Rascals is a Finalist…

I was much thrilled and excited to receive the news that Rascals is a finalist in the Freeplay Game Awards Non-Digital Category. Winners of the awards will be announced on the 27th of June, at 7.30pm AEST, and the ceremony can be followed on the Freeplay YouTube Channel here.

To see Rascals listed alongside so many other wonderful games is a real thrill, win or lose, it is a great honour! I thoroughly recommend checking out the other finalists at the link above, they are truly wonderful games!

A short reminder: if you missed the Kickstarter, and are keen to get in on the action, you can find Rascals on the Caradoc Games Webstore here. You can also find it on DriveThruRPG and Itch.io.

For anyone interested, the TableTop Simulator DLC is a great way to play Rascals remotely, and can be found here.

Speaking of the DLC… using the card images I made for TableTop Simulator, and the wonderful art from Juan Ochoa, there is a deck of premium poker cards available print-on-demand from DriveThruRPG, and you can find them here.

Heralds

Some choose the path, some are chosen, others are called. All accept the risk; all know from scar and memory; the path is not easy. Across rock and ice, through canyons deep and valleys strange, under brutal sun and violent storm, on old paths and new, so venture the Heralds.

Heralds is a post-apocalyptic fantasy RPG, which I am hoping will hit Kickstarter later this year. I am really excited about this game, and it will mark a number of firsts for Caradoc Games. It will be a perfect bound book, and at somewhere around 100 pages, will be the largest game we have released to date. It will also be published in full-colour, with art throughout from the amazing Andie Lugtu.

Andie’s art is absolutely stunning, and I can’t wait to share some of the other pieces he has created for Heralds.

Stockists

On the Caradoc Games website, I have updated our list of stockists, and included links to their stores. If you are after a physical copy of Corsairs or Rascals, and want to buy from somewhere in the US, Canada, or the UK, check out our Stockists Page here for the links! More will be added soon!

May 5, 2021May 5, 2021

State of Play

After some delays, Rascals is being prepped and packaged, ready to post… I have finished all of the ‘One-of-a-Kind’ backer level pieces, which ended up including a lot more of my drawings than I had expected (my humble apologies to everyone who is about to get more of my attempts to ‘art’ than they bargained for)!

For anyone interested, the TableTop Simulator DLC is a great way to play Rascals remotely, and can be found here.

Below is a link to survey about the future of Rascals. If you have, or are interested in Rascals I am keen to read what you would like to see next…

What’s next for Rascals?

Heralds

I’ve written about Heralds previously, it was originally the game I had intended to release for ZineQuest 3, but as I worked on it I realised it needed to be a larger game than would fit comfortably in a zine format. Heralds will be the largest game I have produced so far, and I am really excited to see it taking shape!

So what is Heralds?

Heralds is set in the world of Ashmerl, a world where the ebb of magic has had a profound impact. What was once a united empire has been smashed apart, the old low-ways of the World Beneath, which joined the many Enclaves of the World Above are sealed now, too dangerous to travel. Enclaves which once bustled with trade and wealth have been separated, and forced to survive alone as best they could…

The characters are Heralds of their Enclave, daring the hazardous paths over mountain paths and unknown valleys, looking to reconnect what once was whole. But as the world has changed, so too have the people.

In Heralds, the Enclave where the characters grew up is a vital living element of the game. As players make their characters, they will also build their Enclave: map and history. As a group plays, the characters will grow, change, and develop, and so too will the Enclave.

I am hoping that Heralds will hit Kickstarter a little later this year. I won’t say much more than that right now, as development and writing are still ongoing; but I will have more to share over the next couple of months. Until then, here is an early draft of the cover, with art by the supremely talented Andie Lugtu…

I had a few people message to ask about physical copies of my RPG of sky ships and floating islands: Corsairs. I am thrilled to say that physical copies of this zine are now back in stock on the webstore here.

Or, if you’re US based you can get a copy from Spear Witch, here.

Or in Canada, from Monkey’s Paw Games, here.

I think I have said enough this time around, until next time…

Giles.

December 19, 2020

In a bind…

I’m in a bind. With Zine Quest 3 unofficially officially announced through a number of email responses from Kickstarter posted on Twitter I find myself in the middle of writing and laying out my next project: Heralds.

Heralds is a fantasy role playing game, and it emphasizes home and exploration. A big part of the game is the collective creation of the Enclave (settlement) the characters belong to. This process includes some map making, some populating the Enclave with people, and some generation for the Enclaves network of nearby settlements. Characters are created through a light life-path system, and the creation of the Enclave and the characters happens at the same time. These systems work together to create varied characters, who are uniquely tied to their home, in short, it gives the characters a context. In my various play tests of this system there have always been multiple hooks generated through the creation process, meaning that the first game, games, or even campaign is seeded in the characters and the setting the play group collectively builds. I like how it all works.

I’m in a bind though…

I like how it all works, but the game is going to be bigger than Corsairs, my RPG for the 2020 Zine Quest. Where Corsairs sat at 36 pages front to back cover, I estimate that Heralds will sit closer to 60, and could easily be longer. Yes, it still works as a Zine, and it could work for Zine Quest. However, at that page count it will push the cost of shipping internationally from $8.30 AUD to $13.50. This is not an insignificant jump, and will likely mean that the cost of shipping will be greater than the cost of the game itself (something we who live in Australia are all too familiar with).

Is this too high? I’ll admit that I thought the cost of shipping would push people to opt for the PDF only Backer Level for Corsairs, and you can read here how my expectations on that front were wrong. But is it too much? Am I better off creating a smaller game (I have a few nearly written), and running that game for Zine Quest instead, saving Heralds for a Kickstarter later in 2021, where it wouldn’t be released as a part of the Zine Quest, and would therefore have a little more flexibility in how it could be put together (perfect binding anyone?).

What to do, what to do… I just don’t know where I will go with it right now. Part of me wants to push on with Heralds because I am loving it right now, and part of me wants to take a step back and tell myself to hold off and make it a bigger and better beast that can be released on it’s own two feet later in 2021.

I am at a loss, and yet a decision needs to be made sooner than later so I can focus my attention on getting the Zine Quest project (whatever it is) Zine Quest ready… Hmm…

This article is a part of a series about running a Kickstarter campaign for Zine Quest, you can find the other articles in this series here.