itch devlog

Class Overview #1: Meet the Bard and Berserker!

August 8, 2023
itch devlog, valiant horizon

Hi there! I’m gonna reveal class art every week and talk about their design as I do. I’m gonna go start to end alphabetically, so meet the Bard and the Berserker! On roles and sub-roles I’m going to be talking about roles a lot in these posts. This is because I designed every class using Total//Effect’s role and sub-role concepts as a basis. Each class has three sub-roles: two from one role and one from another. ...

Third backer class is here! Meet the Astrologer!

August 6, 2023
itch devlog, valiant horizon

Hi there! I’ve uploaded the third new Class, made possible by a very generous backer. Meet the Astrologer! The Astrologer is a stargazing, prophetic hero. It can easily provide full support via re-rolls, Advantage, and Disadvantage. It has a lot of effects that mark or apply to locations, letting it shape the battlefield. It’s in that backer classes PDF. Enjoy! (If you want to up your pledge to get one of these, itch doesn’t really do that unfortunately. ...

Mechanical choices: Diceless, Roll for Magnitude, and Roll for Success

August 3, 2023
itch devlog, valiant horizon

Hi there! This post is about the various mechanical choices made in Valiant Horizon at a very high level. I group these into three categories: Diceless mechanics (stuff that works), Roll for Magnitude mechanics (stuff that works but you roll to see how much), and Roll for Success mechanics (stuff that works if a roll goes your way). Diceless The simplest kind of mechanic. This is what Assets, Exhausting Assets, and Burdens are: ...

Second backer class is here! Meet the Assassin!

August 1, 2023
itch devlog, valiant horizon

Hi there! I’ve uploaded the second new Class, made possible by a very generous backer. Meet the Assassin! The Assassin is a deadly, subtle hero. It can choose to gain bonuses to its Total against debuffed enemies, with the caveat that the debuffs are removed afterwards. It’s a great combination of deadly and mobile, with debuffs and “finishers” - moves that cap out at extremely high Totals, but provide incredible rewards if met. ...

First backer class is here! Meet the Adept!

July 28, 2023
itch devlog, valiant horizon

Hi there! I’ve uploaded the first new Class, made possible by a very generous backer. Meet the Adept! The Adept is a skilled, highly-trained hero. It combos off of self-buffing/taking self-targeting utility actions. It gets a lot out of taking/being given extra actions. It’s the most mobile class I’ve written thus far! It’s in that backer classes PDF. Enjoy! (If you want to up your pledge to get one of these, itch doesn’t really do that unfortunately. ...

v0.2 release!

June 22, 2023
itch devlog, anointed

Hi there! I’ve just released ANOINTED v0.2! This has: A revamped combat system that removes dice entirely. (You can see a preview of my initial formulation here, I changed a few things from there but that’s the general idea.) At long last, rules for exploration! A tutorial region. If I did it right, it should hopefully give you some idea of how to play the game! Give it a play, let me know what you think. ...

v1.1 release! Some extremely preliminary diceless rules!

May 29, 2023
itch devlog, apocalypse frame

Hi there! v1.1 is out. It’s nothing big: A few clarifications in a few spots. 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. ...

v2 released!

April 20, 2023
itch devlog, nano

Hi there! I just released version 2 of NANO after a little testing and tweaking. My main takeaway is that it needed to be a little more play-to-lose. Surviving 7 days is framed closer to a partial victory (and can also be a loss). (This encourages people to go for Breakthroughs rather than only putting out fires.) All actions ding you on at least Fatigue on anything but Harmonize. (It was far too easy prior to lean on Prepare/Progress especially, but also I wanted to preserve the general flow of “you can do however many things you like as long as you think you can keep it up” to encourage people riding the razor’s edge of an Error. ...

v2 released!

March 1, 2023
itch devlog, liminal void quickstart

Hi there! I put out a v2 of this quickstart. It has the following changes: Has a slightly more proper cover now for both the rules and quickstart scenario! Made a few typo/clarification fixes Added a few things to the quickstart that came up in play (nothing big, just “you can try doing this” kind of stuff) Until next time! (Read the original on itch here!)