itch.io

A phenomenal entry brimming with possibility. The art, layout, and writing are all spot on and table ready. It’s so fun! Definitely on my “to run” list. 

First, I love the layout. I think it’s deceptively simple and so legible. It feels like an actual magazine spread. Great use of negative space to let the content breathe. 

I like the story and the procedures. Each location feels evocative with cool ideas. I’d love to see a more fleshed out version with specifics on what secret fossil knowledge the players are looking for and some more concrete info about the ritual. 

Absolutely beautiful art. The arm on page 1 has such gorgeous rhythms and the wax wolf and villagers are perfect designs. The adventure itself is really cool. I feel like it works despite being divorced from a specific location. 

My only gripe is the font. It looks cool, but the block lettering makes everything run together and it's weirdly hard to see the punctuation. I had to concentrate really hard to parse the sentences even though it's well written. Otherwise it's super cool!

The design of the title is so cool. I feel like it works on so many levels! The details on the map are also so helpful. This seems like a fun adventure!

One technical thing: it looks like some text might be partially cropped off at the bottom of the “background” section. Either that or there’s a weird artifact that looks like lettering? 

The themes in this adventure are really cool! I love this interpretation of the title. It’d take some work to get it to the table, but I feel like this is a good seed for an adventure site/faction. 

There’s a lot of cool ideas in here. I especially liked the hall of creation. That’s a really cool trap! 

I might double check the entrance’s description. Right now it describes the secret door being on the eastern wall and leading to area 3, but the map shows it on the northwestern wall leading to area 4. 

Great interpretation and theming! This is a common thing I have with solo dungeon crawlers, but I wish there was more opportunity for choice. Having only read  it, it seems a little like I choose my stats and then run the simulation, then try again. I’m excited to try it and see how it feels in play though!

thank you so much!

Woof, that's embarrassing. Fixed! Thanks for letting me know

This looks beautiful! I can't wait to read it

Got to play this at Between Two Cons and it was an absolute blast! So evocative, such a fun world and an elegant system. Loved it!

Absolutely beautiful work!!

thanks so much!! If you run it I’d love to hear how it goes!

This is an incredibly cool system for solo roleplaying. The prompts and systems seem like they would produce a really cool play experience. It seems like I’ll get to feel more like a player and less like a GM despite kind of playing both roles. Can’t wait to give it a shot!

Ah yeah Hook 2 is definitely what I would consider "hard mode". I'd like to think "the PCs will always find a way" but I can see how that's a bit of a cop out.

Thinking on this feedback I remembered an earlier idea was to have a ship that regularly came to bring supplies to the island and the built in solutions to that goal were either "build a raft" or "survive long enough to get a ride on that ship". Maybe I could add that back and it could add some interest.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it :D.

thanks for the kind words, If you ever run it I’d love to hear how it goes!

oh that’s an interesting point. I’ll definitely think on that and maybe tweak some things. Thanks for the feedback!

I like the adventure over-all! I'm a little confused about the elevator in the map. The description says there's 3 buttons (Clinic, Reception, R&D) yet it seems to go to 5 places (Clinic, Reception, Morgue, OR, Processing). I'm also not seeing an R&D room? Not sure if I'm interpreting that correctly.

Random layout idea: You could play around with color coding the lines of the map with the color of keycard required? And maybe bolding and coloring the badge cards in the descriptions? just so you can see it at a glance. Could be cool, could be nothing, haha.

There's a lot of good ideas in this adventure, and I think if I ran it my group and I would have a good time. That said there are a lot of aspects that I found confusing as I read it that I'd need to resolve as the GM before running this.

I recommend taking another pass at the "Where are we" section. This is the most important section for GMs to get their bearings on what the core of the adventure is about. As it stands it makes a lot of statements and then immediately contradicts them, so as a reader it was hard to tell what was actually going on. 

I LOVE the vision and memory tables. They're an awesome idea for a table to roll on. However, I'd add some guidance on when to roll on them. 

Lastly, what are the "Fracture and Reform" sections? When do I implement these? Do all the characters experience these effects any time they go down a level? If so, and I've lost my memories by the time I got to the bottom why would I stop the transmission? 

I had to stop and laugh multiple times while reading. Using Brindlewood Bay’s mystery solving mechanic for a solo game is a really great idea!

As someone already familiar with BB’s mechanics I got it right away, but re-reading it with your goals in mind I might suggest taking another pass at the self-diagnosis section. The sentences have a lot of clauses and sub clauses and are fun, but not entirely clear to the uninitiated. This is the most important mechanic and so I might try to strip it back to something that explicitly tells the reader “this is how you win the game”. Pure technical writing.   maybe even an example if you have space?

Super clean! Took 7 mins to read and I feel like I could run it right now no problem. Great work!

Ah, got it. Totally makes sense.

Loved it! It was a breeze to read and it was super clear exactly how to run it. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with the items rolled in each room? Is that a SWN thing? That was the only real point of confusion. 

I'll definitely keep this in my back pocket!

Some thoughts regarding what to cut.

There are a few instances where you spend time giving the Referee permission to change things. Phrases like “Changing these secrets for most NPCs will not affect the overall adventure much, and adding additional secrets to those  NPCs without them can also work” make it feel like the ideas presented don’t matter. If they aren’t relevant they wouldn’t be in the adventure. As someone who is reading the module to understand your vision of the scenario I would prefer you just gave me the ideas as they stand. If I have another idea I can change it, but it’s helpful to have one clear vision to work from.

During the launch there’s a section on adding NPCs from other works to give plot hooks to completely separate adventures. That muddies the water quite a lot. If I ran this adventure and followed those guidelines there’s a very high chance that my players wouldn’t pursue this mystery at all, which is fine, I suppose, but then what would be the point of having it? 

It seems like the key function of the launch is to introduce one of two hooks: “Jeanne Marsh’s brother has been harmed by the company and they’re covering it up! You need to help expose them!” 

Or 

“Anthony Newland was forced out of the company he was instrumental in starting. He’s the one who should be in charge!”

I would try to focus the text more towards those two things.

Once we get past the party I think the vision gets clearer.

The art and layout is incredible and the system seems really cool! Can’t wait to try it out!

oh I don’t see the Psychological Fractures list in the pdf. Did I just miss it?

Super cool! I love you well researched yet nameable it is. Can’t wait to play it!

thanks! I’d love to hear how it goes!