RISE OF THE DREAD MOON discussion

[Kurgan]

So, thanks to Virg for posting this first in HeroQuestFans Discord... there's an event called "HeroQuest Day" on July 15th. They have some youtubers (I confess I haven't watched before) who will be playing/presenting/streaming the bonus quest (which is called "Knightfall" and releases digitally the same day) and the first quest of the actual book which is called "Ancient Waterways Within"

HeroQuest Day 2023



Hello again, gamers!

The Avalon Hill team has been working hard behind the scenes on so many wonderful things this year, such as the exciting upcoming expansion for HeroQuest, Rise of the Dread Moon. This will be the first original Quest Pack for HeroQuest in THIRTY years! It also follows closely on the storyline first started in Mage of the Mirror – with the Elven kingdom in turmoil, Zargon will unleash his most treacherous machination yet!

We decided that such a momentous occasion was deserving of celebration, which is why we’re announcing that the day Rise of the Dread Moon is released - July 15th, 2023 - will be the very first ever HeroQuest Day!



What is HeroQuest Day?

We’ve joined together with three wonderful partners and their gaming groups to bring you hours of dungeon-delving fun streamed via our partners’ accounts on YouTube.

First up, Ryan from Nights Around the table will begin the day with the classic quest The Rescue of Sir Ragnar from the core HeroQuest Game System. This quest is a fan favorite and is an excellent lead-in to the story of Rise of the Dread Moon –you’ll find out why by watching all the events!

Next, we’ll welcome Jamie and Jeff of Foster the Meeple who will take you through one of our favorite quests from Mage of the Mirror, The Elven Prospector, to help catch fans up to speed on the events of the expansion.

Next, Ashton and Daniel from Shelfside will follow up with an exciting original quest, Knight Fall, detailing an important event that launches into motion the events that will take place in Rise of the Dread Moon. This thrilling quest is packed with exciting twists and turns – you won’t want to miss it! Best of all, KnightFall will be available free to download at the conclusion of the stream.

Finally, Paula Deming will take on the first quest in the Rise of the Dread Moon quest book! Get your first glimpse of the expansion as our heroes start to uncover what deadly dungeons lie between them and understanding the significance of the Dread Moon.

But the day would not be complete without Zargon himself! The fiendish Dread Sorceror will be watching along from his secretive lair, live tweeting throughout the day. If you’re not already, make sure you’re following him at www.twitter.com/heroquest so that you don’t miss a single villainous aside.

And finally, don’t forget to pre-order YOUR copy of Rise of the Dread Moon (out 7/15) so that you can experience for yourself the thrilling story contained within. Pre-orders are available at the bottom of the page through Pulse, or at other retailers globally.

We hope to see you there - The Quest is Calling!



Schedule of Events

10am ET/7am PT
Nights Around a Table – “The Rescue of Sir Ragnar” from the HeroQuest Game System quest book
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQStO5 ... SBNu2-IJtg
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12pm ET/9am PT

Foster the Meeple – “The Elven Prospector” from the Mage of the Mirror quest book

https://www.youtube.com/@FostertheMeeple

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4pm ET/1pm PT

Shelfside – “Knight Fall,” an original quest available to download FREE on 7/15

https://www.youtube.com/c/Shelfside

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7pm ET/4pm PT

Paula Deming – “Ancient Waterways Within” from Rise of the Dread Moon

https://www.youtube.com/@PaulaDeming



Meet our Partners

NIGHTS AROUND A TABLE

Ryan Henson Creighton is a Canadian game and puzzle designer. As a senior game developer at Corus Entertainment, he programmed, designed, and animated over 50 games for YTV.com and other Corus properties over seven years, and wrote and performed in commercial spots for Xbox, Nintendo, and others. He founded Untold Entertainment Inc. in 2007, where he created games and interactive pieces largely for Canadian kids' teevee producers. He co-created Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure with his 5-year-old daughter Cassandra, which received international acclaim. Ryan and Cassie recounted the experience in a TEDxToronto talk. Ryan founded LockQuest to design puzzles for the CBC, Pokémon Go creator Niantic, and others, as well as his own Toronto-based escape the room game, Escape the Book Club Killer. He served as the Narrative Director and puzzle designer for the Mysterious Package Company. Since 2015, Ryan has hosted Nights Around a Table, a YouTube series about board games. Ryan is the author of Unity 3D Game Development by Example: A Beginner’s Guide, and various science fiction short stories. He served as Game Control for Puzzled Pint Toronto for five years. He is currently designing a Virtual Reality video game for Toronto-area studio Games By Stitch.

FOSTER THE MEEPLE

Foster the Meeple is a YouTube channel all about Board Games and Board Gamey Things. Our main goal is to share our love and passion for board games with others in hopes we inspire them to join in on this amazing hobby! We are all about keeping things lighthearted and fun!



SHELFSIDE

Shelfside is a Northern California based YouTube channel who do deep dives on all sorts of board games! They also make board gaming comedy sketches, game table reviews, Top 10 lists, DIY, podcasts, and more!



PAULA DEMING

Paula is a gamer, improviser, and actress. You can find her streaming board and video games on Twitch, playing ttRPGs with The Glass Cannon and Good Time Society, creating Board Game Sketch Comedy on "Things Get Dicey", and contributing to Watch It Played. She also is one half of the YouTube reaction channel "The Gallifrey Gals" and creates the comedy history podcast "Remember, Remember" with Matthew Jude. No, she does not sleep.


Avalon Hill HeroQuest Rise of the Dread Moon Quest Pack Game - Presale
$44.99

Makes me wonder if these "partners" will be doing more stuff in the future with AH on HeroQuest in some official capacity? Does this mean we'll have some similar event every year for the next several years? I guess we'll find out... hopefully.

Source: https://hasbropulse.com/blogs/avalon-hill/heroquest-day-2023



Then there's some stuff about the pre-order ship dates being different.

[Kurgan]

As we've been talking about on HeroQuestFans Discord the Pre-Order date is still supposed to be July 17th, and we've been told that the fans who unboxed the game nearly a week ago now got their copies from local shops in Europe (apparently the stores jumped the gun).

If you visit HasbroPulse today it's giving a US ship date of August 11th. UK is saying July 16th, and Europe (English is the only language NOT showing "sold out") says Sept 18th.

And of course the pages are covered with disclaimers about dates changing without notice.

Still not going to "pre" order myself, but if you're not in Europe, sounds like your chances of getting it early are slim to none at the moment. Not that I mind, I'll get it when I get it. One suggestion is that maybe they'd be selling it at GenCon. While that sounds great, I wouldn't be surprised if it sold out fast there too (and I'd hate to see people scalping it). Seems none of their releases have gone smoothly exactly according to plan, but nobody complains unless it causes a delay. Thank goodness it's a retail product and not a limited time exclusive this time!

[Kurgan]

So if "Knightfall" is available 3pm (I guess 4 if it takes about an hour to play) on a Saturday, that's still ahead of my stream time... we can at least talk about it (and yes, I would be re-mixing those quests when we play them eventually on our stream!).

I should have plenty of minis lying around to be able to proxy these adventures if I had to...

The 15th is a saturday so we'll still be halfway through our Frozen Horror twitch stream when Paula does her Rise of the Dread Moon quest 1 play-through/presentation, that's kind of a bummer. I suppose we could start OUR stream earlier (4 instead of 6, right after KnightFall releases), and adjourn a little early so people can watch the latter.

[QorDaq]

For added data: I ordered 1 Preorder from Amazon and 1 from Hasbro on 18 June 23.

My Amazon order still say's expected delivery is 18 July 23, despite the current Amazon (US) not currently allowing for new orders.

I suspect there may have been multiple waves ordered by Hasbro, and perhaps some of the date changes could have been related to 2nd wave arrivals.

[Kurgan]

Honestly if we just saw one reporting with a video clip of them flipping through the quest pages, that wouldn't be against the rules, would it?

Thanks Ribby for alerting me to the fact that Avalon Bill posted up the Assassin photos (in Avalon Hill's official Discord) and re-posting them in the HeroQuestFans Discord. Sadly no explanation of the Assassin tile which is what I was hoping for, but nice pictures...

And Virg has pointed out many sites are reporting... maybe some media review embargo being lifted or something because now many sites are reporting official stuff about Rise of the Dread Moon, thanks Virg for this one: https://boardgametoday.com/avalon-hill-launches-a-new-heroquest-quest-pack-rise-of-the-dread-moon/ or this one: https://www.wargamer.com/heroquest/board-game-adventure-rise-of-the-dread-moon

[Kurgan]

Yeah Avalon Bill gave a 100 to my question there in the Avalon Hill official discord on the shipping situation... very helpful

[LucaRocks]

So how long until we find out the NEXT expansion pack after Dread Moon?

I figure they will shoot for any early 2024 release. I would love if they did smaller expansions and released them at the same time (ala KK and RotWL).

[Kurgan]

We already know Prophecy of Telor is next.

Yes, the retail re-release of the Mythic exclusive, extras unknown, presumed to have typos fixed and cards, doors included minimum. All we know is the holographic cover (on the smaller style box used by KK/ROTWL) and the release date is a little fuzzy... was it later this year or early next?

After that they have dropped hints of various things... talk of Dwarves (maybe the "lost" Dwarf quest pack from 1992, finished?), Ogres (Against the Ogre Horde from 1991?), and positive things said about other games (which doesn't mean they're ever coming out again but who knows) like Advanced HeroQuest and Space Crusade. They've also hinted at wanting to produce more new content... and also looking for ways to get the former Mythic exclusives into the hands of fans and away from scalpers (and I assume they didn't ONLY mean Prophecy of Telor there).

Of course it could all be a big swerve, but we do know that they're always 3 projects in, so whatever the third project is, they're already working on it and for all we know POT is done. When will we find out? Hard to say these days but a perfect time could be GenCon, or PulseCon... or just some random Friday? Again, who can tell anymore... I wish I knew!

[cornixt]

Dread Moon was announced over a year before release, but I doubt they'd wait that long for the next new quest given how successful this one is. I imagine that filling out the main character quest packs would be a priority just for the models, although whether they will start from scratch or use the old draft materials (if they even have access to it) is anyone's guess at this stage.

[Maalicia_Ironhoof]

Dread Moon was announced over a year before release, but I doubt they'd wait that long for the next new quest given how successful this one is. I imagine that filling out the main character quest packs would be a priority just for the models, although whether they will start from scratch or use the old draft materials (if they even have access to it) is anyone's guess at this stage.

It was less than a year and the initial "reveal" was a mock up box in the background of a video still (featured on the first page of this thread, in October last year) that fans were left to speculate over for around 4 months before there were any official comments, generally we are seeing about a 6 month window between releases, with some sort of announcement 6 months prior to each release (and micro "hero pack' released being dropped in November/December each year - with no significant prior announcements).

However; I wouldn't be surprised we see them break this cycle soon and try and squeeze POT out before Christmas for the holiday season, whatever the case we should see more news on it in the next month or 2.

I would speculate that if POT was left as a Jan/Feb release it would be a great opportunity to release the alt gender hero's in a hero pack in time for Christmas.