Shadowdark 8-Bit Game Jam Diary #3

    Back from vacation and straight into the workstation. My approach has become more shotgun blast than methodical: content, art, and layout all coming together at the same time in a chaotic whirlwind. This diary chronicles the creation of the overworld and dungeons, the Steelblade Games, Monsters, Treasures, and some thoughts on Layout and Art.

Mapping the Plateau and Dungeons

    I've linked it previously, but in creating the overworld I was heavily inspired by the 7-Hex Codex.

    I wanted the area to be small and focused so each region is about the size of a 3-mile hex even though the plateau is intended as more pointcrawl than hexcrawl.

    The different regions of the plateau have come to form a very clear picture in my head. Red dusty scrubland with buttes towering further overhead and very few trees. I came up with seven regions, though Dorani Town and Angelo's Head hardly count. The regions of the "Champions" (the buttes where the Pegasi herds once nested), the "Sagewood" (tall evergreen groves where Dorani sages once held retreats), and "The Wash" (scrubland providing irrigation water for the Dorani) were easy enough to come up with but the other two took some thinking. I figured the place where Angelo's head was once stuck could be a cool locale so I called it "The Devastation of Ri'Gal" and then I thought "The Tunnels" tunnels might add a some subsurface methods of movement. Each of these regions gets a brief description and then a keyed encounter that happens the first time the players go there. Random encounters get rolled only when the keyed encounter there has not taken place yet.

    Creating the dungeons was derived from rolling on the tables in the Shadowdark core rules. I really enjoy using random tables, seeing the nonsense they spit out, and then making sense of it. I conveniently rolled one large and one small dungeon: Angelo's Head and his body. I always have fun including gargantuan technological delves in my fantasy games. When it came to mapping, even though I used grid paper, I prefer words like "large, medium, and small" to describe rooms rather than 40x50 hallway or 25ft ceiling. Blame it on having a hard time with numbers growing up.

  The random encounter tables were also randomly derived from the Shadowdark random encounter tables (I think I used "mountains" for the plateau, "deep tunnels" for the body, and "ruins" for the head) and then interpreted through the lens of the adventure.

    I didn't waste time agonizing over what DCs to assign in different places. I just keep Easy, Normal, Hard in my mind and assign where appropriate when I play and I expect any other GM to do the same.

The Steelblade Games

    Never played ice hockey in my life. I don't think I've ever been on ice skates either. My understanding of hockey is that people are more interested in the fighting part than the actual game part- so that's where the Steelblade Games came from.

    When the Dorani need a new sage, or nowadays when there is a prophecy stating that their savior shall arise as a champion from the games, they gather just outside town where Angelo's head once sat. Two evenly numbered teams go head-to-head over two four round halves on a five-zoned field passing a cosmic sphere and trying to be the first team to score two points.

    The games have rules: two 4 round halves. The rounds are played with group initiative and simultaneous actions. Players declare moves then attack then take other actions. Passing may occur at any time.

     The games are dangerous: The cosmic sphere starts already activated in the center of zone 3. It will explode and destroy everything in far range if it is not deactivated by the end of the fourth round. The Dorani have never let this happen.

    The games are demanding: points are scored by deactivating the cosmic sphere within the goal zone. If the sphere is deactivated outside of the goal zone, the team who did not deactivate it gains a point.

    The games are violent: blood must be spilled before the sphere is deactivated in the goalzone, otherwise the other team gets a point if you score without some blood being drawn.

    There must be a winner: In a tie, the players from each team that last held the sphere duel one-on-one.

    I'd watch hockey if it were like this. 

Monstrous Mechanics

    I love coming up with the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a monster but have very little patience for coming up with statblocks. Most of the time, there is only so much differentiating one monster from another mechanically (hence the classic, just use a bear, argument). This dislike for coming up with statblocks can be extrapolated to me just generally not liking to come up with mechanics in general- probably why I'm loving the dead simple, fiction first, nature of Dungeon World with my main group.

    I needed monsters for the Beastforged (previously called Animalized, but changed because that was a direct rip from Rygar) and good things come in threes so I came up with runts, soldiers, and commanders. I took goblins, berserkers, and trolls from the core rules and simplified the stats (an ICRPG lesson) then looked around the monster section for some cool abilities to give them. 2EZ. Same sort of thing was done for the Dorani (elves with some changes).

    Angelo's Custodians were a bit different. Mechanically inspired by the enemies in Pinbot but thematically inspired by forerunner constructs like sentinels and monitors in the Halo series. 

Treasures

    Good things also come in sixes so I came up with six (technically more) new items for characters to find. Rygar had a number of good items to draw inspiration from but I was actually really inspired by the concept of pinballs and made them central to what's going on in the plateau. Some of the things I came up with were Dorani Weapons (Like a whip if it had a spinning longsword at the end of it, inspired by the Diskarmor from Rygar), Cosmic Spheres (Angelo's power source, essentially balls of radiation that are activated by magic), and Dorani Tablets (Priest Spell Scrolls that also have some lore on them).

Layout and Art

    Graphic design terrifies me. I fantasized about hand assembling then digitizing this, remembered I have horrid handwriting, cursed myself for not picking up affinity when I last saw it on sale (EDIT: I have since been informed that it is free, sticking with canva though because sunk cost), became terrified of the UI for Scribus, and then nervously/shamefully went to Canva. Is this the right solution? It's working so far. If I can step away from this experience when I'm done and say that I overall enjoyed it, then maybe I'll look into learning graphic design on a proper program.

    My plan for artwork went from photobashing to going with hand drawn art and then settling on using a mix of pixel art (sourced through OpenGameArt files with a public domain license) within the adventure and hand drawn art for the cover. I'm really happy with where I've ended up and feel like I'm sticking the 8-bit theme whereas I was certainly not earlier on. Here's an evolution of what my spreads looked like:

Photobashing and experimenting with the NES color palette. Feels trippy/mork borg-esque. Not what I'm going for.

Hand Drawn art, ruminating on going Black and White only. Doesn't feel 8-bit enough to me.

Messing around with pixel art. Not the colors I want yet but giving me the 8-bit vibe.

Higher quality than 8-bit but this is where we're at now. I think it's gorgeous.

The Cutting Floor

    As I type away and include snippets about how I'm just not too interested in mechanics, I doubt whether or not to include the ancestry and class as outlined originally. I am not as excited to work on them as the rest of the project and I am a firm believer that if something doesn't excite you, then you shouldn't work on it. I suppose I'll figure out what I'll do by diary #4!

The Final Mile

    Shotgun blast for sure. Plenty of nonsense at one point or another but I can't help it, I'm in the zone!

    I aim to finish the project by the 9th, set it down, and then do final touch ups before submission. I've always found it beneficial to deliberately take steps back during the creative process and then come back with a fresh set of eyes. I think it does wonders for the finished product.

    The next design diary will be a synopsis of the adventure and how I did my cover art. I'm considering doing a fifth diary where I look at all the submissions, rapid fire, and give my impressions.

    Enough of the diary, back to work!