I'm excited to bring you news of the newest expansion for the Widget Ridge Deckbuilding Game: Emergence.
What's Emergence? Well, I'm glad you asked.
The City of Widget Ridge was founded over a hundred years ago by a group of mining engineers and other very smart scientists of the day. After several arguments about the best governing philosophy, the founders wrote the Articles of Emergence.
Among other things, the Articles of Emergence decreed that there be three schools of engineering, which became the three Churches of Widget Ridge. Each church would have their own teachers and students, as well as a knight order, rules (including a code of justice), and their own responsibilities.
Widget Ridge: Emergence features the people of Widget Ridge, including characters based on previous Kickstarter backers. The expansion doesn't introduce any new card types, but we'll go through several new mechanics.
If any of you have either of the Story Packs, you'll be familiar with character cards. Each Emergence pack contains 3 different characters (each coming with two Gadget cards, and a Beloved Widget) as well as new Marketplace Invention cards.
To play as a Character, simply choose your Character card and place it in front of you after. Take the standard starting deck and switch out the Prime Widget (card 1) and the two Gadgets (cards 9 and 10)
(Cards shown may end up with different abilities. We're still playtesting them.)
You'll notice that each of these Gadgets has a new symbol. This is known as a Banner. Banners aren't really resources you spend like Gold. If you play a card that has a Banner, you gain that Banner until the end of the turn.
What do Banners do? Well, they unlock abilities of your Characters. If you play one Banner, the first ability unlocks. Playing a second Banner for the turn unlocks the second ability as well. Once an ability unlocks, you can't unlock it again that turn.
Remember the Banner played must match the Banners on your abilities, or they won't do anything. It can't really happen with the starting cards, but let's talk about Inventions.
Each of the Emergence packs will have Inventions in them. These are specifically designed to work with Characters. They also work if you're not using characters, just not as well.
Some Inventions such as Overpowered give the player a specific Banner. In this case, Ember Sky. If your character doesn't have an Ember Sky ability, then gaining Ember Sky banners won't do anything. Overpowered is good for Casey, Lady Luna, or William Willard Alessi, but not that good for anyone that isn't part of that church.
You'll also notice that the connection points on Hydraulic Lectern aren't the same on both sides. That's not a bug, it's a feature. You'll see this on more devices.
You've probably noticed the odd symbol on Hydraulic Lectern. Let's take a closer look at that, shall we?
Widget Ridge has few visitors, since everybody on Cayamar thinks they're weird. However, the Articles of Emergence specify that anyone that's not a member of one of the three churches shall be designated Excogitatoria Externa. They could have just said "Outside Designer" but they wanted to sound clever.
The citizens of Widget Ridge just call them Externals. Visitors to Widget Ridge are welcomed and honoured, and are given an Excogitatoria Externa badge to wear. Externals are also subject to their own justice code, as ratified by the Council of Three Churches.
For gameplay purposes, the Excogitatoria Externa symbol counts as a Banner. I could have just said that, but I wanted to sound clever.
Widget Ridge: Emergence will be on Kickstarter in October 2020. You'll need the original game to play (which you can order from our store now, or as an addon in the Kickstarter).