New game? New game.

As those of you on Discord already know, I've been teasing a new game idea I had this whole week. I know I said no more new games this year, but I guess I wasn't fooling anyone: when I get an idea in my head, it just has to come out. And yes, I'm aware that I have a dozen half finished projects (Broken Shores, Riftbreakers, ATDW...) that I should really focus on, but I made a deal with myself: I'm, once again, not having a single day of vacation this year (vacation free since 2019! Is that good?), so I decided this new game will be my vacation game. During August, I will work on nothing but this game, and I will finish it this month. It's a small project, something lighter and fun, so I know I can do it. I wrote both Sacrifice and Path of the Aram Thyr each on a single month, so I know I can make smaller projects work. And don't worry, this doesn't mean I'm abandoning Carnage & Aether, that game is chugging along nicely, I'm getting art, the writing is almost complete, and playtesting is going great. I'm actually way ahead schedule with it, since I am definitely faster than the artists working on it. So while the artists catch up, I'll focus on this.

And what's this new game, I hear you ask?

Salvage & Sorcery: Scraphounds of Cygnus!  So what's this new thing, you ask skeptically? My idea is to make a mission-based solo/co-op science fantasy RPG. Think something like Necromunda, but with strong fantasy elements from stuff like He-Man or Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light. So grimdark science fantasy? Something like that. Let me share some ideas with you:

• Setting: Oblivion’s Edge, a dying star system choked by warp storms and populated by fractured spacefaring empires. Humanity, once a dominant force, clings to survival on decaying space hulks and shattered moons. 

• Action takes place on Thanatos, a station orbiting the planet Cygnus. On the surface lurk techno-barbarians and mutated creatures, all vying for scraps in a desolate world. Those living on the station can do little else but organize raids down to the planet to try to find ancient tech and resources to survive.

• Players are called Scraphounds, and belong to the Reclamation Corps, a glorified scavengers guild that works with the Scrapyard Kings to find things of value down on Cygnus.

• Themes: Desperation, camaraderie, survival, and the faint hope of reclaiming lost glory.

 I of course have the tendency of making a game larger than it should, so I'm going to try to stick to my initial vision and not turn this into a full-blown RPG. This means gameplay will focus exclusively on going out on a mission to a randomly generated site, complete the mission, and return home. So a very closed loop, kind of like ATDW but with less roleplaying elements. If the game works out, I can easily add those later on.

As for the rules, I'm going to do something completely different and go for a dice-pool system. I'm generally not a fan of this sort of ruleset (I love them for boardgames but all those years playing V:tM made me get a bit sick of them), but I wanted something with a feeling of ameritrash boardgames and chugging a bunch of dice fits this. It's going to be a really simple, straightforward game, but I already have a couple of cool ideas to make it fresh and interesting. For starters, even when you play solo you'll be part of a squad of four. But don't worry! You'll still just control one character. The game is 90% combat, so I want it fast and snappy, and I want you to be mowing down hordes of mindless enemies effortlessly.

So yeah, I already have 10 pages written of this thing, and I've commissioned a cover for it, too. It's happening!

Is it a stupid idea? Probably! But it's a cool idea, and my brain needs a vacation full of mutants, apparently.