ostrichmonkey-games

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Appx. N Jam entry is done!

In the hinterlands, local villagers are plagued by the dreamhaze, a strange, clinging, purple fog that oozes from the old Illusionist’s Keep. 

Those under the influence of the dreamhaze feel a compulsion to enter the Keep, a voice that whispers to them while they sleep. Eventually the afflicted succumb, and disappear into the Keep in the middle of the night as sleepwalkers.

The Indigo Illusionist is a dungeon adventure for fantasy tabletop role playing games of the old school persuasion. Featuring: 

9 rooms

Illusory encounters

A rift torn between the dream realm and waking world

A secret prisoner

Illusions that desperately want to be real

PWYW until the conclusion of the jam's judging, so go ahead and snag it!

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Patreon!

Been working on getting this set up for a little while now, but I have launched a patreon!

Its going to be a place to share early drafts and experiments that otherwise would never be shared. Includes access to the playtest version of my Trigun inspired space weird western, Stampede Wasteland, plus some other early drafts for some micro hexcrawls and a dungeon prototype!

Currently keeping things simple, with each tier granting the same access. This patreon is really just a bonus way for people to support me and also get to see some Cool Stuff long before it gets released.

In addition to the Stampede Wasteland playtest access, there's also early drafts of two "micro hexcrawls" and a dungeon prototype (which I'll elaborate on in a second).

Plus, I'm experimenting a bit with what patreon has to offer, so you can buy access to just the Stampede Wasteland post (its a whole ass game!)

Digital Katabsis is a dungeon prototype/skeleton. It started out as some "concept art" for the megastructure project I'm working on with Will Jobst (of Good Luck Press), but I'm planning on finishing it up into a proper dungeon.

The Architect's Spire is a "micro hexcrawl" set on a science fantasy floating island (it also began life as some "concept art" for the megastructure project, but I've since shifted to a different setting).

The second "micro hexcrawl" is one I'm really proud of, is the first foray into expanding my Riverlands setting! Its got a village, some mysteries, random tables, a lot of NPCs, and there's still two hexes (one will include a dungeon) still coming!

Ultimately, the goal is not to "design for patreon", but to have this patreon as a special way to share cool things that I otherwise wouldn't be sharing, and give people a chance to further support me.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Hey, remember when you posted about games with a "Goldilocks" roll, in which results that were too good meant you were TOO succesful, like Nice Marines? Coincidentally, a few days afterwards, I listened to a podcast that recommended a game just like that. It's called Try Not to Wrestle and it's about wrestlers doing things wrestlers are not good at, like investigating crimes or doing an office job, and an extreme success means the character succeds through wrestling, like suplexing a witness into revealing information

Oh that sounds absolutely fantastic! I need to check this out! Thanks for the heads-up! :D

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Patreon!

Been working on getting this set up for a little while now, but I have launched a patreon!

Its going to be a place to share early drafts and experiments that otherwise would never be shared. Includes access to the playtest version of my Trigun inspired space weird western, Stampede Wasteland, plus some other early drafts for some micro hexcrawls and a dungeon prototype!

Currently keeping things simple, with each tier granting the same access. This patreon is really just a bonus way for people to support me and also get to see some Cool Stuff long before it gets released.

In addition to the Stampede Wasteland playtest access, there's also early drafts of two "micro hexcrawls" and a dungeon prototype (which I'll elaborate on in a second).

Plus, I'm experimenting a bit with what patreon has to offer, so you can buy access to just the Stampede Wasteland post (its a whole ass game!)

Digital Katabsis is a dungeon prototype/skeleton. It started out as some "concept art" for the megastructure project I'm working on with Will Jobst (of Good Luck Press), but I'm planning on finishing it up into a proper dungeon.

The Architect's Spire is a "micro hexcrawl" set on a science fantasy floating island (it also began life as some "concept art" for the megastructure project, but I've since shifted to a different setting).

The second "micro hexcrawl" is one I'm really proud of, is the first foray into expanding my Riverlands setting! Its got a village, some mysteries, random tables, a lot of NPCs, and there's still two hexes (one will include a dungeon) still coming!

Ultimately, the goal is not to "design for patreon", but to have this patreon as a special way to share cool things that I otherwise wouldn't be sharing, and give people a chance to further support me.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Precarity, porousness

In a recent issue of Analog Game Studies, Brandon Blackburn writes about precarity, porousness, and homemaking in solo journaling games, featuring The Crushing Dark and Dwelling.

