itch.io

Thank you, Caelin. These are short, sweet, table-ready and read like a flash fiction, right up my alley. There's no way I'm not using it with in what's coming

To me these are perfect.

The Core Resolution Mechanic is just 3 sentences written in such a clear, applicable and unforgettable manner that the whole thing feels like a common sense.  D20+modifier, casualties dice, tie casualties. Useful extra notes on modifying Modifiers (sic), Casualties Dice, making it an interesting backdrop for Player Characters to let them shine and make a difference or to feel small, speeding and dilating times.

This is not a supplement that's needed to be referenced at the table, this a little collection of rules and ideas that makes your table ready for things that could have been too slow, too abstract or too heavy on GM-fiat before.

this rocks. I came here in preparation for the eco mofos jam 2024 and accidentally translated this into Russian, in a delightfully terrible way we call a jackal or an overmind translation. I also preserved all of your original design to encourage our beloved readers to learn the language of game designers and colonial empires. Where do we go from now? I'd be happy to share it with the world

cool, looks like you've got this!

So it's a first solo videogame dev for you, but you are not a stranger to code

zoomed out I can hardly see the difference, zoomed in I feel like bilinear embankment is muddled as if I'm seeing it through the veil (or a stretching of mismatched display resolution), walls are damp mudbrick and windows have curtains, whilst nearest neighbour has a crisp crunchy pixel-art look with bars on the windows and cracks on the dry plaster walls.

seeing you working on these subtle changes so early in the project, I hope it's not a kind of scope creep time sink cart before the horse thing.

is it to early to ask you about a timed roadmap of some kind? some devs are playtesting-driven from the earliest stages, others won't share a draft encounter with placeholder graphics even if their life would depend on it.

thank you, found it https://www.tumblr.com/winonsana/739217770443685888/cross-disciplinary-training-...

it's a bit funny how your interest in things lost caused your own writings to seemingly disappear. 

i always wished tumblr seo would be better, platform is so neatly designed but so isolated

did you delete or rename your tumblog? i wanted to share your article about your studies and history of martial arts inspiring multiclassing/disciplines in Gubat Banwa and couldn't  find it anymore, links and bookmarks all dead

I appreciate how lovingly crafted new portraits are.

Are you going with procedurally generated, fixed or mixed locations?

looks cozy, kept me waiting for cameraman to knock on the door and visit this blacksmith from before.

thank you a lot, of course this helps!

do you have any specific reason for choosing Delving Deeper over infinite amount of original books, retroclones and other osr books? 

reading rulebooks without running them is meaningless and too abstract for the newcomers and I'm trying to be very deliberate in my early influences and commitments because I'm probably building the core that will inform how I see what will happen next.

I'm very happy to have "Monsters &" as my first monster poetry book and I picked up the demo of your grand campaign just to learn how to write. I choose to have Amanda Lee (you got a job on the garbage barge), Zedeck Siew (decolonising D&D, who gets to be a human) and you as my guides into the writing for the adventures, but I have never heard about Simon J. Bull until now

What does AC as Armour mean?

I've got this because it reads like poetry, but understanding mech probably wouldn't hurt. 

I'm new to this, not 5e or rules-heavy person and plan to read some osr books. Some guidance about which to read first to make sense of mechanical parts of this book would be welcome. 

For now I just consult with glossaries.

I've only ran Cairn and EZD6 and plan to read Black Hack and White hack to learn about bare-bones osr approach, Basic Fantasy to learn about what community can achieve and Shadowdark to learn at least one 5e-adjacent system that's not slow, bloated or corporate.

thank you

i'll check out eco mofos

we're lucky to have Zedeck Siew on board. I was very touched by his Decolonising D&D when saw it reposted by Gubat Banwa. dev https://makapatag.tumblr.com/post/742021997109936129

I got inspired and asked our ttrpg club gathering pretty much the same question Zedeck Siew asked - why "going forth into the hinterland to seek treasure and slay monsters is a thing," isn't it some kind of dehumanising, capitalist colonist bs? Why is it fun? I intend to finish writing my very first "classic" (hopefully not classic) dungeon crawler one-shot tomorrow, while thinking about this.

