Updated the Post Mortem of Uncharted Worlds with the first set of “What Went Wrong”, specifically about the game’s…
Updated the Post Mortem of Uncharted Worlds with the first set of “What Went Wrong”, specifically about the game’s economy.
http://www.uncharted-worlds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7&sid=4df1806b5a17b6d24a204989a56b114d
Wrote up Part 1 of an Uncharted Worlds post-mortem on the forums, if you’re interested in meandering designer…
Wrote up Part 1 of an Uncharted Worlds post-mortem on the forums, if you’re interested in meandering designer musings.
Also a reminder that the the http://www.uncharted-worlds.com/forum/ exists and you should totes sign up if you haven’t already.
State of Uncharted Worlds
State of Uncharted Worlds
Hi folks. This post has been a long time coming. Doesn’t make it any easier, sadly. Long rambling ahead!
Firstly, I’d like to apologize for falling off the face of the Earth. That wasn’t cool. There are mitigating circumstances, which I’ll go into in a second, but it still was something that I feel quite bad about.
Basically, I kind of unofficially “shut down” on everything Uncharted Worlds, and gaming in general. Around November I started to get extremely burned out and exhausted. Work was going from bad to worse, sapping my energy and motivation and leaving a lethargic husk. Add that to my father’s ongoing and soul-crushing neuro-muscular degeneration, and a stressful holiday season, and I just checked out mentally and emotionally. It was either that, or burn everything UW-related to the ground in a fit of blinding rage/panic-attack.
Dark times. I’m not through those dark times yet, but I’m forcing myself to write this because you guys deserve answers.
In many ways, the Google+ shutdown was the nail in the coffin. It takes a lot out of me to be “public”, to be social with a community. It took a ton of work and stepping waaaaaaaaaaay outside my comfort zone just to create this community. It was something that I was proud of. But it took a lot of effort, and I had to force myself to log in regularly, to respond regularly, to make it a routine. And then it fell apart, and everyone left.
I’m sure I could reform that community elsewhere. But I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to try right now. I’m too fragile at the moment, too easily hurt. My shields are down. I’m out of mana. Etc.
As for writing. I wrote Uncharted Worlds because I wanted to share something, I wanted to entertain. And despite not knowing what I was getting myself into, I stumbled into a greater success than I dared hope. I wrote for the community. You folks were my inspiration, my drive.
So that’s where UW is at right now. I’m burned out, watching my father waste away, the community I built is all but gone, and I derive no more joy from gaming. It’s a tangled mess.
I’m working my way through it, from various angles, in the laughably little free time I have between a full-time job in the video game industry, and raising a 4 year old kid (who is as stubborn as his father, and his father’s father before him). More working out. Sun lamp to combat the cold, dark winter months of Quebec. More sleep. Seeing a psychologist.
The first step to eventually reviving UW will be to find a new home to connect with the community again. From there I’ll be able to talk future plans. But I have no idea where to begin or where to go, and I’m not in the right frame of mind to make a decision yet.
Sorry again, folks. And thank you. Thank you so much for all your kindness and awesomeness.
(TL:DR Emotionally broken, UW stuff on back-burner, need to rebuild community elsewhere, can’t do that yet because emotionally broken)
Carta Galaxia Development Update #27
Carta Galaxia Development Update #27
Finally finished the Campaigns chapter. Thanks to everyone who proivded feedback and suggestions over the past month, it was super helpful.
I’ve posted the current version in this post. Take a look, tell me what you think.
Next Chapter
The next chapter that I’ve been meaning to tackle is “running the game”, which was going to cover Exploration, Challenge, and Combat situations.
My early rough sketches of the Combat section of the chapter seem to be mostly A) Justifications for why the combat system is the way it is (i.e. “one roll to defeat an enemy”) and B) Examples of situations where getting to that “one roll” is the real challenge.
I have no idea if that will play out well or not. I’m taking inspiration from previous posts here in the community, but I’m open to suggestions.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r4q0tex0linqshr/Chapter%201%20-%20Campaign%20Setting.docx?dl=0
Frostpunk’s soundtrack really captures a mood without conforming to a genre, which makes it excellent background…
Frostpunk’s soundtrack really captures a mood without conforming to a genre, which makes it excellent background music for everything from space opera to fantasy to WW2… as long as you’re dealing with gravely important material.
Deep, resonant, strings dominate everything. There’s a profound sense of melancholy and gravitas, suitable for politics, suspense, slow horror, or tragedy. Drums occasionally rumble into the more tense pieces, but over all the melodies are slow, meandering, and powerfully emotional.