Find the full article on the Analog Game Studies website.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

TTRPG cover I did a while back

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Have you played Frontier Scum

By Karl Druid and Brian Richmond

FRONTIER SCUM is a rules-lite Acid Western roleplaying game. An auto-destructive, violent and LSD-infused take on Spaghetti Westerns, about wanted outlaws making their mark on an unreal Lost Frontier. Probably getting shot before having the chance to shoot. A rough-and-tumble world of insatiable greed where scum live one slug from the grave. Inspired by the Acid Western genre in movies and books.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Mastercard and visa have reported to a couple news outlets that they are currently being swamped with calls and complaints. Keep up the pressure and try to (politely) insist that you leave a complaint via phone instead of letting the rep direct you to emails. It's way easier to be overwhelmed by a much smaller number of calls so each one counts for a bit more!

[ostrichmonkey-games]

So the new itch.io guidelines are out and they are both predictably bad and also quite unpredictably bad. There's so much to go over here but here are some of the highlights:

First we have the broadly worded content restrictions. So much of this is just strictly bad for several reasons (for example, you cannot have a NSFW game that doesn't even fetishize rape but has rape be an important thematic element under these new rules) but my personal favorite is that these are so broad that huge swaths of content are just banned from itch.io. You like VNs of monster girls having sex? Sorry, but your favorite spider girl VN is animal-related, we cannot prove that you don't want to fuck spiders so its gone.

(a real problem anyone thinks about??????)

Game where you can transformed by magical artifacts and sometimes fucked? Sorry, that's non-consensual content. Banned. You cannot be transformed into a maid against your will. You also cannot have your protagonist call an older woman "mommy" because likeeeee that's incestual right?

"Minor-presenting" what the fuck does this mean. Genuinely. If a grown woman wears a fetish uniform is that minor presenting??? What the fuck are you talking about.

Also by the way if they feel your content is "too bad" for their platform, which includes a list of conditions incredibly broad to contain things like "a woman who likes being gagged during sex", they will just steal your revenue. No no no not just the revenue from the work in question. All of it. This makes any NSFW work a ticking timebomb, especially since itch.io doesn't have the fucking staff to deal with all of this! There's no second chances. You are not protected against fraudulent report or our dumb as fuck employees.

itch.io right now is just not a safe platform for NSFW content, and honestly, it really should be said, a fair swath of SFW content too. Don't use it, find alternative ways to survive in the market right now.

It's not going to be easy, but it's necessary. Here's a link to an article going over some solutions. I cannot personally vouch for any of these in particular but you need to do what you gotta.

Also, harass VISA and Mastercard. Phone calls over emails. Ruin their workflow. Do it for weeks, don't give up.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Which Brinkwood Mask Would You Wear?

Brinkwood: Blood of Tyrants is a Forged-in-the-Dark game that's Robin Hood meets Castlevania: you are brigands, fighting a guerilla war against vampire capitalists that are slowly sucking the life out of the isle that you call home. You're not alone, however - a powerful fae has lent you their aid in the form of magical masks, that conceal your identity and grant you terrible power.

Terror: Borne of fear and pain, Terror is the fear of the lash, the bludgeon, rent & starvation. Will you instill terror in your oppressors like a shock? Use it as a shield to guard the oppressed? Or cause an explosion of force that overwhelms your foe?

Violence: A blunt instrument, Violence was the last of its siblings to be forged: a cruel, keen, and vicious. It has no mercy for the oppressor, no compassion for those who would grind the humanity of others under its heel. Will you use it wisely, or let your violence get out of hand?

Lies: The oldest mask, Lies is the teacher and instructor of its brethren. It speaks of things that are not, it teaches of things that cannot be. It has lived for so long, it knows when a lie will heal, and when the truth will cut. Won't you help it at its' work?

Riot: Riot is multitudes. Many trees, many branches, forged together to provide a cacophony of sound. It is the voice of the unheard, the agitator of action, the spark that causes the flame. Wear Riot, and let the voice of the multitudes sound for all to hear.

Torment: Torment is agony and relief, suffering and mending. It is the necessary pain; the pinprick of the suture that closes the wound. It was made to help its brethren, to keep them safe and heal when it can. It does not kill with joy, but with sorrow.

Judgement: Judgement was born from the desire for truth and reconciliation. It was made to execute the guilty, to spare the penitent, to strike down the wicked and strengthen the oppressed. It is stoic, stating only the facts of the matter as it discerns them.

Ruin: Ruin is the slow death, the crawling chaos, the inexorable drumbeat and the march of time. It is the end that comes for all things. Ruin was forged in the waning days of war when death seemed inevitable, but it is also a glowing coal that might someday re-ignite.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

well, despite everything, the ashcan of my Descended from the Queen game is almost ready to go up on itch. yall ever have to read "The Lady Or The Tiger?" in school?

