Dev Diary - Play again after sunset!

TODAY'S LISTENING   

 Hey, it's been a bit. I've got a ton of stuff floating through my head recently, and I think a dev diary is far overdo. Lots of fun stuff to talk about, lets get going already.

    So Bleeding Sin huh? I never really talked on the production of it much but it's been a big thing for me over the past 7 ish months I've been working on it. But that process isn't as fun to talk about, I'll put out a full "making of" post when I get the whole thing done, but all in all, it's been a crazy learning process and has really helped me understand how putting together ideas leads into full concepts. Lots of stuff that ended on the cutting room floor or never made it out of the ideas phase, and I'd really like to talk on all of it but I think I'd rather just wait until the whole project is together to talk on it all at once. What I will talk about though with bleeding sin is the production of a new version. Currently, The playtest is in version 1.2, which is a version that is fine, but has a ton of issues. Lots of stuff I never thought of, lots of mistakes I didn't account for, and most of all a really bland look to it all. So I started working on a 1.3 version a week or two ago, solving a lot of the issues with rules, lots of oversights and the sort, plus making a version that looks way more aesthetically pleasing on the eyes. Before it was literally just a google doc that I wrote the rules out on, and while that's fine for some for me it just doesn't cut it. So I'm making a simple cooler looking version. It won't be in any way the final version of the book, which I plan on having a more dynamic and artsy layout to it, but it will be much more pleasing on the eyes. It will not, however, be pleasing on printer ink. Which is why I'm also going to put out the simpler version of it alongside the cooler looking version. One will be marked "ez print" and will be more similar to what we have now, just with a few embellishments. 

The pretty version will look something like this

    The 1.3 version will also have tons of rules updates, including a vastly simplified (and more interactive) casting system that I'm honestly really proud of the design of. It feels way more active and has way more player expression behind it. It's much more about taking big risks and managing resources, where before it felt much more about leaving your strigoi in the back to throw effects at people and never risk anything. I've been able to test it a few times and I'm very happy about how it feels. Outside of that, some adjustments to stress numbers, rewording a few things, adding in some stuff I forgot, tuning things up and down, etc. It's a decently sized update. I'm getting together a few people to test the game with, hopefully soon. I'll make sure to take plenty of pictures, and maybe even do a battle report here, who knows. Expect that out within a few weeks (hopefully).

    Outside of bleeding sin stuff, I've been working on a few other things. I've been working on writing comic stuff again, predominantly Darkeaten. I don't expect to start it again any time soon, I just burnt myself out way too much on it and I'm not proud of what I've done for it so far. I think when I continue it again (and I do mean when, not if) I'd want to start from the beginning, and cut out a lot of the fat in terms of what's up currently. More stuff per page, more covered in a chapter, etc. Mainly I think I'd want to do it in full Issues instead of a timed release. One issue at a time, maybe 1 every couple of months. I think that would help with the burnout issue. I want to make smaller comics when I have time to test style and practice layouts and stuff. I think that would be fun. I just miss the time when I enjoyed making comics, you know? I want to get back to that.

    But departing from Darkeaten entirely, I think I want to talk about my next big project, and this will be a lot so buckle up. I want to talk to you a little bit about a project I call GORM: The Fool's Errand. So I've been getting really into a few things the past few months. One of those things are weird 90s-2000s era horror point-and-clicks. I love strange obscure games, always have. I enjoy quirky games that time forgot, and a lot of those fall into the horror genre. Great example, you ever heard of Harvester? The game's nuts. It's a crazy horror game that isn't afraid to go absolutely wild with it's storytelling. It's an insane trip, feels like a dream, a place where everything is almost familiar but not quite correct. 

Harvester used the tagline "Yeah, Why not?" for some advertisements, which checks out

    Some other games I've been looking at are games like Dark Seed, Phantasmagoria, and Erevos, all of which are trips in and of themselves. Erevos especially strikes my interest, as it's about vampires. It's a game so dedicated to it's concept that you can't play it unless your pc's clock is set to after dark, because of course vampires only come out after sunset. A very strange mechanic but it's weird stuff like that that keeps me coming back to these things. No other genre of game would do that, something so stupid yet so creative. Why would you make a game that the player can't experience for half of their life? From a marketing perspective? Psychotic. From a creativity perspective? GOLD! It really makes me think of the 28 tabletop scene, a scene driven not by what's best for marketing but what's the most unique, the most creative. It's all about trying new things, and most of the time, those things are weird gimmicks like only playing after dark.

