Project Aleutian – Gameplay: Cloudfall

The second phase of Project Aleutian is cloudfall. After the first core crystal is removed, the stone cloud enters landfall and begins to descend toward the ground. A card is drawn from the stone cloud display deck to determine what shape the stone cloud display takes. Once it is revealed, the players must race to get resources off before enough core crystals are removed and it crashes into the ground.  

Any cards in the stone cloud display that aren’t partially covered by other cards are considered “available” to all players, regardless of where they are seated relative to the display. Other displays continue to behave as normal when determining if a card is available or not. 

During cloudfall, players start to accumulate cards aimed at gaining prosperity (or victory points) in a last-ditch effort to push for victory. The game ends immediately when core crystals equal to the number of players plus 1 have been removed from the main displays (purchased or discarded). 

Dice Tower West 2025

It was a fun and fast weekend at Dice Tower West this year with a lot of exciting games and other prototypes being showcased! This year I had 7 time slots, and I was lucky enough to attract some playtesters for Project Aleutian to all of them! I had a lot of great feedback from all the groups who played the game, and it gave me a lot of great ideas to start incorporating into the game mechanics and visuals to continue pushing this game to be the best that it can be. 

This year, the prototype con was in the same hall as the exhibitors and demo area which got the whole prototype area more traffic. There were a lot of “players wanted” signs at different tables, but it was encouraging to see so many gamers walking in and trying out games. 

I just want to give another big thank you to all of the players and designers I interacted with who made this weekend amazing! 

We’re Going to DTW 2025

Sorry to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming about gameplay, but Antibyss will be at the Prototype Con at Dice Tower West again this year to showcase Project Aleutian! Project Aleutian playtest times are posted on cardboardevents.com and we have 7 time slots this year: Thursday (3/6, Table 10) for three time slots 10am, 12pm and 2pm, Friday (3/7, Table 10) for two timeslots 4pm and 6pm, and Saturday (3/8, Table 5) for two timeslots 10am and 12pm. If you don’t have a badge already, online badge sales for Dice Tower West have closed but you can still pick them up at the door! If you are planning on going to the con, you can sign up for the prototype session in your my.cardboardevents portal. I am excited to see you there and hope you’ll have a chance to try out Project Aleutian! That said, there is an exciting line up of other prototypes at the con this year and I encourage you to give them a try as well! My next post will be from the convention in two weeks! 

Project Aleutian – Gameplay: The Chase

The first phase of Project Aleutian is the chase. During the chase, players will choose one of the “available” cards from the two adjacent displays to perform an action. An available card is a card in one of the two adjacent displays to a nation’s play area and that isn’t partially covered by other cards. Once the card is played, any available cards that are face down are revealed. 

During the chase, players start to accumulate prosperity cards which provide victory points, crystal contracts that provide access to resources, and tools in the form of action cards that will help in their pursuit of the stone cloud.  

As cards are removed from the display it represents the progress of each nation’s aeronauts as they race toward the stone cloud. At the top of each display during the chase is one of the stone cloud’s core crystals. When the first core crystal is removed from the game, it triggers a few things. First, the nation who removes the first core crystal gains bonus prosperity points for getting the first survey of the cloud up close. The nations sharing a border where the crystal was removed both gain bonus prosperity points due to the resources it will bring their nations once it fully lands on their border. Finally, the next phase of the game begins, cloudfall. 

Project Aleutian Setup

To set up Project Aleutian, each player selects one of the six playable nations (Navaire, Seulana, Scivatan, Waviscia, Pohuan, and Henshina) to play and collects that nation’s deck of cards and crystals (currently represented as colored cubes). After each nation shuffles their respective deck, each player creates two stacks of 10 cards and returns the remaining cards to the box. Each player then keeps one stack and passes the other to the player on their left who then shuffles the mix of cards. 

Each player then lays out the mixed deck of cards in a display of face up and face down cards between themselves and the player on their right. As you can see in the image of a four-player setup, this results in a display between each pair of seated players that is a mix of their two decks.  

The mixed makeup of each display represents the mixed technology and resources resulting from a shared border during the chase of the stone cloud. Each display has one of the stone cloud’s core crystals at the top that indicates reaching the stone cloud and will trigger the next phase of the game. 

TTS Mod and Discord Server

We are excited to give you a sneak peak into two things coming in early 2025 for the Antibyss community.

