Hey everyone, I just got the news that my dad has been taken into hospital with lung cancer yesterday and it has thrown me very much out of whack. I don't think I'm going to be able to put out an expansion this month but I will share some behind the scenes stuff from For Small Creatures and CONTAIN once I get my head on straight again.
2022-08-18 10:53:23 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, sorry for the scattered posts last month and the late Maker's Market. Juggling running a web shop, making For Small Creatures, and doing Patreon stuff alongside having a work life balance is a bit trickier than I'd been led to believe!
Hopefully you're all enjoying The Dig as my July offering. It was a very fun game to make and was a blast to put out into the world and who knows, maybe I'll find a viable way to make the other scratch-off games I want to make.
B...
2022-08-02 14:07:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Last year, when I first tippled over the £200 per month mark, I started working on a very experimental game called The Dig. A 21 day long journalling game in which you played as the head of a paleontological dig looking for a pulp style artefact known as The Crystal Spine.
The interesting twist? It was played on an A3 scratch-off poster so you physically uncovered the fossils and prompts as you went. Pretty cool right? I thought so, as did quite a few people who bought it at Dragonmeet...
2022-07-22 12:20:23 +0000 UTC View PostCome one, come all to the Maker’s Market!
Last week of every month in the High Rannoc village square!
Jewellery
Paintings
Sculptures
Woodcrafts
Tools
& Metal Goods
Commission requests can be posted on the town notice board at any point during the month for general fulfilment.
Stalls spaces are free to local residents!
5 silver to travelling merchants
3 silver with a Maker’s Market Season Ticket
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In this A...
2022-07-11 16:34:53 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone,
I figured while I'm knee deep in Apawthecaria fulfillment that I'd share some of the fiction I've been writing surrounding the Dreamsmith setting.
The two pieces, The Candle War and Ava's Journey are set in different periods in the setting. The Candle War being a precursor story set during the time of Nightmares while Ava's Journey follows a Wrong Footer from our world accidentally ending up in the Dreamsmith setting.
Both of them are very, very, ve...
2022-06-11 15:06:16 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone,
First up I want to say thank you to everyone who sent me well wishes and kind words during my time off. As some of you may know from experience or from seeing friends go through it, being self employed can be a stressful experience and it can be very easy to burn out.
Thankfully, after a wonderful hike along Loch Lomond and up to Fort William and a month off to just let my mind and body recover, I'm ready to get back into the thick of things!
At the start of ne...
2022-05-29 16:01:29 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, just a heads up that I'm going to be pausing this Patreon during May as I'm taking two weeks off to de-stress and get my health sorted. As some of you are aware (and have sent many kind messages about) I've been having some health issues and while its not serious yet, I'd rather it not get to that point.
Patreon being paused means you won't get charged during May and service will resume as normal in June.
Thank you all for all the support and I look forward to pickin...
2022-04-21 12:49:07 +0000 UTC View PostNight has fallen over the Rannoc Ranges and while normally only a fool would go stumbling around in the dark, there is need for you to set out into that strange country called night.
The focus in this expansion is letting you explore the core Locales (Glimmerwood Grove, Blastfire Bog, Moonbreaker Mountain, The Cloud Isles, Meltwater Loch, Dreamwater Depths, Hero's Hollow, and The Strange) as they are under the cover of night.
This expansion has new event tables for eac...
2022-04-21 12:45:11 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone,
I'm really sorry about the continuing delay with the Arena expansion. After realising the core mechanics didn't work all that well and trying to make a new action system, I got hit by some god awful flu that still has me under its greasy claws and I just haven't had the mental or physical fortitude to tackle that beast at the moment.
But rest assured, in one form or another, it will get made. Even if it ends up ticking over to next month. I've attached the unfinished...
2022-04-12 17:48:57 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, I'm really sorry about the delay with the Arena expansion. I had it all done and then testing revealed some pretty glaring problems with the Gladiator AI so I've had to rip out the most important part and rework it.
I'll actually put up both versions when its done and talk about the design decisions and what prompted the change once I've got it finished.
Shouldn't be any later than this Friday but I have also been called up for Jury Duty so who knows.
