Mission Cards
over 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 01:08:52 PM

Hi piggies!

Do you know what truffle pigs love more than truffles? Being the best truffle hunter in the forest! 

Due to their newfound powers, the super truffle pigs never want to return to their weaker, ham-fisted selves. The trouble is, the effects of super truffles are as fleeting as they are powerful. This is why the truffle pigs must continuously collect super truffles from the part of the forest where the wolves reside.  

They also discovered that even the truffles that aren’t imbued with mystic energy in this part of the forest are tastier than your average truffle. Seeing both a business opportunity and a way to maintain their superpowers, the pigs began to conduct missions to the wolves’ territory.

This is why missions are such an important part of Super Truffle Pigs. At the beginning of each game, you will have an opportunity to draft mission cards with specific goals for you to accomplish including specific truffles to collect. Choose your cards wisely and make sure you actively pursue your goals. There are lots of points to be earned from them!

Don’t forget that truffles aren’t just for missions. They are also worth points at the end of the game and can be spent to level up your pigs or even save a pig from being chased from the forest. With all these uses for truffles, it’s no wonder the pigs need superpowers to stay on top of everything!

Win a BIG BAD WOLF!

Here's another chance to win one of the BIG bad wolves! The rules are simple. All you have to do is subscribe to our newsletter. Not only will you receive news about our games, but you’ll be entered for a chance to claim this prize for yourself. We’ll announce the winner on the final day of the Kickstarter, so hurry before time’s run out!

And don't forget...you, too, can draw a truffle pig! Super Truffle Pigs artist, Phil VanMilligan, will show you how! Check out the video on YouTube, and then draw your own truffle pig! Post it on Facebook and/or Instagram with the hashtag #supertrufflepig (and tag us!) to be entered to win one of the 12" BIG bad wolves!

 And today's pig joke...

What do you get when you play tug-of-war with a pug?

Pulled pork!

Learn how to draw a truffle pig!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 01, 2021 at 01:03:05 PM

Hi little piggies!

Today we've got a quick update for you to tell you all about the Spring & Fall Expansion, and to remind you to join us today on YouTube at Noon EST for our livestream!

A little about the expansion...

Included in every pledge from When Pigs Fly and up, is the Spring and Fall expansion that adds some new challenges for those who can spare the change from their piggy bank. The expansion includes 20 double-sided tiles with each side representing a different season with unique challenges.

The fall side of the tiles includes leaf piles, the perfect hideaway for super truffle pigs to practicing hamouflage. When a pig enters a tile with a leaf pile they can hide in it to stay safe from any wolves that might come prowling. You’ll need to be quick because each pile can only hold one pig, so make sure you’re the first to get there! Also, hiding in the leaves is only effective against one wolf. If a second wolf decides to come sniffing around, you’re bound to become dinner.

In the spring variant, you’ll encounter magic mud. Unlike normal mud, magic mud is...magical. This means that walking through it lets you use a superpower card for free! You can use it immediately or save it for later. This allows for some pretty epic turns as there’s nothing a pig covered in magic mud can’t do.

Don't forget today's livestream!

 Join us today at Noon EST to learn how from our artist, Phil VanMilligan! 

Try your hand at drawing one of the adorable truffle pigs! Then post your own drawing with #supertrufflepig for your chance to win a BIG bad wolf! 

Unfortunately, the truffle pigs themselves won’t be able to see your drawings because they only use Instaham!

We will be drawing winners for all the contests and announcing winners on the final day of the campaign!

The pigs need blankets! Winter is Coming!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 01, 2021 at 06:57:13 AM

Hi piggies! 

  Winter has arrived in the forest and the pigs are turning into porksicles. Playing on the summer side of the forest tiles might get a bit boar-ing after a while, but there’s an easy fix! Just flip the tiles over and you’ll find yourself in a brand new winter wonderland. Gameplay will stay largely the same but - like a piggy’s tail - there’s a bit of a twist.

