itch.io

Thanks for the Jam.  I'd been noodling with some 5-min-e hacks, and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to submit.

Thank you so much for this gift to the gaming / design world. 

I've been trying to hack a summer camp version (Never Alone), but in the meantime have come up with a club culture game:  https://nycavri.itch.io/alone-among-the-beautiful-people

This.  Is.  Hilarious!  The simple system fits so much setting and chrome into its single page.  Wonderful.

Thank you.  (I created a dedicated deck for my first Descended From the Queen game, as part of a Kickstarter campaign that allowed me to pay a layout specialist.)

I, Caric, Bard of Highton, vibrant and alive as only a young bard can be, was traveling the high road to perform at the sun fair.  A pack of wild beasts waylaid me on the road at dawn.  The old chestnut about music soothing notwithstanding, I ran rather than sang, hid rather than fought.  The beasts, like none I had seen before, passed me by, but left me confused and uncertain.  What use my voice and strings if I cannot protect myself.  And what strange creatures are abroad in daylight, so close to civilization?

But the fair awaits, and I must prepare myself to bring good cheer, despite the misgivings in my heart.

I love this, and I'm waiting with baited breath for the Beyonce expansion.

Welp, I got about halfway through the required prompts for my Descended From the Queen hack of Camus' The Outsider before I ran out of time.  Hopefully I'll get back to it and release it somewhere down the line.

When I first discovered the Second Guess System four years ago I thought, "I need to use this to create a Voight Kampff test."  

Then lockdown ended, I went back to work, and game design hit the backburner. 

Until now:

RUAI

Hi, all.  I'm Avri, and I love playing in other people's solo-able and GM-less SRD sandboxes.  

After many years of playing OSR games, and even more years of not having time to play but reading most everything that came along, I started designing my own weird and (hopefully) wonderful games.

I've designed Carta and Second Guess games, and games Descended From the Queen, and I'm currently working on an Alone Among the Stars hack.  

*blush*  Thank you.  I think I might be . . .

Perfect!

The rules are explicit about Physical Games / Zines being eligible.  Anyone else going that route?

One of those theme sentences triggered an idea in me, and now I think I have to see it through . . .

Seriously.  Dev Developer Jam . . .

This is the second submission in this Jam that I quite desperately want another Jam for (this time a Jam full of games created with your 4 SRD - you *are* creating a 4 SRD, right?). That's some thematic adherence to the theme!

BoardGameGeek has a pair of linked sister sites - RPGGeek and VideoGameGeek - which are far less heavily trafficked, but can be accessed using the same account.  RPGG has a healthy PbF community taking place in the built-in forums.  I discovered them several years back during their annual New Player Initiative (usually each February or March) and now I GM a table or two for the NPI each year!  

I've played *a lot* of games Descended From the Queen - it's absolutely my go-to system to play these day.  They don't all work well, but the ones that do I find myself coming back to again and again - For the Queen (of course), Final Lap, End of the Line, my own Descending the Stairs. 

Currently playing in a PbF session at RPGGeek of The Wizard's Tower, where all of the players are apprentices in an ever-shifting tower after the wizard disappears . . .

Hoping to run a session of This Thing We Started in the next RPGGeek New Player initiative - it's the game that introduced me to DFtQ, about a group of scientists tracking down their creation, and I've never played it.

I'm a sucker for Wikipedia, and I love that this game either a) uses Wikipedia as a framework, or b) essentially has players create their own endless version of eternal knowledge.

Thank you.  The DFtQ framework is certainly doing the heavy behind-the-scenes lifting here, leaving the mood and theme and prompts to me as the designer.  The only real mechanical innovation here is the customization of the suits for player count.

The game is sweet and delicate, perfectly formed, and the design and layout are stunning in any context.  Knowing it was achieved in 72 hours is a little intimidating.

Thank you.  Thank you for sharing the inside of your brain and a portion of your life.  Thank you for the intentionality of this piece, for the truth within it.  And thank you for making me laugh out loud, more than once.

I noted that this was the only (first?) game on Liara's page, and was blown away!

Thank you.  I was a little concerned that I'd skimped on the premise.  You've reminded me to trust my players . . .

This packs an emotional punch just reading the rules - I can't imagine the power of a playthrough.  Amazing to have even been able to add coherent solo rules inside 72 hours.

Wonderful use of the theme for inspiration.  Also introduced me to never-ending cards.  I think examples of play might be useful - not certain I'm grokking it 

I'm really digging the system - clean and well defined and continually cranking up the tension.  I kinda want to use it as a framework to hack a full setting / scenario.

Thank you for sharing this.  Perhaps my favorite thing about the Descended From the Queen engine is that it is almost explicitly set up to take players places the designers did not envision.

Is it just me, or does this game feel too *epic* to be named for a Carly Rae Jepsen lyric?  I especially like the genre suggestions, complete with Keywords.

I like the way this design plays with cycles, inevitability, frustration.  Good integration of theme. 

I am also aware that my previous Descended From the Queen game was playtested and edited for months, honing the shape of the potential stories through the specific questions.  That obviously wasn't done in 72 hours, so this game likely not as focused as I'd like it to be.

Something for me to explore after the jam . . .

There is something very special in these few pages - an understanding of the assignment and an integration of the theme that makes me extraordinarily happy.  I hope you'll polish and enhance this one after the jam.

I love the way you took the theme and just ran (and ran!) with it.  

Years of working retail meant this submission had me laughing out loud *and* growling with frustration.  So, well done?

So, The Dev Developer Game Jam.  When?

Thank you!  I agree, I'm not sure how much *fun* the game is to play (unless your idea of fun is to lean into hopelessness and inevitability . . .)

Thank you!  The scaling mechanic is, I think, the thing I am most proud of in this design.  Everything else could, I'm sure, use more polish, but the 2-suit, 3-suit, 4-suit instruction works.

Thank you!  I hear your preference for a "buried" final prompt - I went back and forth on it.  Decided to put it front and center in part because the game was for a themed jam, and that final prompt (inspired by the theme) was the moment the entire game grew from.  Could be that it wasn't the best decision . . . 

Avri here, and I have the outline of an idea for a ghostbox hack, Letters from Camp.  

Hope to have it complete by the end of the submission window, and in time to include it on this year's Solo Not Alone fundraiser.

Thanks for taking the time to leave a note, and for the kind words.  I'm intrigued about how this might be hacked into a duo game.

Welcome, Molly.  If there's one thing that I wish I knew before starting to design games, it's how collegiate and cooperative and supportive the other people doing it are!  If you have questions, ask.  If you are looking for feedback, you'll be able to find it.  If you are worried you don't have the experience or whatever, know that everyone has to have a first design.

I'm looking forward to trying yours!

Hi, Will.  I'm Avri, a New Yorker by birth and by choice - I spent twenty years in between getting educated in England.

Was introduced to RPGs through Red Box D&D in the early 80s and quickly found end explored everything else that came along.  I'm a systems designer - my first published boardgame was for Looney Labs Icehouse / Treehouse / Looney Pyramids system, and soon after came a design for Nestorgames' Shibumi system.

It's no surprise that in shifting gears from boardgames to RPGs I have gravitated towards SRDs.  I Kickstarted a Descended From the Queen game, my first release on Itch was for the Carta system, and I'm currently working on games for Second Guess and for LEADS . . .

And all while the deadline for submitting my short story for an anthology creeps closer . . .