This pops up if anyone not dedicated to the suckhead lifestyle attempts to play Erevos

   I have a massive fascination with the obscure. Things that time forgot, media that was never picked up by a wider audience, weird oddities of creativity and insanity. Not all of it is good (much of it is not) but it's all got some kind of soul behind it. I like knowing about weird things that time forgot, it's a little obsession of mine. It's why I take such an interest in lost media as well, it's just interesting to learn about the stuff that time forgot.

    Another big thing I've been exploring lately (and I promise this also times into what I'm working on) is game-oriented artbooks. Things like Vermis and Godhusk, which pose themselves as the guidebook for a game that doesn't exist. Along with stuff that's just more oriented at creating a cool fantasy settings and visual designs like Age of Rot. I really like how these things are formatted, things that feed on the idea of obscure games that time forgot. It sorta creates an interesting meta-narrative that makes the contents of the book, while being fantastical and not set in our world, feel as though they are connected to our world. But those are things that have been talked on a lot, especially in the fantasy-adjacent community. So I won't linger on them too long. They're super well put together and if you somehow hadn't heard of them yet I highly recommend you check them out.

    So what's this got to do with that whole GORM thing? Well, gorm is a project I'm working on taking after those things. A project designed to revel in the obscure, the strange, and to create a weird meta-narrative with the reader. I'm still not fully decided on what exactly it will be, but I want to create a tabletop dungeon crawl experience basically. A game that revels in the obscure, and feels like a book that time forgot. My primary idea for gorm currently is to make a tabletop "rpg" book that is gm-less, and the book guides your entire journey. It'll be a sort of pre-built campaign in a book to play on your own or with a few buddies, set in a setting that takes after old dungeon crawlers and weird fantasy stuff of all sorts, and takes tons of inspiration from the weird forgotten point and clicks that I love so dearly. All of it will be through the lens of a lost rpg now revived in all it's glory. But the book will not just be your gm, it'll speak to you, the player, directly. The book will attempt to turn the players against one another, and attempt to sow distrust, and exert it's power over you. The book is in control, not you, and it'll make sure to spread it's influence in any way it can. So think a meta dungeon crawler ttrpg that tries to get you to argue with your friends.

    

Visually I want to invoke stuff like Waxworks, another fun horror game from the 90s

    Gorm is entirely in the concept stage, I've made barely any art with commissions and bleeding sin taking up most of my time. But I hope the idea at least sounds fun, I know a lot of people in the 28 scene will be down with an rpg that takes inspiration from the weird and wild. I just want to make sure it stands out in the ever growing crowd of "old school revival" style rpgs. I kinda feel weird calling it an "rpg" because my intention is not really to create a role playing experience, but more a cooperative dungeon crawl experience. It's more of a challenge to overcome than a space for your roleplaying moments, especially considering the book is going to be assaulting the player's psyche, not the characters. I like the idea of the game having very physical mechanics based around stuff like writing or physically moving, those things getting harder as your character loses health and sanity. I think that would tie into the theme well. Still not fully sure on enough mechanic stuff to share it, as the game is still in the early concept phase. But think of stuff like what you'd see in Combat Heroes or other gm-less rpg books. Sure it's a bit railroad-y but that's what you expect going into this. You never complain about a game railroading you, some games aren't meant to be open world.

This is the coolest of the Combat Heroes books

    But enough about that, you probably saw at the top of this a link titled "TODAY'S LISTENING" with a link to a song. It's obviously not required, and the song while totally end while you're reading it (unless you choose to loop it, which is the correct option) but I decided it was a fun thing to put in, as I really like music and it influences me a lot when I write stuff, like this blog post. So today I put in "Blood Moon" by Choir Boy. A good friend of mine recommended I listen to it as I was still writing this post, so I decided to listen to it while writing, and I really vibed with this song, something about it really struck with me with what I was talking about here. It's got quite a nostalgic vibe to it, so I felt it's worthy of the soundtrack of today's post. The fact that the song is called "Blood Moon" definitely helps in making me love it, but really it's just a happy coincidence. Give the whole album a listen if you like it, it's really great, there's only so many ways I can say that I just really dig the vibe they went for with it, so just trust me on it, the vibe is truly immaculate.

