Marrying Mr. Darcy Game releases the Undead Expansion
If you need to have a few zombies interfering with your Regency Era romance, the new Undead Expansion for Marrying Mr. Darcy – The Pride and Prejudice Card Game will be released July 11, 2014. Erika Svanoe, a Jane Austen fan and game designer, created Marring Mr. Darcy, a light strategy/role playing card game based on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Players try to earn points and attract the attention of available suitors by attending events and improving their characters. All of their efforts are in hopes of marrying well and becoming the most satisfied character at the end of the game. After completing a successful Kickstarter campaign, Marrying Mr. Darcy is now available online and in game stores around the world. About the expansion: The new Marrying Mr. Darcy: Undead Expansion adds the threat of the walking undead to the heroines' attempts to build their character and marry well. Elizabeth Bennet and the other ladies must now face the possibility of undead attacks, undead suitors, and curses, while still trying to marry the suitor that will earn them the most happiness. The ladies may use weapons, stealth, and cures to try to make it to the end of the game, but may end up undead themselves. Marrying Mr. Darcy: Undead Expansion will be available in stores and online beginning July 11, 2014. Expansion must be played with the base game of Marrying Mr. Darcy. Expansion includes 20 cards. Number of players: 2-6 Recommended ages: 13+ Time to play: 60 minutes Marrying Mr. Darcy website: http://www.marryingmrdarcy.com Email: marryingmrdarcy@gmail.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/marryingmrdarcy Twitter: http://twitter.com/marryingmrdarcy
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Our Marrying Mr. Darcy: UNDEAD EXPANSION is going to be released soon! July 11 to be exact! The folks over at Dark Jane Austen Book Club were excited to try it out and and did a nice write up on the game. They are also doing a GAME GIVEAWAY which will include a copy of the Undead Expansion.
Check out the blog and giveaway here! Check out this new review from Marc at Pixelated Sausage. "You don't have to care at all about Pride and Prejudice... it's a solid card game. But if you are into Pride and Prejudice... I think you'll like it even more." Here's a cute write up from Kerry (Ciarrai) at Ciarrai Studios. She makes super cute jewelry available at her etsy page. She wrote a really cute blog about playing Marrying Mr. Darcy. I have to admit that I hardly ever win this game but I am usually so amused that I don’t mind. The funny part is that not only does my husband, Rob, play the game but he is usually the winner. You can check out the rest of her blog here!
Kill Screen is a video game review site that is expanding their tabletop game review offerings. They asked for a review copy of Marrying Mr. Darcy and wrote this fantastic review. Well written and a little snarky. So basically awesome.
"Everyone can be kind and not remove character points from one another, simply playing through the events in tandem, but that’s no fun. Better to get a little dirty, pit the other girls against each other, and slither up to your suitor with a few choice cards in your favor. A healthy mix of expandable mechanics, elegant language and art, and the right group of Austen newbies and experts ready to heighten the mood all conspire to fill Marrying Mr. Darcy with charm." You can check out the full review at Kill Screen. Here is a sweet little blog review from a Jane Austen fan who picked up Marrying Mr. Darcy at SpringCon in Minneapolis this past weekend.
Here is an excerpt: "Ultimately, we really enjoyed the game...As to the undead packet I haven't tried that portion of the game yet but for someone who enjoys 'The Walking Dead' as much as I -- It should be even more fun." Read the entire post here. New audio podcast by Pixelated Sausage reviewing Marrying Mr. Darcy. Check it out here!
Well, the games have finally arrived and I'm beginning to fulfill Kickstarter rewards. I got a few games in the mail today, but the process of fulfilling 1400 orders will definitely take a couple weeks. Here are a few pictures of the process so far!
While the game has been at the printer, I've been working on completing stretch goals and Kickstarter rewards. One of them is a annotated edition of Pride and Prejudice that includes a foreword by myself. Here is a preview of the forward, though it is still a work in progress.
