Steamforged Games, developer of the upcoming Dark Souls The Board Game has posted a development update on their Kickstarter page. In the post they covered some of the design choices being made in deciding where enemies are placed during encounters, specifically the use of tiles and nodes.

The game’s basic setup is that players choose a role from the classes and then embark on a dungeon exploration of iconic locations in the Dark Souls world. There is no fixed game board, instead the game unfolds as players advance, laying down a new tile when progressing into a new area. Once the tile is laid down, players flip an Encounter card from the deck which determines the type and location of enemies and terrain. Dying makes you lose everything with a respawn at the nearest bonfire. At the end of every dungeon will be an expected epic boss fight. There are dozens of miniatures involved and players are equipped in a way similar to the games, with limited slots for items and spells earned through gameplay.

When players flip an Encounter card, the card will designate certain marked nodes on the tiles as spawn points for enemies. Each tile has different potential starting places for enemies so it should always feel like enemies are popping out from unexpected locations.

The Encounter cards will also specify terrain spawn points. Each tile has 2 spawn points for terrain, and the Encounter card will specify what type of terrain spawns from them. Each card has different enemies and terrain, so combined with the quantity of tiles and cards, encounters will be very different from session to session. Bosses and mini-bosses follow this same placement procedure meaning they can be in a couple of different places in a room. Traps can even spawn instead of terrain, with players having to roll a die at the end of a turn to see if they were nabbed.

With the placement mechanics now explained, it’s easy to get a sense of how a game will play out as players lay down a tile, flip a card, and proceed into the room to do combat with the enemies and bosses. It gives the game a procedural feel similar to the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne, and shows that the game does lend itself to rogue like mechanics with RPG progression. We’re looking forward to getting a chance to play the game ourselves and see how all of these elements shake out. The game is in ongoing development and we’ll continue to monitor for updates and bring them here.

How does Dark Souls on a table sound to you? Sound off in the comments!

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