    In addition to the snowy new look, you’ll find some tiles are covered with a frozen pond. Any pigs or wolves that move onto the frozen pond will slide right through it in the direction they entered. These two little changes make a big, bad difference in terms of replayability and new obstacles to work and strategize around.

    The pigs don’t just work in snow and winter though. They work hard all year long. Stay tuned to learn more about how the Spring/Fall expansion works and what it adds to the game!

Another livestream!

We know what you’re thinking, “I wish I knew how to draw a truffle pig that’s both impressive and adorable.” You’re in luck! We’re hosting a livestream on YouTube tomorrow that’s going to teach you to do just that. 

 Even more exciting, if you post your drawing on Facebook or Instagram after the livestream and use #supertrufflepig  you'll be entered to win a 12” wolf! 

What's that? 12" wolves!
       Yes! You read that right! And you have an opportunity to win one! We had four 12-inch wolves custom-made for Gen Con, but after Gen Con is over, some lucky winners will have the big bad wolves at their door!  

 And for today's silly joke! We are enjoying seeing all the jokes in the comments, keep them coming!

 How did the pig win an Oscar?

 He really hammed it up!

Designer Diary: Digging Up Some Inspiration
over 2 years ago – Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 04:44:30 PM

Hi, little piggies!

Welcome to Week 2! Over the weekend we unlocked ta stretch goal - Foil Player Boards! 

What's up next? Upgraded level markers made of plastic to keep big bad wolves from blowing them around! These will unlock when we reach $23,000! 

Designer Diary! How Super Truffle Pigs came to be!

Today we'd like to share the Super Truffle Pigs journey from beginning to Kickstarter from designer Jason Corace.  

Sometimes ideas for games start from a very clear drive to explore a mechanic, theme, or type of game. In the case of Super Truffle Pigs, it was a mishmash of ideas, false starts, and a desire to learn something new.

I teach Game Design and Programming at the Maryland Institute College of Art and am very lucky to have my summers off to dream up projects. After the end of each Spring semester, there are usually a couple of weeks where I make grand plans to design countless games and learn every new skill under the sun.

In Summer 2019, I decided that I wanted to build a small 3D game using assets that I created from scratch. At the time, I was terrible at 3D modeling (I am now only slightly awful) so I started thinking of the main character that had a simple form and settled on pigs as they could be built from mostly tubes.

 Next, my tubular pig needed something to do in the game  I decided I wanted to highlight a pig’s natural intelligence and unique abilities (did you know pigs can play video games?). I have always been interested in a pig’s natural talent to hunt for truffles and truffles lend themselves to some fun mechanics. I liked that they were hard to find, valuable, required time to dig up, and seemed almost alien-looking and magical.

Around the same time I started modeling and thinking about my pig, I received a parts kit for HABA’s annual Game Design contest. Which if you don’t know, is a great contest where they send you a bunch of random parts from their games and ask you to design a game using those parts (check it out). Included in my pack were some really sturdy wolf meeples. And I thought this is perfect — pigs, truffles, and wolves!

In my mind, I was still designing a video game but soon the power of the wolves began to overpower me. As I started sketching out the gameplay and thinking about how the wolves' AI would be programmed I wondered,  “How could the wolves work in a tabletop game?

As a tabletop game, I wanted the wolves to have a mixture of intelligence, predictability, and just enough randomness to make them feel dangerous. I didn’t want them to be controlled by any one player or to be driven by an overly complex set of special conditions. At some point, the idea jumped into my head “ What if every player controlled the wolves?”

If players controlled their own set of pigs and programmed the wolves together, they could decide to either work together or turn on one another. If players had a matching set of direction cards and previous moves were left visible the wolves’ movement would be semi-predictable. If I added a die roll to determine an overall round state for the wolves ( how many cards played, if new wolves enter the game, if they sleep and don’t move) they would still have some randomness and hopefully some personality.

