Expo approaches and spies lurk in the shadows
Monthly Musings from LunarShadow Designs
As we roll into May I find myself in the rather unexpected position of being about to wrap up a campaign. I've been running Call of Cthulhu for close to a year now but the ever present challenges of scheduling have scuppered many sessions and repeatedly threatened to end the campaign early. Despite that we've somehow tied together many of the loose ends from the five adventures we've played and are about to play a finale that, I hope, will give the players a sense of resolution.
What I don't think the players realise is quite how much I've been winging it. While I ran two published adventures (Edge of Darkness and Crimson Letters) the others were largely thrown together in my usual ad-hoc manner of "create problems, not solutions" that sees me plan a session ahead only to follow the players as they latch on to an unexpected element and take a hard left.
That approach has largely worked but its also made the campaign more challenging, which I ramble on about over on the blog (and I really mean ramble - the post got away from me somewhat while I was writing it).
Design Diary: Secrets and spies!
Last month I shared an initial draft for The Wor/l/ds We Leave Behind, my duet game inspired by "This is how you lose the time war" - thank you to the people that provided feedback. Revisions are hard though, so rather than struggle through them I threw together an idea for a cover and then took the typical creator approach of pivoting to a completely different project - Untitled duet spy game.
Ok, so it still needs a catchy title.
Building on both Numb3r Stations and Signal to Noise this game is designed to provide asynchronous, asymmetrical play as the players take on the role of the spy and their handler. The biggest challenge so far has been developing the interaction mechanics between the characters. They both have their own objectives and success conditions and the trick has been forcing them to develop a level of trust in the face of missing information.
In the current draft each character tracks 2 scores. For the spy it is Success and Exposure, both of which will trend upwards. The handler meanwhile has Promotion and Resources. Promotion is linked to Success - the spy doing well is good for the handler, though ultimately they will want to keep the spy in the field for as long as possible.
Exposure represents how close the spy is to being uncovered by counter-intelligence. They have ways to reduce this, the main one being Resources generated by the handler. The trouble is the spy never knows how many Resources are available, they just have to trust that they are there and that their handler is looking out for them. The handler meanwhile has a limited number of resources and can only gain more by spending Promotion. So they reduce their success level in order to protect the spy. It's a balancing act and is going to need some thorough playtesting going forward.
Thankfully I'm not working alone on this. As with Numb3r Stations this project is a collaboration with Albi, who has published a growing collection of fantastic games and I'm really excited to be able to get his input. Working with another creator is something I don't get to do often enough but having someone to bounce ideas off and spot your mistakes makes a massive difference. Numb3r Stations is a prime example of this as splitting the work between us let us create a unique game in a much shorter time frame than I could have ever achieved on my own.
We've yet to decide on the release plan for this game but you can be sure that once we have I'll be sharing details here (and probably asking for playtesters).
Conventions: UK Games Expo approaches!
I'm kicking off my 2024 convention attendance this month with a visit to UK Games Expo in Birmingham. It's the UKs largest gaming convention and for the first time I'll be working part of the show as a member of UK Tabletop Indie Network, who are partnering with Hive Mind Games for the event. I'll be on the stall Sunday morning so please come by, say hello and support indie creators in Hall 1, Stand 592.
I'll also be at Games on Demand between 2 and 6pm on the Friday running a selection of indie games. These 2 hour sessions are a great way to get tasters of certain games or to try out smaller indie games that don't need a longer 4 hour session. I normally try and offer 2 or 3 games each year, I don't know exactly what I'll have with me but I'll definitely be bringing Hopes and Dreams of the Orbital Bound so if you're curious about slice of life sci-fi this will be a great opportunity to get a taste.
Links roundup
TrooperSJP talks about, and then plays, Numb3r Stations over on youtube. Not only does he provide a full run through the game but he also have real life experience of signals intelligence!
I always appreciate companies within the industry sharing "how's it going" summaries (especially if they include financials) so it was great to learn that Steve Jackson Games publicly post stakeholders reports, including this very honest appraisal of 2023.
After including my own very quick summary in last months newsletter I posted a longer financial analysis of my own over on the blog.
I've been really getting into Chris McDowall's "Rule of Three" episodes on the Bastionland podcast. It's been making me think about my own three most influential games, though I think a 3x3 would be more appropriate given the different ways I’d want to approach the challenge.
I love getting mail - this month both Chiron's Doom by Nick Bate and Astronomical by Press Pot Games arrived on my doorstep. The original edition of Chiron's Doom was my first real exposure to solo games and you can find my playthrough of it here. Rather than my usual wrap-up I’ll leave you with a teaser of these two great games.
