this die in addition to the regular route dice; drawing the result of this die is mandatory, and the game only lasts 6 rounds instead of 7 when you play with the Rainbow Expansion. Also, at the beginning of the game, you start with a rainbow already drawn in the space at the very center of your board (like in the Lava expansion from the Blazing Red Edition of the classic Railroad Ink).

When a Rainbow face appears, you must draw a new rainbow in an empty space on your board (and note that you can't draw a rainbow orthogonally adjacent to another rainbow). At the end of the game, all  networks connected to the same rainbow are "magically" connected to each other as well (the rainbows act as a sort of "wild route"), but rainbows interrupt your longest highway/railway (so they don't count towards that, only towards network connections).

When the Rain Cloud face appears, you must draw a cloud on the board of the player to your right in an empty space orthogonally adjacent to an existing rainbow. Only if that is not possible, you will be allowed to draw a Rain Cloud in any empty space of your opponent's board. Clouds can then be removed by drawing another rainbow on top of them (if it's a legal move, of course: if it's not, the Cloud will block that space for the rest of the game). Finally, when the Clover face appears, you must draw a Clover on an empty space of your board. At the end of the game, if a Clover is orthogonally adjacent to a Rainbow, it will be worth bonus points.

You will need to balance your strategy between using the Rainbows as a "wild route" to connect networks together and placing Clovers next to them to score bonus points, while also trying to use the Rain Clouds on the boards of your "right opponent" to damage their own strategy and remove those placed on your board by your "left opponent".

This is all for today's update! We can't wait to see your decorated score submissions! See you tomorrow with more announcements!

Until next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team

One more stretch goal down, a new stretch goal... and Challenge #4!
almost 4 years ago – Mon, May 18, 2020 at 12:02:41 AM

Dear backers,

surprise! Since one of the "open" stretch goals has been unlocked, we decided to sneak in an extra sunday update and reveal a new stretch goal... and a new challenge! But let's talk about the unlocked stretch goal first, shall we?

As we previously said, the Canyon Expansion is an upgrade for the Shining Yellow Edition retail box, and as such it will be included in all pledge levels (but in the case of the Basic Pledge, you will only receive it if you choose to receive the Shining Yellow Edition with your pledge, of course).

There are many ways to make points with the Canyon Expansion. One is somewhat similar to the regular Longest Highway/Railway bonus points you can obtain during each game: canyone "traits" are drawn on the border between two spaces, not inside aa space, and you want to have a very long canyon to obtain a lot of points. But it also works a bit differently: with the canyon, you don't count how many spaces it goes through (like e.g. the Longest Highway), but how many edges of spaces it is long! For example, the two faces at the top of the dice you can see in the image above all have 3 sides with a trait of canyon: if connected to your overall "longest canyon", each of those faces would add 3 points to the value of your canyon, not just 1!

The other way to make points is to completely surround an area with canyon traits: at that point the whole area will sink down, creating a big "hole" in your board which is worth more points the bigger it is (as a touristic attraction)! As usual, though, there's a catch: anything you may have previously built inside the now sunken area is lost and erased from the board; additionally, if you have any open routes that lead directly into the hole you created, it not only counts as an Error, but you will lose 1 additional point for each of these Errors!

And now, the final news of the day: with one stretch goal down, a new one takes its place (with a new challenge attached to it)! Introducing a new set of Goal cards for the Teleport Expansion and Challenge #4!

When playing with the Teleport Expansion (which is included with all pledges at the Basic level or higher) you'll have the option to attach 3 kinds of portals to your network (marked with A, B, or C). The way it works is pretty straightforward: for example, all networks connected to an "A" portal are also considered connected to each other! What is easy in theory can become quite challenging in practice, though, and the Teleport Expansion can turn your game into an intricate puzzle if you're not careful. With the addition of these Goal cards, you'll also be able to achieve goals specifically tailored for this expansion (in the example above, the goal is to build a portal in 3 University spaces, which is quite thematic if you think about it 😉).

