# Future Releases

## Latest News

This was information gathered from JonesCon, in FL during January:

    >> Did Jose appear at JonesCon?
    >
    >Yes, he did appear at the JonesCon.  He played in the Saturday night
    >tournament and won his first tourney, Ray placed 2nd, and I (Sherry)
    >placed 3rd.  Of all of us, Brian was the only one to beat him
    >consistently at gunslinging.
    >
    >> If he did,did he bring Throne War with him?
    >
    >Jose did not bring Throne War with him.  (He did bring lots of White
    >Ninjas, the rumor that he is out of them appears to be untrue.)
    >
    >> What did he say about a possible release date for Throne War?
    >
    >There is no set date for the release of Throne War.... apparently there
    >are no distributors that will purchase Throne War from him.  I do wonder
    >if it would be possible to convince at least one distributor that there
    >is a demand for shadowfist and get Jose to print the product.  Maybe,
    >the Shadowfist players can lobby a predetermined distributors?
    >Sometimes, that works...
    >
    >> What`s happening with Daedalus?
    >
    >I believe, but am not sure, that Daedalus is still "restructuring."  It
    >looks like Feng Shui is going to definetly keep going....

    >It is a no go on Throne War.  Jose was here and played in our tournament
    >and some role playing.
    >What's going on is that Jose needs to take some business courses on how
    >to run a business.
    >It looks like Shadowfist will die unless he sells the game to someone
    >who knows the how to run the business.
    >He said, he is afraid if he releases Throne War that his distributors
    >may not pay him.  I actually am a quite
    >worried that Jose hopeful imagination when dealing in business.  I don't
    >take everything he says as being, how do you say "factual".  He skirts
    >around the issues a bit, though I can understand since his business is
    >in bancruptcy.  No one wants to look like they are going under.  Sorry
    >for the bad news, but until I actually see it, my group and I do not
    >believe Jose will release another expansion.

    Hmm....  There seems to be a little confusion regarding what Jose actually
    said here in Gainesville.
    Understandable really, as the man never stops talking - it was difficult
    to get a word in edgewise, and no one wanted to be rude and just pound on
    him for a straight answer.
    That is, until after the con.  On the return trip to Jax to catch his plane,
    Tom asked Jose "what's the deal?"  In rough terms, Daedalus is essentially
    in hibernation.  In late December, TW was ready to go to press and Jose made
    the call not to print it.  This decision was based on the state of the market,
    particularly the strong probability that a significant number of the
    distributors would default on payment.  Without that factor, orders for TW
    look plenty good enough to turn profit.  So, given thefragile state of Daedalus -
    TW and the next Feng Shui release are the "make or break" items - Jose has
    decided to put everything on hold for a few months and hope that the market
    stabilizes somewhat.
    Jose has not given up - he still hopes to revive Daedalus, FS and 'Fist, but
    the road ahead looks pretty rough.
    Oh, Jose has been "off-line" from the net for a while, although he said he
    expected to have email again real soon.

Updates from the last few months:
Jose Garcia has informed us that Daedalus has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This means that he is still in business, however, plans will be made to appease creditors.

Jose mentioned on the newsgroup that Throne Wars will be delayed. No word on the time...
Jose moved to Canada during May, and seems to be finally settled in. He did mail out a update to many of the products/events during the summer. On Throne Wars, it seems to be packaged in 8 or 9 card packs with "many sets coming from a box." No word on the release date.

I do know some additional information frm various sources. However, Jose mentioned to keep some of it quiet, and doesn't know about others...so for now, its not being released.

Jose says, as of March 24th:
As many of you know we've been keeping mum about the next Shadowfist expansion. We've been waiting until the presses start rolling before saying anything (our new release policy). I still have no announcements to make but I can safely say that its nearing completion and you won't have much longer to wait before we spill the beans on what we've been doing. I don't think anyone will be disappointed.

He's also mentioned that there's product beyond that in the planning stages.

As of May 5th:
There should be news "soon." It may or may not be interesting that Jose didn't refer to the new supplement as Throne War, although I'd be surprised if there was another change in plans.

## Table of Contents

- General Plans

- Medium-Sized Characters
- Feng Shui Sites

- Promo Card
- Throne War
- Combat in Kowloon
- Players Guide
- Second Edition

## General Plans

### Medium-Strength Characters

While I neglected to save the exact post, Jose mentioned that we'd be seeing more common characters in the 4 to 6 Fighting for 3 to 5 Cost plus some resources range; the sort of character that's been uncommon up until now. Expect these in expansions and Second Edition.

### Feng Shui Sites

From rec.games.trading-cards.misc, February 19, 1996:

Jose Garcia:
However you are correct about the rare Unique feng shui sites, these are powerful compared to most of the common feng shui sites. This is a design oversight on our part, unique turned out to be less of a limiting factor than we thought. This is being rectified with the inclusion of new common feng shui sites that are competitive for those rares, that process started in Netherworld, it continues in Flashpoint and will be continued right into Second Edition.