[ostrichmonkey-games]

eight days left in the sale and we're 75% of the way to our goal! pick up some weird cool games and help me pay some moving costs! and oh shit would you look at that

we got a long-awaited update to my collection of business card games, now featuring eight whole games to stick in your wallet and forget about for years and years before rediscovering them one day and having a beautiful moment of nostalgia as the tiny slip of paper reminds you of who you once were. or you can play them!

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Come join us for our Electric State Actual Play!!!!!

[ostrichmonkey-games]

I've started working on an entry for the Appendix N Jam, and thought it might be fun to document the process.

Starting with the cover! Here's a truncated process of what I did.

The image started as a simple collage of some assets I have lying around;

There's the figure, and eye, a neat sword, and then the galaxy image is pulled from Affinity's stock image panel and clipped to a drawn shape.

Then, I did a "merge visible" to get one pixel layer so I could bring it into one of my favorite kits;

The Halftone Zine Machine from True Grit. It just makes playing with halftones waaaaaaay easier, and also has some cool texturing options built in.

Playing around with it, you get something roughly like this;

This is still just a live preview, the final always looks a little different, but I ended up not liking how the eye and sword rendered out, so I cut those from the final.

Here's the final image, dropped into the Affinity Publisher file. Also dropped in the title text, plus some extras;

From there, I continued playing around with filters, blurs, building up more halftone textures using Affinity's built in halftones, and some worn paper textures;

Still not quite there. For the finishing touch, I created a border shape, and applied a gradient, and bam, that brings us to the final image;

Not quite a step-by-step, since I put this together after the fact, but hopefully its not a total "just draw the owl" either. Happy to answer questions about the process too.

Next post will be about actually writing the dungeon.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Songbirds is a game for queers to kill and get killed and enjoy every moment of it. It's a dungeon crawler for those adventurers who enjoy being cut a little too deep and for those of us who would rather be doing anything else. It's a game about the grind, it's a game about being trans, it's a game about sex and violence.

It's free too. Go download it now.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Okay! Let's talk about the writing process a bit!

As an aside, I always prefer to start with handwritten notes for brainstorming and early outlining. I find that I get waaaaaaaaay more written when I'm doing pen to paper, than sitting in front of an empty google doc.

The Appendix N Jam organizers assign each participant a random title, and then the idea is to build something based on that title. I'm going for a "dungeon" set in an Illusionist's keep/tower/whatever. I started with brainstorming the general concept, the stakes, who is involved, why players might be drawn to the location, etc etc.

I also sketched out a rough layout of what the dungeon might look like, trying to pinpoint multiple entrances, connections between zones, so on and so forth. I started trying to work out the rooms so I could start filling them with things, and got part way there, but honestly, without a proper map, I was having a tricky time envisioning the whole thing.

So...

Time to make a map.

Drawing maps can be hard so I ended up settling on something a little more abstract.

I pulled out some public domain pictures to cut up and collage together (the etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi are my absolute go-to).

The raw images, and the collage on the left. All I did was make them black and white, and then did a messy cutout of interesting parts using the brush selection. Then it was a matter of repositioning, layering, stretching, shrinking, etc until I ended up with something that seemed cool.

Like with the cover image above, I took the collage into the Halftone Zine Machine and ended up with this (already dropped it into Affinity Publisher)!

Also tweaked more halftone settings, some blur, contrast, really just winging it. But a complete map this is not! We need rooms, and paths, and ways to keep track of things.

So, with some help from the shape builder tool we get,

And put some room numbers on there, and bam,

More or less the final map. I'll still mostly likely be further tweaking things as I go, but you get the gist!

I've started working on an entry for the Appendix N Jam, and thought it might be fun to document the process.

Starting with the cover! Here's a truncated process of what I did.

The image started as a simple collage of some assets I have lying around;

There's the figure, and eye, a neat sword, and then the galaxy image is pulled from Affinity's stock image panel and clipped to a drawn shape.

Then, I did a "merge visible" to get one pixel layer so I could bring it into one of my favorite kits;

The Halftone Zine Machine from True Grit. It just makes playing with halftones waaaaaaay easier, and also has some cool texturing options built in.

Playing around with it, you get something roughly like this;

This is still just a live preview, the final always looks a little different, but I ended up not liking how the eye and sword rendered out, so I cut those from the final.

Here's the final image, dropped into the Affinity Publisher file. Also dropped in the title text, plus some extras;

From there, I continued playing around with filters, blurs, building up more halftone textures using Affinity's built in halftones, and some worn paper textures;

Still not quite there. For the finishing touch, I created a border shape, and applied a gradient, and bam, that brings us to the final image;

Not quite a step-by-step, since I put this together after the fact, but hopefully its not a total "just draw the owl" either. Happy to answer questions about the process too.

Next post will be about actually writing the dungeon.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

hey all, i’m pretty active on bsky these days. please follow me there!

https://bsky.app/profile/titanomachyrpg.com