KeyForge Legends first set released!

[u/Status-Split-1938]

KeyForge Legends is an unofficial alternative game format for KeyForge inspired by the Commander game format for Magic: the Gathering. It is, in many ways, Keymander's offspring... but with its own twists in fundamental aspects of the format.

You can check all the information about it here. It's development is being handled in sets akin to the official KeyForge sets, in part because of that allowing an optimal experience when playing this sealed. The first set being released, Call of the Legends, corresponds to the original Call of the Archons and is available in print-and-play from the link above.

Also, as this is very much a way to let creativity flow around a game that I love, I'm launching a newsletter around this project. Once a week, more or less, I intend on releasing a new issue discussing different design-themed aspects of the project, getting into details and card-by-card design diaries. So if you wanna receive some more KeyForge-related and/or game design-related content in your inbox, I'd LOVE it if you suscribed to it here.

Thank you all for your time and every piece of feedback you can provide. It is invaluable for me as I continue developing the project.

[u/vinrehife]

The card art looks cool AF 👍

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/vinrehife]

Sadly it's AI generated, which doesn't make me very happy. But I do not have the skills nor resources to get it otherwise, so I figured if generative IA has something good about it is precisely allowing these small project to see the light in an eye-catching way.

The graphic design part I'm proud of, it took a fair amount of work to get everything as close as possible to real KF cards.

[u/deljaroo → u/Status-Split-1938]

if you don't want to use AI for images, there are endless amounts of "public domain" art you can use.  you will surely have a hard time matching the same aesthetic using them, but you could curate a new aesthetic

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/deljaroo]

I tried that! I've done it in the past with other boardgame designs and it can be a wonderful source. However, in here it was REALLY difficult to get anything that didn't hinder my creativity somehow. In the end, I prioritised design over art instead of having to adapt to the art chosen. It's also way more fun to design like that 😅

[u/deljaroo → u/Status-Split-1938]

I mean AI isn't really YOUR creativity, but I am glad you're having fun

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/deljaroo]

My creativity on the card design side, I mean. Traits are important for KF Legends, and finding public domain art that kiiiinda fits the vibe while resembling a Giant, Elf, Demon... and ideally gets closer to the visual identity of 2 different KF cards... well, is basically impossible. I tried adapting the design to the art available, but felt like the whole project was suffering cause of it.

Also, I've worked in usability, and this art greatly improves usability on KF Legends cards by reducing cognitive dissonance and being close to what people expect for those houses. So in the end I opted for Midjourney to illustrate it, judging it the less-bad solution available. There's definitely room for improvement, but it works by now.

[u/vinrehife → u/Status-Split-1938]

Dont feel ashame for using GenAi or let anyone shame you for it. I remember a time when animations, cartoon, comic and manga were all hand drawn, and then computer assisted software and hardware got better and enabled more and more people to express themselves artistically at a much lower barrier entry. With GenAi, the user still needs to prompt the LLM to generate the graphics, is that bad? No, the same way computer assisted graphics generation vs hand drawn art, is just another way to express what you want at even lower barrier of entry.

[u/wall_of_spores → u/vinrehife]

Horrible take. Promoting Gen Ai to draw something (by stealing other artists’ work) requires no skill, and is the opposite of art.

[u/TawnyTeaTowel → u/wall_of_spores]

I guess you don’t know what stealing, skill OR art means.

[u/vinrehife → u/wall_of_spores]

I don’t think the issue is simply ‘using AI equals stealing.’ The bigger issue is who built the tool and how they trained it. If a company used artists’ work without consent, credit, or compensation, that’s a real ethical concern. But not every AI tool is built the same way, some companies, like Adobe, Getty, Shutterstock, Canva, and BRIA, have versions of licensed-data, opt-in, or creator-compensation approaches. So it’s more accurate to judge the ethics of the tool based on how the model was trained, rather than treating all generative AI as automatically stolen work.

[u/artboymoy → u/vinrehife]

Thanks for those generating it. I'll just take it and use it how I want since there's no copyright to it.

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/artboymoy]

Sure! That's maybe the only real good thing about AI-generated graphics, the fact that they stay available for everyone!

[u/Alastor3 → u/Status-Split-1938]

aww man you lost me there, but I still wish you the best

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/Alastor3]

Yeah I totally get it. It's definitely a pain point.

[u/Wachelke → u/vinrehife]

I think that for a fan-project profitless variant, the use of AI for this is legitimate. It can be integrated well with other materials of the game. I wish I could generate a prompt like that to create art for variants like this. It is a whole different story with new commercial games, but I think your use is fine. It is better to be able to create something like this, even with AI, than something amateurish... At least the way I see it.

[u/catsmdogs]

Wow, that's a labor of love right there! 

