When you’re an indie game designer, you can choose the projects you work on. It’s good for me as I can work on a project that inspires me. The bad news is that inspiration can be fleeting and I can switch projects at the last moment ruining all my marketing efforts for another game :)

The quickest way to describe GUNS MAGES CORPSES would be to describe it as Sword & Sorcery meets Cyberpunk or to put it more simply: Barbarians with shotguns.

Here’s the dramatic intro:

Long forgotten, the dark forces that fueled sorcery in ancient times came back.

Fire, fear and fury were unleashed onto the world. Billions died as the world burned.

Nations collapsed while monsters rose from their ashes.

Now is the time of City-States fueled by dark magic and undead labor.

Liches run corporations while warlocks and necromancers fight for power.

Demon-infused war satellites watch us from orbit, making an all-out war impossible.

Information moves in the Dream web spun by The Great Spider God, known only to those trapped in it.

That’s where you come in, gun in hand or a spell on your lips.

Drifters, mages, slayers, bound to tread the blood-stained thrones of the world under your feet.

I’ve always like the setting of Shadowrun (the rules, not so much) but instead of using classic fantasy I wanted to take inspiration from another genre that, in my not so humble opinion, would be a better fit for the Cyberpunk genre: Sword & Sorcery.

Protagonists like Conan or the Grey Mouser would feel right at home in many Cyberpunk dystopias… So you start by adding a few shotguns but soon enough, as a designer, you have to see where this kind of mash up leads you: what happens when the undead can be used as a workforce? When necromancer are CEOs? When demonic tattoos replace cybernetics? How far will this take me?

This led to the creation of a bizarre yet strangely compelling setting. I kind of fell into a rabbit hole and a game that was supposed to be a small 20 page side project grew into a fully-fledged game. After all the doom and gloom of Assassins, Demons & Dying Gods I needed to write, run and play something that was a bit more over-the-top and action heavy.

So yes, GUNS MAGES CORPSES is my next Kickstarter. I’ll keep you posted.

My Lovecraftian Sci-Fi games is going well. Beside Howard’s writing I’m also diving into other authors, from Algernon Blackwood to Jeff VanderMeer. It’s really interesting to see how you can translate the mood of stories like The Willows or The Wendigo in a Sci-Fi rpg.

Another standout was T.E.D Klein’s short story The Events at Poroth Farm. Taken too litteraly you can just turn it into a bug hunt which would be a missed opportunity. The isolation, boredom and religious undertones create a suffocating atmosphere that would translate well in a Sci-Fi setting.

As far as mechanics go, I’m looking at Monte Cook’s Cypher System (which has a very generous license by the way). I won’t be using it as is because I always need to tweak things to my liking but it looks like a very good basis for the kind of game I envision Walking Shadows to be.