Once again, to unlock this stretch goal you'll just need to play Challenge #4 and submit your score! In this challenge, you'll be playing the final 2 rounds of another game carefully crafted for you by Hjalmar Hach... and this time, you'll be playing with the Renovation Expansion, another die from the Engineer Expansion Pack add-on! The Renovation die is used in addition to the 4 basic Route dice, and it allows you to add something to a Route that you previously built! The die shows you with dashed lines where the pre-existing routes can be, while the part you are allowed to add is marked with a continuous line. It may sound complicated, but the two following examples should make it all clear:

Note that not all of the dashed lines need to match, they just show you where the pre-existing routes can be (so with the "add an overpass" face shown above, you can't add an overpass to a curved route or to a t-junction, only to straights or dead-ends).

Here is the board for this challenge. You can find the faces you will have to use and the available Fan Boost Prizes here below... and don't forget to submit your score! 300 Fan Boost points are needed to unlock the Teleport Goal cards (out of the 500 points available)!

Have fun for the remainder of the weekend, and see you tomorrow!

Until next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team

More stretch goals unlocked! Challenge 3 update!
almost 4 years ago – Sat, May 16, 2020 at 12:55:13 AM

Dear backers,

another stretch goal has been unlocked, one is extremely close to be unlocked, and Challenge #3 has been proceeding very well so far! Let's proceed with order :)

The Tetromino Expansion has been unlocked! This expansion will allow you to "reserve" 4 adjacent empty spaces in the shape of the tetromino shown on the die by marking them with a small square in a corner. In later rounds, as you fill more and more spaces on your board, finding empty zones with the correct shape to be able to reserve more spaces will become more and more difficult, of course. Reserving spaces in advance is sort of a bet: if you'll really build something in a space that you reserved like this before the end of the game, you'll earn extra points for each of these reserved-and-then-filled spaces. But you will lose points for each reserved space that you left empty at the end of the game, so don't be too greedy and plan carefully!

Next on our list: just 12 retweets are needed to unlock the Canyon expansion (2 dice and 3 Goal cards)! Once unlocked, this stretch goal will be an upgrade for the Shining Yellow Edition retail box, and as such it will be included in all pledge levels (but in the case of the Basic Pledge, you will only receive it if you choose to receive the Shining Yellow Edition with your pledge, of course).

Finally, an update on Challenge #3! The community already obtained half of the points needed to unlock the Galactic Invaders Expansion, and of all the scores we received so far, the highest was once again submitted by Niklas, with a fairly good score of 74 points:

We are very near to reach the target of 50 score submissions received, and we just need 3 more submissions with a score of at least 70 points to unlock that Fan Boost prize too! To obtain the additional 200 points needed, simply receiving more than 60 submissions will also be enough, no matter if the score is higher than 70 or not. At the current pace, we're sure you'll be able to unlock it during the weekend (and hopefully, you'll have some time to relax and play a few games with the regular print and play version, too). 

Thank you all again for your invaluable support so far! We're cooking some extremely juicy surprises for you, new stretch goals and new challenges, but you'll need to have a bit more patience. Unless something news-worthy happens before then, see we'll see you on monday. Have a nice weekend!

Untile next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team

Are you ready for Challenge #3? Also, a new stretch goal!
almost 4 years ago – Fri, May 15, 2020 at 03:32:40 AM

Dear backers,

many of you have been submitting scores for our Challenge "social games", we're glad you're enjoying them! We plan to keep 'em coming for the whole duration of the campaign. :)

In challenge #2, you were asked to play the final round of a game started by Hjalmar Hach, one of the two designers of Railroad Ink Challenge (and the classic Railroad Ink) and try to make the most points with the 4 Route dice available. The first to send the best score possible (and quite quickly at that) was Gijs, with 70 points and no Errors! Congratulations Gijs (for the score and for being so quick)!

Thanks for everyone who submit their score! It's great to see so many of you joining the fun and playing the game in advance! We received way more than enough score submissions overall and (with scores high enough) to unlock all of the Fan Boost Prizes available, and with slightly more than 100 reshares missing on our facebook post, the Tetromino Expansion is going to be unlocked very soon! Good job everyone!

Before we move to the next Challenge, an honorable mention goes to William B. who not only sent the same score as Gijs (70 points with no Errors) just a bit later, but he also sent us a gorgeously decorated board for the first Challenge, matching the high score of 81 submitted by Niklas T. but using a completely different approach to the game! You're on fire, William! :D

If you compare William's board to the one sent by Niklas, you'll see how drastically different they played the game using the same dice, and yet, both were able to obtain a really outstanding score. Great games!

