Artifacts and Curses – An Upcoming Dwarf Mine Expansion

I’m excited to announce a new upcoming expansion for Dwarf Mine – Artifacts and Curses!

Just a small reminder that Dwarf Mine is currently 55% off! See the links below.

Artifacts and Curses is a new way to play Dwarf Mine. At the start of the game, you’ll select one of twelve artifacts for your Dwarf Leader to start the game with, as well as one of twelve curses.

Artifacts give fun bonuses and abilities. Curses – well, they curse your mine in different ways.

A first draft of one of the artifacts for this expansion. The art will go into the box in the upper left.

A first draft of one of the curses for this expansion. The art will go into the box in the upper left.

Artifacts can give you free rooms, let you cast more spells, give you extra treasure or gold, or make your dwarves extremely powerful in combat!

Curses may unleash an unending horde of zombies on your mine, give you an insatiable thirst for luxury or even dwarven blood, or make the stone in your mountain weak.

Each artifact and curse also comes with three achievements, which give you even more replayability, creating unique mines with unique strategies when playing Dwarf Mine.

Timeline

There is no official timeline yet for the Artifacts and Curses expansion. I am hoping for the expansion to be released this year though! I do have a general roadmap, which I’ve covered below.

First Draft Formatting – this is what I am working on currently. I’m about 50% done. I have the artifacts and curses designed, I just need to get them into the PDF, and list some basic rules and playability resources at the front, and credits at the back.
Art Order – this is next. Once all 12 artifacts and 12 curses are first-draft formatted, I’ll work on getting art.
Final Draft Flavor and Design – After art is added, I’ll review the flavor and design of each artifact and curse. I’m hoping to work with an artist I’ve worked with in the past, and her art always inspires me – so I’d like to do my final draft after art is complete.
Final Draft Formatting – This will ensure the PDF is as finished as possible before release.
Release – Yay! You get to play with the Artifacts and Curses expansion!
Updates – One of the joys of being a hobby designer is lack of resources and time for playtesting. So I rely on comments, feedback, reddit posts and more to help me fine-tune and update my game designs. I have a good track record of updating my games, from the recently released free version of Star Solo to Dwarf Mine itself.

Background

I absolutely love card games. From Magic the Gathering to Dream Quest – sooooo good. Naturally, I want to design a card game.

That’s how the design for Artifacts and Curses started. I was hoping to create a card game inspired design around Dwarf Mine.

Eventually, I got to a point where I had some fun ideas for artifacts and curses, but Dwarf Mine is not an elegant game from a design standpoint. Because of this, the rules text just wouldn’t fit on the size of a card.

Additionally, creating a print and play card game asks the person playing – you – to do some crafting. Cards need to be printed on cardstock and cut out, and that’s a lot of work that some people aren’t willing to go through.

So, sadly, I set aside my dreams of designing a card game.

The good news, is that the result of this decision has lead to a fun expansion to Dwarf Mine, that adds greatly to not only the replayability of the game, but also the differences in approach to mine design and strategy!

The tagline of Dwarf Mine is “no two mines are the same” – and this expansion all but guarantees unique games of Dwarf Mine each time you sit down!