Status of Things

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, things have slowed down here at The Peach Pit. Between my day job and all the little things that keep us humans busy during the in-between hours (honestly, WHY do we need so much sleep??), it has been challenging to make time to write posts and share consistent updates. But I am hoping to share here more often than I have been, recently.

For those who don’t know, I tend to post more frequently to my social media pages, just because it’s a bit easier to manage from my phone. If you’re ever interested in the behind the scenes posts, I highly recommend following me on Instagram for the reels.

Now, the updates:
Our last shop update happened this past Tuesday, and I’m already working on another update for next week that will feature new art - Miniature paintings, and miniature models. The aurora paintings were a lot more popular than I expected, so I have SO many, so…

The Gift Edition of A Long December is nearly complete! I’ve got one piece to finish, and then once photographs are done we’ll be scheduling the launch. There will be A Very Limited Number of Gift Editions (only 3!), and a small number of limited edition cover versions of the game available at launch. We’ll also have a print-on-demand version at a reduced rate, AND extra copies of the character sheet.

I am also in the very early stages of looking into participating in an artist alley in 2025. It’s going to require some heavy lifting on my end, but I think it would be a really fun experience and is something I’m really hopeful for. If I get in, there might be some new limited edition covers coming for some of our older games in the future…

I think that’s all the big news, right now. After A Long December’s release, Knight of Flowers will be coming in May with limited edition covers, a print-on-demand version, and a digital version. I’ve also just finished formatting a new character journaling exercise in the vein of Foam & Fiction. There’s a lot of new things coming, and I’m super excited for all of them.

As always, thank you for being here and for continuing to support my work. I am very grateful to each and every one of you who has purchased something, shared a post, liked a photo. Every little bit pushes me harder for the next thing.

Thank you.

Behind the Scenes: A Long December

February is here and with it, some new games and new features! Hopefully you’re all ready as we aim to wrap up winter and tip headlong into spring!

Before the death grip of winter releases us, though, I’m excited to share with you the first look at my upcoming game: A Long December.

In short, A Long December is my love letter to the video game The Long Dark by Hinterland Studios. The framework of the game utilizes the Wretched & Alone SRD, which is based on the game The Wretched by Chris Bissette. We’ve talked about The Wretched and Wretched & Alone games before on the blog, and in that post I mentioned that I had yet to complete designing a game using the SRD. That was, technically, true at the time, but A Long December was in progress at that time.

If you’ve never heard of The Long Dark (or seen any of the clips from when I previously played it on stream), it is probably one of my most highly recommended games in terms of things like exploration and lore. It’s set in an alternate future Canada, on a remote island filled with deep coal mines and the remnants of an insular society not keen on outside influences. There is a story mode (called Wintermute), and a survival mode that allows you to explore Great Bear Island in all its frozen glory… But there’s no saying you’ll survive. Your character has to contend with the natural elements such as fog and blizzards, as well as wolves and bears that have become more aggressive than normal. There are other challenges to deal with, such as unique weather conditions like glimmer fog, which make it so you cannot sleep, or the occasional nighttime aurora which no only powers the electrical elements around the island, but also turns the normal wolves and bears into a darker and more fearsome version of their usual selves.

All of that is to say: The Long Dark is a wonderfully complex game that I personally feel doesn’t get enough hype. In certain gaming spheres (namely survival gamers), it seems quiet popular for those who enjoy solo gameplay. Which is where A Long December comes into play.

A Long December takes many of the gameplay elements of The Long Dark and builds them into a 15-day trial of survival. I’ve taken the Wretched & Alone framework and tweaked it just enough to give the player a strict timeline of their game: Either you gather the supplies you need within 15 days, or you don’t. Either way, the game ends at 15 rounds.

For myself, this timeline was critical: I have struggled with Wretched & Alone games in the past that seem to drag on for far too long, or or it turns into a game where even if I outlast whatever it hunting me I cannot be rescued. I wanted to avoid that with this game and so I created a pair of checklists of items to be located, along with a timeline tracker. This keeps the tension high as the game progresses: Will you character find what you need to wait out the coming storm? Or will you repair the transponder and radio for help? Or will fate be against you, and you’ll lose all of your gear, lose your base camp, lose your life?

As we’ve previously discussed, Wretched & Alone games are not about winning so much as they are about faith and hope in the wake of overwhelming odds. I believe that in A Long December, I have set the stakes high enough to create the tension needed for the game while still leaving enough room for the player to have hope that they will win.

Truly, this is one of my favorite games that I’ve created and I think it shows! There will be three limited edition bundles coming to the shop soon that will have everything you need to play the game, and I cannot wait to share all the details with you on what’s going to be included. There will be 10 copies of the limited edition cover in the shop that aren’t bundled, as well as a print-on-demand version that will be in the shop once the limited covers are gone. We’ll also have this one available in the digital format, should you prefer that.

Next time on Behind the Scenes, we’ll dive into another upcoming game that has been percolating for some time: Knight of Flowers! If you like this sort of post, you can check out others like it in the Ramblings category. Be sure to follow us on social media for more sneak peeks at things coming up soon, including cover reveals!

A Quick Update

Hey there folks! It’s been a minute, and I apologize for being away for longer than expected. I’m still in the process of recovering from a bit of burnout; my day job gets pretty aggressive during the holiday season and the month afterward, and so it’s been challenging to find time to sit and write blog posts and such while all of that is going on.

Not to mention all of the… <gestures vaguely> There’s a lot of things going on, and it can be taxing. Hopefully, you’re all taking much better care of yourselves than I am!

All of that to say: I have been working on new games! I have three new physical editions coming to the store soon and by “soon” I mean “actually pretty soon” because I got the shipping notification today. I’m really excited to share these games with you all. You’ll also be able to get digital copies on my Itch page, aaaand… I’ve decided to create a “Luxury” edition of one of the games, which will feature handcrafted dice from Jenn at Long Dog Dice! There will only be three copies of the “Luxury” edition available, but it will have everything you need to play the game.

To tide y’all over for a little bit, here are a couple of behind the scenes sneak peeks of stuff to come, focusing on the upcoming game A Long December.

Character Development in TTRPGs, and How Solo Games Can Fill the Gap

We’ve all be there. The Forever GM of your friend group approaches you with a pitch for a new campaign. Everyone is excited, everyone is discussing the plot hook and what kind of characters they want to build and how best to form a party.

And then there’s you. Or, in this, case, there’s me: Sitting quietly with my brain screaming, “WHERE DO WE START?!” Character creation has always been, and remains after years of playing TTRPGs, one of the most challenging things about starting a new game.

For me, personally, the reason is simple: I do not care about these stats on a page until I’m given a reason to. They do not become a character to me just be virtue of having a name, a class, and a stat block. So many times, in the beginning of a campaign, my characters feel very flat and one dimensional - Until I have something that helps me develop their backstory and personality, their connections to the world the other players and me have found ourselves in together.

