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Flying Frog Productions' Jason C. Hill
and Jack
Scott Hill sat down to give a brief overview of their pulp adventure game, Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game.
How
is Fortune and Glory different from
your previous game titles?
Fortune and Glory is a unique
gameplay
experience. It was created by the same team that brought you Last
Night
on Earth, A Touch of Evil, Invasion
from Outer Space, and Conquest of
Planet Earth, so it will certainly feel like a Flying Frog
game. It shares some ideas with other Flying Frog games, like skill
tests
similar to A Touch of Evil, but the mechanics are
unique to Fortune and
Glory. Like many of our previous games, there are multiple
ways to
play. Fortune and Glory features four game types - Competitive,
Cooperative, Team Game, and Solo play.
This is also our biggest game yet - twice the size of our previous
games! The game has actually been
around for years and it is one of our favorites. It is a mammoth
adventure game that spans the globe. It means a lot to us and we didn't
want to do it half-way. We wanted the giant game board, full card decks
for Enemies, Nazis, Gear, Allies, Locations, etc, and really cool minis
for everything!
  
Speaking
of that, the box is FULL of
plastic miniatures, how about an overview?
The game includes incredibly detailed miniatures
for all of the hero characters, villain characters, a horde of nazi
soldiers and mobster thugs, mayan temples, and a large Nazi zeppelin.
Players tend to have
their favorite
heroes in your games and are usually offered a variety of character
types to many play styles. Can we expect the same from Fortune and
Glory?
You can count on it! Our games are
character
driven and we have a really cool cast of heroes in Fortune
and Glory,
each with their own unique stats, abilities, and play style:
- Jake
Zane (The Flying Ace) - he's a daring
pilot and brash young adventurer.
- Duke
Dudley (British Lord) - The Duke is an
independently wealthy aristocrat who craves adventure and has the funds
to travel the globe in search of it!
- Li
Mei Chen (Night Club Singer) - This
Hong
Kong singer croons on stage but was trained from birth in the martial
arts. She is a sworn protector of her people as part of a secret order
known as the Silent Dragon.
- Dr. Zhukov (Master of Science)
- A Russian
scientist with a penchant for dangerous expeditions.
- Sharon Hunter (Daring Photographer)
- She set
out from New York city to photograph the exotic parts of the world
unkown.
- Alexander Cartwright (Reclusive
Novelist) -
Content to quietly write about his adventures, Cartwright is drawn once
again into the heart of danger!
- Shelly Hargrove (Race Car Driver)
- She lives
a fast life and dives headlong into perilous adventures.
- Jacques Moreau (Tomb Robber)
- He is a
scoundrel and a ruthless anti-hero. Some people will hate Jacques, but
others will LOVE him!
 
This
is the largest cast you've had in a
game so
far and it features a lot of interesting items and artifacts. How was
the shooting for this project?
These
photoshoots were some of the most interesting and entertaining that
we've ever done. Actors and models
always bring a lot to their characters during the shoot and we were
lucky to work with some very talented people this time around. Because
the cast was so large, we tended to schedule larger shoots with more
characters at a time. That made for a lot more work but was also more
fun. Due to the grand scale of this project, we started casting a few
years ago, started putting together costumes in around 2006, and have
been collecting artifacts and items for the last decade. This sounds
unbelievable, but remember that the game has been around for us for
over ten years and everywhere we go, we keep it in mind. So, if one of
us is on vacation in a far off land and see some crazy amulet or
weapon, we buy it for the impending game shoots. As you can imagine,
with all of this history, we are absolutely thrilled to finally share
Fortune and Glory with other gamers around the world!
This
game not only has characterful
heroes, but powerful villain characters as well. How did this come
about and who can we expect to see foiling us at every turn?
To
fans of the pulp adventure genre, it is clear
that heroes are nothing without the villains they tangle with across
the globe. It was very important to us to include villains that are as
capable, smart, and formidable as the heroes. There are two Vile
Organizations in the game, The Mob and The Nazis. Each has many generic
fighters (Mob Thugs and Nazi Soldiers), but also character villains.
The Mob villains include the Boss - Franco Fedicci, the Hitman -
"Icebox" Eddie, and the Seductive Singer - Vanessa Love. The Nazi
villains include Colonel Stahl - the Iron fist, Tresa - the Femme
Fatale, and Herr Teufel - The Occult Specialist. It was great fun
creating genre bad guys to show up when the heroes least expect it -
and that's exactly how it plays in the game. They show up while you're
on an adventure and wreak havoc, often stealing the artifact you are
searching for!
The
game features many different
enemies, but some people may be surprised that they will face off
against Nazis. Sometimes games and movies will shy away from depicting
Nazis. What led to the decision to feature the Nazis and their insignia?
First
off, this is a period game that takes place
in the latter part of the 1930's. At that time, the Nazi party had
risen to power and actual historical fact is that they were searching
for ancient artifacts and lost treasures to give them power and aid
them in their thirst for world domination. They were very bad guys and
really make for perfect enemies for our heroes to face off against.
One
of the coolest game mechanics in
Fortune and Glory is the way that adventures are generated in the game.
Can you walk us through the process?
During
the game, there are always four active
adventures available. Each of these adventures has an artifact
associated with it. You draw an 'Artifact' card from the Artifact Deck
and an 'Adventure' card from the Adventure Deck and pair them together
to create the Artifact Adventure. The decks each contain half of the
name. So, an example would be "The Eyes..." paired with "...of the
Crimson Hand". One of the cards has the value of the treasure and the
other card shows the number of dangers that must be overcome to get the
treasure. So, every time you play the game, there are very unique
adventures to challenge the players. Each time you generate one of
these pairings, you also draw a 'Location' card from the Location Deck
to determine where in the world the treasure lies. You generate four of
these pairings at the beginning of the game and then generate a new
pairing each time one is recovered by a player. Some Artifacts are not
specific treasures, but rather a location known as a Temple (an example
might be "The City...of Time"). When these are drawn, you place one of
the detailed temple miniatures onto the board. Now, characters can
journey into this temple and gain fortune. But, the danger of temples
is that the more they are plundered for gold, the greater the risk of
collapse! A major theme of the game is deciding how far to "push your
luck" in risky situations and it provides some serious
edge-of-your-seat excitement. Perfect for the Cliffhanger Pulp
Adventure genre!
Fortune
and Glory is in
stores now!
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