Good morning, monsters,

I’ve been hearing good things about the magic act of a skinwalker chap named Scarey Grant. I’ve also been hearing about how charming he is. Apparently he’s selling out shows in the town square of Wereville. And yes I hear that he does, apparently, a riotous impersonation of a certain cool guy. We’ll see, I’ve got front row tickets tomorrow afternoon. Wednesday’s in Wereville are on for all summer! (just make sure you leave before nightfall as we all understand.)

Update: The pizza craze is heating up. It’s hit at least 3 levels. We’ve got Bungee “Bungee-ZAH!” on level 2 making pizzas with Cave Tentacles, Tartnoggin Skiffknuckles on 3 with their Spinefish and Beef pizza, and Big Sarah Slurp on 5 with the “Shroomzaaaah.” I smell a foodie influencer in 3…2….

It’s been zero days since I realized I needed a few additional cards and submitted an order to the Game Crafter.com. Isn’t that fun?!

We are 10 days until the ship date of the Viva La Dungeon “Promotional Tournament Editions” and I’m hoping the cards will come around the same time.

It’s actually awesome, because a very important piece of the puzzle has come together and I’m proud to introduce….

Viva is brought to you, in part, by the Jelly Cube Union. The Jelly Cube Union is what the collection of Jelly’s run by a person who wishes to be kept nameless calls itself. The JCU cleans the Dungeon. Or to be more specific they have the contract to be the ones who clean the Dungeon. It’s a pretty great deal, they do it for the love of the grime. (I could absolutely not help myself.)

But seriously, the Jellies love cleaning anything, so having them also sponsor Viva La Dungeon was such a big idea it ended up becoming a vital part of the whole contest!

It was the catch that made it what it is. There’s always a catch and this one is a doozy.

See back in the early days of Viva I contracted the JCU to clean up the Dungeon after Viva matches. But there was a scheduling snafu that first night and the Cubes came out much earlier than planned. At first, everything was cool. The cubes were just new obstacles. But then, they started stinging. And then, dissolving people. It was…absolutely amazing.

Turns out that the cleaners don’t like people still making messes at their workplace, and, deliciously, it takes them just the right amount of time to get riled up. Therefore, having a closing ring of increasingly angry Jelly Cubes is now the only way to Viva.

When you build the Dungeon Bomb deck as part of the game setup, you will actually create two decks that you combine to make THE DUNGEON BOOMM….ok yea it’s epic. AND it is two decks - a phase 1 deck I call the “Calm Phase.” The cubes will come, they aren’t angry yet. And then a phase 2 deck I call the “Angry Phase” where the cubes are no longer playing nice.

When you’ve created the Calm Phase deck you will place it on top of the card on the right above. The Angry Cube card. The card that reads: “Cubes now do d6 Damage. Place next to Bomb deck.” It will be obvious when this card appears that you are halfway through the game and the next phase has begun.

All the Dungeon Bomb cards for the second phase have the Angry Cube at the top to remind players that the cubes now do a d6 Damage at the End of Turn. What’s super fun is that when the last Dungeon Bomb card is played the cube are really really mad. I call this the Raging Phase and its card the Raging Cube Card.

The base game set up is for 6 Turns per player. Over the first 3 Rounds, 6 Cubes will come out and occupy 6 rooms. They will be harmless. However, starting just after Round 3 the cubes on the Map and those still to come “activate” and suddenly do damage. I like this ruling a lot for a core game and standardized tournament rule set.**

But, I want to offer out of the box a viable alternate ruling. Possibly an “Advanced” ruling. You can turn the Angry Cube card (d6) over and shuffle it into either the Angry Phase deck or, if you really want a hardcore time, the Calm Phase deck. That way the cubes are coming out but you don’t have any idea when they are going to become painful.

I want to also state that in no way was this a paid advert for the Jelly Cube Union. That said, if you have a Dungeon that needs cleaning they are great and I can give you a number.

Ok, that’s the news for today. I working on something I think is pretty exciting in regards to Viva that I hope I can share more about next week.

love, peace and socket grease,

Cheers, Lich

*we pride ourselves on a tidy Dungeon. (it’s not without its challenges.)
**would probably be a much longer discussion as to why