Sor...
2022-04-03 10:22:44 +0000 UTC View PostAs James so kindly reminded me, I had announced a little Mork Borg/ DELVE crossover last year and while my passion for the project died pretty quickly (turns out I don't have the stomach for Mork Borg being the sweet gentle creature that I am) I did at least put some things together that could be brought into a DELVE hold.
2022-03-30 16:39:40 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone,
As the title says, there's going to be some changes to the stuff I'm doing each month but don't worry, it's still going to be good; just different.
During this past month I've been working hard to finish up Apawthecaria and making the DELVE: Arena expansion and while I've loved working on all the events, reagents, and prompts for Apawthecaria, DELVE has left me... less enthused. I think the culprit is that I somewhat consider DELVE finished. There are a few little th...
2022-03-30 14:55:01 +0000 UTC View PostNigh on a hundred and eleven years ago, there was a most terrible war. The monsters from beyond our borders broke through, snuffed the tower sized candles of Last Light and its sisters and gripped the lands in an unyielding darkness. Living Nightmares stalked the forests and streets. The Deep Dreamers became gateways for greater Nightmares and their twisted creations scar the land still.
But their rule was not to last. The Light Knights set out from distant lands, the...
2022-03-21 20:40:02 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, this is just a quick update, I'll write some more comprehensive tomorrow but seeing as we just tipped over the £350 mark, I'm closing the poll and annoucing the winner!
It was a tight race between the Koma Aldri and the Dreamsmith settings and while both of them are my babies and I would be happy to work on either, I'm happy to announce that the Dreamsmith setting has won it by a grand total of...
Drum roll please.
1 Vote!
Koma Aldri - 30
Dreamsmith -...
Patreon is a little confusing and many of you who have been subscribed for a while might not have noticed but we're approaching my next Patron Goal :D
At £350p.m I'll start developing and releasing an RPG setting bit by bit each month but I've hit a snag; I have too many ideas and I'm struggling to choose which one which is why I'm gonna put it up to a vote :)
Options
Koma Aldri - Scottish/Scandinavian Monster Hunter
This setting is o...
2022-03-16 17:58:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Late last year I played a solo game called T-Def by Lari Assmuth. It's a simple system meant to replicate the feel of X-Com games by putting you in charge of some incredibly squishy rookies as they fight tooth and nail to battle off the alien invasion that threatens to wipe out all humanity. It was pretty cool if quite flawed. The core system had a lot of promise but I could never get into it RAW (rules as writte...
2022-03-07 21:06:39 +0000 UTC View PostSteel strikes steel, beaks break bone, and over it all the cheers of the dwarves can be heard as we celebrate our first inagural tournament in The Arena.
This expansion is all about gladitorial combat using generative fighter profiles to act out tournaments where you have no idea who's going to win.
What does that mean?
Well, once you've got your Hold to a certain point, you'll be able to build an Arena and stock it with Dwarvish Gladiators, mercenary warriors...
2022-03-04 15:25:44 +0000 UTC View PostBeware young witch the horns of the hunt for the elves are abroad and it is your duty to protect the people of High Rannoc and all the neighbouring villages from their cruel game.
As you might have guessed, this expansion is all about the Wild Hunt, a band of elves who hunt humans and other folk for sport. Thankfully, as this is a cosy fantasy, they don't always kill their quarry and may instead take them back to the Wild Lodge.
In order to stop the Wild Hunt, you'll have to...
2022-03-02 00:19:30 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, the Kickstarter and the final parts of Apawthecaria combined with the fact that some Roman emperor decided February should have less days means there's gonna be a slight delay of a day or two on the Apothecaria: Wild Highlands expansion.
Said delay has nothing to do with the fact that the Wild Highlands expansion is currently 38 pages long and jam packed with awesome content.
Nope.
Definitely Julius Caesar.
2022-02-28 16:59:30 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone,
There was a little confusion about Shimmersnow Valley and I figured it was best to just get things organised.
Here are all the Apothecaria expansions that have been released so far.
The Highland expansion will be joining them at the end of the month :)
Enjoy!
