Sceletus

 

So I'm gathering together a bunch of ideas for the new game that I've been developing with Erin. Both of us have been looking at different games across Itch, and plenty of the ideas that we're scavenging have come from all over the place (including plenty of inspirations from the old "Game Mechani(sm) of the Week" series, stuff that was discussed in the "How to Run a Game" sequence, and assorted stuff we've found on Itch over recent weeks).

This project is intended for the DURF Jam 2025, which opens tomorrow. However, even though there are lots of things we like about the way DURF approaches things, there's a few key elements that we don't like, including the core game mechanism or rolling d20 plus a low variable ability factor versus a difficulty. I like the idea of adding or subtracting another die result (a bit like inspiration adding to a roll in 5e D&D), so I tried to integrated this a bit more naturally into the system rather than having it feel like two different subsystems combined (Erin basically agreed, and we brainstormed a lot of this together).  

So, because we've fundamentally changed the core mechanism of play while trying to keep a lot of the other systems that make DURF, we're calling Sceletus a "modified DURF game" rather than a "DURF supplement" or "DURF setting". Hopefully this still fits the nature of the Game Jam. 

We're undecided about whether to charge anything for this game, it started as a 16-page zine, but is expanding to a few zines at this stage. The current thought is to make the core rule zine free, then charge a dollar or two per zine after that point, and have a bundle of all the zines at a discount. 

The jam opens tomorrow, and there's a few more days of work here. I'm sure Erin will work something out, she usually does.  

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