The cover for it is also awesome

   

    This whole thing has been a bit of a ramble but what did you expect? This is a dev diary, not a dev press conference. I'm getting all my ideas out in one place, to share on my cute little blog. I hope to do these more often again, but who knows, I could totally go through a spell of just not wanting to make these, so I won't promise anything. Deadlines may help me get stuff done but they also lead to unnecessary stress. I missed this, lets meet here again yeah? Just a chat under the red moon at the end of the world. See you around freaks.

BLEEDING SIN - A GAME OF BLOOD AND BENEDICTION

 The halls of Thorian's great cities crawl with all manners of ghoulish beast. Vile infected, loathsome heretics, and accursed wretches. But hidden amongst these nightmares are secrets lost to time, treasures of great prospect, and maybe even hope for the future of it's people. Thus, it is no surprise many covens of warriors venture deep into the annals of these vast cities, seeking answers in these hidden hamlets and unknown dwellings. Whether they seek to spill blood, spread rot, burn it all down, or simply to find who they are, these warriors fight on all the same, their paths marked by the bodies of those who failed before them. There is no truth in safety, only through blood shall we find salvation.

SIN. BLEED. ROT.

Bleeding sin is a skirmish game that pits covens of vampiric warriors in a battle against each other, encroaching beasts, and their own minds. Set in a gothic fantasy setting heavily inspired by works like Bloodborne, Bleeding sin creates a pvpve skirmish experience that forces the player to make hard decisions and be careful with their movements, as any wrong move could spell doom for the whole team.

This is the first public playtest release, so the game is still being worked on and updated. More content will be added to it in the future and adjustments will happen to current rules. It’s my first game project so theres plenty of janky writing or weird rules interactions I may have not noticed. If you spot anything weird or strange message me! 

Link to all the rules are up in the top bar. Plus some useful graphics like team sheets, a reference sheet, and more. They’re all free so check them out!

Darkeaten Dev Diary - Dr Strangeblood or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Psalm

Hey! Another month another dev diary, and I got some big stuff to talk about today. The big topic today is my skirmish game project, now called Bleeding Sin. I went from concepts to releasing a full playtest version this month, and I wanna walk through a bit of my production process, and all the stuff I learned along the way.

So Bleeding Sin was initially envisioned as a skirmish game set in Darkeaten where you have to manage your blood and make sure you don't collapse under your own weight. I saw this idea of a game based around a sole mechanic and takes it to it's max, and while I think that idea was fun, I quickly realized this wasn't a very good idea. Getting the blood mechanic to not feel unfair or unfun was kinda a hassle, and I reworked it so many times in an attempt to give it more depth. I probably spent more time on that than anything else in the game, which is crazy to think because now it's just a little piece in a larger game. This is where I learned a valuable lesson, and if you're gonna take anything from this blog post it's this - The outcome doesn't matter, an finished product is always better than an unfinished one. I spent so much time deliberating over this stupid blood mechanic that I rewrote the entire concept of the game 3 times. No joke, I have 3 separate ideas and concept documents that I made over time because I just kept rethinking how I wanted to handle this game. Don't even get me started on the older ideas before the past few months, my google docs folders are a mess. 

To get back on track I've been increasingly getting better and better at the "stop adding stuff, just finish it" mentality. The game doesn't have to have every mechanic that you find fun, just put in the ones that fit together. This mentality applies to art, minis, writing, etc. Your model doesn't need any more edge highlights, just one or two are fine. You don't have to make every armor plate perfectly shaded, you don't have to make every barrel perfectly drilled, you don't have to make every mechanic perfectly fleshed out. After it all, you might find yourself wanting to remove stuff, actually. Which brings me to the next thing I learned while making this, that art is only reached when the cutting room floor reaches it's maximum occupancy.

