Chained Souls: Submitted

I finished Chained Souls: Work out your own salvation.  Deadlines are amazing things.  I had everything ready, but it didn't really come together until the day it was due.  I think it looks good at least, I like the cover and the play sheet.  I don't think I'll ever play it.  I'm not sure if and how I'll release it.  I'm going to wait for feedback from the Two Game One Name RPG Challenge at least first.  I know it could probably use more guidance for play.

One thing that was interesting when writing and developing it is the purpose for why I was doing it.  Which is funny as Nathan who set up Two Game One Name recently wrote something sort of about this.  What I was thinking doesn't quite map to his spheres, most closely to experimental I guess.  I wanted to do a couple of things.  I wanted to create a game.  It kind of reduces the burden if I want to do anything more serious in the future, having handed in something that I feel is finished in some sense to someone else.  Also, it's nice just making done pretty things.  I'm curious what he or anyone else will make of it.  In a way, it's also just a statement, almost not meant to be played.  A counterpart to Kill Puppies for Satan.  (According to an interview I heard with Vincent Baker, he didn't play the game before he released it.)

It's odd in a way to think about this as my first game.  I've spent a bit of time working on two other games, ignoring a high school project where I made a game.  One is called HUMDR: HUMDR Understands Manically Depressed Robots, a game that tries to recreate the magic of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  I've actually playtested that three times, to varying degrees of success.  I think it's near refined, I should run it again sometime, but it's an awkwardly short game for my schedule right now.  Another is currently called Ph/F or something ridiculous.  It's an attempt at a quickly learnable system but an abstract minigame that requires no setup or prep to use.  It's borne directly out of my love for Burning Wheel but annoyance at the fact that we have to spend at least one session burning the world and characters.  I haven't had a need for that yet, so it sits unplayed.  Games with a higher commitment factor are better for achieving more gaming.  Also, I got the Battlestar Galactica board game.