After some initial testing and playtesting, I thought I really had something.  The programmed wolf movement created a shared moment each round that felt tense and exciting. The only problem was the pigs were kind of weak and helpless. This is where the idea for superpowers emerged which also added some humor and special moments to the game. Oh, and the name, of course — Super Truffle Pigs

This idea of collaborative movement programming to control a non-player character was really the inspiration that brought Super Truffle Pigs to life and drove me to chuck the idea of making a video game altogether. Looking back, I am really glad that I did.

What came next was a flurry of rapid prototyping and playtesting to enter the game into the HABA Game Design Contest which I am honored to say Super Truffle Pigs was a winner of that year!

With a little wind in my sails, I continued to test and refine the game, took it to Pax Unplugged, submitted it to the Ion Award, and eventually pitched it to the great team at Games by Bicycle. And the rest is history or at least too long for this update.

Thanks to everyone who helped playtest the game, gave me feedback, and backed this Kickstarter, it means a lot and I can’t wait for you to get to play Super Truffle Pigs!

Jason Corace

————-—

Let's Get Social! 

The first stretch goal we unlocked added a First Player Marker to the game, and now we need your help to upgrade it to a METAL COIN! 

How do you unlock this goal? We're glad you asked! Right now, we have 4,911 followers/subscribers across Facebook, Instagram, and our Newsletter mailing list. As soon as we reach 6,000 people across all three, we will upgrade the First Player Marker to a Metal Coin that ALL BACKERS will get!

So, we ask you to go like or follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and Subscribe to our newsletter! AND share the links, encourage your friends and family to join you! Together we can make this metal coin a reality!

And we'll leave you with this little joke...

What do you call a pig with three eyes?

A piiig!

Pigs rule, dogs drool!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 07:38:04 AM

Hi little piggies!

We are just shy of the $15k goal to unlock the first stretch goal, so we decided to go ahead and unlock it - with your help, we unlocked the First Player Marker! 

 We have more stretch goals and surprises in store for you, like our next stretch goal: foil player boards - A shiny, foil finish for the player boards to class them up and keep you from turning up your snout! 

The Forest is Dangerous!

The best truffles grow in the forest, but it's a dangerous place! Have you wondered why the truffle pigs decided to go hunting in a wolf-infested forest?

The truffle pigs were once the top hogs of the forest with a spectacular affinity for sniffing out even the most elusive truffles. They did their jobs with snouts held high, full of pride. Little did they know that their dream-like existence was about to be disrupted by an unlikely foe...dogs. Somehow, rumors spread that dogs were the superior choice for truffle hunting. The pigs were eventually replaced by canines carrying the misnomer “man’s best friend.”

The pigs would not allow these creatures to continue hogging the spotlight and decided to collab-boar-ate and hatch a super-secret plan. At first, they concocted evil plots against the dogs, but they quickly realized they must remain slaw-abiding. The pigs decided they would brave the dangerous section of the forest guarded by wolves to find a type of truffle they had only heard about in legends: super truffles. These truffles just might give them the power they needed to stay competitive in the truffle hunting field.

The little piggies hoofed it down the secret paths near the wolves’ lair on their quest for the super truffles. With some stealth and cleverness, their sniffers soon led them to a smell that was simultaneously familiar and mysterious. They dug up a truffle that glowed with powerful energy and gobbled it up without hesitation. Immediately, they felt the energy surge through them granting them the brains of Ein-swine and expert skills in ham-to-ham combat. 

With their newfound powers, they were able to fend off the wolves and earn back their rightful place and show the dogs sow it’s done. Thus, the Super Truffle Pigs were born.

What's coming up next week?

Next week we will be sharing a designer diary from Super Truffle Pigs designer Jason Corlace, we have a really fun live stream planned for you and lots more! Stay tuned and we hope you have a great weekend!

With that, we leave you with today's pig humor! 

What do you get when you cross a pig and superman? The Man of Squeal.

What's your favorite pig joke or pig pun? 

Share in the comments!