Salt & Burn
Gear yourself up to hunt some monsters in Salt & Burn. A new tabletop monster-hunter RPG board game by Unicorn Empire Prints. I recently got the chance to talk with Amber Whitney about her new exciting new boar d game, Salt & Burn. You can support them on their Kickstarter or find out more on their website.
Small Dev Talk: What is Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: Salt & Burn is a tabletop monster-hunter board game that incorporates action RPG elements with classic board game style.
Small Dev Talk: What is the story in Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: You are a Hunter of the Supernatural, trying to save innocent lives and kill the things that go bump in the night! Each Hunter character in Salt & Burn has a different backstory, with different reasons why they became Hunters, included in the extended game-book.
Small Dev Talk: How do you play Salt & Burn? What are the rules in the game?
Amber Whitney: The rules can get a little bit complicated, and I'm not exactly known for brevity, but I'll try and give you a quick rundown. In the original Salt & Burn you pick a character and a vehicle at random to begin the game. The primary goal is to save more lives than the other Hunters. As you travel the board you can collect magic spells, items and weapons to use to make your character more powerful or save your butt when you run into something you can't handle. Hunters can be Angels, Demons or Humans, and each race has different advantages and abilities over the others. There are over 30 monsters in Salt & Burn, and killing each one awards you a different number of lives saved based on just how dangerous that particular monster was. If you manage to take down a Big Bad, you could save as many as 5 lives with a single kill. There are many ways to play the game, including a co-op version with the Brother Booster pack. Variant rules will be included so that people can try different ways to enjoy their game to ensure a lot of replay value.
Small Dev Talk: Can you describe to us how the game mat/board works in Salt & Burn? Is it mandatory to play Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: The game board enhances game play, but personally I wanted to make sure that the game was really affordable. The mat is a simple rollable print that can be put on any flat surface and used as a game board. It's just an affordable option compared to getting the actual game board, which is being professionally printed and will be made like a classic Monopoly board. We've also worked on developing a cards-only version, so that people who could only afford the cards would be able to play as well. People who buy the cards-only version of Salt & Burn will receive a few extra cards to replace the functions that they lose from the game board to keep it well rounded.
Small Dev Talk: Can you describe to us the different types of cards in Salt & Burn and their purposes?
Amber Whitney: Character cards - Your Hunter can be a human, angel or a demon, and each race has different advantages. Each Hunter comes with a base attack and base health; both of these can be modified throughout the game with the use of items.
Item Cards - Items can protect you and add to your base health or make you more dangerous as a hunter and add to your base attack; some of the best items will do both. Other items might actually hurt you- a Demon who touches a Blessed Knife will actually lose health points and have to discard the item.
Trunk Cards - These are like magic spells, you need to keep them secret from other Hunters and use them at your discretion. These spells can do any number of things; curse other Hunters, heal you, or make you immune from a group event or curses enacted on you by other Hunters. There are cards in the event deck that allow other Hunters to steal from each other though, so it's important to not give any tips when you've got something good, otherwise you might find yourself getting carjacked by a greedy Hunter.
Vehicle Cards - Your vehicle can have a pretty big impact on your Hunter in the game. Each vehicle has a different amount of trunk space, and some have speed modifiers that make you go faster or slower around the board by subtracting or adding to your roll. A bigger trunk means you can keep more Trunk Cards; but it often means you'll go slower. If you have a -1 speed bonus and roll a 1, you'll be sitting that turn out!
Small Dev Talk What type of supernatural creatures and event cards will we see in Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: Event Cards can be good or bad, they are entirely up to chance and you will draw one for a majority of your turns because each grey space on the board means it's time to draw an Event card. You might draw a monster to fight or you might get a nice slice of pie and earn back 2 health points! We have a very wide variety of possible things that can happen to your Hunter.
Small Dev Talk: What type of player cards will we see in Salt & Burn? What is the difference between them?
Amber Whitney: The biggest difference at the moment is the ability to carry items; Humans can use the most items, though they also have the lowest base health and damage to start. Each Hunter also has a unique backstory and different stats, so some are definitely better than others from the get go. In the Bitten Booster pack we're introducing Werewolf Hunters and Vampire Hunters, and each will have special abilities which we're looking into expanding across all species groups. For instance, if you're playing a Vampire Hunter and you land on or within a space of another hunter, you can roll a D6 and steal that many health points from that hunter. Fun little things that will really accentuate the difference in the character species!
