Darkleaf Gambit | Reignite Your Chessboard's Magic

Darkleaf Gambit | Reignite Your Chessboard's Magic

Transform your most beloved chessboard into the mythical forest of Haggedorn in this 2-player game of risk and cunning.

54,774 USD
από 10,000 USD Goal
660
Backers
Επικοινωνία με Δημιουργό Δείτε στο Kickstarter

Darkleaf Gambit is an entirely new game for your chess set! Perfect for quick, intense duels that blend classic charm and modern, asymmetric mechanics. Whether played on a family heirloom or a steal from the local thrift store, Darkleaf Gambit reignites the magic in your chessboard. Bring your keen mind for strategy, but otherwise no chess experience is required to play Darkleaf Gambit.

#1: Choose Your Clan

Take control of one of six clans, each inviting its own distinct style of play and unique path to victory. No two units move alike or possess the same abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. And with six to choose from, that amounts to 15 possible matchups and high replayability.

#2: The Setup

Gather six dice, one mighty clan board, and assign Fate Chips to their skills. Configure your units around Haggedorn (that mythical forest, commonly mistaken for a chessboard) as depicted on the clan guide.

#3: Roll a Die & Execute

Gameplay is turn-based and begins with a roll of the die, which powers and limits every action. Will you hunt with the Huldra’s ranged attack or hazard a close confrontation with The Murg? Push your opponent into the void on the Ferrymen’s wave, or reclaim the Erde’s sacred territories? Transform rival units into Wibo pawns or cast Hexen curses on the ground upon which your rival walks? 

#4: Slot the Die & Acquire Power

End your turn by slotting the rolled die in your clan board to power miracles, relics, auras and laws. Once purchased, miracles produce immediate effects while relics can be saved for later, strategic use. Auras are placed on units and territories, which can have both offensive and defensive impacts. Laws create an advantage for your clan that lasts the remainder of the duel.

#5: Achieve Victory!

The first clan to meet its victory condition wins! With six clans and six different conditions, be wary as your rival’s objective will be different from your own… and not at all easy to thwart.

More ways to learn Darkleaf Gambit

  • Watch the Good Time Society’s How to Game with Becca Scott.
  • Hop into the full digital version of the game on Tabletopia…for free!
  • Delve into the 20-page rulebook with complete clan compendiums.

Just the One Add-On? We’re fans of both types of Kickstarters: the ones where you have oodles of options for shiny tokens and metal upgrades and kickass expansions, and the ones where you can see exactly what you are getting without even scrolling. For this campaign, we’re executing the latter. Darkleaf Gambit is a tightly focused game. Its components are already premium in every way. And the asymmetry was a bear to balance. We thought it would be insincere (and even damaging to the core mechanics) to concoct an expansion or an extra add-on to simply raise more revenue. Every parent says this, but Darkleaf Gambit is perfect just as it is.

How About Stretch Goals? We have some fun things planned that are dependent upon the level of this campaign’s success. These things primarily entail a) extending the game’s Haggedorn's Will mechanic and b) forest conservation. We are thankful to every tree that inspired the mythology behind Darkleaf Gambit, and every tree that will go into manufacturing your games. We’ll discuss these plans with you in the campaign updates rather than building a ladder of stretch goals.

Special thanks goes to all of Darkleaf Gambit's wonderful playtesters (both in the physical realm as well as on Tabletopia), Dalla Croce Studios for 3d modeling support, and In Depth Films for being our videography wingman!  
Όλες οι ΕνημερώσειςΕνημέρωση #9

Final Thank You, a Little Raffle, and Journey Home

2026-08-27 21:17:20

We’ll attempt—in this final update, here and now—to not get too sentimental.

To not stutter a dozen different thankyous for your early support of Darkleaf Gambit. (Thank you!) To say, just once, how your enthusiasm was the fuel that helped us cross the finish line these two and a half years later. (Thank you thank you!) How your questions and feedback along the way helped shape Darkleaf into a more refined and more fun game. (Thank you thank you thank you!)

We’d like to add a final, special thank you to all the folks who have already brought Darkleaf to their tables. Getting to play Darkleaf with about one hundred of you at Gen Con last month was simply the best.

A Little Raffle

Anyone interested in giving Only Then Studios one final boost, leaving a rating on Board Game Geek (BGG) is such an important lift for our small company, and it’s just a click or two of the mouse. A few simple words with that rating goes a long way as well. Here’s a link to our BGG page. We’re also actively monitoring these forums to answer rule questions as they arise!  

And, if you’d like to take your support one step further, we’ll enter you in a raffle for… a second copy of Darkleaf Gambit! What we’d like most for our BGG presence are pictures of Darkleaf Gambit being played around a variety of different boards. Big boards, small boards. Old and new. Classic round pieces or those square ones that Grant uses. This needs to come from the community though, and not us. Here is how the raffle will work. 

  • Step #1: Take a picture of Darkleaf Gambit set up and in action with your chessboard. 
  • Step #2: Post it to Darkleaf’s BGG page using the “+Upload” button in the image’s tab. 
  • Step #3: Send us an email that you’ve done this: hello@onlythenstudios.com. 

Getting a new game to the table isn’t always the quickest, so we’ll keep this raffle open for 1 month. Those of you who make it through Step 3 will be notified of the winner on September 27. We know that multi-step undertakings are a big ask, but if we can get a dozen pictures up there, that’d look pretty amazing. 

And what, you might ask, can one do with a second copy of Darkleaf Gambit? While it makes a nice present, we had a lot of folks at Gen Con asking what would happen if two of the same clans played each other. Our answer: we’re not entirely sure! Owning a second copy of the game would put you in the driver seat to find out. 

Journey Home

So, what's next? The future is bright, but also a waaaaays off! Our next Kickstarter isn’t going to land until 2028, but we thought to give you a little taste, because we’re really excited about this one. And it’s big! Only Then Studios has a great network of collaborators, playtesters, and freelancer help, but our employee count is just two: Jess and myself. That said, we are full time on the job, and developing this game (codename “Journey Home”) is a 4+ year enterprise. It’s a gamble, putting this much effort into a single idea, but we feel it’s worthy.

Without going too deep, Journey Home is a deckbuilder with one big twist. It’s classically cooperative, fundamentally story-driven, and full of all sorts of hard choices on both the deckbuilding and narrative side of things. All of these choices impact both gameplay as well as where the story ends. As for that codename: we’re keenly interested in what transpires on a hero’s journey after defeating the dragon, saving the princess (or prince!), and capturing the day. This is where 99% of stories leave off, but where we are going to begin.

Here are some pics of our early, artless prototypes. Note my middling carpentry skills also put to good use. 

Equal (or more!) to the game mechanics is the art needed to fill 500+ unique cards. Here’s a sneak peak at some story art from the first scenario, which takes players through a gothic school house suffering from over-imaginative children and a minor monster infestation. 

And so, while this Kickstarter now comes to a close, we hope this isn’t goodbye. Jess and I are always happy to hear from you as you play our games, share your adventures, and any and all of it. So: don’t be a stranger!



Until the next shuffle,

Jamison and Jess  

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