itch.io

Thanks for the heads up, I haven't fiddled with itch styling for a while. I'll take a look!

Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for jamming with me! It was really cool to be a part of a jam that had some community collaboration behind it and wasn't just a bunch of folks posting random stuff to it.

There is a lot going on in this game mechanically, and it took me several read throughs to really make sure I understood how the components all work together. And, while there's nothing wrong with that, as a one-pager, I could see it giving folks pause when considering whether or not to play it, and I really think this game would shine in a slightly expanded format (like a little 4 page 1/2 letter zine) that really lets you lay things out and provide some examples.

• Using the cards to build a map is a neat idea (I've seen many other ways of generating maps on the fly, but I haven't seen it done where the cards make up the literal map before.)
• I also really like the call out regarding medications and the impact to healthcare you run into if our systems just stop working...I wish you'd leaned into that a bit more even as currently it's presented as an option rather than a required choice.
• You specify that Players should make decisions regarding stats to use collectively, but what happens when different Characters want to take opposing action? Is there any way the game can support that?
• I would suggest removing the "goes mad" bit. That has some strong implications you may not want to force on players; sometimes keeping it to the vague "loses all hope" and let the Players decide what that means.

When you get down to it, elaborate madlibs are basically the core mechanic of most trpgs (especially story games!) Your choice of prose and prompt does a good job of balancing the direction of the story forward while leaving the player with lots of options to insert their own ideas about what actually takes place in the mind's eye. And, while the distinction between prose and prompt is very clear with the switch to (parenthesis and italics text) I do think a bit of layout work could make that really clear and be used to strengthen what you're trying to accomplish here!

"Crew isn't important, the package is."

This line is my favorite bit from the entire game, because it totally changes how I interpreted the tone of the game and makes all the burning through HP mechanics make sense; you're supposed to burn through PCs, and I love it.

Firstly: Kudos on the text-only version. You may want to convert it to a single column as some screen readers struggle with multi-column formats.

The roll-under attribute mechanic here is an interesting choice, and something I'm always personally conflicted about: on one hand it's an easy way to have higher attributes = greater mastery without having to do any math, and on the other I find that folks can sometimes struggle with roll-under because it goes against the ingrained impulse that "higher is better." Regardless, it shouldn't take folks long to grok and get into the rhythm of it, and I think it's a great simple way to handle resolution.

The attributes (Swim, Song, and Solve) are great, and the GM support is solid and super appreciated. I'm still not convinced about having the Seen mechanic force folks to abandon the town as that can result in a Player having to sit out for a potentially long portion of the game; as a reference to Honey Heist it makes sense, but that's also one of the things that I personally dislike about Honey Heist.

The over-under approach to rolls based on size (where certain things get harder/easier as your size changes) is a clever approach to handling challenges, as are the split rules for mitigating damage (which can result in the creation of new potential challenges with your dopplegangers/split slimes.)

This game would definitely benefit from some additional guidance regarding facilitating challenges:

•  I didn't see anywhere that specifies whether it uses a GM or not (I could see play happening either way, but then there are some questions about how the story/challenges get structured and how the amount of damage dealt is decided.)
• Some advice on creating an adventure and what sort of challenges a slime could face would be beneficial (I think you originally had some on the draft) but that would be hard to fit in with the limitations of the one-pager space.

The resolution mechanic on this is cutting edge. 😜 The theme of this game is wonderfully weird with  novel mechanics to match. The physical challenge involved could definitely be frustrating for some, but I expect that would be offset by the fact that the game is clearly supposed to be goofy and absurd. I like that you went for a GM-less game, but outside of the "What are we doing" set-up there's very little direction about what to do when, which can result in folks struggling to know what to do next (this is one of the challenges I regularly see with No Dice/No Masters games;) I feel like you could use a final step after determining consequences that explicitly hands narrative control to another Player and drives the shenanigans forward.

Definitely my favorite theme of the jam! I love the use of an actual map to claim territory, using odd bits for tokens, and the suggestions for "calamitys" (e.g. farmer's market, concert.) The d6+stat resolution is tried-and-true solution pretty much anyone who's played a TRPG before will be able to pick up quick, and while I'm still unclear on what it means to have "Advantage," if I were to run this I'd be able figure something out.

Great! Glad to hear it works now!

I think I fixed the problem. The updated fixed booklet .pdf should be in the new Wanderlust (v2023-03-22) [Letter].zip file.

Thank you for letting me know! I will look into what's causing the issue and get an update out as soon as I can.

I'm glad you found it helpful!

I'm thinking I'll have all the mechanical bits finished by today, but the extra art and polish is still at least a week or two off. I'll probably submit what I've got as-is and then add the clean things up in a later update.

This is very cute! I love the use of physical tools that guide the play, and this is very tactile and well executed! I could easily see the same structure being used to create an Infinity Train inspired story too!

