Narrative board game in solo or cooperative, in a post-apocalyptic saga with giant insects !
Latest Updates from Our Project:
đŠđ Once Upon a Line - Special Update#3
over 1 year ago
â Sat, Jan 28, 2023 at 03:37:15 AM
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It was barely 43 years ago⊠A deadly summer followed by a plague of processionary caterpillars had plunged Kell into great distress. Chaos whipped through Kell like wildfire and gave rise to the Great Divide between Scars and Aphideers. In the meantime, the Skeeter Faction began to emerge as an opposing power, boosted by the hands of the oppressed and needy.
The famines of yesterday may only be a distant memory in the collective consciousness, Â but Kell carries the stigmata of its past. Little by little, the dreary anger carried by the peasants is growing, fueling a violent blaze festering in the lower districts...
The Aphideer Community
More than a guild, the Aphideer form a community close to the land and living to the rhythm of the seasons. Settled in small hamlets on the outskirts of Kell, these simple people are mainly herders and farmers.
Under SquadrAnt Legion protection, this rural community interacts little with Kellian society. Nearly 300 SquadrAnt Legion are assigned to the security of these very exposed agricultural regions, operating daily maneuvers to protect Kell's granary.
In return, the Bucerons pay a tax for access to market places every week.
Farming
Aided by a temperate climate conducive to abundance, the land outside the city is remarkably fertile and allows the cultivation of cereals, fruits, and vegetables in all seasons.
The life of the Aphideer is punctuated by the dance of the seasons and hard, daily work. At each solstice, however, a large peasant fair brings together all the Aphideer in a village, and during which a symbolic King of the Aphideer is elected for a few months. Without real political weight, this ephemeral and folkloric monarch is an essential popular valve to their hard life of work.
Breeding
Ten kilometers around Kell extend the green pastures largely hydrated by the rivers which meander there. Here, mealybug and leafhopper larvae graze peacefully. While honeydew serves as a less expensive sugar than Alioptera honey, the creatures are also highly prized for their succulent flesh, which inevitably ends up on the tables of the finest restaurants.
In the meadows, riders of giant leafhoppers constantly beat down wandering creatures, equipped with huge pikes and sometimes assisted by a few ants to maneuver the most recalcitrant.
Logging
In the minority, but nonetheless crucial, the loggers are the guardians of the teeming hillsides on the outskirts of the city. They prune and cut relentlessly. In recent years, agriculture has intensified, the water level has become insufficient to transport the wood by floating, but the centipede lords made available by the authorities were quick to solve the problem. They thus supply the Scar Tribe, responsible for shaping and treating the wood for the construction sites.
Insects & Major Guilds
The Aphideer are undoubtedly the main users of the Large Arthropods which assist them in their daily tasks. However, this dependence makes them weak and manipulable. Peasant anger is brewing and the entire guild is looking for ways to gain autonomy from Kell.
The Skeeter Faction
The growing impoverishment, the abandoned inhabitants of Kell gradually turned away from the Major Guilds to join the Outcasts or even sometimes the The Skeeter Faction.
Present wherever poverty is rife, this self-proclaimed clan brings together all the outcasts, scoundrels, and crooks. A veritable city within the city, the slums have their codes and their rules, and rare are the SquadrAnt Legion who dare to venture there. And yet in the kingdom of chaos blows a little wind of freedom.
Within the group, entities driven by common interests have formed to the point of structuring very distinct sub-layers, but all responding to the allegiance made to a supreme and particularly adored leader. In the Lakeside Quarter, a few steps from the shipyard is the heart of the faction, a conglomeration of dives and gambling dens in which the house liquor pours in streams under the frenzied cries of the gamblers in the fights of clandestine insects.
Beggars
It's an art to beg in Kell and our wretches have understood it well. Provided by âtrainersâ (in truth talented actors), an unstoppable method is taught to apprentice tramps. Often accompanied by some cockroach or woodlouse, the seasoned beggar detects the slightest flaw in the smug armor of the petty bourgeois.
The Thieves
When a beggar shines with his talent, it is not uncommon for him to rise to the most remarkable rank of thief: pickpocket, armed robber, fence, blackmailer... dozens of professions are associated with this house.
But the most famous are undoubtedly the burglars, dressed in camouflage tunics made of grasshopper or stick insect skin. They are the phantom terror of high society.
