Pivots & Progress

A lot of things fell into place recently in game design land!

Copperhead County Art Pipeline

I’m still doing art for Copperhead County, the Forged in the Dark game of doing crime in the south. I finally set up a Trello board for our artwork and review pipeline. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner – I’ve been using Trello at work for years. Business!

Minigame Complete!

I think I broke through the final cognitive roadblock and managed to complete the “elevator fight” minigame for White Line Nightmare (although as you’ll soon read, it’s not just for WLN). I will admit that it’s not that complicated, I basically wrote a fancy PbtA move, but extracting the matrix of outcomes I want from people suddenly turning to violence in close quarters drew more inspiration from the very PvP-oriented I Corner Him and Stab Him In the Face from Burning Empires.

Did you know wrestling inside a car has its own championship?

Porque No Los Dos?

The nice thing about breaking up different rpg activities into minigames is they can plug into more than one overarching game. I’d been in a real sluggish spot and couldn’t focus on White Line Nightmare, Power Metal Cyber Future, or a third game that skewed more towards the kinds of vigilantes and mutants you get from TMNT and classic beat ’em up characters. I know Street Lethal is also the name of an old Shadowrun supplement, but it fits too well not to call it that in my head.

Finishing Elevator Fight got me pumped about working on all of those game ideas, especially since they all have the potential for elevators.

White Line Serendipity

My Copperhead County art momentum carried over to White Line Nightmare art. I haven’t been completely pleased with any of my cover designs yet, but when I was idly scrolling through layer options I hit “Vivid Light” one too many times and now White Line Nightmare is… grindhouse? The palette is way more saturated and acid than I planned, but I dig the lack of polish. I’m way more productive when the part of me that likes making things out of trash chokes out my inner perfectionist.

Fun trivia – For reference, I used BeamNG.drive to wreck a car just enough to match the carbeque in my head.