itch.io

For the record, this review was approved on Discord. I will be subjective, but still try to provide the suggestions that may help you push your game to something more complete.

Some take these small games for excercise, to tinker with the mechanics. I look at the RPGs, big or small, as viable products that can attract readers and provide interesting content, mechanics, and decisions, even in this streamlined format. This different look at one page RPGs causes I might be harsh in my review, so I find it important to provide this context first.

Dog Days of Summer tries to bring heist vibes onto the table. It is a storytelling game that utilizes index cards with prompts written onto them. while the core mechanic works well, the whole game suffers from participating in one page jam. I will explain why.

The core of the game are 11 index cards that provide various prompts that - based on the order of their appearance - bring small or big twists in the story. So far so good. The prompts are distinct enough, however I would like to see more. At least 18, 20 even.

I have a feeling that these cards should be standalone, with evocative graphics (illustrations used in the project page would be absolutely sufficient) and they could contain following information:

• illustration
• title + prompt description
• job name
• value (?)

Adding a job name onto the cards would solve multiple issues:

1. It would be super-easy to assign positions for the heist crew
2. Every job position would be unique so no duplicates.
3. Players would not be required to think them off.

With current rules, the game feels underbaked; the jobs are mentioned like they do not matter (The Driver, The Muscle, The Face etc.). If the game should still participate in the One-Page RPG Jam, they could be at least provided in a form of a table or a list, so players could pick the role they want.

The last card (The Crime) is really a final scene triger. If the index cards are shuffled and distributed, what happens if 3rd player on turn get that card? Does the heist finish prematurely? It almost feels like players should be able to present their cards in any order they fill, IN EXCHANGE for some benefit, or - better - mitigation of the downside if their card’s prompt goes out too early. The prompts could be evaluated based on their urgency (so The Crime would be last) and the value could represent loot stolen, or the amount of HEAT the crew generates, so the detective is really catching them up. Based on the heist’s difficulty, the amount of HEAT could vary. When the HEAT reaches the difficulty, the detective goes on the scene and the situation escalates.

This would bring some mechanical cogs into the game, but it is still a simple mechanic (sum-up and compare the two values) that can be built upon (lower the heat by keeping the low profile, swap the cards, keep the cards in hand so they won’t raise the HEAT and so on).

The detective role is quite confusing for me. The Arrow prompt says one player is the detective. However during the preparation there is no mention about detective. Does the owner of The Arrows index card become the detective? Does the card owner determine WHO becomes the detective? Whole mechanic with the detective is confusing. First I thought the Detective could be the GM what could make sense - they would put obstacles before the crew so they could catch them. However as the game is collaborative storytelling game, the Detective could be shared NPC, jus tlike in Fall of Magic RPG, and using the detective could frame every scene (either closing it or opening it).

The rules could use some streamlining and/or better formating so they are more attractive to read. I have to admit, the current version looks like a draft with a paper background being pasted-on accidentally. The text could be divided into columns, more paragraphs. I miss evocative titles, a doodle of a city map, anything that could help the game stand out from the crowd. Without these soft touches the whole game looks like a designer’s excersise, and - sorry - a wasted opportunity to provide an interesting card-driven narrative game resembling For The Queen that would draw potential players to give it a try.

Just like in original 36-word Solo Dungeon, this entry as well works completely without any input from the player.

Well, here is one, the decision whether they want to spend any luck to raise the die result or to survive the roll 1/1. Generally, there is no reason to spend more luck than I can obtain/lose, so from all the options I have there are only two results I want to spend luck:

• result of 7 to avoid reroll*
• result of 2 to not die instantly.

* You want to avoid reroll as there are more negative results than positive ones.

I have written a simple script that rolls the dice for me: https://jsfiddle.net/vjh1z9o6/1/

I want to ask, what made you write this entry? Did you even try it? What is the purpose of it? Did it spark any imagination in you? Did you check the other entries?

You don’t have to answer. I just do not understand, why this entry exists.

What a nice little generator concept!

However I cannot help myself to provide some suggestions as well.

You could rewrite some sentences to fit-in two more prompts. This is my attempt that does not change the mechanics at all, only adds climate change and passage of time.

One player is Time, the others are Species.

Species: describe yourselves.

Time decides:

- One species lives unchanged
- One evolves
- Rest extinct

Pass the Time role to next player.

Million years passes.
Climate changes.

Repeat twelve times.

Feel free to adapt.

This is a really nice produced microgame!

First, I would change “And by who?” with “By whom?” It’s still stylistic and it gives you one more word to spare.

Neverthless this change you still have contain 5(6) more words and I believe you could fit in some more content, for example:

Can’t confront directly. Transform first.

Or something more modern, softer:

Loose humanity to overcome obstacles.

Or you could exchange “what’s your end” with “embark fate” and go more traditional way to introduce some good old resolution mechanic:

Obstacle? d6 +1 per ability. Success: 4+.

Still, even without any changes it’s quite a touching concept.

I have updated the JS entry to reflect your mechanics.

Moreover, I took the liberty of editing your entry to introduce some form of decision and variability in enemies:

12 HP

Roll d6 per room:

[1] +1 attack next fight (stacks)
[2] potion (+5 HP)
[3] full heal
[4+] enemy (* HP)
  └─────────┘

Fight or Pass (partake next fight).

Attack:
you ..... d6
enemy ... d4

Count fights.

The mechanic was changed a bit so the fights are more lethal, but as I was running the script I ended up clearing 30 to 90 rooms, based on luck.

With my alteration you can decide to avoid the fight, only to have no choice and fight next time. Moreover, only fights are count towards “score” as rooms filled with potions present no challenge.

Thanks for inspiration and optimization puzzle. Honestly, this was the longest time I was thinking about any of this Jam’s entries besides mine.

This entry looked fine at a first glance!

I like generators and this promised some fun action until I realized that this dungeon generator plays itself.

Hence I wrote a small script that will run the dungeon for me: https://jsfiddle.net/yerukzsq/

I am not sure whether the damage is common for both player and enemy and is used to escalate the end of the delving, but I implemented it in a way it is added to the dice result for both sides.

As a game it is not very interesting. As a small script it entertained me for a moment.

I like the presentation of the entry very much!

It has certainly Mörk Borg vibes, but with real-world apocalyptic theme instead.

Ruleswise the entry falls flat for me. The questions asked are fine and thought invoking but I miss anything that would serve as a resolution mechanic, or automat to ever get into conclusion.

Without this the entry is nicely formatted, but still only a questionary.

I like the project page text so much more than the actual entry.

The PDF is barely readable, it’s turned aside, and the instructions are disjoined. In project page you mention that players should go bananas in a monkey form. In the rules though there is a strong meta plot around providing monkey facts to the GM in exchange for more fruit.

I don’t get it - either go full monkey mode or play a trivia game. They are impossible for me to mash up.

I like the presentation of the entry and general idea of the mouth in the chest. It sparks imagination.

However, I would welcome something more advanced or innovative than flipping a coin. Using the die could introduce hunger cooldown in hours, plus modifier equal to the size of the meal or something. That could push the bearer of the chest-mouth into neverending hunt for food (real or metaphorical) with different windows in time during which they could feel full.

Gotta say I like the creativity in providing a full bookmark and streamlined one only by crossing-out the words to fulfill the limit.

Gamewise I find this an interesting activity - that’s something a board game designers do all the time. Taking the existing game and twisting it until it is an unplayable mess or sudden polished gem.

For that part the rules of (in)visible work fine. However I gotta say I don’t feel that this entry falls into RPG category. Activity? Oh yeah. Roleplaying game? Well maybe if I close one eye and pretend that you mentioned somewhere “Let’s become a board game designer!”

While the instructions lead to some deep introspective (if the “player” is willing to do so), I cannot get rid of the feeling that entries with similar approach do not fall into a game category, rather than creative/introspective/meditative activities.

It’s okay to work on tools like this, they can help people to start solving their struggles. I just don’t think it fits the roleplaying game territory. ‘Cause you don’t play roles here, you discover your role instead.

The mechanics are okay, the drawing is yours (I suppose). It would need just a little bit more formatting and it’s all good, if the game had some distinct setting.

The illustration invokes the travel in the far east, Japan maybe. Maybe you could enhance the theme by throwing in some words, your hometown perhaps?

If I counted correctly, you still have two spare words. Two words are enough to introduce new mechanic.

Drink tea. Fight demons. Confront travelers. Help strangers.

Anything goes.

I really like usage of the map and silly goblin doodles!

Let me push the mechanics even further (not sorry for unwanted suggestions):

With usage of graphics, you could bring even more mechanics only by drawing e.g. three wound boxes to each goblin and rewriting the success mechanic to use d6:

We: observe → plan → succeed on 6 (d6 + necessary wounds). Sacrifice to succeed instantly.

You can even draw an arrow from _wounds_ word and point at the checkboxes to make it clear what they represent.

You can even draw different amount of checkboxes to various goblins to differentiate them even more!

With changes like this you have even more robust (if we may say so) mechanic that is not based only on discussion but brings randomness and prolongs life of the goblins. Introducing difficulty is not necessary as it only strenghtens the wild nature of goblins - they may succeed in heroic tasks while fail completely in mundane activities.

Ok, those are my two cents here. You inspired me to add the map to my game Passage - Now, I need to draw some maps…

While I am fan of generator tables (I have used two tables by myself in my entry), I will say that this might not be a valid entry.

