On the official Incredible Dream YouTube channel, you can find “Kinfire Playthrough,” a series of six 20-odd-minute videos where well-known internet personalities learn the game with you by playing the first several quests.
If you haven’t watched the series yet, or you want a refresher, here’s what’s been happening on “Kinfire Playthrough”:
Episode 2: Attempts are made to cross a river.
After defeating the vicious wyvern (and selling its corpse to a member of the caravan for “like six bucks”), our heroes come to a wide river with a collapsed bridge. They suspect sabotage, but the theorizing will have to wait.
The immediate concern is that a makeshift replacement bridge must be assembled so that the caravan can cross. If the Seekers can string a few ropes across the river, the rest should be simple enough. They each tie off one end of a rope on the near bank and prepare to cross. Thus begins the first skill challenge.
Each Seeker must choose either to swim across the river or to jump across the rubble of the fallen bridge. They must then flip over the top card of their deck.
These are the same decks used in combat, and their composition reflects each character’s strengths and specialties. Each card has one or more colors, each associated with a different skill:
- Red cards represent power. Power is seen through physical strength and toughness, and is useful when performing feats requiring raw strength or endurance.
- Green cards represent finesse. Finesse is seen through agility and cunning, and is useful when performing feats such as acrobatics, trickery, or sleight of hand.
- Blue cards represent wisdom. Wisdom is seen through knowledge and mental prowess, and is useful when performing feats that require learning, perception, or leaps of logic.
Most cards have a border of one of these colors, although some have two-color borders, and the rarer white cards are “wild,” in that they can be used in place of a card of any color.
In this case, each Seeker who chooses to swim hopes to turn over a red card, and those who choose to jump hope to flip over a green card. Each Seeker's character sheet has a simple chart to remind their player what colors they are most likely to draw.
Ryan (as Roland the dwarven sorcerer), has more red cards in his deck than any other color, and so chooses to swim. Unfortunately, he manages to draw a blue card and a green before his first red. That earns him two “Exhausted” debuff cards to deal with for the rest of the quest.
The jokes about the dwarf almost drowning in a shallow river proceed to write themselves. Luckily the others have a much easier time getting across.
The party then enters combat for Quest 2! Thanks to the choices made, they find themselves at a bit of a disadvantage, but are still able to work together to defeat one of the monstrously powerful deer (long story).