I'll now follow up Zedeck's work more closely. Bookmarked his "To Put Away a Sword" like 3 times during my initial research around the Palestine Bundle and copy/paste co-op. Daniel  Locke, who's not my artist, played into his strengths illustrating that adventure and I appreciate it a lot.

everybody else on your list, i'm saying it again, are also already core influences of mine or core influences of my infuences. I bought Into the Odd pdf the very same day I got Palestine Bundle.

fkr ftw

1. please let "I already own this" button to redirect user to the download page, while preserving options to Buy or Gift again. 

2. please apply accent color to the Download button that appears at the top of the page for the things we own.

I will probably buy some of my fav things again, like I did with Alone among the Stars, but current system of resending download links to email looks like an unnecessary extra step. I'd rather have it as an option.

Current rendering of the pages for games we already own is a bit confusing.  

I didn't even notice that Download button apperaring on the top of the page during my first year on itchio.

Don't get me wrong it's handy that it's up there, when you know it's up there, but maybe apply the accent color to it, so it's more noticeable?

thank you

hello there.

I copied list of influences into my notes. These are either what I love or what I hear about from people who I love / like and or cool devs. This list of influences felt like home. 

Things written on the itchio intro page describes game I would write if Caves of Qud was more important to me and if it was not my first year on the scene — making, playing and GMing. 

Should i just jump to the Lone Eons quickstart? or are there any other, entrance points, approaches and communities?

What are your fav online communities related to the Lost Eons that are not discord? I find Discord too fast and distracting, it's also prone to the data loss if mismanaged anyhow (some people quit Shadowdark community after what happened there).

I will probably begin with bringing The Quiet Year to our local ttrpg club, and then dive into the Eons via the solo quickstart, however I'm very curious about where're you're at and how this game is happening to other people today.

did devs mostly or totally moved on to the Eco Mofos and other projects because there's more fun and money in making new stuff?

would you rather prefer that new people who's getting to know your work begin with the Mofos or its artless demo?

thing is my ttrpg reading list already has a lifetime's worth of books, that is if these are meant to be experienced by reading them and then scheduling and actually playing with other people, so I'm trying to get the feel of the game and its people beforehand to make everything more connected and learn better ways to find the commond ground when introducing these games to my communities, where I am the one most enthusiastic about all the new systems, settings, adventures, styles of play, cultures and procedures.

I know it's a lot and I hope it makes sense. Basically I'm new to this and a bit lost. But very curious.

these are so beautiful and organised that i think i understand how to play a by just looking at them 

Is it intended to be a live version during active dev phase?

Is it updated more often than pdf download?

 I'm currently reading a and writing weird amounts of game stuff and realising it's handy to have a simple folder for all PDFs or like. I rejected folders, i just use YourName — BookNname ± what is it.

off-topic, but important, do you by any chance have a fav marketplace for digital manga? maybe not amazon and not subscription, but digital. Azam Raharjo is on itchio, but Nihei Tsutomu and his NOiSE is not. And 

there are some images

that haunted me for too long.

also i think you are cool and thank you for nerves games rpg reading list. i hope i will grow and share my list with you someday soon

hello there.

this link leads to the project admin login page not the public front

Is art on this page -32- made by Makapatag, Xrystina Marcos or someone else? I like how works to set the mood

these made me feel the feels i don't get from digital art. it's nothing like Sydney Smith, but made me want to pick up the brush just as his watercolors do.  Your brushwork feels so free.

our ttrpg group sometimes projects evocative pictures on the wall to set the mood and these paintings may just be the next thing. 

thank you

CC0 on them made me remember about the annual, year-long Open Games Jam (Forever Open Source) here on itch. With such a great artwork I may want to think which of my game drafts have start their life as an open source projects 

glad to hear, rooting for you. I just realised I've never heard of the developer heaven, I wonder what it would be like?

how is it going?

oh, so it's how many fingers, not what fingers lol. 

so it's 1/n chance to match for people who's fingers are as random as dice. i'm new to probability math and it's riveting. 

i instantly thought of a tiny glass jar with 2d4, 2d6 and 2d10 to mimic same chances to match

i didn't quite get the ranges mechanic. does it mean how far the guess is from the target? it looks like always betting on 3 will win everything that's not hard.

it also got me thinking about the street origins of the craps. i think that dice-light systems are ok for streets and public spaces if executed well. my group actually tried Cairn on the go, but it required a little too much dice. Did anyone tried EZD6 on the go yet?

thank you! 

now i just need a friend generator to quickly reassemble my group with players who only leave the town when i do

thank you, i checked it it out on a whim and now using towering turtle page as my phone, laptop and professional background. what is Troika?

what were the inspirations? i'm curious, used to seeing those are usually listed in pdf and or itch page for CC games and also can't help but notice your page 2 has just enough of free space 

layout and palette reminded me of 2400 by Jason Tocci the most — and it's a good thing

this looks great.