One tool that I have used in the past is The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, by James D’Amato. This book helped me understand some of the foundational things about character creation, as well as how to add “flavor” to your character. Give them hobbies. Talk about the holidays they celebrated in the region where they’re from. Tell us about the time they broke their grandmother’s heirloom mirror. Figure out why they decided to become an adventurer.

I find, though, that sometimes this isn’t enough to get into the mind of the character and what is where I feel solo TTRPGs can help fill the gap. Many times, they have their initial setup that you can simply drop your character into, and a premise to follow through with pre-drafted prompts. This sort of scenario helps me a lot with learning who my character is: How would they react in this particular moment? Which of their personality traits come to the forefront?

I’ve designed a few games that are specifically character journaling exercises, where you can simply plop your character into the scenario and play. However, a game like Let the Tides Carry You Back to Me can be used completely independently of its scenario: In the end, it is simply a series of questions designed to help you learn who your character is.

The initial premise of a game can also be tweaked to fit your character, as well. Something like 32% (which we played here)could be tweaked to fit a fantasy campaign be having the character be shipwrecked on a deserted island with only enough supplies to last them seven days, and they have to source materials to make a signal fire.

At the end of the day, so much character development happens during the course of your campaign, but it can feel daunting to go into a new story with your character and not know anything about them. Solo games can help bridge that gap and assist in creating both backstory and personality for a character who was previously a blank slate.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to add your email to our mailing list below - I sent out a newsletter every other week with snips from the blog, social media, and details on shop updates, along with some behind the scenes peeks at what’s coming up next!

New Year's Resolutions

A post popped up on my Twitter feed recently, asking folks about their low-stakes goals for 2024. Like, the things not related to your job or your side hustle. Stuff that’s not gonna make you any money, but will make your life richer and make you happier.

I want to bake more bread in 2024. Baking bread is one of those things that I really enjoy; it’s calming, the bread always rises, and the end result if delicious. For my first loaf, I really want to make one with kalamata olives. So, so good.

Besides more bread, I’m planning to read more in 2024. Play more games. Go to more games-related events. Do more tarot readings. Get better at doing my nails. Maybe get another tattoo. Paint the models I have on hand.

Overall, I just really want to do more of the things that make me happy. Those things are important, even if they’re small in the grand scheme of everything else.

If I had to a pick a big goal for the year, though, I really want to see copies of at least one of my games in a physical store or at an event. Selling online is nice: I reach a lot of people I wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity to connect with. But there’s something about seeing your work in the wild that makes it feel real, and I’m hopeful we’ll get there this year.

What are your low-stakes goals for 2024? What are you hoping to accomplish this year, and how can we help you get there? Let’s make some magic together!

Play & Review: 32%

32% is a game by Lostways Press’ designer Ella, where you wake up on a strange planet with only 7 days to live. The themes include adapting to (but not necessarily overcoming) your surroundings, and working with what you find around you. This games falls somewhere in the middle of required tools to play: You’ll need a way to record your journey, a standard deck of cards, and a d6.

I am lucky enough to have a few physical games from Lostways Press, and they’re all absolutely sunning. Ella’s work as a designer extends into the art in her games, the font choices, the cover and binding styles. Each game has been a delight in its own right. I highly recommend them.

But now, let’s play 32%.

32% - Day One

This planet I’ve found myself on looks a lot like Mars back home, but Mars is so many light years away. I mean, I think it is, anyway. But it can’t be Mars, because even though I don’t remember who I am (other than my nametag on this suit, which reads “Shaw”) or how I got here, I do remember that Mars has been terraformed for basically forever.

So we can’t be on Mars. The info screen on the arm of my suit isn’t any more helpful. It has vitals for me (my oxygen consumption has been really high since I woke up) and a star date of 9689.26. There are a few ration bars tucked into a small pack I found of a ruined drop pod, along with this notebook and a pencil.

While the planet looks like Mars, there’s this weird… humming bass sound? It’s a low frequency, deep and slightly uncomfortable. It’s more felt, than heard, if that makes sense. I’m honestly not sure if I’ll be able to sleep here. I guess we’ll find out later.

I’m trying to be rational. Trying not to panic. My brain wants to panic. But, for now, I need to make something to help me send a signal out, so I can be rescued. There’s no other chance I’ll be saved. So… Let’s MacGuyver this shit.

(Here is where I pulled the top card of my freshly shuffled deck: A Joker. The game’s rules says this is a life or death situation, to pull one more card and, based on the color, live or die. I pulled a red card: Death. I had a good chuckle, opted to ignore the Joker. So we are moving on with our day - Otherwise, this would be a woefully short game.)

Jack of Hearts, 4 on the die: This first day felt so long, but at least now I have a place to hole up until I can be rescued. I spent most of the light hours collecting wreckage; I found a bunch of sheets of metal and what looks like an old mattress pad from a hab pod. If nothing else, I have a little lean-to with a double roof, and a place to lay down when the light fades from the sky. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

The dark hours here are barely that: Barely dark. The sky is awash with unknown constellations, and there was a meteor shower earlier. So I guess that’s something: We know the planet has some sort of “traditional:” atmosphere.

It’s beautiful here, in its own sort of stark way. I don’t think I want to stay here forever, but… If I make it out of this alive, I might come back.

Maybe.

27.4% - Day Two

Queen of Hearts, 1 on the die: You know, I said it looks like Mars here, but I guess that was a bit of an understatement. There are trees… Or what passes for trees. They don’t have any leaves, just scraggly branches reaching their spindly fingers to the yellow sky. But I managed to break some of the branches down, and I gathered enough rocks to make a fire pit! There’s a stone here that looks like flint, and maybe some of this dry brush will burn.

I don’t know if it’ll burn in this atmosphere, or if I’ll ignite the whole planet.

Guess we’ll find out.

There are also footprints here of what looks like lots and lots of animals. Or perhaps there were lots and lots of animals? The prints are deep in the dirt, which is all dry and cracked, like maybe this area is an old riverbed?

I don’t know, honestly. They brought me on this trip for my ability to pilot and repair the ship, not carbon date footprints. Ugh. I shouldn’t be wallowing. At least I survived the crash, somehow.

Doesn’t the pilot - The Captain - usually go down with their ship? Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this is the afterlife or some sort of in-between place.

Whatever. Goodnight, notebook.

22.8% - Day Three

7 of Diamonds, 6 on the die: Today was an interesting day. I managed to dig some communications parts out of the wreckage of the drop pod! Definitely a blessing; shouldn’t need too much more to get a transponder up and running. It’s starting to look more and more like I might actually get off the planet alive.

For away from my “camp site,” where I walked to gather more wood for tonight’s fire (haven’t blown up, yet!), I noticed more footprints but this time they’re smaller. More like mice, or maybe burrowing creatures of some kind. I wonder if maybe they’ve gone underground. Perhaps they only come out at night? I don’t know. Either way, I still haven’t seen any creatures, but it’s interesting that I keep seeing signs of them everywhere.

I don’t want to wander too far from my campsite, but it’s becoming harder to find the resources I need nearby. I’m hoping I can find more of those tech parts, so I can piece this all together and get out of here fast.

