Fractal Chronicles #4 - Aftermath Part I

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Today, we’ll have a more in-depth look at our legacy system: the Aftermath, and the way it works while trying to avoid too many spoilers about the story and secret content. 

We’re planning to prepare a demo module on TTS to showcase the concept, so this is just the first part of our journey beyond the void.

The galaxy is awakening again, after millennia of a long slumber. The remnants of the Federation are taking to the stars to rekindle the fires of civilization, and the first contacts are not without challenges: conflicting philosophies, unchecked aggression, diverging views and clashing paths.

Will you rise above the petty struggles to form an empire of peace and stability, or devolve into baseless violence and conflict? Will you work together to explore the deepest secrets of the universe or rush towards a scientific age of discovery?

Whatever you do, resources in the galaxy are finite, the crumbs left by the Federation, and there won’t be enough for everyone. But while it may seem bleak and without hope, there are paths that could lead to answers, about the past, about the fall of the Federation, and about mysteries hidden in the stars. 

Will you be the one to walk them all? 

Or will you be one more species to crumble in the crucible of the cosmos?

The cycle starts again, and soon the equilibrium of the galaxy will be shattered, torn apart by conquest and ambition. Ready to fall once more, or maybe this time, ready to live in eternity. 

A Federation reborn. 

These are the opening words of the very first game of the Aftermath. When you first start the campaign, you’ll be playing the core experience, with its limited rules and factions. But once the first player emerges as a victor, everything changes…

During previous Chronicles, we talked about the living objectives, and how they shape the flow of the game by evolving and defining the ways players can score. During the core game, the nature of the victory points is irrelevant, and winning with a majority of military or imperial points is exactly the same thing. 

In the Aftermath though, the nature of your victory impacts how the campaign changes and the game evolves, reflecting the path taken by the winning player.

As a result, a military victory and a scientific one will, for example, lead to two vastly different scenarios, that will each explore a different part of the game and reveal a different aspect of the story.

Each new scenario comes with its own story, set of rules, setup and victory conditions. For example, let’s look at the military scenario of the first chapter: Exertion of Dominance. It is achieved by any player completing military dominance in the initial scenario, and becoming a warmonger. As a result, the entire mindset of the galaxy shifts towards war and domination.

To represent that, a few rules completely change the setup, namely:

• the winning player choose only 2 civil technologies to be in play during the game, the rest is discarded.
• each player, starting with the winner, develop a military technology for free, and receives extra units.
• the action card pool is reduced.
• Scientific and Influence cards are removed from the game (for this scenario only).

The result is a game heavily focused on conflict that forces players to learn the ropes of confrontation and battle by restricting access to other types of strategies (to some extent), which also serves as a tutorial of sorts to make sure players are familiar with the inner workings of every game system.

On top of this altered setup, a new set of rules takes effect:

• you gain influence by winning battles.
• you gain credits and victory points by invading or razing colonies.
• a new Singularity is placed in the center of the board that dictates some victory conditions and special rules.

Finally, the victory conditions are altered to reflect the new paths opened by all the rules change. In this scenario, there are three possible paths: 

1. A military victory is achieved again.
2. Another type of victory is achieved, and the military mindset is pushed back.
3. An asocial Faction (such as the Borroka that we introduced last week) wins.

Each of these 3 victories leads to a different ending, with its own lore, its own rewards and special components unlocked. Speaking of…

As the campaign progresses, different kind of components will be unlocked and added to the game. 

First, memory cards are player-specific bonuses that can be used throughout a single campaign, reflecting a player’s path and granting them bonuses and advantages as a result. For example, a player winning Exertion of Dominance with a military victory will unlock the ability to transform their victory points into military ones, which can help them push along certain paths later on in the campaign and unlock specific content for the story.

Second, new modules will be unlocked: small, self contained rules adjustment that will add new rules and layers to the core game and reflect the path chosen by the winner. In the case of Exertion of Dominance, a military victory will unlock the Military tradition optional module that add the ability to spend Medals earned in combat in the core game to trigger some powerful effects in subsequent battles. 

Compared to memory cards, these modules are permanently added to the core game, expanding it and allowing players to modulate their experience in subsequent plays.

Finally, some new components will be unlocked to complement the core game, such as new action cards, new factions, new technologies and other goodies that will increase the diversity and replayability of the game even further.

On top of all that, each scenario is not an isolated story, but is part of a greater whole, that comes together to tell the story of the players in a dying universe, trying ot fight the forces of entropy. As you play, you’ll discover some ancient secrets of the cosmos, that will lead to new questions and new answers. 

In Exertion of Dominance for example, you’ll stumble across a strange world trapped in an endless time loop, and by controlling and exploring it, you might learn more about the fate of the Federation, and the mysterious powers whose struggle could lead to the end of the universe, or to a new beginning. 

But to learn more, you’ll have to play the game!

Thank you for reading, we’ll introduce the other factions in the coming months, so stay tuned to BGG for more in-depth look. 

You can also join our Facebook community to very soon get a chance to try out these factions by yourself:

And if you already can’t wait for the KS campaign, don’t forget to follow us on Kickstarter, so you don’t miss the launch: