Monday, July 20, 2015

BEYOND THE CRIMSON HORIZON: FUTURE GAMES

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is well on its way and should be out next year. We also have The Meddlers in the pipeline as well as some supplements. I'd like to talk about games I want to do in the future. Some of these may never happen, some I know we'll do, but these are projects I'd like to see done at some point. 

A Supers Game
I've never been as well versed in the super heroes genre as a lot of the guys in my group. Bill on the other hand had an encyclopedic understanding of comic books and all things super heroes. For the longest time we held off doing supers because we wanted to get it right and understood the challenges that kind of game presents mechanically. After we finished Sertorius and started work on Ogre Gate, we how we could make it work in our system. However, without Bill, I am reluctant to design a supers game myself, so if it happens it needs to be done by someone who knows the genre really well. I am talking to someone about doing this and things look pretty promising so it may happen, but I don't have a firm timeline yet. 

A Time Travel Game
As a kid I loved HG Wells and had a particular fondness for The Time Machine. Because I like history, stories, movies and shows about time travel appeal to me. I really haven't explored this concept fully yet, I just know I want to do it at some point. The only thing I've tentatively decided is this will be a world where, in the future, with the advent of time travel, History becomes a much more important and high stakes discipline than it is presently perceived to be. Historians will be divided into different schools similar to how they are now, except many of them will be imposing their visions of history actively on the past, some trying to change things, some trying to mitigate those changes. Also, they'll have blasters. This will be schlocky, taking inspiration from everything from Time Bandits to Bill and Ted, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court to Pastwatch, and Doctor Who to Quantum Leap. I won't do it until I have a solid core mechanic for dealing with altering timelines. If that never materializes, the game isn't going to happen. We introduced Time Travel in Sertorius, and we presented a small mechanic for things like paradoxes. I've been refining the concept in my own game. We'll see on this one. 

A Science Fiction Game
This is my favorite genre for reading and my tastes lean toward writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Robert Heinlein. While I'd love to do a science fiction game, I think there are tons of really solid science fiction RPGs on the market already. Therefore, if we did it, it would only be if we had a truly unique science fiction setting or concept. 

Terror Network Revised
Terror Network was the first game Bill and I ever made. At this point I just can't imagine doing another Terror Network product without Bill's input so for the time being the revision is shelved and the line is complete. Down the road I may change my mind though. 

The Meddlers
This is our game about brownies. The manuscript is done. It is just a matter of developing the art and refining some of the concepts. If I am happy with the final result it will be released sometime in the near future. 

Paradise Lost
This one is quite uncertain, but it remains a possibility if the stars align. Before we launched Bedrock, Bill, myself and another designer made a post apocalyptic system and setting for another company. However it was delayed for a few years and before they published it, we got the rights back, so we could revise it (with the other designer). This one would be a matter of time and examining the material to see how much work it needs (as well as coordinating things with our co-designer). This wasn't Mad Max, it was set much further in the future after a near-extinction level event. This one is also very different from the Network System. Paradise Lost was not just rules light, it was seriously minimalist in design.


8 comments:

  1. I'm up for all of these, Brendan! And I could help with the unique SF setting! I have tons of unique SF settings that... wait... you want to sell one or two copies, right? Never mind! :O

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  2. Don't worry Clash, with both our names on the cover, we'd sell at least seven copies. Actually our distribution system is pretty good so we don't have to worry too much about that. As long as we make a good game, it will reach people.

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  3. What if you made your supers game all about the Mexican supers: pulpy retro masked wrestlers fighting evil. Come up with some fun wrestling mechanics, some weird science gimmicks. Cross over with Horror Show for the obligatory campy monster antagonist.

    Hm, too niche maybe?

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  4. Replies
    1. El Santo and Blue Demon movies are a meat market? And here I was thinking they're just uncomplicated, campy fun.

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    2. Meat Market is a campy movie that features a luchador and vampire allies fighting against nano-bot infested zombies. It immediately leapt to mind with your example.

      Meat Market: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349804/

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    3. Oh, having never heard of that movie that reference was completely lost on me, haha. But surely, you must have seen a Santo movie once or twice?

      There's also the Mexican pulp proto-superhero Kaliman, who appeared in audio drama, comic books and on film. Not a luchador but very Mexican nonetheless.

      Oh well, I'm just blurting out my own preferences. It's probably not very appealing to most other people.

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  5. I haven't seen a Santo movie but I've heard of them through one of our local gamestores.

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