18.2% - Day Four

8 of Clubs, 3 on the die: During my supply run today, I noticed a glimmer in the distance, near some mountains. As I approached and the spot grew bigger, it was obvious that there was some sort of bunker or something in the side of the mountain: The light was reflecting off a huge door set into the stone. At least as twice as tall as me, and four times as wide as my arm span.

There’s a keypad next to the door. The buttons don’t use the galactic standard alphanumeric glyphs, so… I have no idea what I pressed. But the door is still sealed. Took me a while to get there and back to camp, but it gave me a lot to think about. There were all these stories back on Earth about folks who were prepping for the end of the world, and they had these huge bunkers full of stuff. In the end, it really didn’t matter. The whole planet is just a barren wasteland, now.

But it made me think about what could have happened here. Was it a similar fate, where the planet died underneath its inhabitants of people thought they could outlast the disaster?

I wish I knew. Hell, I wish I knew where I am.

Maybe I’ll find the code to the door, and learn this world’s secrets before I die.

13.6% - Day Five

3 of Diamonds, 2 on the die: I went back to the doors in the mountain today, to scout the area and see what I could find. There’s a trickle of what looks like water flowing out of the rock a few hundred meters to the left of the door; not deep or fast enough to be a river, but looks like enough water that I wish I had a testing kit on me. It would be nice to have some fresh water, rather than this warm recycled garbage in my suit.

Still don’t have a clue about the glyphs on the keypad. Why couldn’t this place just so happen to use a convenient language I happen to know?

UGH. I guess it isn’t quite like the stories, where it all works out in the end.

We’re getting down to the last few percent in my suit’s battery, and I’m getting nervous. Managed to scrounge some extra rations out of the wreckage today, but not extra communications parts. I only need a few more to get the transponder working, I just know it. If I can find them, I can be rescued. I can go home.

God, I really want to go home.

9% - Day Six

Queen of Clubs, 6 on the die: Woke up this morning to a proximity alarm in my suit going off, to find myself face to face with a… Moose-like creature? Massive, with four legs and shaggy fur. Giant antlers. It was snuffling at my feet, and I scared it off when I started awake.

There was a herd of them outside my shelter. Just… So many not-moose, as far as the eye could see. They covered the small plateau where I have my shelter. It was kind of incredible.

Another day of digging in the rubble of the drop ship, another day of dreaming what’s behind the doors in the mountain, another day of that thrumming bass I can’t seem to ignore. But, one major difference: I found the last communicator parts I need to fix the transponder! I honestly can’t believe it. At the rate my suit’s battery is draining, I don’t know if I’ll make it to rescue. There’s still so much that could go wrong before they get here.

But I’ll get the transponder up tonight. And maybe the not-moose was a sign. To have hope. Maybe they’ll get here in time.

Maybe I’ll be saved. I guess we’ll find out together, you and I.

4.4% - Day Seven

3 of Clubs, 6 on the die: The transponder is working! It made little boops all night long, which was almost enough to drive me mad, but it means it’s working so I can’t be too upset.

I poked at the pile of wreckage that’s left of the dropship, and I found a random interstellar language primer. Flipping through it, there’s actually a page that matches up with the glyphs from the touchpad by the doors. As much as I want to go back there, explore this ruin - this mystery - I can’t risk it. If anything happens to me today, I’m in big trouble. I can’t even go the stream again. Nowhere.

I hope someone hears the beacon. I hope someone arrives soon. I don’t want to die here.

But if I do: Please take this journal, and the primer. Go toward the mountains, find the door. Learn about this place. Do let the opportunity go to waste.

See you on the other side.

0% - Day Eight

(Another) Last Minute Gift Guide

It’s five days before Christmas, friends: You might be cutting it a little close in the gift-giving department for the holiday festivities. But if you’re here for some ideas on last minute gifts for the indie gamers or game designers in your life… I think I got you covered.

For folks who play indie games, you can’t go wrong with looking on Itch.io to see if there’s anything you think they might enjoy playing. This can be a bit of a gamble, as its hard to know what anyone’s digital game shelf looks like, but taking a chance on this may result in a new favorite game for the recipient.

In this vein, I personally like to look for games that come with a physical or printable version: Something like this can be printed out at home or at your local office supply store in short order and given in a themed gift bag. I love these sorts of thoughtful gifts - The kind that say, “I saw this, and I thought of you!” A couple of suggestions for printable games that are wonderful additions to a game shelf:

  • Village Witch by Kestrel Eliot is a solo journaling game about finishing your training to become a witch; you have one year to find a village where you want to make your home. Gift this with a brand new journal, and it’s sure to be a hit!

  • Last Tea Shop by Spring Villager is a lovely journaling game where your character runs a tea shop on the border between life and death, where you help each person you meet with their journey to move on. I can’t think of a better gift set to pair this with than some tea and a new mug.

  • Princess with a Cursed Sword by Anna Anthropy is a solo journaling game that uses a tarot deck to tell the story of a princess who has been cursed with a sword at their coming-of-age ceremony… And the sword wants something that only they can give. Gift this one-page game along with a new tarot deck, and you can’t go wrong.

  • Do Not Read This Journal! by Cagri Akyurt is a journaling game that’s perfect for the horror fans in your life. In this game, the player comes across a cursed journal where they record their experiences with it before passing it off to the next player. This is a great one to start before gifting it to your friend with a copy of game between the pages of the journal.

If you’d rather not gift games, things like dice, decks of tarot or playing cards, or notebooks and pens are a great way to support your friend’s gaming hobby. Honestly, you can never have too many sets of dice or notebooks, as my bookshelves will attest. These suggestions go for your the game designer in your life, as well!

One way to support small businesses during this holiday season is to purchase gift cards for their shops. If you’re looking for something along the lines of gaming accessories, check out this list below for some specific suggestions and small shops to purchase gifts cards from:

  • There’s something about a good notebook and, in my personal opinion, the Maruman Mnemosyne notebooks are some of the best. I prefer dot-grid notebooks myself, but Vanness has a lot options in sizes, colors, and types. The paper is butter soft, and can be used with a variety of different kinds of pens and inks.

  • The Anima Mundi tarot deck is one of my absolute favorite decks I own, and I have purchased multiple times for friends. The artwork is incomparable, and I cannot recommend Megan Wyreweden’s work highly enough. Purchasing this deck supports a small artist, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

  • For dice, there are a lot of options to support small shops and solo artists who create magical things out of resin:

    • If you’re in Canada (or if you’re good with international shipping), check out Green Leaf Geek. Leah’s shop has a ton of options for handmade, curated, and exclusive dice sets you can’t find anywhere else, and they have options for custom dice sets, as well.

    • Long Dog Dice has some of the most incredible sharp edged dice I’ve ever seen, and Jenn also does custom sets! If you need a set made for your D&D character, Jenn can work with you to create the set of your dreams.