Did you know that Darkeaten used to be a high fantasy setting with no vampiric influence and a disease of snake like creatures that rose from a pit of black tar called "The Pool"? You do now. I have cut and changed so much stuff in this setting over the 5 years it's existed that I had to look at old documents to even know what my original story was. I did all this without ever thinking about it, really, because it sort of just changed as I got older and my interests changed. So doing something like that in the short term was a lot harder for me. A saying that gets thrown around a lot in making art is "Trust the Process", and while I agree that most stuff doesn't look good until you put the finishing touches on it, it's also important to know when to cut your losses and start over. Some things are mistakes and need to be removed, and some things just don't fit with your new vision for the project. For me it's pretty hard to remove stuff from my work, because I'm always worried that removing it is going to take something away or require more work to rethink things, but as I've learned, if I really think something should be cut, it's probably better to. I had this idea for a team customization feature while making Bleeding Sin called "Afflictions". The basic idea was upgrades you would pay no points for, but would always come with some large downside. The problem soon arose that I couldn't make these afflictions feel unique and I couldn't find many ways to make the downsides interesting outside of just "take more damage" or "move slower". A lot of them just felt like needless extra difficulty for little advantage. But it took me super long to cut the idea because I thought it was cool. I'm happy I removed it, because if I didn't it would just gum up the team creation process way more. Maybe I can use that idea again someday for an rpg or other game, but for now it sits on the cutting room floor.

Here's what Thorian's Old Map looked like, it's very weird looking I know

Now that I've finished the playtest document for the game, now comes the really hard part, testing it. I've played a few test games on my own with a setup made of trash and random stuff around my dorm, but I have yet to test it with people. I plan to pretty soon, but I have yet to set up dates and work with people on that. The hardest part of any project is promoting it, because it's a step that only ends when you get a new thing to promote over it. I've been getting better with telling people about my work and spreading around the good word on it, but these things are hard. Promoting your work without seeming like a shill or self centered jerk is kinda hard, at least to me. I hope that before the next dev diary I have some test games under my belt, I've been working on a painting up little team of Fleshmelders with Sundered blood to play with, and that has been very fun. Ideally, after I finish the first playtests I'll upload some little battle reports onto here with cool pictures and artwork

This is my little rinky dink test game setup

As for other new things I've been working on, I've printed my zine! it's being done with simple printing methods and all cut by hand but it's been a fun learning experience. Lots of hours in the hot cutting room at my school and lots of paper taken from the computer labs of the art building. I've done a total of 10 so far and handed the off to friends. I don't plan on putting them up for sale yet because they're all hand made by me, and I just don't have the time to make and mail orders right now. Maybe some day though, as I'd love a more refined and produced version of them. The learning process of the printing and cutting has been very fun, and I've been learning little tricks to cut them faster. Currently, I'm printing them on a xerox printer as booklets through acrobat, then stapling each of the same page together on each of the edges so they don't slip when I cut them, then cutting it out so it's just the zine, then finally folding and stapling them together with a booklet stapler. Luckily I go to a school where everything's sorta at my fingertips in the art building, so I don't even need to pay for the printing or anything. It's been great really.

Here's what it looks like printed ft. my hand

I have a few other projects in the works, I'm working on some stickers based on the blood types in Bleeding Sin, each with a different design based on the blood type, which I'll hopefully be able to get made and pass them out at UTDFest in May for those who will be going to that. I've been posting the art for those over on my socials, but I only have 2 of the 4 done currently. I'm about halfway done with the 3rd but I have gotten a bit sidetracked with other art so who knows. The final thing I'm working on is new comics! One is a simple little 6 page thing based on the opening line on the zine, the "Blood Must Spill" quote, which will be more a test and smaller project to get me more into layouts and stuff for comics. The other one though is going to be a 4 issue mini series about hunters and pyromancers. That project is in super early development so who knows when that'll be done, but I'll have updates here as it comes out. The actual Darkeaten comic still isn't gone forever but I want to work on other things before going back, still lacking motivation to work on it.

That's all for now, these are normally supposed to be on the 15th of each month but I'm working on punk time this month. I'll be working more on Bleeding Sin and other projects, I've been feeling super motivated to make stuff recently and I hope to keep up this train of work for a while. Lots of fun stuff incoming! Expect posts on my socials and maybe even an additional blog post this month, who knows.

