OMITV - End of February Update
about 2 years ago
– Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:15:13 PM
Hello Folks,
I am very pleased to announce that Rae has finished off the complete first draft of the game content and it's off to editing! While Christopher digs into this detailed revision pass, Rae is working on the additional setting content which was included as one of our stretch goals. He is working on preparing some important planets, stations, ships, weapons, and aliens who you might encounter during your final mission.
Here is an exact of some of the new text that Rae wrote up that you might appreciate.
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Once More Into The Void is a game that offers a clear but open structure to guide your crew’s story. A story of a painful past, a chance at redemption, the hope for a better future, and the threat of tragedy.
The game does this by offering you strong archetypes to build your characters on, simple mini-games that offer emotional prompts to explore your characters’ relationships, and a climactic struggle against the enemy that may lead to despair or triumph.
The narrative arc of the game starts with the Captain recruiting each crew member. Each mini-game establishes a new beat to your story. The final mini-game that must be played, aptly called Once More Into The Void, determines the final fate of your crew and characters. Finally, an epilogue is a player’s last chance to wrap up their character’s story.
By the end of this arc you’ll have established several key moments in your past and played out how the years have affected your characters. The prompts of each mini-game will help you explore themes of loyalty, the trauma of a found family falling apart, what is required to begin healing a shared past, the difficult path to forgiveness, and earning redemption.
Each mini-game offers a premise, location, or instigating circumstances to help you frame a scene. When you frame a scene, draw upon the suggestions or come up with something that reflects the spirit of the mini-game.
All you really need to frame a scene is a brief description, focusing on sensory details that draw your characters in. What does this part of the ship sound like? When you enter the forest on a planet, what alien smells overwhelm you? Who else is at the dive bar and why can’t you stop staring at them?
When you describe what your characters says or does, think about how that comes across to the other characters. What’s the tone of their voice like? What does their body language express, and is it contradicting what they’re saying?
Describe what your character is feeling or thinking, and if another can pick up on that. But whether or not a character can see through your character, as players openly describing your character’s emotions and thoughts will help everyone tell a better story.
When you choose a prompt during a mini-game, expand and explain the prompt as you like. If there’s a question in the prompt, it’s usually a question another character should answer. This is a shared story after all, and the crew members know each other better than anyone else.
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Reasons for Delay
We got a few questions concerning the delays we have run into so far on this project. While delays are inevitable, we all appreciate learning a bit more about the reasons.
Firstly, the world on a whole is on fire. In addition to the global pandemic, we have also gotten other massive geopolitical conflicts such as the invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine by the Russian Federation which has taken up our brain space. We are all human-shaped lifeforms and constant stress is never good for our productivity.
Secondly, our collective priority is the well-being of our contributors. Rae is a disabled game designer whose health can occasionally render him unable to work for a period of time. We recognize from a project management perspective that we need to maintain flexibility to properly accommodate his needs. It's better for us to take our time and produce the absolute best version of the game we can.
Thirdly, we have been doing more hard development on the game than we had originally expected. After a series of playtests, Rae recognized that he wasn't happy with the inconsistent gameplay experience produced by the previous resolution system. The specific issue was that players could intentionally choose mini-games that would provide more Loyalty draws to improve their chances, rather than choosing the most dramatically appropriate minigames. It was also challenging to balance the difficulty based on the variable number of players. We reworked this resolution system and are far happier with the outcome.
Thank you for your time and attention. Until next time, happy gaming!
Jason Pitre & Rae Nedjadi
End of 2021 Update
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:51:18 PM
Hello everyone,
As the chaotic year of 2021 comes to a close, we wanted to give you folks a quick update on Once More into the Void including revealing a few exciting new developments on the project.
We Can Rebuild Him
It seems that Jammi had an unfortunate run-in with an Enemy warship and his vessel was skuttled. Don’t worry, most of the crew got away safely and we rebuilt him with the latest nanotechnology. This new-and-improved game designer now goes by the name Rae Nedjadi!
We are overjoyed to celebrate Rae’s name change and will be using his updated name going forward. You can expect to see Rae Nedjadi clearly credited on the cover of this beautiful book. Congrats Rae!
Project Timelines
Rae, Christopher and myself have been looking over the project and establishing some clear timelines to keep this project on track. Here are the key milestones you might want to know about.
- Rae to produce the mechanically complete first draft of the core text including all of the revisions suggested by Avery (2022-01-31)
- Christopher to complete the first editing pass for the core text. Rae to complete all of the additional content for the Collector’s Edition including the additional enemy types, locations, equipment, events, etc. (2022-02-28)
- Christopher to complete the first editing pass for the additional content. Rae to implement changes to the core text based on edits, and to prepare the first draft of the final layout of the book. Jason to begin the print-buying process. (2022-03-31)
- Rae to implement changes to the additional text based on Christopher’s edits and integrate into the layout. Jason to work with Rae to refine the layout and produce a near-final version of the PDF to be sent to Christopher for a second editing and proofing pass. Jason to settle on the printer for this project and associated logistics. (2022-04-30)
- Rae to finalize the PDF based on the second editing and proofing pass. PDF release to backers, itch.io and drivethrurpg. Jason to send the files to printers for prepress work. (2022-05-10)
- Tentative estimated print run completion by September 2022, which is the best case given current print delays and paper shortages. Based on this printing schedule, physical books to reach backers in North America by November 2022.
Mechanical Overhaul
As we noted in the last update, we have been discussing some of the mechanical changes to the loyalty draw mechanic to ensure that it provides the desired play experience. Rae’s original design was based on the principle that characters who participate or lead in certain mini-games will be able to make loyalty draws to accumulate tokens. You would need X tokens for each character to success in the final mission. This is an example of the kind of Loyalty Draw that we had before.
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Loyalty Draw
- The CREW MEMBER draws a card.
- ACE: Either spend 2 tokens, or introduce a painful truth about the past that invites new tragedy.
- 2-5: Take 1 token
- 6-8: Take 2 tokens
- 9-10: Take 3 tokens
- ROYAL: Take 4 tokens and introduce a complication that invites long-term consequences.
- Each CREW MEMBER decides if they give one of their tokens to the CAPTAIN.
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The problem we faced was that there would be a highly variable number of loyalty draws depending on the length of the game, the number of players, which minigames are chosen, and which crew members participate in each minigame. This made it fiendishly difficult to balance the end-game probabilities to suit our desired end goals. That’s why we have restructured the loyalty draws throughout the game. The new approach is as follows.
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- During each minigame, there can be any number of loyalty draw.
- If you draw a red card, something goes wrong and the card is handed over to the Enemy for use in the final game.
- If you draw a black card, something goes well for the Crew. The crew member receives the black card, and may give any black card from their hand face-down to the Captain. The cards held by each player will be used in Once More Into the Void.
- In the final mini-game, titled “Once More Into the Void”, the Enemy compares some of the red cards in their hands vs the black cards in the player’s hands. The Captain chooses the order in which the crew members confront the enemy and then they take the final conflict. The outcome of each confrontation depends on the difference between the respective hands and the Captain’s survival depends on the loyalty of their crew.
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We are excited about these new developments and are working hard on bringing this game to fruition in 2022. Until then, have an excellent new year from us!
Jason Pitre for Genesis of Legend Publishing
Rae Nedjadi for Sword Queen Games