    • I am a recent follower of Moondjinn Dice, and let me tell you: Omar creates some of the most sparkly and unique dice that I’ve ever seen, and uses unique shapes for their pieces. I’m already looking forward to my next set.

One more suggestion, before I sign off: Be sure to check out your local game stores and comic shops! If you’re looking for a game, many of them now carry indie games along side the bigger named stuff and, if all else fails, a gift card there supports a business in your area and allows the gamer or designer in your life to pick up what works best for them.

That’s all from me on the gift giving front this year, friends! I hope your holiday season is warm and cozy, and that you spend it with all your favorite people. See you this weekend for the next update here on the blog!

When Inspiration Hits

There is nothing, nothing, like driving down the highway at 70mph in the pitch dark while bopping along to one of your favorite bands. Except when those things collide with the lightning strike of inspiration.

There is where I found myself at 5:45 this morning while driving to work. Spotify served up the song "We Live in a Strange World” by Spiritbox, and my brain said, “What if we wrote a game about using a spirit box? How would that work?” It was all downhill from there, both physically and metaphorically speaking, as I thought about using song lyrics and how to extract specific words.

And just like that: Spirit Box was in motion.

This is, sometimes, how game design works for me. It doesn’t always happen so quickly, like a flood all at once, but when it does the game’s creation takes over everything else until I’ve finished getting it out of my head and down onto paper. A lot of other designers I know work like this, as well. It’s an interesting experience, especially considering that the majority of my games takes weeks and weeks to refine and finalize.

As I’ve discussed in the previous installations of the How to Write an Indie TTRPG blog series, after this comes all the important parts: Mechanical design, safety tools, editing, playtesting, and graphic design. While these steps might normally take days or weeks to complete, with a simple one-page style game it’s much faster than that.

Usually mechanical design for a one-page game is stripped down and minimized, making it easier to fit all the rules onto a single sheet of paper. This, in turn, tends to make the inclusion of safety tools almost unnecessary (depending on your subject matter, of course) and minimizes the need for extensive editing. Likewise, this all cuts down on the time required for playtesting: It’s easier to rebalance a game with fewer mechanics and a basic play style.

The part that always takes me the longest is graphic design. While Spirit Box came together pretty quickly (literally less than 12 hours), I also had a fairly solid idea what I wanted this game to be and how it should look. A simple game about blackout poetry needed to be done in black and white, in a brochure style. Simple and clean.

Other games, especially longer games, tend to take longer for me to design, as I think through every aspect. Color schemes, font families, cover images, where the text blocks lay on each page, if there’s a need for accent art in the interior… It goes on.

All of this to say: Sometimes games take a long time to write. Sometimes, they come quick and easy. Both are completely legitimate ways to design your game. Neither one is better than the other. At the end of the day, as long as your game gets out there… Who cares how long it took?

You can find digital copies of Spirit Box on my itch.io page. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find those in the shop. More my ramblings about game design can be found here on the blog, if that’s your jam. And remember to scroll down and subscribe to our newsletter for biweekly updates and behind the scenes sneak peeks at upcoming games.

How to Write an Indie TTRPG - Graphic Design

You’re almost ready: You’ve written your game. You figured out the appropriate safety tools and mechanics. You’ve done your multiple rounds of editing, and your playtesters have given you great feedback. Your revisions are complete. As far as you can tell…

You’re done. Your game is ready to go. Except for one thing…

Graphic design.

Now, we all know the old adage of “don’t judge a book by it's cover,” but let’s be honest: When it comes to things like games (and books, and movies, and and and) we sometimes tend to gloss over ones that don’t appeal to us. We all have our personal design aesthetics that we like, and there’s nothing wrong with that! And frankly: Graphic design isn’t for everyone. It can be really challenging, especially if it’s all brand new to you!

Here are some of my suggestions for you, if you’re new to game design and aren’t sure where to begin with putting your game into a graphic format:

  1. Look at other people’s games that are in similar theme to yours. If you’ve got a space game, look at other space themed games. Fantasy? Find some dungeon crawlers. Warm and cozy? That’s a big niche right now, and there are tons of games with that vibe. There are games out there already with every aesthetic design you can think of, so don’t be afraid to look at what other people are doing and use that information to figure out what you like (and, more importantly: What you don’t like).

  2. Talk to other game designers, and your playtesters. It can be really helpful to bounce ideas off other people in the game design space, along with the people who know your game. My playtesting group has been incredibly helpful (and vocal, in a good way) about sharing their thoughts when it comes to my cover designs and font choices and, while I might not always listen, their feedback is invaluable. Lots of game designers also love to talk shop, and are happy to help each other out - If you need someone to review, or give you a vibe check, drop me an email and I’ll give you my thoughts!

  3. Canva is an incredibly valuable resource. Literally all of my games have been designed through Canva, and there’s a reason for it: Even in its free version, the platform is dizzyingly robust, offering the ability to provide designs for book or ‘zine covers in many different standard sizes or clip art elements or photos for background, and much more. They also offer affordable printing services, as well.

    1. A subpoint here is that there are also many other free and valuable resources available for use out there, depending on what you’re looking for. Unsplash is great for royalty free photographs, and Itch.io has a huge amount of resource heavy asset packs (D&D related, comics-themed, or maybe you need a specific font type), many of which are free to use.

Once you’ve done your research, the best thing you can do is go with your gut. You know what you like and you know the vibe of your game, so put the two of those things together. Take your time: There’s no rush!

And remember: Do one more round of editing before you publish - Don’t be like me and have your game printed with a spelling error.

If you’re new here and you like this post, you can check out the others in this series via the Game Design tag. Be sure to scroll all the way down and sign up for our newsletter - A biweekly round up of our posts, games we’re playing, and other such fun things. Thanks for checking us out!

Indie Systems: Wretched & Alone, as a Designer

Wretched & Alone is a game system that has seen a significant amount of use since its creation. Chris Bissette’s collection of Wretched & Alone games on Itch.io has nearly 100 entries, but there’s no way that accounts for everything on the site that uses this ruleset. For me, this framework is also one of the most challenging that I have attempted to work work.

As I say “attempted” because every single game I have tried to create using the Wretched & Alone system has ended up on the cutting room floor. Every single one, in my opinion, had (and still has) viability, but I struggle with fitting together all the mechanics into a cohesive whole.

In our post last week, we discussed the different mechanics of this framework: The cards, the dice, the tower, and the tokens. Generally, my biggest hurdle has been the cards.

For example, I have an idea for a W&A game based around the story Romeo and Juliet: Two lovers who can’t be together because of their family’s status and hatred for one another. The tower represents your relationship: Stable at first, but deteriorating and wobbling as time goes on under the pressure of what you have to do to be together. The dice function as usual, giving you the number of prompts each turn.

But the cards. What do the cards represent? What does each suit reflect? The individual cards are easier: The King, the Patriarch of the family. Queens, the Mothers. Jacks, a close friend or family member. But how do those relate to each suit, and what does each suit mean, and how in the hell do we get prompts for every single card?