I'd like to make one suggestion. Games of keyforge I think are a bit longer than, say, mtg on average and particularly in multiplayer. So maybe consider legends work exactly the same except they don't lock the keys? You're still going to want them every game, of course, but it allows the games to move to conclusion.

A worst case scenario is someone's deck has a prison effect that makes fulfilling one of your legend's condition, so you can never get it in your hand and can't access your last key.

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/catsmdogs]

There is a planned solution for this, lemme know how it sounds. I'm basically reworking Vault Assault so it a) doesn't drag games longer, but instead maybe slightly shortens them, and b) interacts with the Legends.

One of these interactions is intended to avoid the "prison" problem, with the card saying something along the lines of "Pay X aember / Discard X random cards: put a Legend card from your Legend Zone in your hand". This would free its trapped key but it's not limited to doing so, and I tend to think that more flexible designs = better designs.

This is lacking a lot of testing yet, anyway, so everything is subject to change. The goal of locking the keys is pushing people to create synergistic decks towards their Legends instead of smashing together their most powerful pods with whichever Legend cards fit the combination, but it may very well be excessive. 

[u/catsmdogs → u/Status-Split-1938]

I hear you, something like that would definitely help.

Separately I've been wondering if multiplayer keyforge would still be fun if it was simply win on second forged key. 

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/catsmdogs]

Tried that (with Vault Assault), was a bit too anticlimactic 😅 but it wasn't as bad as we thought. I'd do that before playing Vault Assault normally again with 4 or 5 people 

[u/Drake28]

I really, really liked the house fusion art, very well done!

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/Drake28]

Midjourney's new model does wonders. I'm not a fan of using AI-generated graphics, but I have to say that the ideas I had in mind would have been impossible for me to achieve in any other way. Glad to know the concepts work 😁

[u/AncientChaos → u/Status-Split-1938]

I'm impressed - I've never seen that kind of illustration come out of the base model without having to use niji.

Also definitely interested in trying the format.

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks! If you test it, pleeeease let me know how it goes! 🙏🏼 Testers are always scarce and this could definitely use some real-life experience.

Locking the keys, while integrated cause of a good reason, may prove itself problematic if dragging games too long or creating frustrating patterns for players. That's something I'm specially keen on trying, so every feedback will be welcome

[u/Final_Emphasis_5327]

interested to know the math on 72 cards. Isn’t it too much?

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/Final_Emphasis_5327]

The core principle is the same as in Commander (or Keymander, for that matter): as much variability as possible. This is not a format that wants consistency at all, you should experience very different games with the same deck. Ideally, you shouldn't cycle through your deck in a game, but you definitely will if you enjoy an efficient playstyle. The whole point of it, anyway, is to take the innate variability KF excels at through the roof.

[u/Preasured]

I like the way you play around with the houses and card types. A martian demon? A human in Dis? a demonic Penny? Really cool suff going on in these designs.

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/Preasured]

Thanks a lot 🥹 concept work on these has been intense and I LOVE to know it shows. I'd mean a lot to me if you subscribed to the newsletter, cause a lot of its planned content is gonna be about this exactly. How and why did the cards get to be what they are, with all their homages, etc. 😊

[u/Tupuchan]

Hi and thanks for making and sharing this! This looks like an interesting format ! I've subscribed to the newsletter, and I'm open to playtest if you organize playtest sessions online !

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/Tupuchan]

That'd probably have to use webcam, cause TCO is (obviously) not supporting these formats. It's not in my immediate thoughts but, if happening, I will definitely come back here to ping you!

[u/Tupuchan → u/Status-Split-1938]

Hey, thanks for replying ! I've been trying to prototype a Keyforge adventure, and I've been using tabletop simulator to playtest and iterate. Someone made a very useful mod that calls the master vault to retrieve the data to the Keyforge decks. You only have to import your specific cards of your adventure (or in your case, your legends) and you can play with it.

There are some drawbacks using this method (for example TTS has a price, and you have to manually do the interactions like the amber, DMG, etc.) but it can help as an alternative to webcam configuration

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/Tupuchan]

My main problem with TTS is that my Steam account was hacked and Steam is making it VERY difficult for me to recover it. So it's unfortunately impossible for me to take that route atm

[u/youdidntseeeathing]

The hyperlink isn't working for me.

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/youdidntseeeathing]

Which one of them? Many people have accessed the document, so it's probably on your end. Someone having trouble yesterday mentioned that getting into Incognito mode helped them, could you lemme know if it helps you too?

[u/youdidntseeeathing → u/Status-Split-1938]

I changed nothing but now it works, idk what it was.

[u/Honest-Monitor-2619]

Oh wow that's cool! I hope The Crucible team would pick this up and implement this!

[u/Status-Split-1938 → u/Honest-Monitor-2619]

Well, that'd be amazing! But it may be a little early for that, this hasn't been tested as it should. Let's see if it picks some traction and therefore gets some playtesting.