Introducing: The Fourth Horizon Podcast

Earlier this year we announced Fourth Horizon, a brand-new expandable card game by Smunchy Games.

I’ve been hard at work designing the game and writing about the world since well before that announcement. We’ve shown off the game on Twitch since then, and have had some discussions on Twitter, but we have yet to really do a proper deep dive on what the game and setting are like.

And we still won’t. Not here, anyway.

The game is still in alpha, which means there’s a lot that’s still changing—and which has the potential to change. Recently, I decided that since the game took a whopping 1.5 hours to teach its basics, it needed to be rebuilt almost from the ground up with more consideration for getting players into it easier. Nothing sapps the fun from a new game than struggling to learn how to play it, after all.

I was able to keep a good portion of what we’d already been working on, but every single card had changes applied to it. The frames I designed earlier this year had to be reimagined (the cards above are the newest version as of October 2020). All of this, plus a general lack of time, makes it hard to do proper blogs and updates of that sort.

However, I still want to talk to you all about Fourth Horizon, because I just think it’s fun. I think I’ve found a compromise.

The Fourth Horizon Development Podcast

This is going to be how I deliver updates about the development of the game and stories for the foreseeable future. It’s a short 15-25 minute podcast with me, Adam Bassett, the creator and designer of Fourth Horizon. I’ll share stories and insights about the game and setting as we produce them. It’s like a development blog, but one that I hope we can all learn a bit from. I plan to post new episodes weekly, giving you a close look at the development and creative process of creating a card game.

You can catch the first two episodes right now, which discuss what Fourth Horizon is, and some updates that happened in October 2020. There’s more to come as well—stories, insights, and updates about the project as we head toward its release.

The podcast is currently available on Anchor, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Pocket Casts, and Radio Public. More platforms will become available later.

I’ll aim to post new episodes each week, so look for those on Wednesdays at 6:00am Eastern Time (US). If you would like to discuss the episodes, swing by our Discord server!