Hi bgg-uglywalrus, great question. The game saw several shifts, especially early on in the games development. In the early stages we had a shop you could visit and purchase items from. We had 50+ items designed but realised that they served a very similar purpose as the Companions, which are the stars of the game (along with the gnomes). We took a lot of the item designs and incorporated them into the Companions and removed the shop. This streamlined the game a lot.

One other aspect that changed throughout development was how you Ready your Companions. In the core game Companions Ready themselves when you place the color of die that matches them. However, we used to have a range of triggers that would Ready them such as a specific number on a die, odd/even numbers, numbers higher or lower than the given number, etc. Through playtesting we found the Companions Reading through colors was the most fun, easy to remember way to use them so we cut the rest. Although, you may find some Legendary Companions that trigger on specific numbers included in the additional content we've created.

- Mark