And so, I continue to struggle with multiple concepts for Wretched & Alone games that I can’t figure out how to build and put into words.

All of this is to say: Wretched & Alone is complex framework with a lot of moving parts that all need to weave together to create a comprehensive game for your player. It’s incredible to me that so many designers have made this system work for them and helped their players create unique stories that stick with them when they finish. I hope that there will be many more in the future, mine included.

The takeaway from this post, I think, is that we’re all learning. No matter what stage in our design journey, we’re all learning how to build new things and orchestrate the flow of mechanics and create a game that has a last impression on their players. The important thing is to try, and learn, and grow. Not every game you build will be a success, and that’s okay. Just don’t give up! You’ve got to keep trying, because you will get it. It will happen. You’ll see.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find others like it in the Game Design tag. Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom and sign up for our newsletter - A biweekly roundup of our posts, games we’re playing, and a sneak peek at what’s coming up. Thank you for your support!

How to Write an Indie TTRPG - Playtesting

As with editing, playtesting can be a challenge. You’ve got everything ready: Your game is in a word doc, it’s been edited, and you’re feeling confident. So, how does one do playtesting?

In my opinion, there are three “versions” of playtesting:

  1. You can play your game.

  2. Your friends can play your game.

  3. You can source strangers to play your game.

So, let’s look at each of these options.

First stop should always be: Play your own game. Even though you’ve written it and edited it multiple times already, and you know this game and its mechanics better than anyone else… You should step away from it for a day or two, then sit down and read it over and see how the flow of rules and instructions work. If you’re able to play it through to completion without any challenges: Great! Sometimes, playing your own game will reveal flaws in the flow of how you introduce mechanics, so take your time and be objective (the hardest part, truly).

Now, Option Two: Get your friends to play your game. Hopefully, you have some folks in your life who also enjoy TTRPGs. If so, entice them with the idea of playing a brand new game that their very best friend in the whole world wrote! Or maybe snacks! I find that homemade cookies usually work best.

If your friends don’t play TTRPGs, this could be an excellent opportunity to introduce them! Especially if they’ve heard of or played something like Pathfinder or Dungeons & Dragons in the past, but never played any indie games.

Option Three is the one that is likely the most challenging for a lot of folks: Getting strangers to play your game. It can be hard to find people, though in the end there are options such as social media that can be helpful. There are large communities of TTRPG players on sites like BlueSky and Mastodon that would likely jump at the chance to be part of a playtesting group. Another place to look is Itch.io: You can use the Community forums to make a help wanted post, and request playtesters.

Truly, I believe that the hardest part about playtesting is getting feedback. When you’ve poured hours into designing a game, it can be really challenging to hear when it’s not perfect. One thing to remember is that the folks who are playtesting your game genuinely want it to be the best it possibly can be. All of their suggestions come from a place of love that’s focused around that goal. So don’t be too harsh when they have suggestions…

And don’t be too hard on yourself! Just like any other writing project, no game is perfect on the first draft. There will be revisions, there will be changes, and that’s okay. Keep working on it, and be sure to ask for more feedback as you go. Remember that with every game you create, your skills will get better and better, so keep going!

If you enjoyed this post, you can find others like it in the Game Design tag. Remember to scroll to the bottom of this post and sign up for our newsletter - I promise to only send you mail twice a month with updates from the blog, new items in the shop, and sneak peeks for what’s coming up soon.

Indie Systems: The Wretched, as a Player

The Wretched, a game developed by Chris Bissette at Loot the Room, has a bit of a reputation. It’s said to be brutal and unforgiving, while at the same time masterful in how it evokes the sort of high-strung, tightwire feeling of anxiety one gets from movies like Alien. That is a reputation well deserved, in my opinion.

The Wretched is a game with unique mechanics, as it’s one of the few titles I’ve seen that utilized a block tower (think Jenga) as a core feature. I feel that the block tower is the most anxiety inducing part of the game, because the mechanics account for “acts of God” working against you and causing your tower to fall prematurely.

In short: Don’t play this game on a wobbly table. Or with a cat. Or breathe too hard while playing.

You get the idea.

Overall, the mechanics weave together to create something unique: A sort of brittle, edgy energy that I haven’t felt in many other TTRPGs. In this game, there is something out there to get you. You know this, because it’s destroyed your ship and killed your crew, and now it’s coming after you. You’re the last one on the ship known as The Wretched, and it’s up to you to repair the distress beacon so you can escape.

As you read through the mechanics of this game, it can be a little easy to become overwhelmed: You have your tower, your cards, your dice, and your journal to keep track of. Personally, I found that once I sunk into the rhythm of the phases in the game, it became much easier. If you’re giving this game a shot for the first try, I suggest taking your time and giving yourself an opportunity to understand how everything works. It can feel a little complicated at first, so don’t feel bad if you feel overwhelmed.

One of the things that The Wretched does so beautifully (which is explained more fully in the SRD, which we’ll cover next week when we discuss Wretched & Alone from a design perspective) is create hope for the player. Yes, there are overwhelming odds that the character in this story will not make it out alive, but that’s the beautiful thing about this game: People have so much hope and find deep reserves within themselves when faced with the impossible. We want to survive, even if it’s just to tell the story of how we did it. We all want to leave a mark on this world, some way, somehow.

The Wretched taps into that innate desire, the urge to keep going, the need to survive even though everything within you says that it’s impossible. This story you create is one of human resilience, even if you don’t make it out alive in the end. Someone will know your story.

And that’s a beautiful thing.

If you enjoyed this post, you can check out the others in the Game Systems category for more like this. Remember to join our mailing list - Scroll to the bottom and add your email address for biweekly updates with all our posts, photos and the occasional discount code to the shop. See you next time!

How to Write an Indie TTRPG - Editing

Okay, so. You’ve got your framework built, your mechanics laid out, and a narrative woven into your game. There’s the start of a story, a hook for your players to care about. A reason for them to go on. Your first draft is done, so now it’s time to do the dreaded thing: Edit.

Editing isn’t all bad, but it is a crucial step toward finishing your work. As I am not a grammarian (yes, that’s an actual thing), I have some suggestions to help with your editing process:

  • If you, like me, prefer to write your drafts out by hand: Type your draft into a word processing document. This will allow the program to automatically assist with spelling challenges and some grammatical issues.

    • If you are so inclined, you can also make use of a tool like Grammarly for this part.

  • Review your work for clarity and conciseness. In places where you can, using fewer words to say the same thing helps your readers stay focused and engaged. Clarity also means using everyday words that your player understands. There’s no reason to make your language overly flowery when it comes to the rules and mechanical instructions of your game: Straightforward language is best.

  • Have someone you trust review your draft. Not necessarily for spelling and grammatical issues, but for readability. Allow them to leave comments in your document, and check your ego at the door: A lot of comments or questions isn’t a bad thing. They’re simply areas for improvement, and this is why I suggesting having someone you trust do this step. They will be honest with you, because they want you to succeed.