The Assassins
For some Kellians, killing is second nature. From sophisticated murder to intimidating butchery, assassins all have in common a talent recognized for the effectiveness of their action. To each their own tools, but the remains of insects are generally their trademark and the rudimentary but noticeable style sometimes earns them a few arbitrary arrests ⊠often forgotten thanks to the payment of a discreet bribe.
The Spies
True virtuosos of homotypy, spies must act preferably during the day when the attention of their prey slackens. With huge wardrobes and a reserve of accessories provided by their fellow receivers, they are able to have lunch at noon at the table of a large lepidore restaurant before joining a crisis cell at the SquadrAnt Legion garrison.
Insects & Guild:
If most of the Skeeters cannot afford the support of Great Arthropods, they have on the other hand been able to take advantage of the waste left by the city, willingly recycling the legs of young praying mantis or the stings of wasps to constitute a gigantic arsenal in the service of the rebellion.
ÊÄÉ ââââââ± French Version starts here â°âââââ ÊÄÉ
đŠ Once Upon a Line - Daily Reveal đ #10
over 1 year ago
â Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 07:13:21 AM
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 "And I lie down to sleep, proud of having lived and suffered in others"
(The Windows - C. Baudelaire)
Since she stopped working, Mrs. Dori enjoys her favorite pastime every day: watching and dreaming about the lives of thousands of people. At the corner of Hanneton Avenue and Chitine Street, an astonishing outer life has been taking place before her eyes for several months now. Middle-aged men and women push the wrought-iron gate to the sound of chimes to enter the rich Baroque house. The actors of this surprising ballet always hide well under large hoods and nod their heads in shame and complicity.
đŹ Authors' note:
"The human race is beautiful because it is rich and complex. In 2023 we know how to travel in space and invent machines that can reproduce themselves, but we still ignore so many things about the functioning of our body and our brain. And that's one of the things we're committed to in Once Upon a Line.
In the manner of the Walking Dead, where the living dead are only a pretext to deal with relationships between individuals in a geopolitical context, here we have a great opportunity to deal with rare, taboo, or even divisive topics through invented stories. And we believe that this is the greatest strength of a board game: to freeze time and moral system in order to commit to a story and a character that will belong to us only for the duration of a game. At the game table, you can say or do almost anything, and that's probably why we, homo-ludens, like to play so much.
So, we sought to create a diverse gallery of characters, not to satisfy a balance of genders, colors or ages, but because we see something unique in the personality of each of our Heroes that makes them beautiful in our eyes."
đ€ New Hero:
The twin brother of Deciton, the brilliant Noctide has chosen a very different destiny from his brother. After studying medicine at the Apiloptera Academy, he specialized in reconstructive surgery. Noctide is fearsomely gifted in the handling of the scalpel, and he was quickly poached by the dean of the academy, who desired to sculpt for herself a newly youthful face and body. Soon, Noctide was overwhelmed by the demands and had to stop his studies to open his own private practice. All the big shots come here to pamper themselves with a rejuvenating treatment, even if they have to pay a lot for it.
But surgeon as he is ... Noctide is unable to tame his heart, which is beating wildly for one of his most prestigious clients.
Illustration: Leandro Di Terlizzi
Attention: this character can only be played in this scenario, you cannot play him in The Butterfly's Breath saga!
Making-of the visual for Noctide
 đđ Once Upon a Line THE CONTEST
The 10 selectedare waiting for your vote to encourage them.Â
Choose the best proposal that you think deserves to be in Once Upon a Line - The Butterfly's Breath!
đđ Once Upon a Line THE CONTEST
over 1 year ago
â Thu, Jan 26, 2023 at 01:51:28 PM
ÊÄÉ ââââ± Version Française - voir plus bas â°âââ ÊÄÉ
93 is precisely the incredible number of proposals we received and we can say that you have bluffed us by your humor, your precision and your creativity.
Foreword: The choice was extremely difficult as you pushed all the limits.
Sometimes several proposals were very close in the idea, we then decided to keep only the richest and most coherent proposal in the universe.
Important : As everyone does not have the same level of knowledge of the universe, we decided to rewrite each proposal by anchoring it more precisely in our world and in a credible way in front of all the other texts that we have already written, broadcasted or not.
Each proposal has been synthesized in a shortened form and accompanied by your anonymized e-mails.
