- The First Spine, Arena: a recap of what’s been shared - 22 September 2025
Over the past few months, we revealed the shape of our upcoming online board-and-card game. With a planned release in Q3 2026 and a five-month Early Access phase, the game is beginning to take form through a steady stream of thoughtful updates. This article gathers what’s been announced so far, offering a clear picture of what you can expect.The core concept: strategy on a living gridAt its heart, The First Spine - Arena is a tactical duel between two wizards. Each match unfolds on a 7×7 grid, where players summon creatures, cast spells, and place artifacts. But the board isn’t just a backdrop, it’s part of the strategy. Lava tiles punish careless movement, water slows progress, and ditches can be used for cover or control. Players can even customize the layout, adding a layer of unpredictability to each encounter.Cards in this game aren’t just actions, they are entities. Once placed, t…
- Arena: a new way to play online against other players on Steam - 6 September 2025
Get ready to enter the Arena, the thrilling new way to experience The First Spine online! Compete head-to-head, showcase your skills, and rise through the ranks in this exciting competitive mode. Each card is uniqueIn Arena, no two decks are alike. Don’t expect to wield the same cards as your opponents, every card is uniquely generated based on your level, giving you a personalized arsenal tailored to your journey.From the color scheme to the stats, each card is crafted to reflect your progress, making your deck as unique as your playstyle.Level-based matchmaking and different lobbysJoin distinct lobbies, each of them truely unique. As you earn XP, new locations unlock, each with its own unique twist: flooded board, destructible cards, and strategic challenges that push your gameplay to the next level.The first release of Arena features five thrilling locations, each offering exclusive…
- After the recast - 25 September 2024
Hello everyone, After the release of the recasted version of Drifter’s Tales, it’s time for us to talk more about what’s next. What’s next for Drifter’s Tales We are currently working on porting the game on a console (the platform is yet to announce) and on mobile. Those versions should be launched during the first half of 2025. In the meantime, we are also working on a DLC that will be offered to our players prior to the release of it. This DLC will take place at the same location of the initial version with all the new mechanics we introduced in the recast. The DLC is dated to mid-2025. What’s next for The First Spine Drifter’s Tales is a game finding its roots from The First Spine, a cards game we presented in various festivals and conferences in Europe. You can play online to this game on your browser. We decided to rework this version too, with a client developed as the same way as…
- The recasted version is live - 18 September 2024
We are so happy to announce that the recasted version of Drifter’s Tales is available. How to play? You should be able to see an update for your game starting now. Everything should be automatic on Steam, you just have to play! What’s next? As mentioned before, we are already working on a DLC and porting the game on other platforms. The DLC will be free for those who bought the game before the update.
- The recast lands on Steam on September 18th - 10 August 2024
We are now ready to share with you the release date of the recasted version. On September 18th, be prepare to join a new adventure with a non-linear story, 30+ new cards, new random encounters, new customization features, and a new battle system. We took patiently all your valuable feedbacks and we integrated them in this recasted version. We can't wait to deliver it to you! Cheers, Teddy
- Discover the new features of the recasted version - 22 June 2024
Along with the demo we released a few days back, we prepared you a short video presenting you all the changes to come in the recasted version. As a reminder, here's a list of those changes: A brand-new story You will be able to try a brand-new story, which will take you to the continent of Carmina, full of legends and threats. During your playthrough, you will have to choose your own path to your main objective. We are not sharing many details about the story, but we are excited about this one! Know that one playthrough won't be enough to discover all the stories - some will be available according your choices, and all of them will change on the NG+. Ah yes, a NG+ mode is fully integrated in the recasted version. New gameplay In the initial version, you must pick from a card to another to move around. In the recasted version, you will be able to move a pawn on a map and pick the card yo…
- Our demo is now available - 1 June 2024
The recasted version of Drifter’s Tales is now available to everyone! In this demo, you will have access to 40% of the complete game. We are still polishing the game, and will continue to update the demo according to your feedback & our tests. We are so happy to share it with you! How to obtain the demo? Unfortunately, Steam does not allow us to put the demo officially in the tab demo of the game page as it is not reflecting yet the game we are selling. You can request a key here https://www.thefirstspine.fr/drifters-tales#demo and add it to your Steam account.
