Summer silence, future formulas
August '24
Hey everyone,
I thought it was about time for a summer update with some news about what’s been happening and some (hopefully) near-future plans!
Plus, I wanted to highlight an exciting project that’s launching next week…
Revolt! now available on the ACP store
Just this week, I finished up packing and shipping my most ambitious TTRPG project to date—Revolt!
Both book and boxed editions are now available to purchase at alwayscheckers.com.
This game was a bit of a passion project that I’ve been working on for a few years and I’ve been really pleased with the reception so far as people have started receiving it.
A few things about the campaign actually surprised me, although with hindsight perhaps these are obvious points:
The vast majority of backers went for the boxed edition! I’d worked so hard to make the book a viable purchase on its own to keep costs down for backers—so this was a shock, but not necessarily a bad one. It just meant ordering, packing and shipping it all took longer than anticipated :)
Most (all?) of the feedback so far has been from solo players! Solo mode was one of the last things I added to the game and I was wary of pushing it too hard due to the greater focus on group play. But I’m so happy it’s working as intended and looking forward to a few groups getting it to the table soon.
If you’ve had a chance to play Revolt!, I’d love to hear from you.
There’s also lots of digital community copies available on itch.io if you can’t justify a purchase at the moment, but want to check it out.
The Lost & Found Collection
Some of you will likely be familiar with the work of my long-time friend and some-time collaborator Jack Harrison (aka Mousehole Press). His beautiful solo game Koriko: A Magical Year was a hit at the recent Ennies, walking away with several gold and silver awards.
His other solo games Artefact and Bucket of Bolts actually contain my first ever published TTRPG work—as he kindly allowed me to write a few guest playbooks. They’ve since gone on to inspire tons of designers to make their own solo games using his Lost & Found SRD.
Well, next week he’s launching the Lost & Found Collection on Kickstarter and let me tell you, I am excited!
Artefact and Bucket of Bolts have been reworked into card-based solo games with a ton of incredible new art (including from my fave Torben) and all-new prompts and mechanics that greatly expand the story possibilities.
Plus, there’s a brand new game—Counterpart—that’s about all kinds of robots and automatons. Very relevant to my interests and I hope yours too.
Please do check it out here and follow along to be notified at launch!
Future plans
Outside of packing and shipping Revolt! I’ve taken a small break from my (frankly, relentless) schedule of releasing TTRPGs over the last few years, generally being a new dad and trying to enjoy the free time when it arises.
With my limited hobby time, I’ve been indulging in a few board games (absolutely loving Leder Games’ Arcs at the moment) and attending a few Warhammer: The Old World tournaments where my unfortunate High Elves have been absolutely routed by a series of poor decisions and Chaos Dragons. But I had fun.
As far as new releases and future plans go, I’ve got a few things cooking that I can’t share too much about just yet, but here’s a little sample of what’s in the Pipeline of Potential™ (sounds like a Warhammer item):
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing another expansion/sequel to Notorious for a while now—although I think Trilogy Mode in Outsiders works really well at expanding the base game (and I could stop there), I’ve got an idea that won’t quit.
Currently, I’ve got a ton of notes and a loose plan to start writing this for real in the next month or two. I believe it’s a neat twist on the formula, where you’ll instead play as a target of the Nomads in a galaxy where the Old Empire have won the war. Hopefully I’ll have more to say on this early next year.
I’m still planning to attend Dragonmeet in London at the end of November, sharing a table with Jack (see: above) and selling all of my games. Although I’m really excited about this, I haven’t attended a con as a seller before so I’ve got some organising to do.
With a bit of a theme emerging here, I’ve discussed some very loose but exciting plans to work on a much larger and more ambitious solo TTRPG with someone I’ve wanted to work with for ages (circa sometime later next year). This may not work out, but if it does I know it’s going to be fantastic! Sorry to be so vague, but I don’t want to put any pressure on this.
If you’ve made it this far, phew! Quite a long one. As always, thanks for all of your support. Until next time.
-Jason
I love Notorious. I'd be keen to see what a new expansion would looks like.
Still clinging to some hope that I might make it to Dragonmeet this year, if I do I look forward to hop by your stall!