After half a dozen external playtests and a similar number we ran ourselves, we’ve been beavering away on an updated version of Lovecraftesque. We’re now opening it up for a second round of external playtesting. What’s the game about? You create your own story of brooding horror in the mould of Lovecraft, but without using […]
Tag: game design
Lovecraftesque update
So, as you might have noticed from my earlier post about playtesting, the first round of Lovecraftesque playtesting is over. We picked up a lot of issues – a few quite major, most not so. We’ve moved quickly to make some changes and additions to tackle the former, in order to get some rapid feedback […]
Playtesting: some reflections
Lovecraftesque playtests I’ve collated the information from the first Lovecraftesque external playtest and I thought it might be useful to discuss it here. I’m not going to talk about our game, instead I’ll be talking about the playtest in more general terms, in the hopes of deriving some more general lessons about playtesting. Recruitment We […]
Do you hate Call of Cthulhu?
If so, you may have assumed our new game Lovecraftesque, currently playtesting, isn’t for you. I’d like to persuade you that it is. Lovecraftesque is about collaboratively creating a slow-building, brooding horror, piece by piece. It is not a traditional investigative game. It does not focus on cracking the plot or saving the world. Instead, […]
Lovecraftesque – playtest now open
The first draft of the Lovecraftesque rules is now complete, and we’re looking for playtesters to try it out. A reminder: The game is all about creating your own story of brooding horror in the mould of Lovecraft, but without using any of Lovecraft’s material. It’s a GMless game, in which you spend most of […]
Lovecraftesque – who watches the watchers?
Since the last post we’ve been hard at work nailing down the few remaining details of Lovecraftesque that weren’t already nailed down. We’ve conducted an informal playtest that went well (though we didn’t have time in the end to try out the Journey into Darkness or Final Horror, which are two parts of the game […]
Introducing Lovecraftesque
[Edited to add: Lovecraftesque was successfully kickstarted in 2015 and you can now buy it here] Admiral Frax and I have been working on a new story game. It is a game of cosmic horror in an uncaring universe, for 2 or more players. It is called Lovecraftesque. What’s different about this game? This GMful game […]
A mini-Monsterhearts hack: provoke
When you try to provoke an emotional reaction, roll with Hot. On a 10+, you get the emotion you wanted, and take a string on the character. They choose how they respond. On a 7-9, they choose: The emotional reaction you wanted, and give you a string. An emotional reaction of their choice, but it’s […]
A House Askew
So, I’ve recently been rather taken with Avery McDaldno’s new game Dream Askew. If you’re not aware[*], it’s an Apocalypse World hack[**] which takes at least three interesting and innovative steps: first, to distribute MCing between the players and assign each a Situation (like a Front) to play; second, to give the players Principles to […]