As a general rule, I expect at least three rounds of revisions for each game: The initial grammar review, a clarity review, followed by at least one peer review and the incorporation (or discarding) of their suggestions.

All editing and revisions take time, but it really is a crucial part of the process for creating a game on your own. What I see as the most challenging aspect is coming up next week, though: Playtesting!

If you enjoyed this post, you can find others like it in the Game Design tag. Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom and sign up for our newsletter - A biweekly roundup of our posts, games we’re playing, and a sneak peek at what’s coming up. Thanks for checking us out!

Play & Review: Strange Things Come From the Forest of Things That Bleed

Strange Things Come from the Forest of Things that Bleed is a solo journaling game found in the first issue of the d36 zine, which was put together by Chris Bissette of Loot The Room and was kickstarted back in 2021 . This particular edition of the zine focuses on visceral themes, including blood and violence, and honestly isn’t for everyone. The print edition is absolutely stunning, featuring a soft rose petal cover with gorgeous layouts and typography tailored for each game inside.

Strange Things is by designer Sinta Posadas who has designed many TTRPGs, including an entire series about plants (The “PlantVerse”) and magical frogs, and also provides wonderful art packs for other designers to use. The only place I’ve found Strange Things, however, is in d36.

In my first long-term streamed campaign, Saving Feyce, I played a character named Aoife (EE-fuh) Inkblood, who was a swamp witch flavored warlock. I struggled intensely with connecting to her for the longest time, and it really reflected in my storytelling in the game. It took a while, but I worked through a lot of indie games and character development exercises to really bring bring her to life. Strange Things was one of those exercises, and this is the first time I’m sharing the story outside of the campaign. This final version helped to shape some of the world and lore that our characters lived in, which was a really neat experience

Strange Things Come From the Wicked Wood: A Story of Et’ta

I have been wandering in the swamp for nine days. Nights? … Cycles? Nine times the moon in the sky has turned from barely a sliver to full, swollen and shining with a sick red light. Nine times I have watched blood seep from the trees and pollute the waters of the place I call home.

Maybe this is just a vision. Maybe this is all in my head, and I am truly in no danger here… But I cannot be sure. There is no way to tell. My dress is sodden with blood and muck in a way that truly feels real.

It has taken this long for me to remember my name. Aoife. Aoife Inkmaker. It is a good name, and mine, though perhaps not very strong. I seem to remember my nana giving it to me. Hazel, her name is. It comes to me on a wave of memory, the scent of warm beef stew and baking bread.

Gazing up at the slowly swelling moon, a sense of urgency comes upon me. Though there seems to be no real passage of time in this place, the place where lost things go, I know it is time.

I begin walking.

Rains came during the last cycle, the first time I’ve truly felt clean since I found myself here. Puddles still remain, humidity keeping the air thick and wet with no room for more moisture. I gaze dispassionately at my face in the dark, red-tinged water as I walk. Matted orange hair pulled back, trinkets tied into it like a crow’s nest. Green eyes, pale skin, plain face, pointed ears. There is nothing there that is familiar, except the shape of my lips. They remind me of someone else. Someone… softer.

Gathering my skirt, I continue walking on the trail I’ve taken eight times before. The trees feel closer together this time, and I have to wonder if I’m imagining that. How much of this is real, and how much is in my head? And why am I here? I must remember why I’m here. There must be a reason. Why else would I be in this place, over and over again?

The moon continues to swell in the sky, its light growing and casting deeper shadows as it does. At the side of the trail, I spy an old campfire: The charred wood soaked and cold from the rain. No comfort to be found, and I cannot remember building a fire during one of my previous walks down this path. Is someone else here?

As I look down at the ashes, there is the glint of something there and I cannot help but sift my fingers through. I pull my hand back with a hiss, fingertips dripping blood. Pressing the blackened and bleeding fingers inside my mouth, I use my other hand to pull a curved knife from the cold remains. The letters “AI” are engraved on the blade near the white bone handle and it fits perfectly in a loop on my belt, as if it were always meant to be there. Next to it, a bundle of dried flowers hangs by a length of cord. The flowers smell sweet, like lavender sugar, a welcome reminder that even in this place there are good and soft things to be found.

The trail widens a bit here, as it has for every one of the last eight cycles. I’m beginning to keep these little landmarks in my mind, learn the shape of this dark place. Hopefully this effort is not in vain.

As before, small lights dance beside the path. They hover and bounce just beyond the tree line, their warm glow barely illuminating the shadows that live between the massive trunks. The lights do not give me hope any longer… Not after the fourth turn, where I followed them to my doom. Grasping vines twisting around my ankles, dragging me into the thick water, algae clinging to my hair.

Shaking my head, I brush away those thoughts and focus on this cycle. This path before me. Focus on the music that begins to play in the distance, pulling me further along. The sounds of wind chimes, of deep wind instruments coming to me on the breeze, twisting between the boughs and trunks of the red-stained trees.

The tempo picks up and my pace goes with it, until I am nearly flying down the path. It is almost as if the beat of the melody is chasing me, pushing me faster, my hair flying behind. A quick glance over my shoulder this time. The lights follow, bobbing in beat with my footsteps, with my heartbeat. I try to run faster, and as I do so the lights keep pace. The music picks up to a fever pitch… Until I burst into a small clearing.

The silence is deafening.

Here, the white trunks of the trees are ghostly and pristine in the silver light of the nearly-full moon. I do not remember this place, where the roots heave themselves out of the water, seeming to boil up and over their kin in a bid to be dry. The leaves are shaped like those of the mangrove, but ruby red.

Suddenly ravenous, I realize it has been so many days… Cycles. So many cycles since I’ve had anything to eat. The leaves… Nana has used mangrove leaves in her cooking before, I’m certain. The branch nearest to me bends down to meet my outstretched hand, almost as if it is yearning to be touched. Tearing the autumnal leaf in half, it weeps a red sap that looks like blood… But ohh, it smells like the soft sweet cakes I make for breakfast. It tastes just as sweet, with a small hint of spice, as I lick a drop away. A warmth spreads through me as I swallow, and my belly feels almost full as I reach for another, tearing the fragile skin with my teeth while the sap slips down my chin. As I wipe away the liquid, I am somehow shocked at just how much it looks like blood on the back of my hand.

The sound of a branch snapping off to my right causes me to gasp, eyes wide as I wheel around to face whatever adversary the swamp has chosen to throw at me this time. A soft whisper through the trees, words I cannot make out, blown away by a forceful wind. Keeling down, I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, hoping to blot out this nightmare.

“Happy thoughts,” I whisper to myself, willing my focus away from the cold air and metallic taste in my mouth. Back to the hut, and mornings with Nana. Waking up early, cold water and peppermint tea together on the porch. Watching the sun glitter over the water through the long moss, the scent of sweet cakes and dew on the breeze. I cannot lay down and die here. I must return. There is still so much left to do.

