2018, A Look Ahead
January 1, 2018 NewsHappy New Year, everyone!
I was pretty quiet during 2017. Between finishing school, moving to a new house, and the holidays, it was a pretty busy time in my personal life. The year didn’t see much in the way of game development, but now that some huge life events are behind me I hope to get back into the swing of things. I know I’ve said that before, but hey–it’s a new year this time.
What’s In Store for 2018
Psi-punk
May of 2018 marks the 5th anniversary of Psi-punk. I can’t believe it has already been five years since I released my first major title. Since then, it has had two additional print sourcebooks and a smattering of PDF-only releases.
Over the holiday break, I had time to finish the writing on three more books that have been in development for years now.
- Psi-punk: Safe Room is a guide to corporate security in a world where psychics and cyberware coexist. It’s 14,000 words (about 36 pages, or the same size as World’s Edge Arena) full of ideas and equipment for GMs to use when building challenges for their players.
- Psi-punk: Drones is, as its name implies, a book about robots. It’s about half the length of Safe Room, but it’s full of information about how to add drones to your game. It includes numerous examples of Gifts to give your drones, as well as a load of example drones ready for you to pluck from the pages and plunk into your games. Fans of technomancer-type characters are going to love this book.
- Speaking of which, Psi-punk Archetypes: Technomancer is also finished being written. It will be bundled with Drones upon release, since the two were literally designed for each other.
- Psi-punk Archetypes: Psiborg. I haven’t written this yet, but it’s on the list of PDFs to be released with Drones and Technomancers. I have some interesting ideas, and thankfully these books don’t take long to write–I can usually crank them out in one or two sittings.
Although writing for these books is finished, they still need art and editing before they’ll be ready for a full public release. Look for Kickstarters in the coming months if you’re interested in helping me get these funded and into your hands (or on your screens).
Question: Would you like to see a Psi-punk System Reference Document (SRD)? If you don’t know what that means, check out the Open Gaming Network’s various SRD websites. In short, an SRD is a collection of all a game’s rules, minus any Intellectual Property (such as setting and background information). The information is freely available for those who wish to use it in their games or use it to make games of their own.
Fudge and Fate both have SRDs available. Would you like to see one specifically for Psi-punk? If so, please comment and let me know.
Do you remember Survival of the Able, the survival horror game in which you play as characters with disabilities in the Middle Ages? I briefly talked about it before, but it’s finally starting to materialize into something resembling a fully-realized game.
Last year, I ran a session of SOTA at Gamestorm. It was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in a long time. One of the players even went out of his way to approach me the next day just to reiterate how much fun he had and what a great game it was.
I know I’ve hit on something awesome with SOTA, and I’m planning on continuing its development in 2018. It has been on the burner since before GenCon 2015, so it definitely is time to get that ball rolling again. I’ll be taking it to Gamestorm again this year and, hopefully, will get a chance to run some games online for folks as well.
As a survival horror game, it would make sense to try to have this released by October. I can’t promise that just yet, especially since I have so much happening with Psi-punk right now, but I’m going to set that as a tentative goal. Expect to hear more about this game in the future.
Super Able
I also have not forgotten about Super Able, a Pip System setting designed to help empower kids with disabilities. Development isn’t quite as far along in this project yet, but I’ll keep up on it whenever I get the opportunity.
Other Stuff
The cogs in my head are always turning. New ideas come and go, and some stick better than others.
I have a lot written for Alliterative Amusements that I have been sitting on for a while. If the mood strikes I may get back into those, but I haven’t played Pathfinder in years now and the interest just isn’t there anymore. The curse of being creative is that there will be thousands, if not millions, of words written that will never be published. On the bright side, every written word is more experience.
Among the list of games in my “Ideas” folder is one about using word magic to help kids learn to spell while having fun playing an RPG. This game has been floating around in my head for a couple years now, and I keep coming back to it regularly. I keep telling myself not to write anything about it until I have time to really dig in, because I know it will consume me once I get started. That’s the sing of a good idea, I think. Hopefully 2018 will be the year I get to start dabbling with this concept.
I have a lot to do in 2018. Completing these Psi-punk books and other projects is just part of it. My reach into the gaming community has decreased over the last couple of silent years, so I hope to build that back up again as well. With some help from readers and fans like you, I’ll be able to do that.
Happy 2018 everyone!
