itch.io

Thanks so much everyone!

It was a lot to review, but I managed to collect some thoughts before the end of the jam! Sadly I was not able to run a oneshot as I had hoped, but here are some  thoughts from a GM who has not ran it yet.

Big! Lots of fun lore, well explained in the intros and city section.

The character sheet is great! Other than lowering the darkness of the grey highlighted parts, all good! 

The attributes are well designed and laid out, but I do think the lines between Spirit's Network & Sway is very very thin. Similar with Slip & Finesse. I got some World of Darkness & Tales from the Loop vibes from that section. I don't recall it being explicitly stated, but I know players will want to negotiate and mix and match what attribute they roll. As the GM, I was tempted to split them into stats & skills style, letting them roll Mind + Slip or the classic muscle of the group rolling Body + Sway. (purely because this is fun, and what my players are used to, not as a criticism of how its set up! :) 

Stress mechanics have evolved and changed in the ttrpg space the last 5 years, IMHO. The vocabulary we use with other gamers has sort of changed what that means. For that reason, stress might want to be renamed. Inspiration or luck better describes the mechanic you are using, or even as a fortitude score/stat.

BACKGROUNDS. Backgrounds and vices look cool, but atm they don't matter. There is no change in stats or abilities, no in world consequences, etc. A lot of other cyberpunk content has tables and life paths to roll on, and having it be quick and easy to generate a character using those backgrounds and vices. If and when we see more character creation information and content, it would be nice if backgrounds and vices mattered and had more tables or room to generate over hand picking. 

On at least 3 occasions, there was a page that began with a single paragraph, or three or less, leaving 75% or more of the page blank white. Its totally a pet peeve of mine, but for people who print and bind pdfs at home, it is a lot of wasted space. 

Overall, I am very impressed by the game. I need to re read it again soon. I want to test it out with my players. 

EDIT: spelling, 

Definitely cool, feels closer to an improv game/warmup because the character sheet doesn't feel necessary to play. 

Safety tools are always great and I always advocate for x cards and player safety, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about making the players or character's emotional triggers one of the first things you write out on your character sheet.

The pdf cuts your double page spread in half at the very beginning, making your opening text pitch hard to read!

There is a bit of game vocabulary and basic understanding carried over from breathless that may be necessary for me to get familiar with first, but I also feel that there could be more rules summary or defining what terms mean at the very end. It does say fully standalone, after all. Would someone who's never touched breathless be able to pick this up? Conflict resolution? 

Contracts are vague, but definitely on purpose. Its good for category and descriptions, but I would have liked to see at least a couple example missions or gigs. 

It feels halfway at the moment. Halfway into a systemless location book, with culture, vibes, and apps and places to go, a city to fight... but not fully there yet. Halfway to its breathless hack roots, but no explanation of stats, of weapons, of why and how the characters use the black market. Of what levers and means of power players can seize. 

Even at 17 pages, it doesn't feel full or enough to me. Lots of blank white space on many pages, lots of things I felt I was missing or not understanding when I read through it. Its almost there. I'm excited for it. 

I really wish I could give more positive feedback, because it looks like the start of something fun. 

After printing off a physical copy, I'm not sure what is gained by the cassette formatting.  Having it sit upright in a clear case is too small for passing around or resting at the table for a group of more than 2. The FOE table, the main one we reference during play is also printed at its side, so you need to rotate the handout to read it each time. 

CREW STATS seem weak and unnecessary, purposefully limiting if a player can use their glitch, only one player gets to be special, etc.  and I would have preferred to see some solo rules over shared party stats. I fear that during play, a good amount of the party will die and then return as new characters, which makes it feel more like a funnel system, which might be something to consider. I feel that Skill points need to be a base number, perhaps 1 point to spend on themselves, and one point they can "give" to another player to allow their glitch to activate. 

additonally, rolling 1d2 to pick attack or skill feels lackluster and uninteresting, when other dice with additional possibilities other than 50/50 could be used. 

I do like variant clocks, and the ideas you have here. 

This looks very promising, especially as the first published offering from this account. 

The document outline is great to see, with very helpful bookmarks. Lots of clear writer to GM communication. I love seeing thesis statements or in this case, the Premise written right at the front page. I was annoyed that a number of sections had poor page breaks, leaving titles on the end of a previous page or one or two words dangling into the top of a following page.  For how big the mining colony is, even having a rough unlabeled map or layout would be very helpful. 

Looking forward to any future versions and whats next. I will edit or add to the comments if and when I actually run it! 

Very fun to see a fellow organ themed submission in the jam! I do like the styles and graphic choices, but I did have it crash twice during play! 

Very well done. Strong sound design and effects work. I could see this being one of the top entries in the entire jam! 

Brief, interesting, and inevitable. A precise experience. Well done! 

[ Edits may be made as I read additional zines ] 

Crip Time makes fantastic use of color. I found the zine to be an insightful glimpse into another's experience. Grateful for the further reading section! 

Sad Lyrics I <3 brought me back for a moment to a senior year of a midwest highschooler sitting in their hot car at the cusp of summer, putting on their home-made cd labeled in sharpie.  

Great zines. 

Hey community! 

The jam has been a lot of fun so far, and I'm very glad I was able to get my own project submitted before the deadline. 

With a number of the submissions being physical games & ttrpg related (mine included) is there an interest in having a community game day to run a session of our games? I could offer to gm, and even a casual chat or play by post would be interesting. 

Just gauging interest. Congrats to everyone who's got their projects in! Thanks.

That sounds cool, I'll keep an eye out for when you post it. :)

Going beyond the specifics of the Jam? Ok! Hi, I disagree. 

Offshore radio was very cool and largely embraced for many many years and in some forms continues to this day. All sorts of groups across all political stances embraced it as a way to avoid government monopolies. I have never heard anything about an anarchist (other than anarcho primitivists?) who was rejecting or decrying any sort of pirate broadcast. 

As far as the early internet is concerned, there was worry due to the fact the early  infrastructure of the internet was using military technologies/companies. But, there was a large social movement and anarchist presence from the very beginning. Look up the Cypherpunks, read their activism and manifestos, etc. They are also very cool. 

Feel free to share what evidence you have for that claim, because honestly I have no idea why you made that claim to support your argument for AI. 

Also, it is a harm to programmers. Every interaction you have with LLMs teaches more to the LLM. It is watching you too, harvesting every request and scrap of data you exchange. Please remember, the problem that AI is trying to solve, is WAGES. So yes, it will cause great harm to many many entry level programmers. 

The harm to creativity is this. Someone would have made something. Because someone asked their AI model to create, they did not. How many cute janky doodles never got shared with the world? How many artists never built up their skills and confidence to create more things? How many artists never found their style? Or worse, saw their style get scraped and remixed by the machine? Are you sharing studio ghibli selfies? 

When you say decades, that is a large amount of time. That puts AI on the same level as Wifi, stem cell treatments, and additive manufacturing in your home  with 3D printers. AI requires data centers, it requires mass data collection.  AI will always be an alloyed good. A product built and bound to  massive corporations that have no respect for you, for copyright, for art, for workers.  

(Data Centers are causing all sorts of other problems too!, raising power & fuel prices, water management, pollution, violation of US EPA regulations, consolidation of the internet into corpo control, etc.)

I do not reject AI out of "ideological purity". I refuse it as a moral necessity.  I find its use immoral. GenAI is rent extraction on the act of creating. 

:)