You can find each proposal in detail in the description associated with the image.
đłïž How to vote?
1ïžâŁ These 10 proposals will be submitted to the public vote on several platforms (BGG, Facebook, Instagram, CWOWD...)
2ïžâŁ It will be up to the public (and you too) to evaluate the quality of the proposals by putting a đ or â€ïž
3ïžâŁ End of counts Sunday night at 8pm CET. The proposal with the most votes will be declared the winner and illustrated by Alexandre, one of the talented artists of the team.
đŠ Once Upon a Line - Daily Reveal đ #9
over 1 year ago
â Thu, Jan 26, 2023 at 08:10:44 AM
ÊÄÉ ââââ± Version Française - voir plus bas â°âââ ÊÄÉ
The days follow one another but they are not the same...Would you like to discover the Splendor & Degradation expansion together?
Through Songs is definitely a deeper scenario than it seems! Here it is again presented as a new grid expanded from the first, and this time it will show you the story seen by the third protagonist (we'll return to that tomorrow).
The destinies of our three heroes seem to be definitely linked; and the recent disappearance of Cigadelia will soon put the whole city into turmoil. It seems necessary to solve this acute problem as soon as possible and to avoid spreading the news in any way we can. In this scenario everything will begin in a sterile and opulent universe, in the office of an independent Apilopter...
As you have already understood, this grid should be placed side by side and played simultaneously with its counterpart.
đŹ Authors' note:
"Which came first: the egg or the chicken? In the two years that we've been introducing the prototype game, we've been able to run 300 to 400 test games, and we regularly get questions from curious players: "How do you build grids, it's supposed to be a real puzzle, right?
Unexpectedly, this is perhaps the easiest part of script development. First of all, we must remember that we start each story in our native language, French. But very quickly we make sure that the key words will not be a problem in English. To ensure this we work almost in real-time with Cecilie Ann Mieland Chantrein, a French-American designer and friend. Cecilie is a valuable collaborator because she not only understands French, but she also knows how to re-transpose puns, poems, riddles, and jokes to fit the American culture. This is how we make sure that the spirit of our game remains intact, even if Cecilie sometimes slips little pieces of her soul into certain texts.
But we're getting off track... how the heck are these wordsearch grids developed? Well, first we imagine the outline of our scenario and start placing the main places and scenes. This gives us names to use for drawing the skeleton of the narrative tree - to understand the words nested within each other on the grid. But almost all the time a word can easily be replaced by another one if it suits us better on the grid, because these are only keywords.
If we need a short word on the grid for the card that talks about the market, we use the word MARKET or STORE or ALLEY. If you need to open the game, then use a longer word like ARTISAN MARKET.
We will then only need to adapt our text very slightly. And the same goes for Cecilie's work on the grid translation."
đ The most observant among you will notice that this grid is very slightly larger than its counterparts. Indeed, we have decided to remove the numbering of horizontal and vertical axes specifically in this chapter... you will discover why in a future news.
This extra line means more room to hide words and increase the length of the script!
Illustration: Bastien Boulai
Last minutes to submit your ideas to the contest : Click Here
ÊÄÉ ââââ± French Version starts here â°âââ ÊÄÉ
DerniĂšres minutes pour participer au concours : Cliquez Ici
Merci et Ă demainâŠ
Dan & William
đŠđ Once Upon a Line - Special Update#2
over 1 year ago
â Wed, Jan 25, 2023 at 12:01:46 PM
ÊÄÉ ââââââ± Version Française - voir plus bas â°âââââ ÊÄÉ
Of the five Major Guilds, there are two that our Great Monarchs fear, because their political weight is so great. I am only an old Lepilazuli who waits for his time, but it was not always so. Long time high adviser of Neoptera V, started my life as a young man as a simple laborer at the old docks. I owe my Kellian name, Lukane, to my Scars builder brothers.
As you enter our world for the first time, let me introduce you to the two most influential guilds of the Great City of Kell...
The Alioptera Caste
Over the past few years, the Alioptera have gained influence in Kell society, opening a breach in the power of the Lepilazuli. From the immense Ruchal Palace, Queen NeoptĂšra VII symbolically reigns over an extremely hierarchical administration, but within which, behind the scenes, an all-powerful steward leads with authority.
