Posts Tagged ‘kickstarter’

Josh Roby & I are at it again. Pay close attention, my sons and daughters, for one is totally free and the other is being Kickstarted. These are the Vicious Crucible games, which Josh Roby explains both us in this sweet Kickstastic video:

If you’re allergic to videos, here’s what’s up:

The borderlands of the Verdigris Valley have never been peaceful, but now an invasion force gathers at the summit of the Pashuan Way, looking hungrily down on the rich homesteads and crippled fort below. The days to come will throw six men and women into a gauntlet of desperate pressures, crushing obligations, and entangling relationships. Some will fall; some will triumph; some will cave to the pressures; some will bask in the flames like a phoenix. These six stand on the precipice of The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley. The only way out is through, and the only way through requires a painful transformation into something new.

The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley is game for up to six players and a GM. It plays in three to five sessions, or a pulse-pouding single session of jump cuts and action sequences. Best of all, it’s free.

All Vicious Crucible games are released as a free download. I’m using a “ransom model” for funding the project, with a bit of a twist. The first game, Verdigris Valley, is already released for free (download below). If the ransom is met, I’ll publish the next game for everyone to enjoy. On top of that, when you back the project, you also get the Franchise: you get to vote on where the next Vicious Crucible will be.

So check out Verdigris Valley and decide if you’d like to see more. Then hit up the Kickstarter and pick a reward tier that looks fun.

As with Void Vultures, my role in the project is editor & co-developer, Unlike Void Vultures, this system is actually is only a few pages long. The rules are six pages in total (and Josh gets into the process of designing for that), with the supplemental material for the adventure 30 pages beyond that (including characters, locations, and a map). It has a witty back-and-forth beat mechanic that’s focused on character elements to generate the scene’s language[1]. Check it out; it’s free, and I think worth your time.

For that second game I mentioned (in case you didn’t finish the video above), Josh is doing the Kickstarter for the second Vicious Crucible game, which the backers will vote on if it succeeds. Consider backing the Kickstarter if you’re interested in that, or you just plain like what you see in Verdigris Valley and would like the see the creators get some coin for their work.

Thanks!

- Ryan

[1] Which has become one of my favorite mechanics. I love it in Cortex Plus, loved it in Dogs in the Vineyard before that.

Josh Roby and I have a new game out on Kickstarter: Void Vultures.

Void Vultures is a pick-up-and-play science fiction roleplaying game in which you play “salvage experts” picking apart dangerous derelict space stations to keep your home township alive.  Play is quick, fun, and light; you can clear a derelict in an hour or two, or take on a behemoth over the course of a few hours.

This started as a joke on Twitter, or IM, I can’t remember. It’s powered by “Rülsleit”[1], this idea we shot around about a quick-to-resolve system with a tongue-in-cheek feel. Then the document passing went back and forth. If you’ve already backed it, you’ll see that my name is on the in-development document. That’s because I’m the other half of this project: its instigator & editor.

If you read my post recently about the sort of games I want to make, this is pretty much it: light, 24 pages, it’s ready to roll. Well, it’s two 24 page books — the main book with all the rules, and a companion book with all sorts of derelicts in the void to salvage.

If this sort of thing piques your interest, for a mere $5 you can check out the PDF of the main book, Rüls of the Void, right now. We’re still doing the final touches on it, and while we’re getting the art & working on Derelicts of the Void — the point of the Kickstarter funding — we’ll take your playtest feedback into the process

Now we’re pretty close to hitting our goal of $750. I know what happens next once we break past that, and I’m all a-tingle about it.

Looks like we made it! Which means we’re going bigger… Here’s Josh’s update:

The Void Vultures kickstarter has reached its initial goal of $750! We’ll be able to get some awesome art from awesome artists (details coming soon) and make both Rüls of the Void and Derelicts of the Void into great PDFs.

But if we can get the kickstarter to go further, we’ll make Rüls and Derelicts even better… we’ll make them free.

If this kickstarter hits $1500, both Rüls of the Void and Derelicts of the Void will be fully ransomed, freely downloadable to the world.

But wait, you might be thinking, if the game becomes free, what have I bought, then? Never fear, our loyal, generous, and very appreciated backers: we’ve got something special right here, just for you.

At the next threshold, we’ll create Horrors of the Void, a second expansion exclusively for Void Vultures’ backers. This expansion will invade your brain with 24 more pages of off-the-hook options for your salvage experts themselves and the terrible threats they face. Play void vultures with mind-bending Psi powers or augmented with powerful Cyber. Confront the treacherous Void Syndicate or quail before the New Solar Order.

And the best part? All that good stuff will only be available to backers like you and those lucky gamers who play with you. How’s that for a perk?

So prod your friends to check out Void Vultures. Post, tweet, status-update, and whatever else so that we can push this thing to the stars.

Thank you for all your support! We wouldn’t have made it this far without you.

So, yeah, you want to see Josh & I get our Space Horror on? Yeah you do. Swing on by & help us out!

(And don’t think that’s all we have planned. We’ll see what happens once we get to $1500, if we do.)

- Ryan

[1] HAHAHAHAHAHA aren’t we clever[1a]

[1a] Dear god, I hope we are. Hold me, Marge.

Today I had planned to promote Daniel Solis’ new Kickstarter campaign, this time for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. And I still do, but the success it’s had over the last two days has greatly changed what I’m going to say.

I’ve been working with Daniel as his editor on this since, uh, 2008 maybe? It’s been a long time.  I was intrigued by Do early on, and we talked about me editing his game. It went through a few revisions over time, and we stepped away from Do for a bit when he was working on Happy Birthday, Robot! So it’s pretty cool to see a project baked so long in the over that is Daniel’s heart start to rise.

And holy fuck, rise it has. The campaign started this past Saturday, and in two days we’ve raised over 200% of the funded goal. But we — that is, it’s a joint venture with Evil Hat Productions — have 43 days to go, and are creating more incentives to increase the funding. Right now, we’re at the point where we can order enough books to drop the cover price down to $25[1]. If we get more, our shipping costs for the books get covered, and Daniel starts to actually see some money sooner for his years-long journey.

Update: Fred Hicks has posted up a press release about our pre-order Phase 3.

I’m the principal editor on the project, and we’ve brought on the enterprising Lillian Cohen-Moore to help put that final spit polish on it. The art is gorgeous. And Daniel’s writing is…well, he’s become a hell of a writer. Editing his writing is still work — everyone’s is — but damnit, it’s fun work. A literal joy to read. I’m excited for y’all to see this book.

- Ryan

[1] The interesting thing about Kickstarter isn’t just how it can create funding initiative, but it’s effectively a pre-order campaign that gives the creator/publisher a chance to gauge demand. Ordering a crapton of books just because the per-unit cost is cheaper doesn’t do you any good if you can’t sell them. In fact, it makes your publishing math worse.