On August 11th, 2021, I uploaded version 0.1.0 of APOCALYPSE FRAME to itch.io.
I had been working on
a fully different game when someone tipped me off to LUMEN (in no small part because of the tag-based design1 on top of very fast tactics). I had been trying to finally cross Xenoblade Chronicles X off of my list that summer and writing a game heavily inspired by it seemed like a fun little thing to do to take a break so I spent a month or so writing it.
Created as part of Prismatic Wasteland’s Holes Blog Bandwagon, in which we all write about holes. Some holes are more literal than others, I suppose. And maybe one of these days I’ll get out of the hole that is “devlogs/retrospectives about my own games”, but not today.
“When you get right down to it, (mech game, show, etc etc etc) is about the people.” If you’ve done anything remotely adjacent to mecha stuff, you’ve read some variation on this. I roll it out as a halfway-joke every time someone brings mecha up because it’s such a combination of “cliche” and “John Madden statement-obvious”. Like, yes, it’s not literally about the walking war machine itself, it’s about the interactions of various people, much like every other story ever that involves people clashing against each other. And yet…APOCALYPSE FRAME is not “about the people”, at least not by focus. I barely touch upon the Aces at all, to the chagrin of a lot of people. What an oversight!
I added a commentary edition of the game. This is exactly the same as v1.2 except I added 2” of margins on either side and added a bunch of red-text notes, development history, commentary, and self-criticism. Get it in the downloads!
A few typo, bad reference, and bad copy/paste fixes.
Some layout normalization on Frame spreads re: right-page spacing.
I also made a chost about how I’d convert APOCALYPSE FRAME to diceless here. (At some point I’m going to clean that up and add other variant rule ideas I’ve been kicking around. Compiling The Infected World and updating Ballad of Industrial Gods come first though for APOCALYPSE FRAME work.)
Same idea, different game. I'd considered dicelessness for APOCALYPSE FRAME first, actually, but decided it wasn't worth putting it in the core game because I wanted it to come out ever. The big reason I'd do it is that rolling dice actually does slow things down quite a bit and for the most part players usually just reroll with Tension in combat so it's not like consequences come up that much unless folks are using low-die Armaments with low Tension or rolling low Attributes for some reason.
v1.0.2 is out! A few more typos fixed, and the character sheet should print a little better (stuff is further from the edges).
Also, have a setpiece on me! This is one I made to end out my home campaign - feel free to use it for yours!
A flying fortress big enough to blot out the sun, its pointed prow clearly designed for
intimidation. On its underside, enormous energy cannons create brief light sources of
their own as they crackle violently to annihilate anything that would dare to stand in
its way. This is the Republic’s Jupiter-class platform. It’s designed to destroy cities.
A reorganized body text, with a manuscript edited by Marx Shepherd
A full relayout
Art by Galen Pejeau and Mykell Pledger
A few minor additions and rules changes
If you have the game, you now have the final release version as well!
As per tradition, there was a release-version typo found on Efficient which has now been fixed in v1.0.1. (I’ll have the epub updated as well in a bit.)
We’re coming up on the 1 year anniversary of APOCALYPSE FRAME v0.1 (which was also my first published game)! So let’s talk about AF v1.0, which I’ve been pretty quiet about up until now. (And especially who I’m working with!)
Book Contents
First off, what’s going to be in it? This seems like it has an obvious answer: the core book has been out for a year. And that’s mostly right, but my plan is to add on some ACES HIGH stuff at the end as Advanced Rules. (Having them as separate documents made more sense for a digital-only release but that’s not going to be the case forever. Plus I think AH has a lot of stuff I consider “core” to the experience, like Crisis Advances and Tyrants.)
If you’ve ever wanted to take a crack at making your own third-party APOCALYPSE FRAME supplement, now’s your chance! Framed by the Apocalypse, a third-party license for APOCALYPSE FRAME, is now available. In the weeks to come I’ll be releasing more content for it as well, including layout templates and design guidance. Hope to see some cool stuff made with it soon!