### Jammers

From rec.games.trading-cards.misc, March 18, 1997:

Jose Garcia:
However the Jammers are going to get a rocket-powered boost in the next Shadowfist release. So expect monkey lovers to be sporting shit eating grins on their faces before too long.

I'd assume this would be Throne War, except one isn't sure what the Jammers would be doing back then. On the other hand, there was a piece of promo literature at Gencon that said the Jammers would be involved in that little rumble. I suppose time will tell.

## Promo Card

The promo card has been spotted -- it's a killer version of the White Ninja. 6 Cost, 7 Fighting, Stealth, Ambush, and the effects of any site or character she targets in an attack are cancelled until the end of the turn. Nice.

## Throne War

Throne War will be available in both boosters and starter packs, and will serve as the entry product for Shadowfist (along with Combat in Kowloon) as the Standard Edition goes out of print.

As of late November 1996, Throne War was rescheduled for next summer. Jose has said that there may be another project (Combat in Kowloon?) between now and then.

From an early 1996 press release:

THRONE WAR is set in 69 AD, when the Emperor of China is on his deathbed. He's been a pawn of the vile Eaters of the Lotus for years, so his death is a good thing-but who will take his place? Every faction has a candidate: the Guiding Hand want to put a true Son of Heaven on the throne; the Ascended enlist a skilled impersonator to supplant the dying Emperor; the Hidden Empress, leader of the Dragons of 69 AD, makes a bid for the throne; and so do each of the Four Monarchs from the Netherworld. And it's not like the Lotus is going to sit back and watch while someone takes the throne away from them. . .

In other words, First Century China is about to explode in white-hot action and diabolical court intrigue! THRONE WAR is the SHADOWFIST expansion that action movie fans have been waiting for: full of daring kung fu tricks, bizarre Chinese legends, and historically accurate betrayals. Not to mention a few cool Ascended killers in mirrorshades, doing their Uzi-armed best to kill them all and let the vultures sort out the pieces.

Where SHADOWFIST game play is concerned, THRONE WAR focuses on nifty new ways of jazzing up multi-player diplomacy and strategy. Because if you want to win the THRONE WAR, you're going to have to make some friends as well as enemies.

## Player's Guide

The Players' Guide has been released! It shipped the week before Thanksgiving; no reports as of November 30th. The Players' Guide is titled "Shadowfist Player's Guide Volume One: Flashpoint." Implications are left to our imaginations, but the flyer Daedalus had at Manacon mentioned Player's Guides for both Flashpoint and Throne War.

## Combat in Kowloon

Combat in Kowloon is still in the works, with no promised date (although we may see it sometime in spring 1997, but that's a highly unofficial guess). The original concept was a boxed set containing two pretuned decks, designed to play well and to tell the story of a battle in, well, Kowloon. It sounded like a good idea; it'd be a nice way to get people into the game and support the concept of story in Shadowfist to boot.

In late January 1996, Jose Garcia said:

> We pushed it back, we haven't made an official announcements yet but it will probably be coming out in Sept/Oct of '96. It will probably be appearing in both in a ready to play Showdown Set (containing 2 preconfigured starters) and in boosters that will contain cards that are in the Showdown Set but will also contain plenty of cards that aren't. This way beginners and experienced players interested in playing with the preconfigured decks can pick up the Showdown Set but Combat in Kowloon will also serve as a bona fide expansion set.

This announcement was confirmed in the May 14th press release. Obviously it's a bit out of date now.

## Second Edition

The information below should be assumed to be potentially out of date -- the schedule changes mean that many of the upgrades to Second Edition may find their way into Throne War and/or Combat in Kowloon instead. More info as I get it. Second Edition is currently not on the schedule.

### From the FAQ

Second Edition will include approximately 50 new Very Common and Common cards. An equal number of cards from the existing set will be dropped to make room for the newcomers. Not all of the cards that get dropped will be very commons and commons, a few may be rares and uncommons that haven't performed up to expectations. All the cards appearing for the first time in Second Edition will have gold foil Ting Ting stamps.

### Various Jose Quotes

Several of the common instrumental feng shui sites such as Whirlpool of Blood will be in Second Editon.

My big design goal focus for Second Edition is to make starter deck games so cool that it will get long time shadowfist players to put away their built decks and play starter deck games.

I as a designer have developed a distaste for most group hosers aside from things such as Sibling Rivalry which fits the chrome of the Monarchs and gravy abilities such as CHAR's "takes no damage from Fire cards". The group hoser cards in Shadowfist are good candidates for being cycled out when Second Edition comes out this summer.

Robin and I are planning on upping the Jackie factor in Shadowfist in Second Edition, you can expect a few new Shadowfist cards inspired by Rumble in the Bronx and Drunken Master.

### Daedalus Press Release (February 29, 1996)

[...] Basically with Second Edition we're taking Shadowfist, giving it a tune up and making it even better than ever before. Robin Laws and myself are already cracking on the design chores for Second Edition and Rob Heinsoo has got our backs covered with a Second Edition Rulebook rewrite.

