To me this feels like a first version of the main rules, made with an eye for expansion, rather than a simplified version of said rules. That's not necessarily a bad thing, while reading it I just feel like there should be more.
I love the core mechanic table, visually it is very reminiscent of the FACERIP main table from the Marvel Superheroes TTRPG, which for a superhero game is a great comparison to strife for.
The GM Advice feels a bit strange: how does one practice setting the resolve costs for a player action outside of actually playing the game? I think more examples to help guide a new GM into what power rank an example description would be, or a play example showing the resolve cost of an action would be more helpful.
A personal note: I particularly miss something to help players equalize their power level and vibe.
In a point-buy based game a GM would use something like the number of available points to guide his players but in a heavily narrative focused game maybe something like a reminder for GMs to name an example superhero from pop culture to aid in this, would have been nice.
So a GM would be urged to say something like: "ok for this game, make characters that are equal in power to - Superman" and get it across to all players what kind of game they should expect, instead of saying nothing and ending up with a team that consists of the equivalent of the Punisher, Vision, Thor and Tom from accounting that just happens to have super-hearing.
Was this done by hand?
Either way it looks great but if not then I am even more impressed, nailing that aesthetic in digital form is tough.
I am not usually a fan of replacing dice with cards, but this takes full advantage of the card deck and plays straight into the atmosphere of the game - very cool, very well done.
I can see that every line on these pages is set with intent and care and that leads to a very cool look but the pages are still very busy and hard to read. I found myself wanting something like a text-only version to reference so I could have the best of both worlds - a beautiful art piece to look at and an easy to read version to enjoy the gameplay.
Nevertheless I found it enjoyable to engage with and tbh. I kinda want to do a hack of this game.
I'll admit, my eyesight is not the best but under that caveat, I found this hard to read.
The page is a bit busy which I find not great when there was an entire second page open to spread things out a bit. In fact the PDF comes with a second page that is just empty. Under Character Tracker, spacing between letters is reduced which gives it a weird mushed look. There is also suddenly no spacing between the section header Gameplay and the text underneath it.
Here's some other stuff I noticed:
Header Game Play - Gameplay is one word
repeated word under Gameplay - the the matching colors
Really the entire paragraph needs a re-read/re-write to get rid of grammar mistakes and make it clear how you are supposed to play.
I get it, layout-ing sucks and mistakes happen to the best but there's a lot of room for improvement. It is currently unplayable so I can't really rate it on anything but the creativity shown so far, which is good, just wish I could play it.
I like it. My own little journey through Divine Mirrors ended in a story of just about a thousand words.
There were some things I thought were a bit confusing:
Overall its also basically impossible to get the opposite result after you got 2 points in either of the traits and since you chose which one starts with a point already it feels a bit superfluous. For a solo game I'd personally want the option for the story to change direction from the first to the last roll so I wonder if using d8 or d10 might not be better to lessen the impact of the points.
Thank you very much, I am glad you like it ^^.
The food available for any given round is determined by the valued of the rolled dice at the beginning of the round. So: Round starts -> players chose their action -> players roll dice -> add dice values together, the result is the available food that round
I can see how it would be easy to gloss over that, it's right above the list of actions which grab a readers attention. I'll make the sentence bold to add more emphasis.
Thank you for the feedback :)
A cool adventure, I like the idea of a magical storm creating all sorts of problems for the players ^^.
However while the pdf explains some of its setting specific lingo I would have loved it if it included a small overview of what the setting is about. This way I had to search for the creator's patreon to get that information. The PDF also currently refers to an attached map but there is none. However there is a description of the ship.
The game is very enjoyable. At first I though I might like it more if there was more to the city than just a name but it turned out to be fine. This way every player can have their own personal version of Moonila.
The rules were easy to understand and quickly sent my character, a half transformed mystical mummy, from the shores of the Nile to the big city. It turned out that my character was a hopeless romantic and had come to the city to find a partner for eternity. About halfway through his first year he began to embrace his undead nature and what used to be a rather pedestrian physical pursuit became a journey to find someone who would intellectually challenge him until the gods finally claimed him.
Everybody Here Was Someone Else Before served as a wonderful engine to go on this whacky journey of discovery and I enjoyed my time with it.
If I had to critique something I would say that the use of a Tarot deck felt unnecessary, it takes a bit too long to divide the deck up into the 6 different parts the game uses. I think a regular deck of playing cards would have sufficed as a vehicle for random prompt generation but there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that choice. Another thing is that the title is quite a mouthful, when I recommend this to people I'll probably just link to the store page instead of trying to use it in a conversation.
Overall great little game, will probably play again and recommend it to others.
I was unfortunately unable to aquire a copy but based on the available screenshots and comments as well as some familiarity with the SRD it is based on it seems to me to be quite competently made.
So on to the things I can review:
The Cover is great, when I saw the submission I immediately wanted to play it, great job. Its simplicity and choice of colour works great together. The Gas Mask on top of the Lung is a very iconic image. Conveys the ideas of a sickness going around and the post apocalyptic setting well.
The inside art confuses me a little, it continues this idea of being simplistic and that is great but it honestly gives me more of a medieval vibe. I know it's always difficult to find or make fitting art for a project but maybe a couple changes to continue that post-apocalyptic vibe would be a good idea. Something like, a boxy computer hooked up to the microscope or a more modern sleeping bag, maybe with a malformed arm or a tentacle sticking out, or an eye gleaming from the zipped up opening of the bag.
Similar a more greyish page background could have done wonders to support the mood.
The presented lore is enjoyable but the writing could use some tightening up in places.
Again I had somewhat incomplete information and of course this review is highly biased and based on my own opinion but since it is part of the Transformation TTRPG Jam I figured it deserved a fair shake so to speak.
Overall I liked what I saw.
I got this game a while ago on DriveThru and absolutely loved it. I had a blast running it with friends. We came up with what turned out to be the murder of the heir of one of the three crime families in the city. There were twists and turns in the story, false accusations and a whole lot of Columbo references.
Great stuff, would play again any day!
Hi,
As the title says I am not sure about the game I had in mind for the jam.
It's a light-hearted play on "The Shadow over Innsmouth" - the players would be social outcasts that learn that the fishing village they live in will be destroyed by an approaching tsunami, they now must save as many people as possible while also trying to turn themselves into crabs (by acting like crabs would) to survive the coming disaster themselves.
I am not 100% sure that's the kind of stuff you are looking for in this JAM, figured I'd better ask first.
In Hunters Unleashed the players are chasing after a serial killer in a dark fantasy version of the real world. It is a story of how these hunters struggle to retain their humanity when faced with the horrors brought to bear against them by the inhuman monster they chase.
Try it out here:https://owlsten.itch.io/hunters-unleashed
