Thursday 24 August 2017

My game designing story so far - part three


I didn't stray from Tunnels and Trolls, even during my more experimental phase. The power team of Christina Lea and Tom K Loney created a Trollish Delver line of GM adventures through Peryton Publishing, with myself and Tom alternating between releasing T&T scenarios in my Peakvale setting. I must get back into that.

I was beginning to become interested in broadening my horizons and challenging myself. In 2015 I released The Village on the Hill, my first 'storytelling' game and also my first game aimed at families. I remember making the game being a peaceful experience itself - it's a gentle game and I'm quite proud of it, despite it being one of my lesser known ones.

You can probably tell by now that I love making games. It's a hobby that, at the time, was starting to bring in enough money to supplement my income. Continuing my delve into less traditional games I wrote Canary Overdrive - a game all about badass female cyberpunk superspies.

Throughout the years I had been making notes on a space opera supplement for USR. Towards the end of 2015 this would become Somnium Void - a rip roaring space opera with a mystery behind it. I think this is the first book I released that had some buzz about it and as a result sold really well (for me). This was the point where I thought - hey, I might not be so bad at this thing.

Beyond Fear came next - a Lovecraftian USR supplement, which I believe does lite Lovecraft very well. I'd like to bring out a new edition of this with full USR rules.

The beginning of 2016 was huge for me. There I was, noodling around with my notebook when I had the idea of combining letter writing and roleplaying. I scratched out some mechanics and started playing through, honing the game and realising - holy shit, this works! Quill was by far the most off-kilter game I'd ever created and something that I'd never seen before, except to some extent with Dr Profundis. Quill sold like hotcakes and people were actually talking about it. Quite a lot of people. Soon people were getting in touch wanting to create their own versions. It was nuts! Podcasts were talking about it, blogs were reviewing it, I was being interviewed - it was pretty surreal.

Next time: In Darkest Warrens, The Pulp Hack and Romance of the Perilous Land.






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