 I'd be infinitely grateful for a link to a short manual and preset to build such generator and fill it with custom content. 

My prev research on topic mostly lead to the specific generator engines made to teach people code. I plan to give a https://perchance.org/tutorial another go in case of needing such a thing again, but learning more excel/sheet expressions and or asking you for a building block looks like a more straightforward route.

thank you

i'm glad to see your progress.

What ratio between combat, adventure and other parts of the game are you going for?

How early and how are you're going to playtest things?

Did you consider playtesting your game in a ttrpg mode?

I've recently learned that if not for the licensing issues than early Fallout games would use GURPS for example.  There's also Cyberpunk, heavily based on ttrpg. Nothing can replace playtesting, as far as I can see, and this kind of is in many ways very effective and the most human.

I'm very happy with my dive into the ttrpgs' realm and I wonder how early other solo devs can playtest things they're putting into the game. Feedback from players at the table is direct, spontaneous, instant. Sometimes I spend more time taking notes than I've spent playing, but feels worth it.

Amazing comment.

I added zine to my playlist but it's comments like this that make me appreciate ttrpg scene so much and the itch io  in particular 

How was that mothership delve? )

Eye of the Beholder's art instantly puts a smile on my face ) It looks like a game that knows it's a game

Lands of Lore looks fun and very carefully crafted and doesn't remind me of anything else.

Realms of Arkania though made me burst with laughter twice in less than a minute. It looks like early digital art made by artists who tried really hard (and it showed) mishmashed with indie games made and drawn by children here on itchio ) Thing one won't dare say about this game is that it looks boring or by any means predictable. It's cool to have a wild card as reference to remind self of wild possibilities.

Talking about wild possibilities and heavily retro-inspired pixel art look for a modern game i want to mention 2 special cases:

1

Infernax 

which is mostly metroidwania but leans into more detailed art for the sotrytelling bits and when presenting player with interesting choices

2

Fit For a King

thing about this game most relevant to our conversation (and coolest to me) is the story told by it's steam comments

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1110380/Fit_For_a_King/

Some people roleplay even when commenting, others tell stories of their lives, playthoughs and relationships with other games and many — and this is the part that made me remember it, without even playing — opens up about this game subversing their expectations by giving them a novel experience inspired by things they loved in the past without delivering on the impossible promise of taking them back.

Historic love letter, continuation and novelty.

Homages and tributes are all legit and one can naturally progress from there too. 

It's just i find these 2 cases so specifically interesting

I'l agree with the great David OReilly on saying that realism is probably not the most interesting thing [digital] art can do. Personally i find realistic digital art uncanny more often than not, though it has to do with animation. 

I wonder with which source of inspiration you will go for such an ensemble cast? I'd probably crowdsource faces from people who themselves were inspirations, then maybe ask reddit and or lemmy and people here. Some devs occasionally take suggestions from their patrons. Curious Expedition 1 had it's first viral moment with Nikola Tesla pulverising hyenas with the death ray in the savannah, this is how  Maschinen-Mensch decided to go with a prominent 19th century figures irregardless of how likely it was for them to even leave the house, let alone to embark on the expedition into the unknown.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/408510/Curious_Expedition_OST__Artbook/

Curious Expedition 1 vs Curious Expedition 2 is also an example of the drastic art style change rather than evoluation of it, which probably made sequel less successful. I find part 1 style clean, cozy, endearing and evocative. Not to say that 80s sungeon crawlers' or delightfully shitty and crudely animated mugshots from Hotline Miami wasn't evocative )

40 faces! Is art-making your fav part? I knew i would be trapped in just drawing or learning to code without clear direction which is why i went for playtesting ttrpgs right off the bat.