Darkeaten Dev diary - Game writing, inspiration and burnout

 Hey, just as I used to on the original blog on the comic site, I want to get into the habit of posting monthly dev diaries to talk about what I've been doing. These will come out on the 15th of every month, and will probably involve me talking about what's going on in my head around the time. So lets get into the meat of it, shall we?

So I've been working on concepts for some kind of skirmish game in Darkeaten, which feels like a fun project to take on. I've always wanted to make something to play this setting in, as even though it's supposed to be agnostic and used for whatever, it's definitely fun to play a game made for a specific setting instead of trying to shoehorn it into a preexisting game. 

But for what I've got right now, for basic ideas, I'm envisioning a stressful little skirmish game about managing your team's blood and stress, while fighting off both another player and npc monsters that spawn around the map. Kind of a PvEvP experience if you will. I've written up a rudimentary system for how blood will work as a resource, acting as both your leader's health and their source of magic. 

I've also written up a pretty good idea of the stress system, I want it to act as a sort of ticking clock that puts literal stress on the player. Trying to find a good in between of pressure and fun, letting people do cool things and not be punished hard for it. 

As for other ideas for it, I'm working through concepts for team customization, having both choice over a blood type and a faction, which can make for a lot of unique combinations of team. Plus giving freedom of choice on your main Strigoi character and how kitted out they are. I want to implement as much stuff from the zine as possible, so if you see something you like in it you can recreate it in the game.

I've got lots of inspirations for it brewing, taking little things from other skirmishes I like and putting them in a boiling pot with my own ideas. I've been looking at a lot of stuff from Necropolis, OPR quest, Forbidden Psalm, Necromunda, just to name a few. Taking inspiration while still making it uniquely it's own thing. I want it to feel a lot like Darkest Dungeon in a way, where you take a group of warriors into an unknown land filled with monsters who want to kill them, and manage their tools and stats like a house of cards. One wrong move and the team could crumble under it's own weight. 

I've been playing a stupid amount of Darkest Dungeon, I'd highly recommend it if you love gritty dungeon crawlers

Ideally I can get this concept out in at least testing before the next dev log, I feel I have a bunch of good concepts that I just need to put into exact writing, and a bunch of blanks to fill in with character customization stuff. But we'll see, if you're interested in the idea or experience writing this stuff, reach out! 

Outside of the game, I've been working on new world concepts and ideas. I've been trying to structure a concept for more wild and bestial races to exist within the setting, outside of just basing them off of the infection. I've been ruminating on the idea of the "Clotborn", people born with more or thicker blood who take on bestial aspects of some kind, normally of a blood-sucking nature. I want things like Orcs to exist within the setting but I want them to be more unique. I like the idea of people who look like Leeches or mosquitos, and obviously bats. Giant Lamprey men stalking the foggy swamp around Stagetin, or tribes of orc-like bat people in secluded tribes on Thorian's outer islands. I want to expand on it more in some way but not fully sure yet. Just feels a bit restrictive if everyone is either humanoid or infected in some way.

Darkest dungeon has some mosquito-people which partly inspired this concept

I plan at some point in the future releasing a sort of sequel to the zine with more specifics and new ideas I've thought up, plus some stuff from friends and whoever wants to contribute, a sort of community book of stories, artwork, and ideas. So if you have anything cool you want to share, send it over to me! I'd love to see it.

In other more discouraging news, I think I'm putting the comic on indefinite hiatus for now. after the few months I was putting it out weekly, I felt really burnt out on it, and when I do bring it back I don't plan on doing the weekly schedule. I found myself dreading putting out more pages, and my art and writing style is evolving so fast that I don't think I can really promise to put it out any time soon in good conscience, as I'd want to redo a good chunk of the chapter I'm on before I continue. It's not a project I want to abandon, I have a very cool story I want to work more on, but I'd rather not dread making something that started as a little side project, you know? I think I'll focus on stuff like the zine and game where I can flex my writing as much as my art. It's faster and less mentally intensive on me.

I think that's all for now. Going to be working on lots of these ideas to try and extend them further, I feel like it's going to be a pretty cool year for Darkeaten stuff, so stay tuned! 

Creating Characters in the Darkeaten setting

 Hello, now that I've finished the zine I want to make a little guide for those of you who want to convert/make custom characters within the Darkeaten setting. Kitbashes, Ocs, rpg characters, etc. As always, this is just a stencil, and take these tips as you'd like. Rules are meant to be broken.

