Another Kickstarter done and I’m still humbled by the community feedback. Many people went above and beyond to make sure everyone has access a “clean” document, getting rid of most of the typos. Several backers took the time to send me a message just to say that they liked the game. I never take this for granted and you have no idea how much good these small messages do :)

As mentioned in my previous Newsletter, Dark Leningrad is our next project. The crowdfunding campaign will take place in June. It’s a bigger project than GMC, lots of texts (and illustrations) to help you find your way in a Soviet Union that never was, playing as dissidents trying to escape the ever-watching eye of the KGB. You may also find yourself talking with psychic cats and running errands for VHS tapes smugglers or underground punk bands, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

The game is 2d6-based, heavily influenced by Traveller/Cepheus making the game easy to grasp and being skill-based, it leaves plenty of room for the characters to develop, improve or even change (there are strange things lurking in Dark Leningrad…).

I like Shadowdark quite a bit and for the longest time I wanted to write a small setting inspired by Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, R.E Howard’s Spear & Fang and even Roland Emmerich’s 10000 BC. Cavemen & women fighting Atlantean invaders while riding dinosaurs (not historically-accurate as you have already guessed). I’m aiming for a Cursed Scroll zine-like format. It isn’t meant to inspire years-long campaign but it should make for a short, tight and action heavy one. Not sure it deserves a crowdfunding campaign. I’m having dumb fun writing it and it provides a bit of relaxation between bigger projects.

Still working on my OSR meets Resident Evil project and it’s shaping up pretty well! It’s one of these projects that, once you get to it, just seem to flow on the page. The influences, the crazy ideas, the random notes, all seem to coalesce into a coherent whole. In fact, as always, it reminds me of the principles of designing by subtraction. I have a lot of ideas but I want to keep the design “clean”. This doesn’t mean simple but I want to make sure I deliver a game with a very clear proposition that will make it easy for everyone to get into. Additional stuff can be added in subsequent adventures and/or supplements. This is a big project (a main book and two adventure books) and I want to make sure I’m making it right, this will probably be my biggest crowdfunding campaign yet.

If you have any ideas for a name, please, leave one in the comment section :)

Yes, Walking Shadows, the Mythos-inspired sci-fi setting is on the back burner right now but I’m reading a lot to get inspiration for it.

It’s nice to share all these random ideas and projects with you all. As always, if you have any questions ask them here or simply send me an email at [email protected].

Take care!

Kobayashi