Feeling the cold air become motionless around me, I rise to my feet only to find the center of the clearing now holds an altar. Unvarnished wood, stained with blood and mud, it stands as if it had been there the whole time. Resting up on the macabre tabletop is a glimmering silver coin, strikingly uncorrupted against the grime. It is surprisingly warm as I pick it up, turning it over between my fingers. One side has the number “100” embossed on it, while the other has beautiful flowers, both with characters in a language I do not recognize. Peace washes over me as I drag in a deep breath, clutching the coin tightly.

The overwhelming scent of fresh coppery blood assails my nose, making me gag and double over. Looking around at the trees, the red liquid is pouring from them. Dripping down the tendrils of hanging moss, weeping from gashes in the tree trunks, bubbling up from the ground as if it were spring water.

My bare feet squelch into the mud that suddenly manifests underneath my skirts, and I am dragged down as the bloody water starts to rise. I clutch the coin even tighter, looking up into the sky at the moon. It is full and deep red and angry.

In response, anger blooms in my chest. I scream, wordless and primal, into this forever night. “You cannot have me!” I call out, defiant in the last moments I will live in this cycle. “You cannot have me!” I scream, my voice breaking from the strain.

The viscous liquid closes over me and I gasp, taking the tainted water into my lungs. From here, the glimmer of the full and bloody moon in the water is almost hauntingly beautiful. As I exhale, the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears is the last thing I hear…

… Until the sound of softly chirping birds reaches me. I blink my eyes open, and hiss against the sunlight I haven’t seen in a week or more. Pushing myself upright, I recognize this place: This path leads to the Wicked Woods. The place where forgotten things go. Where sacrifices to the swamp end up. Where only the witches of the swamp can safely tread, to reclaim what was lost.

Gathering my shaking legs beneath me, I smile into the rising sun. My name is Aoife Inkblood and I am a Witch of the Swamp, like my Nan before me. I have gone into the Wicked Wood, and returned more than I was before. I am now whole, like the swelling blood moon. None can take this new power from me. It is mine and I will fight to defend myself, and this place, and those people I call home.

Indie Systems: Princess with a Cursed Sword, as a Designer

Using the Princess Sword framework as a base for design feeling strikingly similar to playing a Princess Sword game. As with any other framework, the designed needs to figure out how all of the different mechanics weave together to create a toolkit for them to build their game with. Each piece has a different reason for being in the kit, and the Princess Sword System Resource Document (SRD) is extremely helpful when explaining the mechanics of the game.

Princess Sword is one of the most-used frameworks for my game (as long as we’re including those that are forthcoming, anyway…) just because of the versatility inherent in the mechanics. The games mostly leans on a tarot deck to guide the narrative, with five different suits available to create unique groups of basic prompts. Each suit refers to a specific thing, then provides a small list of ideas to help the player generate inspiration. For example, in my upcoming game To Inflame a Missing Sun, I use each suit to represent a different room on the spaceship and provide a small list of things that could happen in that room, like a whispered conversation in the crew quarters, or an oxygen garden sabotage in the laboratory.

In the original Princess with a Cursed Sword, the mechanics also utilize a coin flip to determine if the player character succeeds during challenging encounters. This is a mechanic that I personally struggled with during play, as I wanted nothing more than for my Princess to survive. In my game, I use the upright and reversed statuses of the cards to create a complication or challenge for the character to overcome. To me, this feels a bit more organic as the issues are presented naturally by playing the game and the player needs to figure out a way to adjust to the new narrative.

In To Inflame a Missing Sun, I did choose to use a coin flip mechanic, which isn’t something I had included in previous Princess Sword games I’ve designed. Because the game takes place on a spaceship with a crew, I used it in order to have the player determine if they were experiencing whatever the card has presented them with on their own or with another crewmate. This use of the coin flip, again, feels organic to me and helps create another fold in the narrative of the game. In such a small space, the player character could be extremely isolated… Or they could always be around others. Leaving that up to chance is an interesting way to help forge the character into who they become through the story.

While the Princess Sword framework has helped me create so many of my games (four, now), I have expanded on it and made tweaks that I think lend my games to more short-term, structured play, such as the inclusion of a dice roll at the beginning of play to determine how many turns your game will last. Something like this is totally optional for the player, should they choose: If they just want to go until the story feels completed, they don’t have to roll at all.

If you’re interested in creating a Princess Sword game on your own, I highly recommend purchasing a copy of the SRD from Anna Anthropy, and taking a look at the document yourself. This is one of those systems that I truly feel has so many possibilities for storytelling, and I’m really excited to see what you choose to do with it in the future. You can find other Princess Sword games here in this collection, if you’re looking for more understanding of what you can do with it.

Thanks for joining me for another Indie Systems breakdown! If this sort of thing interests you, you can check out the rest of the series here. Remember to join our mailing list - Scroll to the bottom and add your email address for biweekly updates with all our posts, photos and the occasional discount code to the shop. See you next time!

How to Write an Indie TTRPG - Safety Tools

In the last few years, I’ve learned a lot about safety tools in TTRPGs. There are a lot of options for multi-player games, but it can be hard to know where the lines and veils are in a solo game experience. As someone who hasn’t has much experience designing games for more than one person, we’ll be focusing on single player game safety tools.

Generally, safety tools for solo TTRPGs boil down to a couple of things: The ability to give personal consent and trust, agency, and a willingness to be vulnerable. Let’s take these one at a time.

We all have a pretty firm understanding of consent: Effectively, this is giving permission for something to happen. When it comes to solo games, this can be a tricky thing for a player to give. One way we, as designers, can help a player in this regard is to provide content warnings and a detained synopsis of our games. This allows the player to make a more informed decision before they even start playing. Of course, this also means that someone may decide not to play your game, but it’s better to have lost a player to safety concerns than to lose their trust when they stumble unknowingly into triggering content.

Content warnings can take a lot of different forms, but I find it best to include them on both the store page and in the game document itself. For my newer games, I generally include warnings in the copyright text block, along with any other notes. For my earlier games, safety tools are worked into the layout of the game and that includes their content warnings. Any way you want to do it is valid, as long as you do have them.

Warnings should include anything that could potentially be harmful to your player. Remember to think about this in broad strokes, and hone in on the fact that your game isn’t just for you. If you’re not sure where to start on this, check out some other indie games and review their warnings. Some easy things to get you started include common fears and phobias.

Agency refers to the feeling of control over one’s actions and, therefore, their consequences. This one is a bit harder to define for solo games, as the player is always in control of their choice to play. It’s important to remind the player that if they feel unsafe, they can step back at any time.

The concept of agency also extends to the idea of specifically seeking out games with themes or content that the player knows will be challenging to harmful to them. Obviously, this isn’t something you can plan for, but you can do your best to protect them by giving them adequate content warnings and providing them ample opportunity to choose to play your game or not.

Please note that this isn’t to say that there shouldn’t be games with triggering or challenging content. As designers, it’s still up to us to ensure our players know what they’re getting into when they sit down to play. Whether they’re seeing a kind of catharsis, or some other result, isn’t for us to police.

