Level 7 [Escape] News/Updates

[jasksta]

Privateer Press Insider 8-10-2012 - Will Schoonover

Wrapping up the LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE] dev diary series

My developer diary series covering the creation of LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE] wraps up today. I’ve covered all the fundamental aspects of the game to give you a glimpse into the game’s creation process, and soon you’ll get a chance to try the game out for yourself and see what I’ve been talking about.

For this insider, I’m going to talk a little bit more about the game as a whole by focusing on the two hyphenated words in the tagline: semi-cooperative and survival-horror. These two concepts were the guiding force behind all our work on the game, and as the things came together they became one intertwined concept.

The semi-cooperative aspects of LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE] are half of what creates the fear that really makes it a survival horror game. Like I explain in the Soldiers and Aliens diary, we chose not to have a player running the enemies because we wanted all the players to feel like they were in the situation together. That decision introduced another very important thing into to the game: distrust among the players. That’s where the real fear is generated.

The players must work together at times, but in the end you win or lose the game as an individual. It is possible for every player to win or every player to lose. What is most likely, though, is that some players will win and some will lose. As a matter of fact, the average survival rate for most of the scenarios with four players during playtest was fifty percent. Sometimes your path to victory involves making it harder for someone else to win.

Players aren’t actually rewarded for doing something bad to a fellow player or the group as a whole, but it is generally a choice of having something bad happen to you or to someone else. For example, one of the fear events in the game forces you to place a clone on a tile adjacent to a player, and then all players adjacent to clones raise their fear. You could take one for the team and place the clone near yourself, you could try to manage the amount of fear all the players have by placing the clone where it will do the least damage, or you could be entirely spiteful and put it adjacent to someone who did something bad to you earlier. At other times, you may be presented with event challenges that hurt you if you fail by a small margin but hurt everyone if you fail by a greater degree. You could choose to use less of your resources attempting a challenge because its outcome isn’t very bad from your perspective, but failing that challenge may have serious repercussions for other players.

Some of my favorite horror stories focus on what is happening between the people in the scary situation rather than on the scary situation itself. LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE] incorporates both the monsters in the dark and that distrust of your fellow man. All the mechanics in the game are designed to present even the most cooperative group of players with choices that will sometimes force them to act against the interest of other players.

Have fun!

[EvilGinger]

Would like to have a go at this given the chance.

 Ginger

[Zarniwoop]

Having watched the Film Trailer for it (See Below) I am well and truly hooked and this is firmly on my Radar 

[jasksta]

Having watched the Film Trailer for it (See Below) I am well and truly hooked and this is firmly on my Radar 

I've been trying to get someone to pick it this up and the Iron Kingdoms RPG up early for me from Gen Con but I have had no luck so far.

The rules for Level 7 are available online if you want to take a look at them http://privateerpress.com/level7/level-7-escape

Needless to day I will be doing demo games of Level 7 at Spirit Games once it has been released 

[EvilGinger]

Just looked at the trailer as well seems a very different style of  thing at least thematically  from the other Bodgers games, will have to have a look at the rules & give i t a go when I get the chance.

I hope for Zarni's sake it comes in a small box 

 Ginger

[jasksta]

Explore LEVEL 7 for a chance to win LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE]!



Privateer Press is sponsoring a contest on Boardgamegeek.com that offers you a chance to explore the world of LEVEL 7 for a chance to win a copy of LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE], the semi-cooperative survival-horror board game being unveiled at Gen Con! Visit the contest page now and to find out how to enter!

For more information about LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE], visit www.privateerpress.com/level7.

[jasksta]

Insider 8-15-2012 - Will Shick



Early on in the development of LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE] we decided that in order to allow players to fully immerse themselves in the game and the experience, we would not use named characters. Instead, we wanted to create a gaming experience that made it easy for players to imagine themselves in the terrifying situations presented in the game. That way, players become more invested in whether they lived or died.

This decision led to several others about how we developed the player characters for the game. In the end, I feel the development team came up with a set of mechanics that thrusts players into the game and makes them feel like part of the experience rather than some omnipotent being simply controlling the actions of a figure on a board.

But I wanted to take it one step further. I wanted to put myself and my fellow players into the game in the most real sense possible. So one morning when I was feeling particularly brave, I told Matt Wilson, “I want to create a way for players to make their own character standees and stat cards using their own photos.” His email back was only three words long: “Make it happen.”

With Matt on board, I now had to turn my idea into reality. Luckily for me, we have the hardest working web and IT guy around. I’m sure he wanted to punch me after I told him what I wanted to do. Instead, he nodded, and over the next several weeks created a tool that would allow anyone and everyone to make themselves a character in LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE].



So what are you waiting for? Visit level7film.com/character today and get ready to brave the many horrors that await you in our upcoming board game LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE].