Good morning, dear players:
This radio station is back on air to bring you a bit of news.
We started the year of 2025 with the campaign of weekly updates for Gremlins, Inc. Our initial goal was to keep updating the game until the end of the year; we ended up releasing a total of 24 updates by July. While that's not a bad number, it's true that we set a goal that was a little too unrealistic.
Having released these updates, we managed to harmonize most of the Japanese, English and Russian texts in the game, focusing on clarity and terminology. And now the time has come to improve the texts in Simplified Chinese, as you will learn from this announcement.
Outside of Gremlins, Inc., in 2025 we released a playable demo of Sister ion a Dragon, our take on turn-based combat that mixes magic and weapons. Following the release of the demo, we placed that project on pause – because we bit more than we could chew, and will need to increase our team's bandwidth to continue.
At the same time, we liked the combat system that we created there (see if you can beat all the challenges in this demo!), and it's quite possible that eventually we will create a multiplayer version of this game, “a duel of mages” with an arena-type sequence of fights. But that’s for the future.
Now, once Sister of a Dragon was placed on pause, we turned our attention to a project that some of you may be already familiar with: a card game set in the world of gremlins, which is now called Gremlins, Inc. – Cards & Projects. It first exited as a real-life deck, then as a print-and-play DLC, and now it's a proper digital board game. Keep reading for more details about it.
All in all, today we have a few good news for you:
- we’re releasing a ːcardsː new card for Gremlins, Inc. – a tribute to our neighbors at Lazy Bear Games studio; plus, we introduce minor balancing changes for two other cards.
- we’re starting on the harmonization of the ːchinaː Simplified Chinese texts in Gremlins, Inc., so that a large part of our audience can enjoy rules that are easier to understand, and a terminology that's more consistent.
- with today's release, we're updating ːcursecardːin-game texts in Simplified Chinese, Japanese, English, Russian and Spanish, plus fixes for smaller issues like spelling in a number of other languages.
- we’re also introducing our new game set in the world of gremlins, titled ːcheatdiceː Gremlins, Inc. – Cards & Projects: a true digital board game where the UI allows you to experience the intensity that’s simply impossible in the real world
As always, we remain open to comments and suggestions on all the fronts.
Have fun, thanks for sticking with us – and a warm welcome to all the new players!
NEW CARD
ːcardsː GRAVEYARD KEEPER
Played at:
the Marketplace
Move points:
4
Cost:
200ːbh2coinː
Type:
ːsteampunkː permanent/ normal
Get:
+2ːscoreː
Special rule: When any active permanent card is discarded: it’s resurrected and transferred to you, while you discard this card.
Background story:
This card was inspired by our experience of working with Nikita Kulaga on Sister of a Dragon. Nikita is the game designer at Lazy Bear Games, and his most successful game is Graveyard Keeper. We wanted to include a reference to his work.
So, first came the name. Then came the permanent card with an effect that fit the name, and involved a bit of a risk. This card is a little similar to ːcardsː The Counterfeit, but instead of actively stealing someone else's permanent, here the ability is reactive.
Please be careful not to be pressured into paying off ːcardsː Quick loan.
BALANCING CHANGES
ːcardsː OLIGARCH
Before
Now
Get:
+6ːscoreː, +2ːmaliceː
+6ːscoreː, +1ːmaliceː
Reason:
While the effect of this card is one-time use, and fairly small, the value of 2ːmaliceː is feels a bit too much. In the community, some players expressed that they do not want to play this card in the early stages of the session.
ːcardsː SECRET WAREHOUSE
Before
Now
Cost:
250ːbh2coinː
200ːbh2coinː
Get:
+1ːscoreː
+1ːscoreː
Special rule:
For each of your active permanent cards:
+2ːscoreː
For each of your active permanent cards:
+1ːscoreː, +100ːbh2coinː
Reason:
The large swings in luck involved in playing this card caused frustration among players: for example, if you had 5 active permanent cards, playing this card instantly got you 11ːscoreː.
Having 5 active permanent cards is quite a feat in itself. However, the sheer luck of drawing this card in that moment can sometimes bring about drastic changes in the session, such as almost ending it, or deciding on the winner, which likely caused the frustration.
Because of this, we decided to reduce the score that is received at once, without changing the power of the card itself. Instead, we made it so that players could get money along with the score. Playing this card won't give you a huge score unless you use the money that you receive, to play more cards. This means that you'll need to play more strategically, and there's a greater chance that others will have a chance to interfere with your plan along the way.
SIMPLIFIED CHINESE: FEEDBACK WELCOME!
The largest part of the audience of Gremlins, Inc. right now plays the game in the Simplified Chinese language (followed by Russian and Japanese languages). This is the result of many things, among them – the excellent work of our partners at HeyBox, to whom we are grateful for maintaining a local wiki base about the game; and the tradition of complex board games (including mahjong!) that exists in Asia. If you can play mahjong, keeping in mind all the combinations and opportunities – of course, you will excel in Gremlins, Inc.
In all these years, we translated the game into the Simplified Chinese through a friend's agency. It was reliable, and on time, but we never had a direct contact with a translator, and we never had someone just play the game to see where the style is off, or maybe the translation is no longer up to date.
We're privileged to have met Sam, a professional translator based in China, who signed up to work with us on improving the quality of the Simplified Chinese localization of Gremlins, Inc. – and best of all, Sam also already started to work on Gremlins, Inc. – Cards & Projects, so that its playtest will already be available with a proper translation.
If you play Gremlins, Inc. in Simplified Chinese, please share with us here or on Discord any feedback that you may have on the edits to the texts that may be necessary, in your opinion.
We also would love to know if you have any interest in playing this game – or the upcoming Cards & Projects – in the Traditional Chinese language. We have not localized into that language before and we're uncertain about how much demand there could be.
TEXT EDITS
With his update, we have improved a number of texts in Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Russian, English and Spanish. This is a part of the regular "housekeeping" that we do from time to time, whenever someone reports a spelling mistake or a rule that's not described with enough clarity.
As we work on improving the Chinese version, we will be shipping similar updates once in a while; so if you have any suggestions on what to change, please let us know.
NEW GAME: GREMLINS, INC. – CARDS & PROJECTS
We are a few weeks away from the start of Steam Playtest for our new digital board game (you can already sign up on its store page):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/860560/Gremlins_Inc__Cards__Projects/
The game is based on a deck of cards, and the system of projects; similarly to the current game, it allows you to both plan and derail the plans of the others.
The game has a single-player mode that doesn't require a connection to server (so, no need to have a separate app for this), and a multiplayer mode.
We first started developing this project a few years ago, as a proof-of-concept for a Nintendo Switch version. We have returned it into the active development mode since last September, and right now this is what everyone is busy with: we update the build almost every day, and we're very excited about the upcoming Steam Playtest when we will get the first player feedback.
At this time, we focus on the duels (1vs1). Once the game is in Early Access, we'll look into having 3 and more players, as well as into team format.
If you enjoy Gremlins, Inc., we invite you to join the Playtest.
For us, this is the project where many of the most requested features of Gremlins, Inc. can be finally made possible: we already support multiple win conditions, and our auto-complete user interface takes the lessons of Gremlins, Inc. and applies them to making the new game even more intense.
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With best regards,
CO's dev team