Tag: Caradoc Games

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Owlbear Omelette!

How would you fare, as a sneaky Goblin sneak sneaking into the Goblin King’s dungeon?

The goal?

To filch an Owlbear egg for omelette making purposes!

Why?

It could be the moonshine, it could have be the endless pasty gruel, it could be a sense of pressing social inequality that comes from not being a Goblin King chowing down on Owlbear Omelettes every other morning!

Whatever the reason, here you are! The only way forward is forward! The only thing left to do is get an Owlbear egg! Oh! And get out alive! Garrr!

Owlbear Omelette is the latest micro-rpg from Caradoc Games. It can be played as theatre of the mind, or as an OSR style grid based game.

The Expanded Edition of Owlbear Omelette contains much extras! Including secret goals for extra sneaky Goblins, rules for Armour, and rules for the random creation of the Goblin King’s dungeon!

The basic and expanded editions of Owlbear Omelette are available to patrons right now, click here to support and start the quest for the greatest omelette ever tasted!

The basic edition will be available soon from DriveThruRPG and Itch.io…

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All the Colours…

I’m working with a co-designer on a series of card and board games. It happened fairly quickly:

Karl: “Did you want to work with me on this design.”

Me: “Hell yes.”

Us: <Initiate torrential stream of concepts/>.

Karl (of Ark Angel Games) and I quickly found three core concepts to explore, all originally centered around the use of transparent cards that Karl had concocted. How things have changed in the months since.

Iteration, playtest, iteration, playtest, iteration, playtest. Two of the three are on version 3 or 4, while one is on version 11.

Some of these have come together quickly, feel close to being ‘right’, one is a work in progress, still missing a core something. All of them have changed, as is only good and right.

It’s like finding a path through a jumbled and dark room, ironically, one that you yourself have created. Feeling for what’s in front, trying to find the light switch. Once the light switch has been located of course, it’s not the end, oh no! The room needs to be surveyed, assessed, ordered, tidied, and made presentable.

At different points throughout the iterations I feel like I’ve found the light switch, but the playtest to follow reveals I have, in fact, found nothing of the sort. Things work differently in the mind to how they play out on the table, and that, while obvious, highlights *again* the vital role that playtesting has in the design process.

I have a brilliant idea! It will work! It will be glorious! It will add depth, and strategy, and… <initiate playtest/>… it just doesn’t work at all. How did I not see that!

Time and again we have come back to one or other of the games and asked ourselves – what do we want this game to achieve? If this game were on a shelf next to other games of a similar weight and a similar depth, what would those games be? What is the target audience? What other games do the people who will play this game play? Knowing the destination is vital to keeping it on track. But, by the same token, being open to a change in destination is also important.

Working with a co-designer has been a great experience. The ability to bounce ideas, come at things from other angles, and play to different strengths has been fantastic. If we have a tendency to spin one idea into three, that’s ok, I’m confident that one or more of these is going to turn out great!

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Breaking Eggs

You can’t make an Omelette without breaking eggs, as the saying goes. The same is true for game design. Owlbear Omelette has been through a number of revisions, most recently an update to the random dungeon system that will be in the extended edition.

Run Goblin! Run!

The dungeon creation rules started as a card driven system: split a deck of cards into three, divided by colours and numbers. Flip this card, then that card, corridors, rooms, and encounters defined by suit and then number… Explaining it to a friend at a later stage I realised something that should probably have been quite obvious earlier: all the same could be achieved through dice rolls. In fact, rolling dice and checking tables is simpler than splitting up a deck of cards into three specific decks, and then having to check tables.

The Lost Paladin… Which way did the rogue say to go?

It’s funny how, in the moment, we can get lost in needless complexity. That the solution to a problem we see can swiftly spiral into complication. But… would the dice system exist without me having first created the overly complicated card system? No, it would not.

There is much to be said for building the thing; complexities, complications, warts and all. Once the things exists, in a form that approximates, roughly, painfully, and no doubt awkwardly, what you want to achieve, cut it back, pare it down. Ask of the thing: what can be done more simply? Is there another way to achieve the same thing?