This is definitely a soundtrack I’d use for something like The Sword (see previous Carta Galaxia previews) or a politically charged UW game with less combat and more intrigue/investigation.
Carta Galaxia Development Update #26
Carta Galaxia Development Update #26
What’s this? A mere two days after the last update? I couldn’t possibly keep up this pace, but I got quite a bit of writing time this past weekend, so I figured I’d share.
In my last update I posted the new 2-pager of The Sword. Seemed to go over fairly well, so I tackled the next example: the Core. Those of you who have been following development may remember the ill-fated Core campaign setting that I ended up torpedoing a few months ago. The setting was bloated and over-designed, and doing something so detailed went against a number of designs and principles of the game.
I recovered and modified the central elements of the old Core material, and adapted them to the new two-page structure.
Unlike the previous Campaign example, where you had Factions and Points of Interest, the Core is a dystopian future where the Factions are the points of interest. Or rather; all interesting things are intrinsically tied to the faction.
So I changed up the layout a bit here; each faction gets a couple of points of interest, things to see and interact with, which will hopefully spark story ideas.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xnbj6b7ihxfop95/Example%20-%20TheCore_v1.docx?dl=0
Carta Galaxia Development Update #25
Carta Galaxia Development Update #25
Really appreciated the feedback from the last update. I took all of it into account, and came to the conclusion that while I would really want to do one-page Campaign Settings, it would serve the audience better to go up to 2 pages (especially since I’m sticking to the 6×9 page format, so less text per page)
Here’s the new version of The Sword, one of several example Campaign Settings that will be available in the chapter.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wnjlptm765jyjiv/Example%20-%20TheSword_v2.docx?dl=0
Carta Galaxia Development Update #24
Carta Galaxia Development Update #24
Whoooee, this has been a heck of a month. Sorry for the lack of updates!
– Got to run a small booth at Montreal ComicCon. It was super fun meeting folks, and some even joined the community, so warm welcome to all of you! Bienvenue parmi nous!
– I’ve been doing crazy overtime with my day job. We’ve got a pretty huge update coming, and I’ve been up to my neck in deadlines and hard-locks and devtests and so forth. Haven’t had much time or mental capacity for writing, sadly.
– On that note, I’ll be away until September; I’m going to be working the demo floor at Gamescom in Germany. I’ll try to check in but my access to internet will be horrifically limited.
I’d like to get feedback on something I’ve been tooling with:
As with every chapter, I’m including a handful of examples. What I’ve linked here is one of the examples from the Scenario chapter, meant to be the start point of a campaign. The intent is to give the players a rough idea of what the universe is like, the look and feel and tone, etc. I’ve tried to condense that down to a single 6″ x 9″ page. But it’s a fine line to tread between “too dense” and “not enough to work with”
This is part of my growth as a designer, so I’m still toying with ideas, layouts, etc, and I’d appreciate comments. Does this work? Is it usable? Or is it missing something major?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zjoiaypdi7j4a1k/Example%20-%20TheSword.docx?dl=0
Are you going to be at Montreal ComicCon this weekend? If so, drop by and say hi!
Are you going to be at Montreal ComicCon this weekend? If so, drop by and say hi!
Uncharted Worlds will be at Montreal ComicCon this Friday, Saturday and Sunday (July 6th, 7th, and 8th) in Room 511
Carta Galaxia Development Update #23
Carta Galaxia Development Update #23
Happy (slightly belated) Canada Day everyone! And Happy pre-emptive 4th of July to our southern friends.
It feels good to be back in the saddle, actually getting writing done. I’m trying to pace myself, keep a good work/writing/family balance going (I hear tell of a mythical thing called sleep, I’ll have to give it a try).
I’m happy to report that I have finished the first draft of Chapter 2 – Jump Points, and I’d be very interested to hear feedback. I’ve attached it to this post, so please check it out!
It’s separated into 3 parts:
– How to create a compelling Jump Point
– Running a Jump Point
– 6 Example Jump Points
For the examples, I tried to give a wide enough diversity in the examples, scenarios that will cater to different character archetypes and playgroups. Most of these are Jump Points that I’ve run for a variety of play groups, so they’re at least somewhat tested (Checkpoint ended up being super deadly the two times I ran it and needed to be toned waaaay down).
I’m quite pleased at how the overall formatting of the Jump Points came out. I tried to keep them brief (1 page) without making them too obtuse or inscrutable. Tell me if you think they need to be 2-pagers with more guidance instead (like the original “Planet-Bound Salvage” example Jump Point from the UW core book).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bjaux4mqxn8m32s/Chapter%202%20-%20Jump%20Points.docx?dl=0