Issue #5 (August/September 2022)
Hi there! I forgot to make a newsletter, then I postponed it long enough that I figured I'd make two at once. Oops.
APOCALYPSE FRAME v1.0 status
As noted last time, I'm including the ACES HIGH content as advanced rules in the v1.0 core book. As such, that part is getting edited right now! It's about 1/4 of the rest of the book. Once the entire manuscript is edited, I'll start layout for real. (And once I've created a reasonable template, I'll compile The Infected World using the same layout.)
The Binary Atlas
A few months ago, I wrote a RUNE Realm. I was inspired to write a mini-Realm (that can fit on a pamphlet) as well as another full Realm, and as such I've started selling my Realms for real. In the interest of not having more Realms than actual games, I've created an Atlas: a compilation of Realms as I come up with ideas for 'em. I'm running this kind of like the Infected World: for everything I add to it, I'm bumping the price up $2.50.
Minimalist Jam
At the behest of someone who had a really good idea but not enough time to follow through on it, I started a game jam! The goal is to make a game that's very focused on its text rather than form: you have to use either a preset google docs template or markdown with very little significant formatting when outputting.
I was thinking about a few different scene things that were going on when I decided to take this on:
Various discourses about art, and about its necessity to make something that gets any attention (especially re: AI art).
New game designers being convinced they need to have a minimum amount of art to even start making things.
Creators burning out because of how far they've come from the original desire to create and the expectations on them.
My goal is to remind people that game design is, at the end of the day, supposed about games. This can get lost in the shuffle and industry chat about layout, art, marketing, sales, etc etc etc but it's really, really important. If you lose sight of why you're in this corner of the internet you're bound to burn out.
If you're reading this, it goes until December 1st. Happy creating!
A New (as of yet unnamed) System!
For my part, my Minimalist Jam entry is going to be something that's spiritually not so minimal. This was spawned by a combination of my 36th Way postmortem, what I've learned about games over the past year, and a neat dice trick I had found from a game I wrote like 7 years ago: roll 3d6, take the total, then use the individual dice. When I'd first conceived of this I was just going to make it a 36th Way successor but I realized I could get a bit more ambitious with it. So as you can see from the outline above, I'm organizing this into subsystems, each of which should be modular and engaging. The idea is that new games using this system can take 2-3 of those subsystems and integrate them in unique ways to make their own thing.
That'll be out, uh, sometime in the next two months or so. (It's basically my design project for when I'm not doing AF layout so I don't get too bored with it.)
One Year of Publishing!
I published APOCALYPSE FRAME v0.1 in August 2021, and as such it's past the one year mark! In that time, I've had pretty good success, learned a whole lot, and made a lot of stuff I'm wildly proud of. I appreciate everyone cool I've met during the duration, and I hope to make more and meet more people as time goes on!
If I'm feeling self-indulgent, I'll make a newsletter entry going over my yearly stats and takeaways.
And that's all for now! Hopefully I get the October newsletter out on time!