In Edge of Darkness, coming to Kickstarter on February 20th, players take the roles of leaders of important Guilds inside the city of Aegis. As a Guild leader you will have a variety of ways to affect the outcome of the game.

The game is played in a series of rounds, each divided into two phases. In the first phase the players take turns drafting available cards from a tableau to form their hands, and generating Threat cubes based on the cards they’ve drawn. Players can spend Influence to change the order of the cards they draft from the tableau. When a player drafts a card that another player has skipped using Influence, the drafting player gains Goodwill in relation to the Influence spent on that card.

In the second phase the players drop Threat cubes into the Threat Tower and suffer the consequences, and take turns using the cards they’ve drawn to take actions in the city.

Some cards are owned by the Guilds. Owned cards have a special slip inserted into them that shows the card’s ownership. Most cards begin the game as unowned neutral cards. In all setups, there will be one or more Locations that enables players to take ownership of an unowned card with the specific mechanism determined by that Location.

When you use one or more abilities on a card owned by another Guild you have to pay that Guild some coin – one per ability. When you use an ability on a card of your own Guild, or that is unowned, you can use the ability for free.

After you’ve finished using the card abilities you wish, you discard your cards. Cards owned by other Guilds go to their Guild Hall. Cards owned by your Guild and unowned cards go into the common discard which is reshuffled when the draw deck is exhausted.

In the first phase of the round players draw the cards in their Guild Hall FIRST, before drafting from the shared tableau. This means that a player will get their own cards more frequently.

Your goal as you play is to take actions that translate to Victory Points when scored at the end game. You will gain Victory Points for each Advancement you’ve crafted into cards you own. You will gain Victory Points from taking actions as you play that generate Reputation. You gain Victory Points based on the number of Trained Agents you have.  You will gain Victory Points from the amount of Coins and Goodwill you’ve accumulated. And you’ll score Victory Points based on how well you fended off attacks from The Threat during the game, protecting the City from terror.  The player with the most total Victory Points when the game ends is the winner.
