Family games, probably.
As of this week our magnum opus, Draw Your Sword, is ready to pitch to publishers. If it doesn’t get picked up by a publisher, then we may go for the self-publishing route.
There are two videos, which are on Youtube. I won’t embed them here to avoid surprising you with 3rd party cookies. Here are the links:
A still from the game-play segment, showing what the game looks like on the table.
Going solo on an adventure game like Project-DS has some disadvantages. The biggest one is working on everything at once.
Each of these informs the other, sometimes one part is blocked because another has not been decided yet. I’m happy to say that the map is final and the story points are starting to find their homes. I spent ages trying to do this in software and ended up co-opting the door.
Planning something huge when your monitor is just not big enough.
The area of Wymol known as ‘Far Up’ The first couple of chapters start here. After which, the story moves to one of the two peninsulas; Tumpspin and Blackspin or into the Far North.
There’s lots of fantasy mapping software on the market. I wanted to make it a real map first and a fantasy map second.
The Wymol map has been built in Genbrush using wind and rainfall simulation to create the lakes and rivers. It’s come together naturally to feel authentic and lived-in.
I’ve also found the right post-processing to make the rendered scenes pop.
This painterly effect blends the characters into the scenery a lot more effectively.
The effect also fits well with the painterly texturing that Josh O’Hala has done on the models, effectively applying the same look to the scenic elements.
And finally, as a visual person I needed to put some faces to the names for my characters. I’ve started some biographies and it didn’t feel right with just the text.
Artbreeder has rescued me. I’ve generated a bunch of faces for the project. While these images may not be final, I can now put a face to the names.
Artbreeder has even put a little random personality into each one too; smiling, frowning, etc. That’s been enough for me to add colour to the profile.
It has been a long time between posts here. We’ve been working with artists on the designs for Project-DS. This may be our magnum opus.
Project-DS will be a DM-less branching adventure in same setting as our one-page RPG Wyrmbones: The Border. Experience three generations of the second gobbeling war on the island of opportunity; Wymol.
We’ve added another game inspired by the One-page RPG jam to our stable.
Still in draft, but definitely playable now: Snakes & Ladders Stories.
It’s free, so take a look. You will need some Story Cubes and a Snakes & Ladders Board.
This week, we have submitted Wyrmbones: The Border to the One Page RPG Game Jam on Itch.io. This our first Wyrmbones release and the first release with the artwork commissioned from Joe Nittoly.
There will be more releases from the Wyrmbones setting coming soon. Including a wargame and our long-term project of an epic adventure/RPG.
We have been busy with the One-page Jam and the 18-card RPG Jam over at buttonshy. However with no new jams on our radar, we’re back to core projects.
Do you need to 3D print tiny buildings for a game prototype or just for fun?
We have you covered: check out the Millitown STL files and random building generator.
The Children of the House have instructed me to tell the Internet at large of the Dunginoes Theme Tune.
Dunginoes!
Nobody knows…
how far it goes!
When daddy throws!
Dunginoes!
And then you have to… throw the box. This is only slightly less fun than the game itself. Especially when the cards go into the heating ducts.
Dunginoes is still free I’ll add a box to the downloads when we’ve put together some nicer art for it. The one above is a combination of a passepartout frame and a matchbox sleeve courtesy of https://www.templatemaker.nl/
I can’t remember where the photo originated from hence I don’t want to release it as-is.
Back in October, we mentioned that we were developing an light dungeon crawl based on a Reddit post.
The rules have been tested and we have created some themed dominoes to go with.
As a bonus, we have also included some ideas for using dominoes for random map generation in traditional RPGs.
Check it out now: Dunginoes – A PVE Crawler.
As alluded to in this post, I put together a boxed escape room for a Christmas party that would have otherwise been just a pub lunch. At least we were out of lockdown enough for that.
This will be a summary of what went into that escape room project, including seven of the puzzles.
The puzzle had a loose story of ‘you are at this party, but the staff are hostile, plus there are COVID regulations to deal with.’ The story was not as important as the puzzles – this was after all a social event for people who were just expecting a few beers.
A small boxed escape room doesn’t usually have space for physical locks, keypads, etc. Another method is needed to check answers. In this case, I built a self-contained interactive webpage using Twine and hosted it here. The first item in the box was a QR code (in-game as a COVID check-in) linking to the Twine page.