In this Community thread (https://itch.io/jam/36wordrpgjam/topic/4437893/intro-vs-epilogue) there is a short discusshion whether intro/outro might contain additional tables (ergo necessary text for playing), and it was noted that as the table is used as part of the mechanics, it should be counted into the word count limit.

I feel PetD66 is in the same wagon - without accompanying text in the project page I would not even know what to do with the PDF itself as it is nothing more than a formatted d66 table.

A humble personal suggestions to fix this and still keep the game worthy of a “d66” title:

Add action

Add some text into the PDF so the reader knows, what should they do with the dice results. Something like:

Your dog does things. Explore. React. Enjoy.

Add combos

Replace results beginning with 5s and 6s with combo triggers:

• 5x reroll, add results
• 6x scene change

With this you would still fit within the limit of 36 words while providing the reader at least some kind of mechanic they can rely on.

Moreover, as you don’t mention how the dice are resolved, we can assume that the player is in control of what the final order of the dice might be. Hence they can decide that the scene is over and they may change the location in the story.

I would like to mention https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings that uses the very same mechanic (whilst using different die) and was published by John Harper 12 years ago.

Besides that I was surprised (in a positive manner) by the twist in settling down, giving the adventurer’s life some form of a finish line.

Hey! There was an issue with exported file. I have reuploaded it and tested the downloaded file, it seems fine now.

Thanks for noticing!

There was a countdown to the start of the Jam. In the time of writing this post you still have 21 days to complete the entry of yours.

Hi, Mozai, thanks for questions, I'll gladly answer them.

• I'll reword the assignment rule to make it clear that player is assigning the dice themselves, not their values. I can see now that it's kinda unclear as its more common to work with dice values.
  
• "Then choose up to two aspect dice, whose sum of the sides approaches the rolled value from above as close as possible." - I am sorry, I really though that "whose sum of the sides approaches the rolled value" si clear enough. English is not my first language, if you find better wording for this, I'll update it as well.
  
• Age of the magus is kept on the d% die as well as aspects are determined by their dice. Saying that, if you cannot raise the d% die by 10 as you passed a hundred, you cannot play a Time flow action, as your magus may be dead by that time.
  
• Fulfillment of the aspect is declared with their dice being raised to the maximum value. I'll make that clear as well.

Thanks again for your questions, it will make the game more clear!

Hello,
may I ask you, is there some game in it?

There is surely a space for creative writing based on the prompts this paper contains, but, based on the illustration itself, I really cannot see any mechanic that would involve player's decision.

If the whole point of People, Places & Perils is to provide prompts that can be explored and expanded into short stories, that's okay, but what makes you think this is a game? Because of rolling a die? I am sorry, but if there is nothing more than random content generator, that is what it is - a nicely formatted random content generator, not a game.

Hey, I stumbled upon your jam entry and would like to share few thoughts with you, if you don't mind.

I used my personal AMUSE rating system for review process in which the game can get up to 2 points in each of 5 categories. Let's not waste any more time, the sea creature won't stay here forever.

Aesthetics 2/2

Although the cover image for the itch.io page is not the best available, the rulebook itself is one of the best formatted documents in the Jam. I like almost everything - font choice, alignment, text formatting, usage of colors. The only downside I personally find is the coral background in the colored version. The worn-out desaturated version available as the overview on the page is much, much better.

Edit: I found out that originally I read the Seaweed Edition as "Sweeden Edition", making me think the author is swedish. My apologies and even bigger thumbs up for actual seaweed edition, which is really charming! 

Mechanics 1/2

The game does not have lots of mechanics and choice of core interpretational mechanic of communication with the Creature is thrown to choose by reader. That's a big downside for me, as the only thing mechanically related to the rules is setup of the seaside and village, and creation of the villager, an alter-ego of the player. Those sections contain even some helpful lists to choose from, but still, it is not enough to carry whole gameplay.

And it would be a nice gameplay, as the initial theme is charming and game flow division into seven days carries some potential.

Universe 1/2

The universe in this game is left almost completely undescribed and the only thing reader is left with is semi-defined location of the village. However, that itself is quite enough for imagination itself to start doing its magic. Visuals of the rulebook help to setup the mood and few surroundings that players create before the gameplay itself can be enough to hold whole game. On the other side, I can imagine that players with creational block can be discouraged to create the village and its people with so little ideas offered.

Supplements 1/2

I already mentioned that above - the rulebook is airy and formatted with enough empty space so it is a joy to read, but, sadly, that also means it lacks more stuff to give to the reader to play with.

There are two lists of adjectives to create the village, one list of questions to answer each day and a random table to roll for the sea creature's kin. It's really not that much. I'd welcome at least some ideas for player character's struggles, or random unnatural details for the creature to have (glittering skin, extra pair of tentacles, rainbow aura...). As those lists would take only about 6 lines of text, I'd definitely try to implement them in there, just to provide some additional content to the game.