- Our demo is coming soon - 14 May 2024
The demo of the recasted version of Drifter’s Tales is now set: May, 29th. What will you find on the demo? All the features we planned to include in the final game will be implemented. Compared to the prologue, you will find: The tutorial, 5 stories to play, along with the choice of the stories Random origins (Architect, Healer, Priest, and Blacksmith) at the start of the game with their own storylines The alchemy, allowing you to modify your player card stats The storyteller, to unlock more rares and powerful cards The Doubt, which change how the battles will occur with random events The options, save system, collection in the title screen Please note that your progress in the demo will still be available in the final game. How to play to this demo? The demo will be available on Steam. Steam does not allow us to release the demo officially (as the demo won’t reflect the game we are sel…
- The prologue is now available - 20 March 2024
Yes, this is quite a surprise. We initially had to launch the prologue on March 27th, but as we are ready to launch it we decided to release the update. How to play the prologue Simply update your game like you always do. Once updated you should see a button in the title screen labelled “Play to recasted: Prologue”. Clicking this will launch the standelone prologue’s executable and close the legacy game. If the standalone is not launching, you can launch it manually under “/prologue/drifters_tales.exe”. The game directory is usually located under “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common”. Limits Due to the standelone nature of the prologue, some features are not available. We tred to include most of our work, but you won't find: The options (they will be present in the title screen) 28 cards (mostly the cards available in others stories) - please note that we already decided to ad…
- A short playable preview will come in an update on 27th March - 10 February 2024
We are happy to announce that you will be able to try the features of the recasted version of Drifter’s Tales in an upcoming prologue. Explore the very first level of the game - which won’t be the first to play The prologue will take you in an area you already saw on other marketing materials and trailers. In this prologue, you will be able to do all the things you will normally do in a playthrough of the recasted version, such as trading, exploring, opening chests, finding encounters, etc. We also integrated a battle that will allow you to test the fresh-looted cards you had. Your character will have more gems to allow you to buy more cards and try some deck builds. The documentary Because this is more than “a story” you can try, we integrated in the prologue some developers' comments about how & why we made the recasted version. People interested in how indie developers are making gam…
- Drifter's Tales: details about our recast - 18 January 2024
This event follows the cancellation from Steam of our relaunch and our participation to the Next Fest. All the details here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1935960/view/6770665671984125089 We are now ready to share with you the timeline of the casted version of Drifter's Tales and what will happen in the following months. A prologue will appear in your game Steam won't let us push the demo for the recasted version to the "demo" section of the game page. So, end of March, you will see an update on our game. We will add a prologue for all our players to try the new gameplay on the recasted version. This prologue will be a way for us to share with you the massive amount of work we have put in the recasted version. More details will come soon about the prologue, stay tuned! How to play the demo outside of Steam You will be able to try the demo we wanted to release during the Next F…
- Drifter's Tales won't participate in the Next Fest and will not have a relaunch - 14 January 2024
TL;DR Steam has unilaterally decided to cancel our relaunch, canceling our participation to the Next Fest at the same time. We are working on a solution to not abandon our players. A few hours ago, Steam informed us of their cancellation of our relaunch. It is with a broken heart that we write these lines, because their simple decision has big consequences on the last year of work we have done to give you the update you deserve. We initially had to release this relaunch under a new page to have a fresh start and take advantage of the features that Steam offers to new games: The possibility of launching a demo before the release of the game Participation in the Steam Next Fest A boost in visibility at launch The relaunch page was validated by Steam on June 24th, 2023 and we began marketing operations to ensure enough wishlists for the launch. We informed on December 2nd of our desire to…
- Happy holidays from us! - 27 December 2023
We are wishing you happy holidays, full of games and rest! 2024 will be for us the launch of the new Drifter's Tales version, full of improvements. As the game is now finished and we are polishing it, we are able to give you a complete list of what will change in the upcoming version: A brand new story We will present you a brand-new story. It's not an update - it's a completely new journey. As an architect, healer, priest or blacksmith you will have to travel to another country. In a complete playthrough you won't be able to play all the stories we have prepared for you - at the end of each story, you will have to choose your next story. You can play 5 stories in a playthrough among the 11 available. Each story as its own secrets and characteristics, and we hope you will enjoy all the efforts we have put on it to vary the situations each time! More cards, more mods Obviously, we added…
- New screenshots for our relaunch of Drifter's Tales - 20 December 2023
As the end year festivities are approaching, we would like to share with you the latest visuals we have on the new Drifter's Tales. As a reminder, you can wishlist us on this page: store.steampowered.com/app/2366490/DRIFTERS_TALES__A_narrative_board_game Before presenting you the new visuals, let us announce you that a demo will be available for the Steam Next Fest (yes, we ARE participating!). We will have a dedicated news for sharing with you the demo.
