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A jam submission

Merrill ThawsView project page

Entropy comes for us all
Submitted by OmegaUnit333 — 5 hours, 52 minutes before the deadline
Rated by 16 people so far

Play tri-fold pamphlet

Merrill Thaws's itch.io page

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Comments

Submitted

Art: There isn't much of it, and designwise, everything is monotonous black. Not much to be said here, but I imagine you know that.

Writing: I think you're someone who can write well in the important ways. You've hit the right balance between straightforward description and vibes. However, a lot more time and care was needed, especially for the interior spread. The writing on the exterior is reasonable except for some little technical things (it's/its, unnecessary repetition of certain words, etc.). Interior is a bit more stream-of-consciousness and thus disjointed. It would have been worth it to make notes and plan structure first before writing any of the final text. E.g. the first paragraph on the left panel of the interior addresses about three different topics that should have been separate paragraphs.

Game Design: I think the narrative structure of a pick-up-and-deliver quest with a dangerous item works well for Mothership, and I like the way you designed the constraints and risks of handling the object. Everything else is a little too roughly sketched out. Like the writing, it could have used more careful planning before doing. Not sure why an NPC captain is given for the Promethean when it says "unknown" captain in the header and that one of the PCs will be the captain elsewhere in the module. Also, he has the same name as the Eagle's captain... are they meant to be related?

Theme: It's there, but only as a single paragraph in the intro that has no bearing on the plot. You did sprinkle some mythical names in elsewhere, but in a kind of piecemeal way. 

Layout: It's a bit messy overall. Running important text across the fold on the interior spread is questionable in that creasing and ink wear might make it hard to read. The texturing and tiny size of the malfunction table make it hard to read, while the ship names and stats are way bigger than they need to be.

Utility: There's a lot that's been left up to the Warden. The text implies that we're doing an exploration scene at the base, but there's no map. The encounter with the Eagle Gallant is important, as it's the conclusion, but the ways that can play out are kind of spread throughout various sections. Maybe a flowchart would be appropriate for handling that.

Favorability: Despite my various criticisms, I like what you have at the heart of this. The execution is lacking but I'm giving you high marks for favorability because with proper planning and a lot of rework, the adventure concept is a really good one. I like that you have a Bad Thing that doesn't just turn everyone into monsters and a clear setup that leads into an endgame where things could go a number of different ways and allows for player agency. And a good mix of exploration, problem-solving, and combat.

Submitted(+1)

ART — How good is the art/graphic design?

3/5

It's white text on a black background, and my printer will hate me for printing it. The Malfunctions table is cramped and difficult to read. The ship stats and sketches are cool

WRITING — How does this read? does it emanate with horror, humor, drama...?

3/5

It was great in the first half, but then gets weird and complicated when it starts talking about how many people are needed to carry it, and the implication that the players are there along with a bigger support crew of marines. The other ship as a complication was not immediately obvious either, but then once it clicked it seems like a fun time.

GAME DESIGN — How good is the game balance or concepts there in?

4/5

Awesome idea of transporting a dangerous artifact. Extract it, drive around without it breaking the ship, then get into a shootout and maybe some boarding actions and try to not all get iced. No "holy cow" moment, but otherwise, it's pretty great. I'd run this.

THEME — How well is the jam theme used?

2/5

Yeah, there's an ancient myth in there somewhere. Not truly important, because the rest of the adventure shines even without it.

LAYOUT — How well does the module get across information?

3/5

Wall of text, but it was actually a quick and fun read. The complications table is not fun to read. I'd also like a printer-friendly black text on white background version.

UTILITY — Does complexity inspire game prep? Or Is it very "Pick-up-n-Play"?

4/5

Aside from some minor layout issues, I could print this and play it 30 minutes later. 

FAVORABILITY — how much do you personally like the submission?

4/5

I'd play this, and probably wouldn't need to change much at all except to make it fit my players. They'll have a good time. Well done. (It's only 4/5 because it's cool but nothing screams "memorable" to me at a glance. If I am wrong and it turns out my players keep talking about it, I'll come back and edit this)

Developer

Thanks for the detailed feedback!


I hadn't yet heard that it was unclear exactly what's going on, but I think I know why you felt that way. I designed this to promote a lot of emergent gameplay, and so focused on building the mechanics that affect the encounter rather than context to understand what and why things are happening. That might be the most valuable piece of feedback for me when I make my next module so that I give a better idea of what's going on rather than simply giving all of the facts and leaving the reader to gather context from the data points.

Submitted(+1)

I struggled a bit with the structure, and seeing what information is important to grasp immediately what I can read as I run the adventure. Reorganize that and do a thorough editing pass and you'll have room to flesh out the cool (oops, pun unintended) ideas here. 

Much of the art/design has already been said, watch the thickness of details - look at things in pixel mode to get a clear idea of how things will appear. Also bear in mind that black ink tends to bleed outwards a bit, so thin white lines become even thinner depending on how it's printed.

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

This module has solid setups for fun gameplay and explosive combat. I like that you could have two or three distinct phases, getting the TCU from the mine, hiding in the asteroid field, and ship-to-ship combat. Very cool. I also like the mechanics for powering and moving the TCU.

Some questions and feedback I had:

  • The "Thermal Containment Unit" panel and "Why Are We Here?" panels could be swapped, since the former will be read before the latter and it's an entire panel about a device that the front panel doesn't mention, but then you'd need to explain what "TCU" meant in the Why Are We Here panel.
  • The screen effect over the text made it hard for me to read. I had to zoom in.
  • #20 on the fault table may be too extreme. You could lose the whole module with one die roll, which may be frustrating for some.
  • I don't know if you need to note that the captain of the Promethean Flight is unknown. I also found the layout for the last two panels to be confusing. The Promethean Flight panel says the captain is unknown, but then Cpt. Faust is listed under its description. I'm also not sure which ship would have the corp marines vs merc marines. I'm guessing that because Cpt Faust doesn't like pirates, the Eagle Gallant is the corp ship, right? 

I like the tone of the module. It would suit a more grounded military man/working class campaign.

Developer

Thanks for taking the time to give some feedback! Its my first time making a trifold so i was bound to make some mistakes and this is all great info for me to dial in the next one.


To respond to your feedback:

  • This is likely just inexperience with the theory level of making a pamphlet. The way I generally read them is to get the title and premise from the front and immediately turn to the back, which I decided to give the reader information about how their players will be interacting with that premise. Its possible I could reword things to avoid mention of it or swap them, but I'm not sure I would know the "right" way to do it.
  • This is repeated feedback I've gotten and will absolutely be tweaking that once I've settled on edits for a v1.0
  • I might just be a cruel GM, but its pretty standard stakes in my games. Technically no one other than the Captain has codified punishment for just launching the TCU out the airlock, but that only solves one problem. Also the TCU needs 20 total faults for that to even be possible.
  • The redundant info on the captain was mainly to maintain the symmetry of the panels, which definitely didn't help with the fact that the rest of these editing issues came from being crunched for space in these pages. I could possibly add some boxes to section things out, so more things to be considered when I make a post-jam version