These two ideas dovetail with the concept of the player having a willingness to be vulnerable. Many solo TTRPGs put the player in a position of vulnerability, whether that is from not knowing what comes next (through the flip of a coin, roll of a die, or turn of a card) or through gameplay that may lead to prompts that challenges their worldview or are emotionally impactful. Any of this can lead to feelings of vulnerability, which can make a player feel uncomfortable.

In a game where a Game Master is present, there is a level of trust that is given; in a solo game, that trust has to be created by the designer, a kind of contract with the player. They have to trust themselves, to know when to step back or how to press through an uncomfortable situation to one that evokes better feelings.

In the end, a player’s safety all comes down to trust: Trust in themselves and trust in the designer. It is a contract we enter into with them, a promise to keep them safe, even when the questions we ask and the scenarios we design are emotional, scary, or just plain challenging. It’s a promise we should take seriously, and hold sacred, so we can provide the best experience possible for our players.

Play & Review: Wait For Me

Wait For Me is a stunning solo journaling game by Jeeyon Shim and Kevin Kulp that centers around the player character and time traveling through their life. It is a style of game that has you drafting entries over a total of 21 games, and the end result is a beautiful keepsake journal that details your time in the game.

As with all of these solo games, you (the player) don’t have to be the main character: You can create a fictional person whose life you build through these entries, or maybe it’s a way to learn more about your TTRPG character’s backstory before they went on their current adventure; However you choose to play, the results of your entry will be different every time, even though the prompts stay the same.

Below you can see a few of my journal entries from my recent play through of this game:

Overall, I love Wait For Me and its concepts of time travel and keepsake journals. I initially backed this game on Kickstarter and received the prompts via email daily when the campaign was finished. It was so interesting and unique; each day was a surprise, and it made me eager for the next entry. I highly recommend this game if you enjoy journaling and creative writing, and don’t mind getting emotionally invested in your own story.

Indie Systems: Princess with a Cursed Sword, as a Player

At the beginning of the pandemic I was, like so many, laid off from a job that I had held for over seven years. It took me a while to pick myself up after that happened, and one things that helped me out of my rut was reading tarot. Just prior to being let go, I had started a multi-tiered Patreon where I was providing tarot readings for my Patrons every single day. Some days, there were multiple readings, depending on the moon phase or holiday.

Soon after losing my job, I also joined the case of an actual play D&D game called Saving Feyce, where I played a witch-flavored warlock. My interest in TTRPGs grew around this time, as nearly all of us at that table were using custom subclasses for our characters. This is where I discovered the indie TTRPG scene and Reader, let me tell you: I was a goner.

I still remember sitting in bed with my tarot deck, the instructions for Princess with a Cursed Sword on my phone. The framework for the game was so elegant, so easy to understand. It was perfect for someone like me, who loves writing creative stories but thrives with direction. The rules and cards give you just enough of a framework to guide you, but not so much that it stifles your ability to write a story of your own.

One of the most refined parts of Princess with a Cursed Sword is that it leaves so much open to the chosen narrative of the player. Are you wanting a classic princess in a large ballgown, who is forced into this journey to rid herself of a cursed sword? Or maybe she’s a warrior princess, built and trained for battle who decides to give into the sword’s demands? Even still, you could create a princess who is the second son to a spacefaring race of people and needs to return the sword to the “rightful” heir. There are so many options within the given framework.

Princess with a Cursed Sword is one of the first indie TTRPGs that I had the pleasure of playing, as I’m sure that’s where some of my warm and fuzzy feelings for this game come from. Truly, I feel like it’s a great place to jump into solo journaling games, so if you haven’t given this one a shot yet, I recommend it.

If you enjoyed this (short) post, you can check out the others in the game systems category for more like this. Alternately, if you like the idea of Princess with a Cursed Sword but want something a little more spooky, you can check out my Princess Sword game You, and the House. Remember to join our mailing list - Scroll to the bottom and add your email address for biweekly updates with all our posts, photos and the occasional discount code to the shop. See you next time!

How to Write an Indie TTRPG - Mechanical Design

Welcome to another edition of How to Write a Game series, this one focused on game design. Initially, I had wanted to cover both mechanics design and layout design, but we’re going to use this one to talk mechanics and rules only. We’ll have a follow up about layout design later.

"Princess with a Cursed SRD" by Anna Anthrophy, and the Wretched and Alone SRD by Sealed Library and Chris Bissette.

For some game designers mechanics are very important, but also terribly tricky. There’s a balance between creating something new, and taking inspiration from other’s works without copying them directly. My biggest piece of advice for new game designers is to start yourself off with a softball: Play lots of games, find out what you like, and see if there is a System Resource Documents (SRD) for it. SRDs can be a lifesaver, especially if you’re wanting to create a game that is similar to another designer’s.

A good SRD will give you all the information you need to create a “new” version of the original game you played. Many SRDs will explain why a certain mechanic was used, or what type of game works best with their system. For example, the Princess Sword SRD explains that because the system uses a tarot deck it may be best suited for fantasy-style games, as many tarot decks do not feature modern or sci-fi imagery and may not evoke the right vibe for your game. SRDs will also include information on how to properly label and cite your work, indicating that your game uses a specific framework and you’re authorized to do so.

For me, personally, building games whole cloth is challenging. I find that I do my best work when building off a framework, creating something something that fits my vision around those mechanics. There are a few games in my library that are original creations, but just as many are based off the work of other creators who have inspired me with their games.

Mechanics in TTRPGs are important: Leaving your players with questions about how particular things work can lead to games being left unplayed, and so I find it is best to ensure that your ruleset is written in clear and concise language. Even if your game has a lot of moving parts, your players should be able to understand why each mechanic exists and what it does for the rest of your game. In one of my upcoming games, I’ve included a coin flip mechanic to tell the player if they are alone on a turn or if they have crew members with them. While this is a mechanic that could be left out, or a choice left up to the player to decide, I opted to include it and leave that choice up to chance. That mechanic could also be completely overlooked or unused and it wouldn’t change anything about the game and its end results: A journal documenting their playthrough.

The concept of mechanics in indie TTRPGs also takes on a multitude of different concepts and ideas. In the game Ten Candles, your group literally has 10 lit candles in their playing area and when they have all burned out, the game is over. In 32%, the color of the card you draw has different meanings based on what your character is doing. The Wretched uses a tumbling block tower to relay the condition of your ship. It doesn’t all have to be dice rolls.

In the end I think the most important part of mechanics and game design is ensuring that your rules and mechanics for each rule, the how and why behind them, are clear. You can only go so far on concept alone, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box! Utilize tokens to represent health, use a lit stick of incense to create a timer, create instructions for making a little paper cut out lighthouse that the players can put together (that one’s in The Lighthouse at the Edge of the Universe, so maybe don’t do that, but you know what I mean). The sky’s the limit, and I’m so excited to see what you do!

If you’re new here and you like this post, you can check out the others in this series via the Game Design tag. Be sure to scroll all the way down and sign up for our newsletter - A biweekly round up of our posts, games we’re playing, and other such fun things. Thanks for checking us out!