- Dev diary #7: Deep dive in the very first moments of the game - 11 September 2023
Hello everyone ! Last time we shared a few tricks that we use to make every fight in Drifter's Tales as epic as possible. Today we are going to reveal the first moments in the game. And yes, it's time for you to find out how your adventure will begin! Don't forget to wishlist us on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366490/DRIFTERS_TALES__A_narrative_board_game/ At the origin of everything The very first step of your journey will introduce you to one of the biggest new features compared to the original game. Your character has a story! This origin will be chosen randomly from 4 available: Healer, Blacksmith, Architect or Priest. Each story will allow you to gradually unlock new cards. For example, the Architect will be able to modify the game board while the Blacksmith will improve his cards to make them stronger and more resistant! Drifter’s Tales has a fairly significant…
- Dev diary #6: How to make cards battles epics? - 12 August 2023
One of the challenges we faced was of course to answer the following question: how to create a cards game that contains epic fights? This article is the sixth devlog for our relaunch of Drifter's Tales, a narrative board game available on Steam in early 2024 here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366490/DRIFTERS_TALES__A_narrative_board_game/ Impactful visual effects The first thing to do to release the epicness of a game is to work on the visual effects. So we've designed effects for each spell, item, summon, and enemy movement. Each animation must meet a few specific criteria: each animation must be unique and easily identifiable an animation must not interfere with the reading of stat changes (such as damage inflicted for example) the more powerful the effects, the more the animation should be strong Clear feedback The other lever on which we can press to have epic and memorable f…
- Dev diary #5: Alpha post-mortem, upcoming changes & Steam page - 28 July 2023
We launched our alpha version a few weeks ago and we already have a lot of interesting feedback on how our players have used our game. If you would like to participate, you can register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaYRR1KQjarm1cZcuW6aHoCTA66PnAy1xuV-E9AWdCcht8tQ/viewform?usp=sf_link Oh, and also we finally have our Steam page for our game! We will tell you a little more about it at the end of the article if you wish to wishlist us. Some metrics, and what they mean In order to share with you the work we have done during these few weeks of watching you play, we have decided to share with you some metrics that we consider interesting. The first metric is the usage of stories in this alpha release. The first story to be chosen is undoubtedly the one called “Following the Footsteps”. We don't know (yet) if the main reason is that the button to choose this story is the fir…
- Dev diary #4: A sneak peek at the first stories - 24 June 2023
Last month, I had the pleasure to let you know how we will support the alpha version of Drifter's Tales. Today, it's time for you to discover the two stories that will be present in this alpha version that you can obtain by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/Qyi2a7VBwKYciT7AA In Drifter's Tales, you won't be able to play all the stories in one go. You will travel to the continent of Carmina, and you will have to choose where to go. We have planned more than a dozen stories that all have unique features. The first stories you will be able to experience are those that we offer you to discover in the Alpha version. Following the footsteps In this story, after losing your memory, you decide to follow footprints in the sand. There you will discover the desert of Melates, leader of the thieves faction in Carmina. This story will be an opportunity for you to discover the joys of combat w…
- Dev diary #3: Private alpha & support plan - 3 June 2023
Hello everyone, The release date of the first private alpha is approaching and it's time to show you how we will support this version. Today no screenshots or fancy images. He are going to talk about telemetry, data and cakes. Yes, about cakes. As a reminder, you can participate in this alpha at this address: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaYRR1KQjarm1cZcuW6aHoCTA66PnAy1xuV-E9AWdCcht8tQ/viewform?usp=sf_link The usefulness of tracking actions Since we deployed the first version of the online counterpart of our board game, we have developed our own telemetry system called “Solid Pancake”. Behind this name automatically generated by Github (thanks a lot for this legendary name) hides an event-based tracking system. It's not an easy exercise, but I'll try to explain how this telemetry works. Each time you launch Drifter's Tales, the game informs our Solid Pancake service that a…
- Dev diary #2: A look of the new cards - 13 May 2023
Hello everyone, Last month I talked to you about the struggles and issues inherent in transposing a paper board game to a video game format. This month, it's time to take a closer look at some of the cards in the game, as well as the different ways to get them. Some explanations on the cards In Drifter's Tales you have many cards with various and original effects. Each card has its statistics as well as its effects. Each side of a card has a strength (in red) and a defense (in blue), with the number in the center representing the total hit points the card has. For example, the Cyclops Statue card is not very powerful (one and only one life point, no strength, no defense), but once placed on the board, it grants you gems in order to add some money to your purse. How to get cards in a story There are many ways to get cards in a story! Among these are random encounters that can occur durin…
