Tag Archives: Mini-Design

Lantern’s Legacy

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 It has been a great pleasure to participate in GameChef 2012, where I completed a game titled “Lantern’s Legacy”  Here is the intro blurb.

Our world is ending, as it has countless times before. Our mortal worshipers are passing into the void as this apocalypse claims their lives. We hope to maintain our divine mandates with the ancient Lantern Rites handed down since the dawn of time. We can speak with the few mortals who remain and petition them to take our cause. Their final moments will give us the light we need to find a new world in the void. In exchange, we will remember them and provide them a legacy in our new home. 

Which of us will each Lantern choose? How will they spend their last moments? What legacies shall we pass along into our new world? Those are divine mysteries we hope to explore.

I have enjoyed the process of designing this game and I think it’s a great deal more playable than my 2010 entry. My take away from this process was that I need to seriously consider purchasing a copy of Adobe InDesign. Scribus was not doing the job and the errors were slowing me down significantly.

Here is the game for your enjoyment; I would love to hear any questions you might have.

Lantern’s Legacy

Easter Status Report

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My current plan is to provide 6 chapters of content for the open beta this summer. In order to pull it off, I need to get those chapters drafted and revised by the end of the month. I am happy to report that I have already drafted two chapters this weekend (Introduction and Setting Creation). I am currently working through the Character Creation chapter and it is going well. I think I should make my targets at this rate, which is a heck of a relief.

The other thing that is taking up my attention is Game Chef 2012 – Last Chance. This week-long game design competition is great fun and an excellent testbed for new games. I have an outline of my submission ready and it seems remarkably solid, all things considered.

Amaranthine – The Chess Game Eternal

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So, Machine Age Productions will be releasing a brand new RPG at GenCon 2011 by the title of Amaranthine.  “Amaranthine is a game about yesterday, now, and forever. Amaranthine are immortal, destined to reincarnate from here until eternity. They’ve lived many lives before, and every other immortal they meet, they’ve met before.”

I pitched in on the Kickstarter drive and in honour of their release, I volunteered to produce a hack of the game system.   This is a hack of their resolution system, which replaces the dice with a chess board.  I hope some of you immortals enjoy playing the eternal game!

You can find it here and it is released under a Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike License.  This hack was produced by Genesis of Legend Publishing, but I chose to cede all rights to Machine Age Productions

Amaranthine Chess Hack PDF

Have fun and feel free to leave a comment if you have any thoughts concerning the hack.

Current Revisions

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I am pleased to report that my design work has been progressing apace. I thought you fine folks might want an update.

1) I am officially out of the running for Game Chef 2010, but I have learned a great deal from the thoughtful reviews and the feedback I have acquired. My plan is to revise the game rather heavily and transition A Sojourn in Alexandria into a more versatile GM-less game with more structured resolution mechanics. This is going on the backburner. but eventually a more refined product will be released into the wild.

2) I am now undertaking some more serious alpha playtesting of the Spark RPG with my local crew. I will run a 5-session long game in a post apocalyptic Ottawa. At present we have a techno-wizard, a telekinetic thief and a military-ops samurai. I am experimenting with some novel mechanics for encouraging previews of future sessions with Fate (XP) and I have great hopes that this will add something solid to the gameplay.

Now, there are some fairly significant elements of the existing system that I am not currently terribly comfortable with. I am trying to determine how I might modify the system to streamline and prevent some of the need for delicate counterbalancing. My current design has “Glories” which are for all intents and purposes, mechanically complex merits and flaws. I think that I might be able to streamline and cut out some of the fiddly bits. I will keep you posted!

Do any of you gentle-beings in the aether have any questions for me? Now’s the time to ask!

A Sojourn in Alexandria – Virtue’s Edge

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I am pleased to announce that I have managed to complete a playable game for Game Chef 2010.  In the spirit of the competition and my personal whims, I am releasing the work to the Public Domain.  Use it for absolutely anything, any where, any time.   Love to hear if you play the game or are inspired by it but even that is at your discretion.

Disclaimer; this was produced in two-weeks of insanity.  It contains hippy indie story game concepts, extremely limited playtesting and my own amateur layout skills.  I still offer you a 100% satisfaction guarantee or your money back!    The Spark RPG will have a great deal more polish and a significantly higher word count.


A Sojourn in Alexandria concerns both physical voyages and ethical journeys. The characters try to walk the knife’s edge between the deprivation of the harsh Desert and the excess of the opulent City. Walk in the footsteps of Alexander the Great!


Get it here and have fun!

A Sojourn in Alexandria