I assume image should be the same size your game res is or higher

Based on what I was seeing on other game pages, that's the answer I was starting to lean to. Every example I saw had the embed BG image resolution at the same resolution or a larger resolution than their game.

Without having an html embeded game to test for myself, I couldn't say with 100% certainty that was the answer.

Glad to hear that you got it resolved!

Here's an example of how it gets  applied in the code from Mingle (right click on the image and select Open in New Tab to see it clearly)

Mingle is using an image that is 1920x1080 for the embed BG, and the game_frame div is 640x360. So the image being used is bigger than the dimensions of the frame. There's a gap on either side because the game_frame is only 640px wide while the inner column is the default 960px.

Here is a handful of games using it:

• Mingle
•  this game about chickens
• Lookouts
• Wayfarer
• Assessment Examination
• Vampire Survivors
• Tenjutsu
• Dynacore
  

In every case I've looked at, the game creator has uploaded an image that is slightly bigger than the dimensions for the frame containing their game (i.e. the game_frame div).

It also looks like you can use a GIF if you want to use an animated image; the chicken game and Assessment Examination linked above both use gifs.

Can you send me a screenshot of the specific issue you're having? I'll can see if I can figure out the problem.

Hey there! I'm going to have to look into the Embed BG option, as I've never done an embedded html game before.

I couldn't find anything in the itch documentation on Embed BG...just this comment in the forums: https://itch.io/t/213380/whats-embed-bg-in-the-theme-editor

From some initial poking around, it looks like the image is being assigned to this div with the game_frame class on it. It appears on both the iframe and click to fullscreen embeded game variations.

This is a great collection of assets with the extra bonus of being released in the Public Domain. Thank you for putting this together.

This pack would also be great for little zines and things for folks interested in assembling physical games.

I received an email from a designer a few weeks ago that said that they were going to use a different platform for distribution of their game specifically because itch doesn't support revenue sharing.

Two other developers and I were just talking about this on Sunday.

We would love to work on more collaborations together on itch, but the current way projects are handled make that challenging. We're not a studio and we all have our own separate individual projects we are working on, but we occasionally work together a project (usually part of a game jam), and with the current way projects are handled it's super not ideal.

We can't set up a revenue split to give us each a cut. Instead for each project we need to decide who's going to be the primary developer, and then someone has to keep track of that when a purchase does come through to make sure the correct amount gets dispensed out. It's super messy and it means we're less inclined to do full scale collaborations simply because we don't want to rip off our friends, but we also don't want to have to manage payouts to each other.

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

Going forward it'll probably be only Affinity, as I've been phasing Adobe out of my working process. I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful!

Joy!

This was great! It is super fun to hear the beats come together, and it's all pretty low-key in terms of challenge, which is exactly how a game about Lo-Fi music should be! XD

Hey there! I finally figured out how to find the project ids and modify the widget iframe so that I could add Spaceman Jones to the Example Zines list. Sorry it took me so long to figure out.

Such a fun idea, and a great way to create personalized figures. This is part right here is what most won me over; nice!

...If no color fits, pick whatever- “cool hair” could be defense, since people don’t want to mess it up...

If you have any feedback specific to a Minigame (good or bad,) please post your experience below (or as a new topic if you'd prefer that,) especially for the Race for the Wally. The Ashcan Edition of Streets of Fire is an early playtest edition, and the more input I get from folks, the better I'll be able to fine tune the finished game. Thank you!

If you find a type or a grammatical mistake, please let me know in this thread, so that I can fix it!

Hey there! Did something in the rules confuse you? I'd love to hear about it! Post your rules questions below, so I can provide an explanation and figure out what sections of the rules need to be clarified or expanded on.

This is one of my go-to games, especially for cons. It never fails to delight folks, allowing for both cute silly fun and heart wrenching emotional moments. I've run many many one-shots, and it holds the record for the longest campaign I've ever run.

This game is very much a slice of life game, and easily falls into the Iyashikei (healing) genre, with a tone similar to what you'd find from Yotsuba&!, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō, My Neighbor Totoro, Hakumei and Mikochi, and The Helpful Fox Senko-san (which is literally about an 800-year old fox spirit who shows up to help uplift the spirits of a young working man.)

My biggest critique of Golden Sky Stories is that the system is a bit fiddly, as you have to keep track of multiple resource pools which cascade from one to the next. You have Dreams, Connections, Wonder, Feelings, Memories, and Threads. And, several of these resource pools do similar, but slightly differnt things from one another; Wonder activates Powers while Feelings boost Action Checks, but both of them turn into Memories, and Memories can be used for either Powers or Action Checks. You also have the bit of back and forth math of keeping your Connections rankings in sync with the other Players. But, this really only becomes a problem when you're running longer multi-session campaigns.

That said, GSS also has one of the best bennie mechanics of any game I've ever played, in the form of Dreams, where any player can applaud the actions of another Player at any time for any reason. It's a great way to get folks to play to character and to cheer one another on!