Foreword by Dr. Erika Svanoe I am a Pride and Prejudice fanatic. I’ve seen every movie, television series, and watched or read too many adaptations to count. Eventually, I got the itch to create my own Pride and Prejudice inspired thing. I tried writing some fan-fiction at first, but that was not really my cup of tea. A few years earlier my husband had written his masters thesis on game design and created an educational board game about diabetes management. I watched him go through the process and, like any good spouse, proofread his paper. This combination of experiences gave me the idea to create a game based on my favorite book. I decided this would be the direction to focus my creative energies, and so I designed Marrying Mr. Darcy: the Pride and Prejudice Card Game. Being an Austen super-fan, I thought about making a game that other Austen fans would want to play. What does every Janeite want to experience? There were two main decisions I made early on that ended up staying through the entire design process. First, I decided that the game should have a role-playing element where you choose which lady you want to play as. Don’t we all secretly want to be Elizabeth, or see a bit of ourselves in one of the other Bennet sisters? (Alas, I have more Mary in me than Elizabeth.) The other convenient thing about playing a game as one of the ladies is that they were really in a relatively weak position in society. They had limited options of how they could secure their own comfort. The entire novel is Austen satirizing a society where marriage was really the only respectable option for these characters. So the second idea that really stuck was that a main goal of the game should be marriage. Since the central drama of the book is that the women must marry, this should be incorporated into the win scenario of the game. As the game developed, there were three other main mechanics that took shape in the final version, and were all drawn from either the book itself or Regency society. First, the plot points of the story manifested in the event card deck. There are several critical plot points in the book, such as Lydia eloping, Darcy’s surprise proposal, and Bingley leaving Netherfield for London. Just like in the book, each of these events has significant consequences in the game and in some cases can force players to rethink their strategy. The second mechanic relates to resource management. Daughters of the landed gentry, such as the Bennet sisters, were not able to take on employment. These ladies spent their time sewing, practicing the piano, drawing, and becoming as accomplished as they could. Much of this activity was intended to make them more attractive as potential wives for the gentlemen who might court them, and these activities often ceased once they were actually married. In the game, players must build up their character with various traits to earn game winning points for their own accomplishments, as well as to attract the interest of the various suitors. Finally, the ending proposal stage incorporates a press your luck mechanic. In all of Austen’s novels, it is the man who always holds the power to propose. In the game, players must roll the dice to see if a suitor proposes to them, so the outcome is outside the player’s control. However, as Elizabeth demonstrates with Mr. Collins, a lady always has the power to either accept or decline. This holds true in the game as well. Players will likely be faced with the decision of whether to accept an early proposal from a suitor worth fewer points, or decline and take their chances hoping for another proposal down the line. All of these game mechanics in Marrying Mr. Darcy were chosen to best replicate the experience of being one of these female characters in the book. It is meant to create an immersive experience where players must act with the limited power they have to secure their heroine’s future happiness. The event cards replicate the everyday occurrences of Regency life, as well as the plot of the story itself. Even the choice to make the game playable using cards is meant to replicate the experience of sitting at a card table to entertain your guests after supper as they do so often in Pride and Prejudice. This edition of Pride and Prejudice is intended to be a companion to the game, Marrying Mr. Darcy. The annotation directs the reader to endnotes, which illustrate how a certain card, strategy, or mechanic in the game was inspired by that particular element in the novel. This highlights some of the stratagems of the various characters as they attempt to secure their own comfort and happiness in the book, as players might attempt to do while playing the game. The names of various cards appear in quotations to separate them from surrounding text. We've been busy working on Marrying Mr. Darcy and getting it ready for the printer. Now we are basically just waiting for the proofs to come back to us so we can fix any issues that come up.
In other news, you can now pre-order Marrying Mr. Darcy and the Undead Expansion Pack from Game Salute, a game distributor for small indie games. They will be distributing Marrying Mr. Darcy to game stores next year once the games arrive. While the game won't be released until this spring, you can pre-order your copy now! Happy CyberMonday! Pre-order Marrying Mr. Darcy HERE Pre-order the Undead Expansion Pack HERE |
Erika SvanoeMusician, conductor and game designer. Archives
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