I hope devlog about schedule i've shared will help you to complete the project without burning out

hit me up if you'll be in the mood for collab maybe ) there are so many ways to go about such projects, so many possible tones and vibes

i've just preached about how fascinated am i by the CD:DA community the same day i wrote to you here

notion of moody photographs depicting the end of something instantly reminded me ‘The Solitude of Ravens’ by Masahisa Fukase. It took me a while to remember and find this project, but, luckily i also found Daido Moriyama along the way. Just imagine if the latter would shoot desolation. And here's a link with some pics by Daisuke Yokota 

https://vk.com/wall-113549430_51?z=album-113549430_227952946

cheers, and let's live longer. It's nice how the popular media, like Frieren, now explores creatures living for centuries more often.

I searched for the games you mention and i love how visually striking they are! And also readable and somehow balanced. 

So you have been around for the 80s dungeon crawlers and rpgs and now are making one of them or a modern take? I bet there are people who would like to hear your story, and maybe even take part in it.

And please don't be intimidated by the devlogs, these doesn't necessarily have to be a works of literary art and R&D like the ones Lucas Pope does for the Mars after Midnight.

https://dukope.itch.io/mars-after-midnight/devlog

Devlogs might as well be just a facetimes exploring a specific topic devs themselves really want to revise. Here's one where Dave from Powerhoof talks about their schedule for a half an hour. He apologises for the how boring this subject seems about 3 times during the video and once in the description, but then he talked about all the subjects I personally struggled with, so this video was a godsend to me.

Talking about people coming together to share a story, are you, by any chance, into the open source scene? I am fascinated by the decades of the communities around playing and developing games like Nethack, DCSS and CD:DA that are cultivated by the very nature of these games.  Lifespans of these games are unprecedented.

It's interesting to see some people embracing the the idea of letting go of the complete creative control and exploring the pitfalls and joys of collaboration and possibility of their projects evolving into something they couldn't imagine and accomplish alone.

I wish you the best luck with the game ) Seeing other people reacting even to the mockup screenshots page i believe more people will dig it over time

I like the artwork on the 2nd and last screenshots a lot, 3rd background is also perfect.

Some of the human faces feel just a little weird but it may be just me not used to this style.

i've been toying with this idea for months. scaling it. replacing end of the world with the natural end of me. slowly extending 24 hours for the rest of my life.

it's a nice meditation prompt. 

i've done most of this before even downloading PDF and reading more formal rules and dice events.

i got a Solo but Not Alone 4 bundle because of the gems like this.

guess i'll continue "playing" it — because my personal history of thinking about life and mortality is now marked by this weird prompt.

wow it's a whole new look!

what flavours / kinds of pixel are feel best for you? Do you have any public devlogs / community outlets?

I googled Wizardry 6, it has a pretty distinctive look to it, though i'm not very fluent in pixel art of 20th century and can't tell if it ever looked like the other games.

Visually, i love Curious Expedition, Into the Breach, Caves of Qud and DCSS and adore Aeons of Sand. From these 5 only Aeons of Sand went for the look of older gen games instead of using pixel art as just a tool, and it was the only game that wasn't a hit. Though DCSS is FOSS has a long history and was retiled afaik.

Telwynium by Powerhoof games here on itch also went for a retro look, though, unlike CoQ, DCSS, AoS or Duskbringer it's not a dungeon crawler.

this looks cool, how's it going? is it turn-based? realtime combat turned me off the Aeons of Sand and i still think about that game

i've checked it out. 

i dig your procedures, intuitions and trials. Caterpillar Method for Character Stat Generation is neat).

btw, why won't you put it in your itch.io bio and maybe even most something here? 

 though rn i'm more interested in the fundamentals, essentials, approaches and ideas of fun than in the hexes or any other specific tools. 

note on aesthetics: i can't help but notice that whilst your layouts always make sense, your designs are a bit lacking. I personally like even more brutalist/minimalist iconography as seen in Cairn 1e corebook, tools like Mipui and or overdesigned playful weirdness of My Body Is A Cage. Do you find designing visuals too time-consuming to your liking? Don't you find joy in it? I feel some players may overlook most your work because of this — to their loss.

thank you for posting it with [blank encounters]. 

layout is very nice.

it inspired me to think about procedures and how to convert everything into building blocks so i can instantly generate backgrounds of all kinds and focus on what matters the most.

i'm new to the scene and didn't know that  rosette hex can be used as random event table instead of map.