This is a complete 74 page game with a nicely formatted VTT in Google Sheets! Created for a one month jam! Disclaimer: I don't have the knowledge to comment on balance, so this is all based on other elements of design.
I love how this game builds on a disabled view of the past and present. The list of Disabled Heroes' Wish-Granting Artefacts introduced me to 5 wikipedia rabbitholes on historical disabled people I would never have thought about otherwise. It's such an unexpected relief to be so fluidly and unashamedly shown our world as one that disabled people have always lived + struggled + done cool shit in, here and elsewhere in the game. It's such a good, solid base for a game that asks you to imagine a disabled utopia while ramming, sniping & exploding your way through the Cursed Tower. "Remember the past, fight for the future"...!
The way the mechanics incentivise you to slowly and collaboratively add details to that mostly-unseen utopia in order to reroll dice - meaning that this imagination will likely happen in times of the most high-stakes stressful rolls - is also extremely cool. This is very much my own game preferences, but that's the part of this game that I'd be most excited to experience in play.
I particularly like The Office encounter - excellently deployed balance of puns and creepiness - and the evocative little questions for the players in some of the encounter descriptions (do the players recognise any of the statues of benefit cutters? what inspirational poster catches the players' attention?). I want to talk about interesting tensions and questions of this game's setting for ages, but I should really just play the game to explore them.
Some final notes:
- The art is gorgeous. Lo Cleary did an incredible job, the illustrations drip texture with a world it feels like you can bite. I kept coming back to stare at the cover.
- Design for cognitive accessibility and particularly for different abilities at the same table is always cool to see.
- I'd be interested to see how describing moments of rest and care to gain Spoons affects the frenetic non-stop rhythm the havoc engine produces in something like Eat the Reich.
Thank you for joining the jam!
- Jim