Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(3 edits)

A contender for Best in Show from the dozen or so I've seen so far. I think you'd want to work with an artist and/or designer to make the presentation a little more professional if you plan for a commercial release, but the content is probably the best I've seen so far and the layout is easy to use, which is the most important thing. 

As far as living planet setups go, I absolutely love the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't approach you went with here, where you're either becoming part of the planet or being attacked as a foreign invader. That, along with the "multiple ticking clocks," as you put it, gives it a really nice sandbox feel. Maybe not the most approachable module for a novice group, but with self-directed players and a veteran Warden, I think this one's going to be a blast, and it's the one I'll be most excited to run with my group maybe once they have a little more experience with the game.

I like the colors and the offset double-outline for the text boxes. I think they need a little more interior margin, especially the one on the cover, where the text is smushed up at the top. It also bothers me that the rounded corners are all a little different in their curvature and the green one on the front cover is particularly "pointy." I'd just make them all perfect quarter-circles. Stuff like that and a logo that looks less like "I typed some words and played with Photoshop layer effects" would be the kind of polish that you'd want to focus on for a commercial product, but it's absolutely not a big problem for a jam entry.

Mechanically, I love the mix-and-match monsters.

The only substantial content complaint I have is that I'd expect a point crawl to have a node-and-connection structure not just a fixed series of encounters. I really don't care for linear scenarios as a player, especially in an otherwise sandboxy world. There's nothing in the story that makes it seem like the players have a powerful reason to pick one direction and head straight away from their base camp for 21 hours without side treks, so I would feel I was being railroaded for no reason as a player if my choices were only ever "forward or back."

There are a number of ways to make sure the players get to the places you want them to get to, while still giving them meaningful choices and a sense of exploring an open world, but I've already written quite a bit here. Let me know if you want more detailed suggestions, but one way or another the main change I'd suggest to the content is to de-linearize the environment.

(+1)

Thanks so much for the feedback! I would love to hear anything else you have to add. You're welcome to DM me on Discord (@Buzzahfoo).

I'll put my ideas here in case others are interested. At a glance, I see two ways to handle navigation in this module that should be doable in a trifold format but maybe with some design challenges/compromises elsewhere.

1. Normal-ish point crawl with hinting and repeated locations

Just give the Warden a straightforward "numbered circles with lines connecting them" map, but use narrative cues to make sure the players know where the unique locations are, roughly speaking (e.g. the other factions' camps might be sighted from a hilltop, or during the crash landing). It's then up to them if they visit. If some of the planet-based locations are particularly important, they can appear in multiple places. E.g. all the outermost regular nodes could have open branches going outward and the module could say if they venture past that point in any direction they'll encounter a Simulacrum Garden.

If you put the duplicates far apart, it's somewhat unlikely that the players will visit multiples, and the Warden can vary the repeats if they do. E.g. the second occurrence of Cerulean Falls might not have a waterfall, but just a pool with a now-familiar-looking structure at the bottom.

2. Randomized map plus linear "Plot Locations"

Keep your current locations as the "Plot Locations" that will be encountered in fixed order, but don't tell the players that. Direct the Warden to have the players keep a map, or keep one for them. They start at the ship and each time they travel for an hour, you roll on a table. Something like:

1-4 Various single-line prompts that the Warden can just use as scenery they're passing through or possibly short encounters if the players engage.

5-6 Common hazards like bogs or tangled growth that make the node take twice as long to cross.

7-8 The players catch sight of the next Plot Location at an adjacent node (or otherwise receive clues about its existence, like tracks to follow), and can choose whether to head towards it or change direction to avoid it. Place it on the map whether or not they go there.

9-10 The players stumble across the next Plot Location. Place it in their current node and begin the encounter immediately.

The nodes and connections could be placed organically with boxes and lines, or you could be building a square- or hex-grid map as you go. But either way, you still get the players everywhere they need to go, but the relative positioning of all the locations depends on how they go about exploring, and might present shortcuts between the locations at later stages.

Additional rolls of 6-10 once all the Plot Locations are on the map could trigger attacks or advance the clock faster, to hasten the endgame if the players are wasting too much time wandering around.