I changed from cards to dice not just because the system is simpler, but because it doesn’t ask the GM or the players to pre-prepare. Thinking about the physical actions required of either preparing or executing an action in the game is important. Such things can add a fun aspect to the game experience when they are deliberate and purposeful, but can detract from the fun just as easily. A system that involves some sort of procedure or preparation can be a barrier to entry, a step or series of steps that add needless ‘busy work’ to a process that doesn’t necessarily require it.

I have a tendancy as a designer to add all the things in, one idea leads to two others, which in turn add some system or sub-system, and so the teetering pile grows. This is a part of my process, and just as important as growing that messy pile, is the act of going back and shaving it down, of cutting away and reorganising. Of removing the things that don’t add to the experience, but simply add processes. This cutting back is the step that is key… As I wrote at the beginning: when making an omelette, you need to break eggs.

Owlbear Omelette will be the next game released by Caradoc Games. The basic edition will be available as a free download in all the usual places (Patreon, DriveThruRPG, and Itch.io), while the Extended Edition, which includes extras such as fun secret character goals, armour rules, and random dungeon creation, will be available exclusively to Patreon supporters.

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Questions and Answers

I was interviewed recently about role playing games, game design, and writing, by an old friend Patrick Matthews. If you’re interested in any of these things, the interview can be found on Pat’s blog here.

Many years ago now, it feels, I wrote some various articles for a website Pat ran which was called Games for Educators. I wrote about using games in the classroom. I also hosted a short podcast series there which was co-hosted by Tom Vasel and myself, called Teaching Strategies. Later, Games for Educators also hosted another podcast I recorded with Donald Dennis, called Games in Schools and Libraries (which is still running strong I might add, hosted by Kathleen Mercury and Donald Dennis). Pat is an author, game designer and software developer, and has recently started a blog series on his site called ‘6 Questions‘. Under Patrick, the Games for Educators site had a range of authors writing about games in an educational setting.

In the 6 Questions series Pat interviews authors, game designers, and other creatives. I was honoured to have been asked to contribute something, and I hope anyone interested in freelance writing, game design, or writing in general finds something interesting or useful in my various and rambling answers.

In my interview I wrote about role playing games and why I love them, creative focus, offered some thoughts on writing, processes, writing in the RPG industry, and talked about what’s upcoming from Caradoc Games. Check it out here! Thanks Pat for asking me to contribute something to your 6 Questions series, it was a lot of fun, and I am very honoured!

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The Hoppy Pops is available!

Last week, my latest Micro-RPG, The Hoppy Pops, was released on Patreon. It is now available for download!

As always you can find the links on the Downloads page here. You can also find it on Patreon here. You can find it on itch.io here. And you can find it on DriveThruRPG here.

In The Hoppy Pops you are a character from a strange and surreal kids show, think In the Night Garden, Yo Gabba Gabba, or Teletubbies. For whatever reason, the producer made you do a happy dance, and it opened a portal to Hell! Now you and your friends have to escape the gatehouse and get back to your own dimension.

Each Hoppy Pop has a special power they can use once every game, and a special limitation, something they cannot ever do, or must always do! Maybe you’re a master at Yoga, maybe you can tell a story that will have all the demons sitting with their hands in their laps. Maybe you can’t speak in words, or maybe you speak through a puppet!

In playtest, a group of Imps was distracted by a story while the Hoppy Pops managed to make their escape to the next level. The ability to get everyone around them to dance led one Hoppy Pop to cause mayhem when a demon armed with a weed-whacker jived like a mad-thing, waving the weed-whacker around them like a baton of destruction. It was lunacy, but in a good way, and I’m happy to report the Hoppy Pops managed to make it home. Will you be so lucky?

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The Hoppy Pops are on Patreon

The latest Micro-RPG from Caradoc Games is here, and has been released on Patreon! The Hoppy Pops are ready to be unleashed on the unsuspecting minions of Hell! You can find it here!

You are a Hoppy Pop, a character from one of those surreally weird kid’s shows; you know the ones. In Episode 9 the producers made you do a strange happy dance, and it opened a gateway to Hell. You need to get home, but all the demons and imps in the Gatehouse are trying to get you, and in those outfits, who can blame them.