2022-02-18 10:23:22 +0000 UTC View PostThis month's expansion is UMBRA+ which adds loads of new results for the various tables in UMBRA. New Natural Formations, Remnants, Surface Events, Research, Units, Rooms, Artefacts, Terrors, Layers, Terraformers, and Challenges!
Somewhere along the line I ended up getting caught on references to Doom so expect a hearty dose of ripping and tearing in this expansion.
You can download the expansion below and as always, I look forward to seeing what you create over in the Di...
2022-01-31 17:37:30 +0000 UTC View Post
alt text: a six legged otter-like alien wearing a purple waistcoat adorned with geometric shapes floats and a headset mic floats in a water filled spaceship. The otter is holding a spherical computer that projects a digital display of the ship's computer system. The walls of the spaceship are transparent and show a bright nebula behind.
Hey everyone, I was too excited and needed to sha...
2022-01-31 13:04:18 +0000 UTC View PostIts no secret that I absolutely adore Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series, especially the first book The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet and its sequel A Closed and Common Orbit so when the thought struck me that I should try and capture that feeling of interpersonal discovery and empathy that makes her books so great, a big long title was only fitting. Hence, the mouthful of a Carl Sagan quote:
For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable o... 2022-01-12 20:55:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Before I launch into a post outlining my plans for this month's expansion and other game news, I just want to say thank you so much to all the people who stuck around through December and thank you to all those who joined as well. Your support helps me to pay my bills which lets me focus more on being creative and bringing you weird games so really, thank you and happy hogmanay :)
Schedule
I took December off in order to refresh and recharge so the monthly expansi...
2022-01-02 13:32:23 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone,
As promised, the first 3 Realms can now be invaded and conquered! And I've even included a little sneak peek at the back of the book for how they might interact with the complete Conquest Expansion when it arrives.
This one was interesting to design as offered a few new challenges with each Realm having to convey a unique flavour in its Discoveries and in the things that you can find in it. For me the most interesting unique mechanic was the Relocator Room which you ...
2021-11-29 17:29:04 +0000 UTC View PostWe've just tipped over the second Patreon goal of £200 a month which means I can justify spending time doing weird and experimental games without having to fret about rent and time optimisation and all that other jazz that crushes creativity.
A couple of months back I took a chance and made The Dig because I was excited by the concept of a scratch-off poster journalling experience and I'm quite pleased with how that came out and what I've learned from it.
Now that we've hit this ...
2021-11-16 13:59:34 +0000 UTC View Post
"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love"
- Carl Sagan
Hey everyone, I've got a special post for you today, a sneak peek of my next Zinequest project :D
The game is called, For Small Creatures Such As We and is heavily inspired by Becky Chamber's Wayfarers series which is a quadrilogy of sci-fi books th...
2021-11-15 12:11:50 +0000 UTC View PostGood News Keeper, our warlocks have found a way to permanently stabilise our Raiding Portals. The next time we open one, we can create a more permanent foothold and eventually take the Realm for ourselves!
Gone are the days of hit and run raids on the 13 Realms of RISE. With this hefty expansion, you'll be able to build outposts in these Realms that let you grow your power and eventually, if you're clever and lucky enough, take over.
The end goal for this is to tie ...
2021-11-06 13:40:42 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, before I get into this update I just wanted to say thank you so much for all the nice messages and comments about DELVE: Quests. I was a bit nervous about it but your kindness has really perked me up :)
So, update! We're on RISE this month and my partner floated the excellent idea of expanding the Raiding mechanic. I'm not sure I'll be able to get every Realm properly included (though who knows, maybe I will) but essentially what I'm thinking is:
1) The ability...
2021-10-29 14:18:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe ability to build up your hold and use it as a force for good in the world has always been something that interested me when thinking about DELVE. I've always liked to picture the dwarves setting off on grand adventures like the journey to Erebor in The Hobbit and I think I've managed to put something together here that's quite good.
However.
Too late to start again, I realised that there is probably a better way to approach the concept of Quests in DELVE so while I'm happy wit...
2021-10-27 12:18:38 +0000 UTC View Post