First, we have a sneak peak with some images of a Project Aleutian mod for Tabletop Simulator (TTS). For those who aren’t familiar, Tabletop Simulator is a PC game that acts as a sandbox where people can play games online together. The goal with this mod is to make play testing of the prototype more accessible and get more feedback from the community on the gameplay of Project Aleutian.

The images show the Project Aleutian mod in Tabletop Simulator after clicking through the buttons to set up the game. The mod will include scripting/buttons to set up the game, but general gameplay will be in the normal sandbox to keep things flexible while it’s a prototype. We hope to make this available on the Steam Workshop in the near future.

Second, in anticipation for playtesting in tabletop simulator, we are excited to invite our community to join our Antibyss community Discord Server, https://discord.gg/gxhxGRhz3d. We hope that Discord will be a good platform to engage with you! It will also be the primary way that we organize and communicate about play tests. The plan is to post instructions for accessing the Tabletop Simulator mod in the Antibyss Discord server once it’s available. Please join our budding community, and we’re excited to add another way to communicate with all of you!

Happy 1st Anniversary

Happy New Year! As we step into 2025, we’re excited to be celebrating the 1st anniversary of Antibyss as a company! It’s hard to believe that it has been a full year since we started sharing our first prototype, Project Aleutian, and it is amazing to see how far the game has come in that time. The support from all of you who have followed our social media accounts or blog has been so encouraging. It has been exciting to get your thoughts and feedback as we work to make this dream a reality. A special thank you to all of the alpha testers who took time over the last year to play the game, and to Madelyn Hogrebe, @heartoflakesandmountains, who has been bringing amazing ideas and visuals to Project Aleutian. 

We’re excited for all that is on the horizon for Antibyss in 2025, and we’re excited for you to join us on that journey! 

Schism Glass

Schism glass is a black glass found on the planet Bryche, the setting of Project Aleutian. It is found primarily on the silent continent. The silent continent is called such because of its abundance in schism glass that disrupts the powers of the other crystals. This makes all crystal-based technology unreliable at best, but mostly it doesn’t work, leaving the nations there reliable on other fuel sources. 

While there are several methods for manipulating the effects of different crystals, schism glass is the most reliable way to influence a crystal’s behavior or disrupt it completely. New technologies are usually developed in experimental chambers that have some kind of schism glass lining in the base. 

They are also important in removing cumulus quartz from stone clouds. They help stabilize the crystal and disrupt its power and allow it to be transported elsewhere. 

A special thank you to everyone who has been following Antibyss in 2024! We’re going to be taking a break to spend time with friends and family as well as play some tabletop games! We’ll be back in the new year and plan to shift from some of the lore to focus on the gameplay of Project Aleutian. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! 

Cumulus Quartz

Cumulus quartz is a white crystal found on the planet Bryche, the setting of Project Aleutian. It is found primarily on the fractured continent, the origin of the stone clouds. It has a unique relationship with the planet where it pushes away from the planet instead of being pulled toward it by gravity. The crystal can give objects the appearance of floating or hovering in the air. 

Once the crystals form large enough under the ground, they can tear land masses free from the planet forming stone clouds. These large formations of cumulus quartz that cause the stone clouds to float are called their core crystals. 

Cumulus quartz is one of the most sought-after resources of the stone clouds because it forms the heart of every nation’s airship fleet. These air ships have varying designs based on the traditions of the different nations. Some appear like traditional naval vessels with sails and masts while others host more metallic designs powered only by engine driven propellers. 

While large crystals are generally reserved for airship use, smaller crystals have found their uses in the hands of the people on construction sites, for lifting materials, and in the arts, for very intricate art installations. 

Raze Ruby

Raze ruby is a red crystal found on the planet Bryche, the setting of Project Aleutian. It is found primarily within the borders of Pohuan. When stable, raze ruby can project an energy barrier around itself. However, its namesake is from the destructive energy blasts that it can create when unstable or handled improperly.

The energy barrier can be used as a security barrier to protect precious pieces of art or other precious commodities. The shape of the barrier of a natural raze ruby is spherical. The barrier shape can be altered using other materials such as schism glass to make rectangular shapes or flat barriers. 

The energy blasts have obvious destructive possibilities that have been weaponized by the nations, and it has also found uses in propulsion or energy generation. However, when it generates the energy blast it has a high probability of destroying the crystal in the process. This has led it to be one of the rarer crystals on Bryche.