September 2024 newsletter
It came from the skies!!!
Not a huge amount left to say about this game, except that it’s set for September 28th and we’re all sold out! Which is wonderful news and it more-or-less happened before I’d finished doing all the assignments which makes assignments much easier because I have almost complete information on who wants to play with who and I don’t have to guess.
Also, if you’re playing and you haven’t seen your player assignments yet, check your inboxes and/or ask your teammates as they should’ve received my emails too.
^ Here’s one of the promos I knocked together a few weeks ago. Maybe you saw it knocking around the interwebs?
We’ll be in the same venue as we normally are - at HCM - which is a wonderful space. Making it even better is the opportunity to use the balcony this time around.
Megagames offer some great opportunities to use the physical space and tactile components in new and interesting ways. In It belongs in a museum, we used blacklights which allowed players to discover artifact forgeries. In Gods of the Ancient World, we had the priests shouting their prayers into a one-way voice chat, hoping they’d be heard by the Gods. For this game, we’ll have the aliens on the balcony, looking down on the World map from up high. I can’t wait to see how it goes and to see the pictures afterwards.
Playtesting my new design
This is probably the biggest new “news” of this email. I’m in the middle of a new megagame design after taking a year away from designing whilst we were running other, already made games - Deephaven and It belongs in a museum (IBIAM).
The game is called Starship 13 and it’s influenced by the following games:
Space station 13 (from which it’s heavily influenced) - It’s an old video game with terrible graphics but with lots of space-based hijinks)
Paranoia - The wonderful role-playing game of secret societies and a “perfect” AI system called Friend Computer.
Nemesis - Which is a heavy, Alien-the-movie inspired board game which I love.
Star Trek lower decks - the very silly cartoon
Among us - the video game of spaceship shenanigans.
I wouldn’t mention it at all if I thought it was just a work-in-progress that might never see the light of day, but after one playtest, I think there’s a game in there. It’s still a fair way off but I hope I’ll be able to run it next year with some more work and playtests. There are plenty of other partial designs which I’ve worked on that may never get past the design phase.
^ This is the first map of the first playtest. Clearly rough but it’ll give you an idea of what one of the ships floors might look like. Each green box is a room which will have 2 decks of cards. Rooms are connected by corridors and you can move a playing piece between the rooms.
This past year, we ran Deephaven which is very LARP adjacent. In some ways, this is my response to that. I wanted to lean into the board game mechanics a lot more. That’s hard to do because the more board game mechanics you have, the more complicated the game becomes and the more components you need. In some ways, the further from a megagame it becomes. I also wanted to slim down the number of control that I needed. Both Deephaven and IBIAM were very control heavy and I want my next game to run itself (or be much less control heavy). I’ve had to be very careful not to fall into any boardgame-to-megagame traps and I’ve been designing this game with the following must-haves:
Easy to learn all game roles
Hidden actions
Players must work with other players
Allow for traitors to cause mischief
Each player has lots to do
Limited communication
Game still continues if a player does not perform their role
Anyone can do anything
Anyone that’s played Space Station 13 will recognize that these items are integral to the game and I wanted them to be part of my megagame too. I’ve also learned a huge amount from running IBIAM - from how necessary it was to have simple mechanics to learning how not to manage cards. :) Like IBIAM, Spaceship 13 will have thousands of cards, but every component will cross reference everything else so it’ll be very easy to find what you need - both for players and the control team.
To further wet your appetite, here’s part of the intro for the game:
Welcome to the world, clone <insert ID here>.You have just been through the {{quite painful}} process of {{something akin to}} birth. Please attempt to get all the {{gross}} birthing fluids off you as quickly as possible and put on your assigned jumpsuit. You are aboard Starship 13, owned and operated by The Redwire Corporation. Your designation is <insert job here> and we can’t wait for you to get started. The new clone birthing process should’ve provided you with an elaborately crafted childhood set of memories so you know you’ve always been loved by Redwire and your {{family}} colleagues.For your safety {{and so we can track your every move}}, you have been gifted the CORTEXTMbrain implant. For legal reasons, we have to tell you that there has never been any adverse side effects with the implant.The layout of the ship and where everything is onboard has been uploaded to the CORTEXTM implant {{system error 6202}}. In the event that something went wrong, or if you have any questions on what you should be doing, please refer to the provided {{pages missing}} user guide. The CORTEXTM implant will also provide you with a real-time map of the Starship and will allow you track your fellow crewmates as they move around the ship. This will help you get help when you need it and provide help when your {{ungrateful}} crewmates need it.In the event of untimely death from things outside of Redwire’s control, we can always reclone you and you’ll {{probably}} retain all your memories from previous clones. But in a safe and secure environment like Starship 13, that is incredibly unlikely to occur.
So what are we videogames?
Started playing Remnant 2 with a friend of mine and really enjoying it so far.
It’s a 3rd person, semi-randomized shooter with some Darksouls elements. There’s some story about the end of the world but it’s pretty forgettable. The creatures are bizarre and the landscapes are beautiful and varied. I’m always excited to see what’s just around the corner.
So what are we boardgames?
I just picked up Wilmot’s Warehouse - a board game adaptation of a very silly video game. It’s partly developed by the Shut up and Sit down team and it’s got their vibe all through it.
It’s basically a game of cooperative memory. But the magic comes in the stories that you create as a team to help you memorize the items. For example, we had an item down that looked like a fork and then immediately drew an object that had some resemblance to a sword hilt. So we decided that someone was eating their dinner with a sword/knife and fork. Then we drew a weird circle shape and decided that it was a plate so we put it close to the knife and fork.
Across the other side of the warehouse, we had something that looked like 3 cats eyes. Next to it we put something that looked like a butt and decided it was a cats bottom. Later on in the game we had a white-glove thing which we decided the vet wore when he had to stick his finger up the cats bottom.
It’s very silly, but very good.
So what are we televisioning?
I’m trying to finish up Breaking bad, a little-known show about drugs.
I watched about 3 seasons of it a few years ago and found it to be a little slow and frustrating but recently decided that I needed to try again when I read that Antony Hopkins said it was one of the best examples of acting he had ever seen. I mean if it’s good enough for Sir Anthony, then it’s worth another shot.
Suffice to say I’m back in it. I’m almost finished with season 5 now and enjoying every minute. It is frustrating but I’ve accepted that it’s part of it. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the table-top role-playing game Fiasco who’s boilerplate is “A game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control“.
-Tony