Thursday, June 4, 2015

State of the Platonic Duck report

Top priorities:

As of June, 2015, my current top priorities as Platonic Duck Kitchen are:
  • getting Awkward and Enter the Avenger (as a stand-alone booklet) into several digital shop-fronts and other sale venues — i.e. trying to make these games better known and played more.
  • getting much-deserved paper copies of the above two games into the hands of my international patrons at the "Collector" reward level, at last!
  • finishing writing a draft of my currently untitled "manhunt" game, for external playtesting and possibly submitting to Worlds Without Master (in case the text turns out within their word-count limit). With this design, I really believe I've created my finest non-larp rpg so far, and I had several awesome games of it during in-house playtesting (partly conducted at gaming conventions).
I'd really like to be done with these all within the month, two months at most, but I'll make no promises here, as I'm currently involved in two significant for-hire projects which I need to prioritize over Platonic Duck Kitchen things (I'll tell you more as soon as I can).

Then:

Once I'm done with the above, what will I do?
  • My next closest to completion game is Lift Girl - La ragazza dell'ascensore. Originally my Italian Game Chef 2013 entry, it's a "slice-of-life" game set in our tragic age of extreme consumerism. Quite popular with playtesters, this game covers uncommon ground for an rpg in the kind of stories and characters it tends to bring forward.
  • A revision of Not in the Mood, my Rentpunk Game Jam entry, is also due shortly. As soon as I get to play a couple more playtest runs, basically.
  • Plus there are ongoing translation projects, both of games of my own (La casetta di marzapane, still to be translated to English) and by other designers (I'm partly-done translating one of Epidiah Ravachol's fine games to Italian).
I really hope to complete at least one of these tasks during the summer, in addition to the above top priorities.

And furthermore:

You already know I have a lot of games in the development queue. The ones I currently have half-formed new ideas for and/or I'm more eager to get into playable shape are:
  • The Shackled Self, a game of heroic asceticism, defying temptation and world-saving sacrifice.
  • Passeggeri, a minimal footprint long-form rpg optimized for playing anywhere and anytime with close friends; a game about discovering an unknown world and each other's identity.
And here are some new game-ideas I had over the last few months, and I'm now eager to test by trying to develop them into playable drafts:
  • Random Encounter — a self-esteem-lifting, upbeat-but-quiet role-playing game about the occasion leading to, and extended aftermath of, casual sex. To use techniques previously seen in La casetta di marzapane.
  • The Fourth King —  a multi-episode fantasy game of magic, politics and travel to distant lands. Best understood as a game in the Trollbabe (extended) family, but employing a form of "troupe style" play and some choice tarot card mechanisms from my own I reietti di Eden.
  • A game about feuding, tower-house building families in an Italian city-state during the late Middle-Ages, using a checkerboard as the centerpiece of play. Pseudo-historical blood opera!
What I end up developing is ultimately subject to bouts of momentous inspiration, really, but I do appreciate comments and suggestions. Go ahead and speak your mind! And in the unlikely case you'd really like to give me strongly worded input concerning what I ought to work on first and why, may I suggest you become my patron at the "Board of advisors" level?