Here's what you can expect from 2nd Edition:

Smaller and Easier to Collect

We're removing a lot of cards. Most of them are cards that aren't as effective as we'd like them to be (like PubOrd Squad). Some are cards we're cycling just because we want to replace them with something new. The cards we're cycling out aren't being banned or kept out of print forever, we may be reprinting some or all of them at a future date. The end result is that every card in 2nd edition will be damn useful (no coasters, no deadwood) and it will be dramaticaly easier to collect (not that we expect existing shadowfist players to collect 2nd edition but it will be easier on beginners).

Cleaned up Rulebook

While the Shadowfist Rulebook does a better job than most it could be better. The Second Edition Rulebook will do a much better job of presenting the rules, incorporate much of the FAQ and generaly be clearer and easier to understand. We're not going to change Shadowfist rules, we're simply going to incorporate all the rulings we've made in the past few months as well as cleaning up all the problems and bad explanations that have caused so much confusion.

You won't have to fork over money to get a copy of the Second Edition Rules. We'll be making the text of the Second Edition rulebooklet available on our web page and will be printing thousands of extra copies to be distributed free by retailers, stunt crew members and at conventions.

Approximately 40 New Cards

We're introducing 40 original Shadowfist cards in Second Edition. These cards will have gold foil stamps (although the rest of the set will not contain gold foil stamps). All these new cards will be either Very Common or Common so existing Shadowfist players who want to obtain those cards will not have to make a substantial purchase or complete an entire set in order to do so.

White Knuckle Starter Deck Games

One of our goals with Second Edition is to make starter deck games more exciting than ever before. We want hard core shadowfist players to put away their tuned decks and give untuned starter games a whirl, a lot of people already do this but we want to make it even more prevelant. This will be especialy advantageous for people playing in leagues like OMNI FIST. And we want two player starter deck games to be white knuckle experiences for everyone. A number of people don't find Shadowfist two player play as appealing as multiplayer especialy out of the starter, we intend on changing that.

Make it Inexpensive for Beginners to Field a Competitive Deck

Another one of our goals is to make it possible for a player who has only purchased $20 worth of cards and done some realistic trading to field a deck that can compete and beat a deck constructed by someone who has collected a full set of the original limited edition and all the expansions in a two player game. This is already true for multiplayer play where anything goes but it isn't true in the cutthroat two player dual enviroment.

We're going to achieve this goal via three means:

Ensuring that Second Edition is a lean mean set with none of the very common or common cards being useless or useful only in rare circumstances. This way the beginner isn't stuck with lame cards he can't effectively use or trade (because noone wants them). Currently there are cuthroat Shadowfist decks that require less rares and uncommons than you'd get in a starter, but at the same time you'll have difficulty doing the necessary trading to get them from a single starter because most players won't give you a Mole Network or Shadowy Mentor in exchange for a Hill of the Turtle or Sword of Biting.

Keeping the Shadowfist card enviroment balanced with the fundemental cards being very common and common and not creating a disparity between have and have-not players due to instrumental rare or out-of print cards.

Our ongoing tweaks to Shadowfist two player play dynamics with the introduction of new cards that can, if used properly, turn the game around for a player that is against the ropes in a two player game. We began this process in Netherworld and we'll continue it in Second Edition. You can expect to see Netherworld and Flashpoint cards that do exciting things to two player game dynamics such as Pocket Demon and Bronze Sentinel to be cycled into Second Edition in the common slot.

On a related note, one thing we are absolutely going to avoid is removing powerful cards from print and/or creating tournament rules that restrict the kinds of cards that people can use. We're strongly commited to keeping Shadowfist a fun, competitive and level playing field. We realize that there are rare feng shui sites in Shadowfist that overshadow some of the very common ones. We aren't going to take the rare powerful feng shui sites out of print, instead we are going to replace the ineffectual very common ones with new feng shui sites (and cycle in a few from the expansions) that are just as useful (although with different abilities) as the powerful rare feng shui sites such as Fox Pass, City Square and Dragon Mountain.

Inexpensive Starter Decks

We'll probably be making starter decks a little bit smaller (50-55) cards and reducing the cost a bit. We want to reduce the cost of the initial purchase someone needs to make to get started in the game.

Info Cards in every Second Edition starter deck and in every booster

A few months ago a few Shadowfist players on the net proposed to us that we include info cards in Flashpoint that contained short works of fiction that illustrate Flashpoint's storyline. We liked the idea and adopted it, there will be such info cards in Flashpoint and in Second Edition. We've also decided to take the idea even further to include answers to frequently asked rules questions and sample deck designs. So any new player that makes a substantial purchase of Second Edition will get in essence a full FAQ and a mini-Players Guide. We'll also be freely distributing the text of these info cards on the net and will be putting it up on our web page, as well as making it available to the righteous folks who maintain unofficial Shadowfist pages. Once again I'd like to thank everyone who original suggested info cards. I wish I kept track of your names so I could credit you here, but you know who y'all are.

I hope that gives everyone a good idea of what we're up to. Please email me at jgarcia@halcyon.com or phone me at (206) 232-3040 if you have any questions about our plans.

Jose Garcia
Shadowfist Co-Designer

- Shadowfist Home Page

Last modified: January 23, 1998;