Hey everyone!
If you weren't here for our previous crowdfunding campaign Perfect Draw! A Card Game Anime TTRPG, then you might not know how the "Prototype PDF" works. The sh...
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Nora Haynes
5 days ago
Unlocked: Special Character Arcs (+ Chapter One of the Purgatory Express)
Hey everyone!
The first chapter of the Despair Dilemma crowdfunding campaign has just about finished, and now we're moving into chapter two! That means working harder on get...
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Nora Haynes
9 days ago
UNLOCKED: Death Game Sheet by Little Lab (+ Voting on the Backer Death Game)
Hey everyone!
I went out for a meeting this morning with us $500 below our next goal and with a pace slow enough that I expected it to at least take another day or so - and ...
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Nora Haynes
10 days ago
Welcome to The Purgatory Express (The Next Step of our Backer Death Game)
Morning everyone! Nora Again,
With so many incredible ideas for the Backer Death Game, we had absolutely no idea what would win. Me and Iris actually sat down yesterday to f...
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Nora Haynes
12 days ago
UNLOCKED: Death Game Sheet by Tokimekiwaku
Hey everyone!
It's day 3 and so far we've hit an incredible average of a whole new stretch goal every single day! Even at half this pace we'll be able to add an incredible a...
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Nora Haynes
13 days ago
Day Two of Despair Dilemma!!
Hey everyone! Nora Again!!
What a first day, we've already hit two stretch goals and we're nearly there to hitting a third!! Streaming with you all yesterday was a blast too...
If you weren't here for our previous crowdfunding campaign Perfect Draw! A Card Game Anime TTRPG, then you might not know how the "Prototype PDF" works. The short of it, is that it's our way of making sure you get access to the project you're helping us make as soon as possible!
The Prototype PDF
Instead of you having to wait months for the final version of something you paid for, we make sure to send all of our backers the first Prototype version as soon as the campaign ends. This copy of the game is already Gameplay-Complete and thoroughly playtested by our team - but generally still has some things that need to be done. Usually:
Formatting and design is far from final
Not all of the visual assets have been made
Some non-essential writing hasn't been done
Content from stretch goals or backer rewards isn't done yet
And changes are still able to be made with further and wider playtesting.
Basically, you can get started playing digitally right away, and this gives us the time to make sure the physical version of the book is as high quality as possible before we send it to the factory.
Right now, we're busy making sure the book is formatted to the point that you can use it as a useful PDF! And while there are some things we've noticed along the way we should make up as soon as we can for ease of use, the version you'll be getting is absolutely everything you need to play Despair Dilemma!
The Playing Card Deck
Because the playing card deck mainly needs to be done before we start printing, we've focused most of our time so far on refining the core book itself. With that said, I know a few people have asked to get a look at what the playing cards will look like so they can decide if they want them!
As mentioned previously, each of the suits in the playing card deck are unique! This is designed to facilitate playing 5-8 player games of Despair Dilemma alongside a traditional playing card deck. The exact design for these suites and the layout of the cards isn't finalized, but you should expect them to still be Blood, Knives, Targets, and Eyes to keep to the Death Game Theme!
Voting on Chapter One of the Purgatory Express
While I have you all here, in our last update we asked for Chapter One submissions for the Backer Death Game "The Purgatory Express"! There were a few less options then in previous polls, but the decision is no less difficult!
Note that these had to be shortened to fit in the poll text limitations, but the core premise has been kept and the chapter mystery is included in (brackets).
Only one of these options can become Chapter One of the Purgatory Express, and will naturally inform the rest of the Death Game Sheet to a significant level! In the event of a tie, myself and Iris will pick the one we think is most open ended.
The first chapter of the Despair Dilemma crowdfunding campaign has just about finished, and now we're moving into chapter two! That means working harder on getting the layout ready for the Prototype PDF, pushing forward on the backer death game, and of course streaming the next part of playing with Chat in... one hour from now!
With that said, we've just hit our next stretch goal! So lets give it a look and see what's coming next!
Unlocked: Special Character Arcs
The Character Arcs system is one of the "Modules" contained in the Despair Dilemma book. If you've checked out the Demo Kit, then you've already seen some of what these look like - but with this stretch goal unlocked, we can get working on some mechanically unique character arcs to spice up the game! With any luck we'll have some examples for you when the campaign finishes with the Prototype PDF, but that will all depend on how much time we can put towards getting it ready since we haven't made it up yet! I'm excited to show you all the ideas we've been working on behind the scenes.
Coming up Next: Death Game Sheet by Viveros
If you're a fan of Death Games and Video Essays, there's a good chance you've seen some of Viveros's work while scrolling YouTube. It may have been their fantastic dissection of Inescapable, their discussion on choice in Your Turn to Die, or more recent video on how The Pinkertons are talked about in games. But it's possible you also know them for their main work as an Overwatch streamer and Vtuber. In general they have a fantastic understanding of how game design affects communities and how people play, and I'd highly recommend giving their channel a look as a whole if that's a topic you're interested in!
If we hit this stretch goal, we'll be commissioning Viveros to make a Death Game Sheet based on their Virtual Killing Academy streams! When we let them know we were revealing the goal today, here's what they had to share!
As a big fan of killing games, I was absolutely thrilled when Double Summon Games reached out to me with the opportunity to create this death game sheet for them, and it's been really exciting to explore what goes into creating a good killing game concept! The Virtual Killing Academy has been a really cool opportunity to incorporate my own ideas for a killing game as well as show my appreciation for the games that have defined the genre for me, for better and for worse (some things are just... Inescapable). I can't wait for you all to get to play this game, and I'm so excited to see what you do with the Virtual Killing Academy once we hit that stretch goal!
The Prologue for The Purgatory Express is Complete!!
Thank you all so much for submitting questions and voting on the poll for Death Game Questions in The Purgatory Express! I can only imagine it was an incredibly tough choice (Thankfully I'm not allowed to vote), and given how neck and neck some of the options are, every vote really did count. with that said, we have our four winners!
Players using this Death Game Sheet will have the option to answer these questions and change the game in a number of ways. The actual mechanical effects of these questions may be changed depending on how things go later of course, but that'll all depend on what The Narrative ends up looking like - Speaking of:
It's Time to Make Chapter One
Later chapters in Despair Dilemma give you a couple options the players can select from to make sure everything matches the story they're telling. Chapter One doesn't have this issue since it's the very start of the game, but that doesn't mean it should be any less interesting! The first chapter is what gets the story going and pushes the characters into action.
Just like with the last few elements of the Death Game Sheet, we're going to ask you to comment below with your answers to the following questions: What Defines Chapter One of this Death Game? What Mystery will be Answered By the End of this Chapter?
There's already an example of what chapters look like in the Demo Kit, but here's a couple other examples you can work off of when making your pitch!
The students stir as they wake up and discover themselves in their school without a memory of how they got here. The doors are locked, it seems impossible to escape. Chapter Mystery: What's different about the school compared to when everyone last saw it?
Signs come to bare, and both the oldest and the wisest know that the ritual has begun. There’s no escape now; it must be completed, or something far, far worse will befall the victims. Chapter Mystery: What ancient secret about this village is uncovered by the characters?
This decision will make a massive impact on what the future of the Death Game Sheet looks like, so I'm excited to see what you all come up with!
