Wolf

Before we get to all the game stuff, I’d like to announce the upcoming crowdfund for the Broken River Zines! The campaign begins in September and the goal is to mail a physical zine to subscribers every month for 2027!

Check out the campaign now to download what we’re calling Issue 0 to get a taste for the kind of thing you’ll be receiving.

Backers of Briar Bay heard a few weeks ago, but the writing of Briar Bay is finished, finally. I’m hoping the layout is finished before the end of July and then we’ll be able to print and ship and get everyone their zines in August. That’s a month later than anticipated, but that’s life sometimes.

Beetle Battle is coming along and I don’t anticipate having any issues getting that to people according to the timeline laid out in the campaign. No real update on that yet, though I am thinking of making an important change to the way the game is played. I’ll have to play it another 50 times or so to see how it feels.

I really did not realize what a mental weight Briar Bay had become for me! Knowing people had paid for it and were waiting for it just became this load in my skull that I didn’t realize I was holding until I finished the writing. You see, I’ve done very little creative projects since that campaign ended because I needed to get it finished and out to backers. But now that that is off my shoulders, I’ve been pumping out little games like mad!

You can check out my itch page to take a look. Basically, lots of tiny designs for tiny projects that I could do relatively quickly and easily. It’s been a lot of fun and I think I’ll keep doing these for as long as they stay fun.

Let’s walk through some of them, shall we?

Gloaming Wood is a one-page adventure for the Gloam RPG (check out the podcast page to listen to my interview with the designer of Gloam). This is my first one-page adventure and I think I packed a bit too much into it, honestly. And while I could have used the back of the sheet…I just wanted it all on the front. Anyway, I do like the ideas in it, even if there might be too many ideas in it. Possibly going to expand it later to more of a zine, but I like what I have here.

Mech Hammer is made up of two mini-zines that are a hack of another indie RPG called Sledgehammer. You’re a Mech pilot! That’s pretty much the whole of it, though I did really come to love mini-zines while making this. The process and design constraints make for a lot of fun compressions.

A few weeks ago, I got an idea for a much bigger sort of Mech game, so I thought this would be a fun way to test drive some of the ideas. And while I really like what I came up with, I’ve already decided to change the design, which will make it less of a Sledgehammer hack and more of its own thing. Eventually, I’ll expand this to a much larger game that’s meant to be a mix of Lancer and Pendragon, but, for now, I like what it is and what I came up with.

Wallet Roll is a few little cards to help roll up some NPCs, bosses, towns, adventures, and dungeons while Vamping is an RPG that fits on a button.

Think of these more as fun little design challenges.

Then I also tried my hand at video game design using a ready made program that didn’t require any programming. Very limited system but flexible enough to make for a bit of fun.

The game is called The King Is Dead and you can play it in your browser on your phone or computer.

And then there’s Gnome Quest.

My seven year old is home this summer and often asks me what he should do with his day. I give various answers and the World Cup has been keeping us busy, but he’s always had a lot of fun paging through D&D books, especially the ones about making dungeons. He’ll draw these big elaborate maps and fill them with monsters and traps and treasure and so on.

After making Mech Hammer, which was a hack of Sledgehammer and Brighthammer, I found making mini-zines a whole lot of fun and an interesting design challenge. I mean, it’s just beautiful to turn a single piece of paper into this nice little zine to page through. And so I started thinking about new games to make using that kind of format and structure and my mind kept turning back to games for children. Which led me, happily, to gnomes.

Long ago, when he was between 2 and 4, I would tell my son stories about the friendship between a gnome and a dwarf. They went exploring, fighting monsters, and protecting their home and friends from the many dangers of the mountain they lived in.

My goal for this game was to make a quick, simple, and straightforward system for my son to play. A world of wonder and fun that is, perhaps, less frightening and with fewer risks and dangers than a certain type of player might hope. Because of this, I quickly moved away from the Sledgehammer structure and shifted to a 2d6 system with a simple roll over test structure. I felt this would be a lot easier for kids to conceptualize rather than using the d100 system. There’s also just the simple joy of grabbing a few dice and chucking them.

That change rippled through the entire design and I started looking for more ways to simplify and scaffold information. While Mech Hammer and Sledgehammer rely on the DM or players to do a lot of heavylifting with regard to what certain concepts even mean or how they can be applied. I think this has a lot of strengths for experienced players or people who want the open ended, freeflowing kind of game that many rules light systems use. 

But kids need more structure. Need more things spelled out. I can’t just tell my son that he can be a Wolf Knight and have him figure out what that means for him, just like I can’t have him pick a class or job and have him figure out how that background impacts his character. A bit of handholding is required.

I still wanted to keep the mini-zine format, which meant for more compression as well. Spell everything out and make it simple and easy to pick up and play. 

But this game, or at least my hope for it, is that it will focus on the joy of discovery and exploration. Since my son has always loved making these maps, I thought that could be a great starting mechanic. A way for him to establish his world for this game by discovering the map, filling it in with settlements and landmarks.

And so the Player Handbook is to create your character and introduce the concepts of the game.

The Dungeon Master’s Guide is to teach you how to run the game either for a group or to play by yourself.

The Atlas & Bestiary allow you to explore and discover the world around you and to fill it with creatures to either fight or befriend.

We’ll see what comes next in this design.

I’m grateful for everyone who has already downloaded the mini-zines and I’d love to hear any feedback you have.

This is a work in progress, after all. Going to see what kind of feedback my son has for it.

But, yeah, check out my itch page to see what little things I’m tinkering around with. I’ll probably be blogging a bit about development for individual games over there.