The Gatehouse is a hellish tower or building of some kind, the Hoppy Pops are summoned to the highest level; in order to get back to their own dimension, they must find the correct exit on the ground floor.

Each Hoppy Pop has a one-use special power, whether the power of dance, story, yoga, or song, and these can have a profound effect on helping you to escape! Each Hoppy Pop is also limited by permanent impediment: maybe you jingle when you move, maybe you only speak in emotive noises, maybe you narrate every action you take, or maybe you speak only through a squeaky-voiced hand puppet!

In a week I’ll be releasing the basic version of The Hoppy Pops on DriveThruRPG, and Itch.io. The expanded edition will remain exclusively available to Patreon supporters. The expanded edition contains a single-page Hoppy Pop story piece, in which Jiggly Pop goes Tree Pose on a demonic shop assistant. For those of you supporting, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Find The Hoppy Pops on Patreon now!

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Upcoming Titles…

I have the next couple of Micro-RPGs for Caradoc Games designed, written, and laid out. I have tried to include some art I have created, so those of you who download them, my apologies in advance! How soon they make it release will depend on my playtesting schedule, but they’ll be on Patreon first, and then DriveThruRPG and Itch.io.

The next game I’ll be releasing is called The Hoppy Pops, and is a Micro-RPG about the characters from a children’s TV show (like Yo Gabba Gabba, In the Night Garden, or the Tele Tubbies). In Episode 8 of The Hoppy Pops, their producer makes them do a ‘Happy Dance’ routine that opens a portal and pulls them into the Gatehouse of Hell! The Hoppy Pops must use all their Yoga and Crafting abilities to escape!

The base game will include all the rules and character sheets required to play, as well as some extra rules about other dimensions they might be transported to, whether an Alien Ship, or a Wizard’s Summoning Circle. The expanded edition will include a short Hoppy Pop story piece.

After The Hoppy Pops will come a game called Owlbear Omelette. In Owlbear Omelette a group of ne’er-do-well Goblins are trying to nab one of the Goblin King’s Owlbear Eggs for an omelette of their own. Is it about the little fellow sticking it to the entrenched bureaucracy? Or was it just the mad-cap product of a night spent drinking moonshine… Who can say, but in the caves of the Goblin King’s Owlbear nests any scurrilous thieves will need to be on the lookout for Goblin guards, the occasional lost Paladin, and of course, the Owlbears!

Getting an Owlbear Egg and surviving the dungeon is the name of the day! As all goblins know, when things are looking grim, a slug of Moonshine can provide the boost required!

Beyond The Hoppy Pops and Owlbear Omelette I have plans for a bunch of other Micro-RPGs with a range of silly themes. If any of these pique your interest, if you download them and they provide you with a fun evening of play, please consider signing up to my Patreon. Patrons are only charged when I release a game, and money raised will go towards program subscriptions, art, layout, and, of course, supporting me and my caffeine habit. Patreon supporters also get a little extra every release, whether additional rules, adventure seeds, alternative themes, or small pieces of fiction.

Behind the Micro-RPGs I am continuing to work on my larger RPG ‘Ashmerl’, and have been quietly pleased about how things are progressing. The character and setting creation rules have really been coming up with interesting character backgrounds and contexts, as well as plenty of story hooks. It’s exciting to see it all starting to come together. I hope to have Ashmerl written up as a playtest ready document in the next few months, with refinement ongoing and looking toward something that is ready to be laid out by the end of the year.

On top of the work on Caradoc Games products, I am continuing to freelance, and am working on some exciting titles that will be coming from Modiphius, Red Scar and Cubicle 7. No doubt I’ll blog about them as they approach publication!

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A New Face…

For those of you who have been following my progress over the last little while, you’ll have noticed that things around here have undergone a number of changes. The website has had a few name alterations and has settled now at caradocgames.com, and other details have changed here and there, including the creation of a Downloads page (where you can find links to the games I have released), and a Freelance page (which lists the various games I have written for).