A good way to come up with a character is to simply randomize them on the on the document below! just roll a few d6s and boom you have a character. it's easy and free to use for when you have no clue where to start.

For a larger version, look HERE

If you're more interested in specifics, I got some more info below.

My first tip when making a character is to determine what kind of character they are, a hunter, infected, pyromancer, something inbetween? this will determine the aesthetic design of the character in general, as they all have pretty different looks. 

Any church based character will normally be clad in red. Red is the holiest color, as it is the color of blood, so use it as much as you can to show the holiness of the character. Any armor plates will normally contain lots of curved aspects to them as well, as curves denote holiness. Of course, you need blood, bloody makeup, dripping from the mouth, on the hands, wherever. Pennant characters tend to have lots of barbed wire around their bodies, and may even exhibit the pointed pennant helmet in some occasions. Add runes here and there, do whatever you see fits the concept.

The lead cover character literally drips with holiness!

Infected are much more fun, as you're free to do almost anything you want. Infected can be anything from standard zombies to canine beasts to even trees or metal. Infected can even look completely normal, with only warped minds and insides. The only constant with infected are their orange eyes. Orange is the key color of infected, and should be used to accentuate certain infected parts of them. Other than that, go wild! make something crazy and monstrous. Create your own custom strain with their own dreg lord to lead it. Do whatever you want

some infected look crazy, so get creative!

Pyromancers are vagabonds, and thus tend to wear lots of rags and generally standard clothing. They tend to be covered in burns and scars, with their wounds seeping with fire. Pyromancers have no consistent colors, and tend to wear lots of different shades. Pyromancers may seem like lost wandering souls, but they tend to be very intelligent, and act just like a standard citizen of Thorian, just with an obsession with the burnt rune.

I never drew a head here, but a headless pyromancer sounds sick

Fleshmelders are another opportunity to get creative, as they can have weird additions to their bodies and strange metallic growths going in different directions. Not all mechanical parts on their body have to make sense, or even lead anywhere, many have wires that flow in and out of their skin needlessly. Additional arms and syringes containing strange fluids also are commonplace, as is the use of warped bones on the outside used of the body as armor or augmentation. Skin stitched clothing is also very common, even sometimes containing faces of those harvested. Other than that, just place metal spikes where you see fit, jutting from the skin in random directions.

This page really show how crazy fleshmelders can be

The only other tips I can give are to make your character exhibit their city. Characters from Invale will be wearing heavy clothing, and characters from Agota will wear light clothing. Many citizens exhibit their cities, as it's were they will spend their entire life, so get creative with it! Also, anything gothic or punk adds a lot, corsets, studded belts and bracelets, lots of piercings, crazy hairdos, etc. Those are optional but add to the aesthetic of the character, darkeaten is a punk fantasy setting after all

That's all for now. Go make some characters! If you do, send them over to me at any of my socials so I can see them, I'd love to see what you make! And feel free to ask any questions you've got, I'd love to answer any character creation conundrums you have.

Darkeaten zine out NOW!!

 “Prayer is my blade and it is soaked with the blood of the saints before me.”

-Unknown

  

    Across the oceans, through a thick fog that obscures both the body and the mind, stands the land of Thorian. A cursed land locked in an eternal, crimson night. It’s people tormented by maddening plague that warps them into monsters. Its Lords have left only their regime behind, creating a land of obsessed fanatics. The only constant, blood.

    Engross yourself in 40 pages of gothic fantasy writing and artwork, the perfect introduction to the setting and people of the darkeaten. Each page contains interesting information on different factions, landscapes, and monsters that Thorian holds, along with artwork examples of how they look, and quotes to give a look into the minds of the madmen who stalk this rotted land.

    Darkeaten is a game and media agnostic setting that allows you to form your own stories based on the ideas presented in this zine. Write your own story, forge your own faction, and consume the blood of your foes. 

Thorian Bleeds, o holy hunter.
Will you be it's salvation...
or it's executioner?

Follow the link in the top bar to download it! thanks!

Darkeaten Zine releases February 1st

 

-BLOOD MUST SPILL-

February 1st