Twine has a bit of a learning curve to it. There may have been some better options – maybe there is a wordpress plugin that does what I wanted, but I could not find it at the time.
Because the Twine app was checking the answers, I was not limited to thinking in four-digit codes, like several of the games on the market. Several of the answers were free text. It was important to make sure the users are told exactly what to type in – no interpretation or parsing needed. They were verbatim copying text that they had found. The Twine app was made to check the answers in a case-insensitive way.
The puzzles themselves were each on a folded paper. In some cases, extra components were folded inside. The papers were designed in Powerpoint. This allowed me to keep and manage a consistent style and layout. Plus the tools for drawing simple shapes were very handy.
The boxes were from EXIT boxed escape rooms that I’d completed and kept. A4 full-page stickers were just big enough to re-wrap the outside with my own design. Mostly white to keep it simple. I did have to add tape to the long edges, to keep them from lifting off.
Box contents:
The first puzzle is to get the gamers to start using various contents to solve the puzzles. This was a map with the route to the venue marked in red, with a scale alongside. The premise being that the boss wants to know how far the venue will be.
The solution is simply to use the red string from the facemask to trace along the route.
This puzzle combines a few things:
Here, ‘in order’ means alphabetical order and ‘contact tracing’ means to draw the path around the tables. The drawing will show a number. BUT it will be gibberish without using the facemask. Hidden in the pleats of the facemask were instructions to skip certain staff members. Hence, the gamers have to ‘use the facemask’ in order to get the answer.
This one is a lesson in patience. Plus it’s something uniquely Australian. The staff have been mistakenly given the alternative drop menu. (This is where a party is catered by having two different dishes – say chicken and fish – and these are handed out to every other person: chick, fish, chicken, fish, chicken, fish. People can swap to get what they want. Apparently this is only a thing in Australia.)
In this case the ‘alternate drop menu’ was two bits of paper which form a complete menu when read alternately from each paper . It concludes with a note that the gamers must use the name of the booking agent in order to see the a la carte menu
This name is ‘hand’ written on the back of the menus. Also in alternating format.
Now the guests have the a la carte menu, they have to find the special meal option for that one person. They have been given some access cards for this.
The premise is weak, but the puzzle was fun. Position the food icons on the cards over the words on the menu and read the words through the holes in the cards
This was made easier by having the menu quartered into rectangles the same size as the cards themselves. For a more hard-core audience, I would make the placement more arbitrary.
Another slightly weak premise for a fun puzzle. The host won’t tell the players the name of the house beer. They have to deduce it from the beermats, from the Fuller Ship Brewery.
The scribbles on the back of the mats give the clue to stack mats so that the ships (on the front of each mat) on top of each other, then flip the stack. Then the scribbles combine to name the house beer.
The beers named on the front of the mats are Top Tipple, Middle Mild and Bottom Bunk, which is the clue about what order to stack them.
This is one that the gamers all struggled with. I think more clues would have helped. They were also about three pints in at this stage though.
In this puzzle, the gamers have to solve a maze that contains an equation along the route.
That in itself is easy, as long as they remember BODMAS. However, this puzzle has a few callbacks and gotchas:
Skipping a few puzzle that are unique to my company. Near the end of the run, the games have to find a code. This is and oldie, but a goodie.
Spoiler alert: When I printed the box wraps, I put a barcode on them. Breaks the fourth wall just a bit.
So that’s what I put together this year. The key things that I think other amateur escape room designers should take away are:
I hope this article is of use to people who are considering putting together an escape room or other puzzle experience in future. Hit me up on Twitter if you have any comments.
Best wishes for a successful 2021!
I spent the run-up to Christmas working on a boxed escape room game to hand out at the office Christmas party. It went down well, considering the state had just come out of a long lockdown.
However in putting that together, I ran out of time to complete the kids Christmas present game this year. Therefore, the prototype of Project-FND is on back the shelf until I get some more free time: It’s all the cutting that takes ages. The craft cutter doesn’t handle 5mm foam-core, sadly.
I want to take a moment to recommend the Asset Forge on itch.io for anyone looking to put some quick designs together for mechanical stuff like these spaceships and their hardpoints. No, I’m not getting royalties – it’s just a good tool that I want to recommend.