But now, here comes Challenge #3! It will be a full game like Challenge #1, but this time, we'll be playing with a different set of Goals and... the Separation Expansion, from the Engineer Expansion Pack add-on! The Separation Expansion replaces one of the 4 basic Route dice of the game. This simply means that you will have to use all of the 4 available Routes each round, as described in the image below! 

These are the 3 Goals available during this challenge:

•  Goal F: Create a "loop" (a circular route that starts and ends at the same point) before the end of the 3rd round to obtain 3 points.
•  Goal C: Draw a Route in each of the 7 spaces of a single row or column of your board (they don't need to be connected, just adjacent) before the end of the 4th round to obtain 4 points.
•  Goal A: Draw a Route in at least 5 of the Central Spaces of your board before the end of the 5th round to obtain 5 points.

Are you ready for the challenge? Download the rulebook and the print and play board (if you still need to) and ready your markers!

One final news: this challenge is also linked to a new stretch goal! The Galactic Invaders Expansion adds some direct player interaction to the game by making you build your networks in the middle of an alien invasion (which sounds like a horrible idea, we know, but we're not called Horrible Guild for no reason :P ).

This expansion can be unlocked simply by playing Challenge #3. No other social media shenanigans needed! As a community, you will need to obtain 400 points, and we have 600 points in total that you can achieve through the following Fan Boost Prizes (so, you don't need to unlock them all to obtain the Galactic Invaders Expansion)! Have fun, and don't forget to submit a picture of your board with your final score!

This is how the Galactic Invaders Expansion works: at the beginning of the game, each player will draw 2 Aliens in 2 separate spaces of the board of the player to their right (Aliens are drawn in a corner of the space, they don't take the full space); during the game, you will be able to remove an Alien from your board simply by drawing a route in its space.

There's a catch, though: whenever an "Alien" face appears on the die, each player can draw an additional Alien in an empty space (always on the board of the player to their right) AND each Alien that was already drawn builds a shield around itself (making it impossible to remove by drawing a route in its space). Shield can be destroyed, though. When the "Bomb" face appears, you can remove 1 Alien from your board (whether it had a shield or not).

The final special face of this Expansion is the "Attack" face; when it appears, if you have a space which contains a Route and a (shielded) Alien, the Alien will destroy that Route. To make things worse, at the end of the game you will lose points for each Alien left on your board, so try to get rid of all of them!

That's all for today, folks! Have fun with the new Challenge, and see you tomorrow!

Until next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team

A free stretch goal to thank you all... and it's just the start :)
almost 4 years ago – Thu, May 14, 2020 at 03:16:27 AM

Dear backers,

we would like to make a second, small update today. This campaign is going well beyond our wildest expectations: more than 4000 backers in slightly more than 24 hours, this is unbelievable. Such an outstanding level of support from our community will require some changes to our previously planned campaign structure: we are extremely grateful to each and every single one of you, and we feel we need to give something more in return.

Some of you have been asking us to add more stretch goals tied to the amount of funding we will reach, but we really, really don't want to introduce such stretch goals. We very much prefer to involve our community with games and keep you all entertained during the campaign, we think it will be more fun for everyone, and isn't fun the reason why we're all here in the first place?

We are reworking our plans behind the scenes, but we already want to start this process today. So, you won't get stretch goals tied to the funding level in this campaign. Instead, you will get some stretch goals for free, without any other strings attached!

Your first FREE stretch goal is... the Pluck-Man Expansion!

WIth this single die expansion, each round you will be asked to link one of your Exits to either a Ghost, a Fruit, or Pluck-Man (by drawing the corresponding symbol next to that Exit). At the end of the game, the more "Ghost Exits" are linked to the same network of a "Pluck-Man Exit", the more bonus points you will score... as long as a "Fruit Exit" is also linked to that same network, to feed Pluck-Man with the energy needed to catch all those pesky ghosts! If no Fruit Exit is linked to that network, each ghost will subtract from your final score instead! The Pluck-Man Expansion will be included in all pledges at the Basic level or higher.

As we said, this is just the first step. There will be more gifts and more games. See you tomorrow for our next update, we will have some purple news to pick out from our giant box of ideas 😉

Until next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team