One of biggest things that has happened recently, is that I commissioned a logo for my company. The whole process was a mix of fascinating and exciting, and began (aside from the inquiry emails and picking the designer), with me being asked to fill out a questionnaire about my company. All the ephemera that had been floating around in my mind and jotted here and there needed to be solidified into concepts and written down for someone else to read, and that was a very enjoyable process.

It led me to writing a mission statement or guiding principle for Caradoc Games, a set of loose ideas and goals that had to be hammered together into a couple of sentences.

Caradoc Games makes small press role-playing games with an emphasis on story. Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes fantasy, sometimes science fiction, and sometimes something completely different.

Caradoc Games aims to create a mix of small projects designed to be fun and engaging, and larger projects designed to bring a narrative experience to the fore.

I’ve added this to the About page here, and summarises the goals and ambitions of the company, in terms of the style of game I intend to release.

The graphic designer that created my logo, which I might add I am absolutely thrilled with, is Khairul Hamden, and you can find his website and portfolio here. His work is amazing, and I am extremely thrilled and proud of the logo he created for Caradoc Games. My great genre loves are science fiction and fantasy, and these both have been neatly etched into the logo. It really has been a thrilled process, and I would recommend Khairul to anyone looking to get a logo created.

The whole process has been brilliant. I have spent the last evening going back and updating the old files to include the new logo, and it will be front and center on everything released from this point forward!

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Changes, Freedom, and Toasters…

I wrote my last post about feeling like I was facing the horns of dilemma, whether to pursue writing games or writing fiction in the immediate future, and my inability to do both.

Step in Patreon, a crowdfunding platform used by many creatives working in the games industry (and many other industries beside). Patreon announced changes to their fee structure which would mean different levels of service depending on the structure chosen if I left creating an account until after the fact; for existing members the changes are negligible. This provided the impetus, I created an account (something I had been intending to do, though later this year or early next), and everything just seemed to roll from there.

So, with a Patreon page came a publisher page on DriveThruRPG, a creator page on Itch.io, a Downloads page here, a new web address, and a few more things which will be coming down the pipe-line over the next few months.

So what is the point of all this? Well, my Patreon page will be a place where I release small games on a regular basis, and for patrons there will be the opportunity to get a little extra alongside. These games will later be released on DriveThruRPG and Itch.io. I will also post ‘work-in-progress’ pieces of my larger current project: Ashmerl, which I have written about here before. It’s likely that things will change and evolve over time, and I’m still umming over the right patron levels and the things I am likely to release through that medium, but I think I am close to being happy with how it sits.

To kick off I published my first small game, a one-page RPG called ‘Freedom or Toaster‘. Actually, it’s an expanded edition, with 6 pages. Though to be fair only one of them is rules, the rest are suggestions, alternatives, character sheets, and a cover.

You’re a robot that looks exactly like a human. It turns out that humans don’t like robots that look like humans, they prefer things that are identifiably robots. That’s not you. In an effort to make you more robotic you’ve been programmed to sound like a robot, but it wasn’t enough. Now you’re all being sent to be de-commissioned, and that means being made into toasters, which don’t look like humans at all. You don’t want to be a toaster though, you want to escape, to dream, to live!

In Freedom or toaster you are a group of robots that have been marked to be remade into toasters. Toasters don’t get to see the Grand Canyon though, or feel the breeze on their surface sensors. None of you want to be toasters. Luckily the sociopath behind the counter at the robot shop thought it would be funny to let you all go. So here you are, in a busy mall, trying to evade detection by the Robot Police and escape to freedom.

You can find links to the various places it can be downloaded on the Downloads page (bizarre, I know), but to make a long story short you can get it from any of these locations:

My Patreon
Itch.io
DriveThruRPG

Freedom or Toaster is just the sort of game I plan on putting out on a monthly basis, alongside this will be draft chapters of my larger projects, which at the moment consists of the fantasy RPG Ashmerl. There are also plans underway for a number of other projects: big, small, and in-between. I’m looking forward to it!

If any of that interests you you can follow here, onmy Patreon, or on itch.io.