Experience 2/2

The initial experience of reading this rulebook was overly positive and despite mechanic flaws of the game, I still enjoy reading it. This is one of the examples of the form above content, as the game is a pleasure to read and sparks the imagination barely by the clean text formatting. On the other side, the lack of the core resolution/interpretation mechanic of the communication between the sea creature and player characters is a downside that lots of players won't forgive and put the game aside. For those who like just to sit down and meditate a bit though, it is a really nice little game written in a way even someone without extensive RPG history will be able to experience.

Total AMUSE score: 7/10

Hi,

I checked out your entry to the Jam and here are my thoughts. I used my personal AMUSE rating system; there are five categories, and the game can gain 0 to 2 points in each. Please, note that these my are initial thoughts after reading your game rules and even some of them may seem a bit harsh, I wrote those notes mainly to highlight the strong and weak spots of your design, hopefuly leaving some suggestions for you to adapt or ignore. Your choice.

Aesthetics 1/2

The game is provided in the pamphlet format, which I personally like. The game is both portable and well structured, uses both column and row distinction to visually divide various content. I'd prefer more illustrations in the style of the cover, as now it looks like you found only single image and used it to both, the cover and background of the rules.

Mechanics 1/2

The game does not spare any time explaining what is this all about, as it is asumed the reader knows what they downloaded. I am okay with that.

The rules are written in quite a board-gamy way - there are multipe steps to build the island, the play itself has defined structure. That's why some ambiguities pop-up. The island is built also with cards touching only by the corner. The movement is though limited to the adjacent card - some readers could interpret that the movement is possible only in orthogonal directions, making some diagonal cards unreachable.

Some rules could use a streamlining/rewording. Sentences like:

Characters traveling together are a Party; they share a token. Everyone moves at the same time.

are bit confusing and unclear, E.g., why is the Player Token explained only after its third mention, and not right at the beginning?

I really don't understand, how the Champion Challenges work. Even after two re-reads, I don't know, how the injuries are distributed during failed champion challenges, and what happens with stolen items.

Universe 0/2

The game feels undecided in this category as well. There are rather strict limitations of what each suit represents, yet the basic movitation and quest is left completely for the players to decide. The game itself is filled with speciffic names associated to various card suits and ranks, as well as the items characters may find during their journey. 

Supplements 2/2

I really appreciate the overwork done by providing the item cards. The mechanics do not limit the amount of each of those items in the world though, so I am affraid their presence may backfire. The chance to find each type of item is only 1 to 6, so duplicities may happen.

I also appreciate the presence of the card-like character sheets. They could be illustrated from both sides though, to provide some space for notes, or inventory itself, leaving more space for tiny injury/treasure/supply checkboxes. It's a nice touch to provide spare checkboxes that become available after certain actions, or obtaining speciffic item.

This is strongly personal opinion, but I really don't like using the cards from the standard deck and needing a pairing table for each suit and value, especially when the relation to the suit/rank is not tight and there are really loose assotiations (such as King-ranked cards). However, this is a pretty common mechanic for (solo) games and lots of people do not mind doing those inner translations, so I don't tear down any points for this.

Experience 1/2

I cannot get rid of the feeling that I am looking at card version of Talisman. Loose rules, highly speciffic items and locations, simple rules, both of those games provide space for role-playing. I really cannot find any mechanics that would actively support roleplaying aspect of the game except defining own quests, naming the city and island, and creating every enemy that players stumble upon. The game is really focused on a table presence, which helps it to differentiate from the lots of other game entries, but at the end it still leaves me with a feeling that the game is incomplete and cuts were made because of the rule-size limitation. The game is written in a way that I would expect to have monster tables or generators, as well as list of some random quests - only then I could take the sentence from the cover (_GMless Exploration Roleplaying Game_) seriously.

Total AMUSE score: 5/10

I just found my favorite system.

It's amazing how this jewel amongst role-playing games flew under my radar for so long. But it is so, the best things are often hidden deep-deep under the surface and you find them only by accident, or pure luck, while searching for something completely different. This amazing creation by Riverhouse Games contains everything we could possibly wish the modern RPGs had:

- simple and clear rules

- unique setting

- they do not require experienced game master

- each game is slightly different

I tried the game immediately after first read and although I was kinda nervous and, ahem, writhed on my chair a bit, after few minutes I found out that this game does not force their players into streamlined play style - whether you approach your alter-ego with all the seriousness or a humble smile on your lips, you all will be awarded equally - with an experience you all will strive to fell again. And again.

The only downside of this masterpiece is the title cover, thanks which I have constant urge to buy a pack of gummy worms.