In an excessively pyramidal spirit and under his orders, several zealous managers share the 3 main services of the caste: Health, Birth & Research In each service, several hundred hardworking women officiate.
At the Health Service, the main mission is to care for the living forces of the dominant castes. It, therefore, does not manage the care of Outcastes who, left to their own devices, often resort to self-proclaimed healers⊠when they have the means.
Attached to the Ruchal Palace, a large building on several levels treats injured or sick patients. The workers work in regulatory medical attire ⊠but refined. It is even said that certain Scar Tribe workers and other SquadrAnt Legion officers sometimes call in sick, in order to be able to approach the Alioptera fantasy.
At the hatchery, a battalion of caregivers monitors and cares for the eggs and larvae of the Large Arthropods.
Located on the outskirts of Kell, the hatchery is a huge complex built near hot springs. There, imposing structures adjoin large pools in which the little ones protected by our caregivers wade cheerfully and take advantage of the virtues of these thermal waters. In the infectious diseases department, former convicts serve their sentences in rigorous outfits, an austere mask affixed to their faces.
Within the Palais Ruchal, medical research is kept under the control of the steward who regulates all comings and goings within.
The elite of the apilopterous guard, the agents of the STING, jealously protect the accesses of this laboratory. The scholars and researchers who manage it live apart from society. They are recognized by their pale complexion, their elongated features, and their long, unkempt hair.
Insects & Major Guilds:
If it is true that the Apiloptera mainly use the services of bees to extract the precious honey, the main source of Kell's sugar; they also take advantage of everything that the amazing animal is able to produce or harvest throughout the year: royal jelly, propolis, pollen, wax, etc.
However, most of the specimens live far from civilization, below the mountains or in the gigantic Valley of the Sequoias. Considered too cumbersome, noisy, and unwieldy, drones are only used for transporting heavy loads by air.
The Scar Tribe
A powerful guild of craftsmen, tradesmen, and builders, the Tribe of Scars boasts some of the strongest workers, most ingenious architects, and most talented creators the great Kell has ever known.
There is no traditional or uniform dress for the Scars. Tribe members can be recognized by their purple-beige accoutrements, their tattoos and of course their professional gear.
Within the caste, there are 3 stages or ranks:
1st Grade
The young people/apprentices, who are familiarly called "dung beetles", have no tattoos and can only be distinguished by the color of their uniform.
2nd Grade
Those who, as dung beetles, have accomplished a major work or sometimes a feat in their field and are therefore elevated to the rank of Master Builder, Master Blacksmith, Master Goldsmith, etc.
These have a tattoo on their face as a mark of their prowess and elevation within their profession.
3rd Grade
Finally, the Venerables train the young and the apprentices. These elders are no longer active but are maintained by their guild to perpetuate their knowledge until the end of their lives. When they pass from Master to Venerable, their tattoos are sublimated by a layer of "scarification" which marks the contours of their tattoos.
There are now nearly 10,000 official members of the Tribe, making it the largest Major Guild in the City. Frequently, wealthy Kellian entrepreneurs try to poach the best Scars engineers and builders, but the attachment to their order is usually much stronger than a futile greed.
It must also be said that the Scars are the only citizens of Kell, keeping their elders in active life until their last breath.
Once unified with the herders and farmers, they split into two distinct groups during the summer of the Great Divide: the Scars on one side, and the Aphideers on the other.
Insects & Major Guilds:
In the kingdom of the Scars, beetles are kings!
True construction machines, beetles, geotrupes or stag beetles are tireless companions to the builders of Kell. But burrowing insects are also valuable assets for large-scale construction sites. Mole crickets are responsible for drilling in the city's subsoil.
If they are not afraid of heights, the Scars (for the most part) do not enjoy the aerial pleasures that some of their creatures allow.
Stay tuned for even more lore of the world of Kell in a future update!
ÊÄÉ ââââââ± French Version starts here â°âââââ ÊÄÉ
Chez les Scars, pas de tenue traditionnelle ou uniforme. Les membres de la tribu se reconnaissent Ă leurs accoutrements pourpre-beige, Ă leurs tatouages et bien entendu Ă leur attirail professionnel.
Au sein de la caste, on distingue 3 stades ou grades :
1er Grade
Les jeunes / apprentis, que lâon nomme familiĂšrement des « bousiers », nâont aucun tatouage et seule la couleur de leur tenue permet de les distinguer.