Devlog #4 – BIG UPDATE v1.7

I won’t bury the lead, I’ve just made a major update to the game and I am really excited about it! After about a month of being on itch.io and engaging with the TTRPG community, I got a clarified sense of what this game was and more importantly, what it wasn’t. This update, v1.7, does something that the previous build could not – marry fiction with mechanics through interesting player choices. I realized that in v1.6, what I had created was essentially a compelling narrative wrapper for a more-or-less deterministic dice game. This new version is focused on centering the actions and choices of the players, given understandable stakes and risks, in order to create the fiction I was striving for.

I’ve overhauled a good chunk of the central conflict mechanic, but the change that best symbolizes it might seem like a small one. Previously, Memories created Pillars’ Traits – static adjectives that described what the Courier was like. Now, Memories create Pillars’ Drives – dynamic verbs that describe what the Courier does. Traits are fine for a story, for a report, for an analysis, but Drives – those are what a game needs.

Please check out the new version of the game, including the new 8-page quick start package – play it, share it, and tell me what you think! A huge shout out to two redditors in particular from r/RPGdesign and r/RPGcreation - /u/Lorc and /u/DrColossusOfRhodes. Both of them took time to read through my work on mechanics and help me come to some of the biggest conclusions about what my game was missing and what it could be. Thanks!