Small Dev Talk: The card Plaid Shirt of Awesomeness immediately reminded me of CW Supernatural’s Sam and Dean and their clothing. Did that show ever have an impact or inspiration for Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: Very definitely! I'm a big fan of the show, and there are a few Supernatural jokes in the game itself like the Plaid Shirt or the Tuesday event card (I won't tell you what it does, but I'm sure you can guess!). But I also designed the game specifically wanting to make something that stood alone and could be fun for people who have never even heard of the show, and I'm pretty confident that we've succeeded in that regard.
Small Dev Talk: What inspired you to create Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: There was a SPN Challenge about Supernatural being redone in the style of video games actually; crossovers, artistically, all kinds of things and I really wanted to participate. I'm pretty busy so the idea sat with me for a few days and the more I thought about what I wanted to draw the more I realized that I didn't really want to do a video game so much as a board game; I've always really loved board games and I used to make them with my little sisters all the time. I got pretty excited realizing that I could actually make a board game now much better than when I was 10 years old, so I started cultivating the game idea and fleshing it out and doing some of the art and I was encouraged by some friends to share it on Kickstarter.
Small Dev Talk: What is your favourite aspect of Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: For me it's definitely the humor. I really love puns, pretty much any kind of pun or joke I'll laugh at, and I really worked hard to make sure that the cards have a lot of personality to give everyone a few good laughs during the game. I know that the subject matter can sound pretty dark, hunting down and killing monsters, risking life and limb to save other people, but I wanted to make a game that was not just fun but also pretty happy and left people who played it feeling happy too.
Small Dev Talk: What challenges did you and your team come across in the development of Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: The biggest challenge was getting the cost down as much as I could; The game is really something I developed and made for me and my friends, and it grew from there, so I'd have bought it even if it was a lot of money. But selling things to other people, personally, has to come with a variety of pricing options and a level of affordability that I'm very passionate about. Getting each of the items priced out and as low as they could go has been a real challenge, but fortunately I make and sell art for a living so I have a lot of tools at my disposal and I'm pretty used to sourcing wholesale options.
Small Dev Talk: Do you have any advice for anyone that wants to create their own board game and card game?
Amber Whitney: I would say make something that you enjoy first and foremost, and I always say that for everything. If it's something that you're passionate about then you're more likely to follow through when you come up against challenges; if you're making something just because it's popular, it's not as fun to make, and people can always tell when there's passion behind a project.
Small Dev Talk: What is the expected release date for Salt & Burn and how much will it cost? Will people be able to find Salt & Burn in stores and online?
Amber Whitney: I'm hoping to get the game printed and assembled by October, but I can't really offer guarantees. Experience would tell me to never set a hard date, because you never know what problems might spring up! Salt & Burn will be available in my Etsy shop and it will cost probably pretty similarly to what people are pledging right now on Kickstarter. If people can't get all parts of the game during the Kickstarter but would like to buy a booster pack or the full board later on they can.
Small Dev Talk: Once Salt & Burn is released, do you plan on continuing making booster packs and decks with new cards?
Amber Whitney: I'm not sure what I'll make later on, while I do have some plans for a pretty big End of Days expansion pack that allows for group-play against a common enemy. Other than that, I'm already thinking about other possible games that I might make in the future, and we've been talking about a possible Salt & Burn: After Dark that expands a lot more on the character aspect and brings in more of a classic D&D vibe with skill development and professions that you can pick for your character that would really influence their abilities.
Small Dev Talk: Do you plan on making an online version of Salt & Burn, whether it be PC client, mobile app or browser version of Salt & Burn?
Amber Whitney: I would if I had the skills, but I know next to nothing about mobile apps or coding! If I had an unfortunate friend to pick their brain I might ask them, but since it's not something I know how to do it's probably very unlikely.
Small Dev Talk: Do you have anything to say towards our readers?
Amber Whitney: Thanks for taking the time to read about Salt & Burn! We really hope to provide a quality game that is fun for all kinds of gamers that has enough diversity to give you plenty of replay value. We made sure to keep the numbers low so the math elements of the game can be done quickly and keep everything moving at a quick pace. Health point counters are also included in the game to keep track of your character's current health easily from turn to turn. We've done our best to create something that everyone can be happy to have on their game shelf!
Post Dated: 2013-08-18 17:19. Last Modified: 2013-08-18 at 17:22. Written by Alexander Sullivan
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