Wednesday 31 October 2012

NaGa DeMon Diary 1. The beginning is nigh!

NaGa DeMon: National Game Design Month. Design a game, finish it, play it, tell everyone about it. In a month. Simultaneously a challenge and an opportunity to unbung the creative pipes and let the idea juice gush! I've been assisting Mr Nathan Russell on the Facebook page and Google+ Page, he's also updating a @thenagademon on twitter and using the #nagademon hashtag.

Taking part in NaGa DeMon makes you a Demon Hunter, winning makes you a Demon Slayer! I'll be charting my progress from Hunter to Slayer here. Either we can rejoice in triumph or commiserate together.

Preparation

One does not walk simply walk into NaGa DeMon. A little preparation acts as a springboard into progress. I've blogged about that on the NaGaDeMon website, so I won't repeat it here.

What I'm doing

I have decided to extract the shared dice pool mechanic from Cloudship Atlantis and write a setting to go with it. I've played the nuts off the system itself, it needs writing down properly. The setting is the greater challenge here. I have two main ideas (had some others, too ill-formed to consider):

TRONlike 2013

A TRON-like setting set in the 2013 internet where player characters lead a double life of IT geek during the day and cybercriminal at night. Wars are waged in a sub-cyberspace between huge internet corporations, governments, anonymous hacking groups and script kiddies. Characters will topple government systems, battle the bulk of Amazon and right wrongs reporting in the press "during the day".

It's quite a well defined setting idea. A digital world that runs underneath the current internet. The shared dice pool mechanic will work really well for it.

The Wall

The town of Cling is set against an impregnable wall that stretches infinitely in all directions. The population remains stable, life is very dull; precisely why the characters want to explore. No explorer has ever returned. Every so often, things fall onto the little town glued against the wall, people call it a gift from the gods. Recently, quite a lot has landed.

A medieval setting with no magic but with some materials that make life on the wall possible (eg nutrient rich water supply). The PCs will become envoys in the first trip out to another colony - and return.

Get yourself involved

It doesn't matter if you missed the start of November, you can still join in. After all, some make RPGs in 24 hours. A month should be a doddle. It doesn't need to be brand new, the idea could have been festering in your mind for year or a project that just won't finish. Now is the time. Join the roll call, get into the social media and join us.

It won't hurt, much.

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