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Well, now that I got this army thing cleared up I have been able to refocus back onto my projects. Things are going good. In this article I’ll be discussing two of them: Desecration and Romp.

I got all of the artwork for Desecration including the cover artwork from Marco Morte. I am very excited about the progress on this. I really only have a few more testing sessions left before I can finalize the project and release it so it looks like it is coming up to release very soon.

The cover itself was a huge surprise. When you look for artwork you always want an artist that can evoke the theme you have for that project. To me, it always seems to be an uphill battle for the artist as they have to get into my head and understand what I see in the project in order to make it work. I have to say that Marco has done a fantastic job of meeting that need and likewise bringing in an artistic perspective I could draw from and use it to elevate the project as well. However, when he sent me an email about a water color painting for the cover I was a bit hesitant. However, after having seen his illustrations I was still very curious. In truth, if anyone else had said they would do a watercolor for the cover of this particular project I probably would have shot down the idea. Instead, I went with it. The worst that could happen was that he would have to go in a different direction.

Then I got the image. I was shocked. I actually had it in my head to go a bit darker, but the image did something different. It didn’t focus on the darkness of the story. Instead, it evoked the mystical aspect that really struck me and got me thinking about. The truth is, the plot for me is dark, but from the people actually living the story, the entire series of events is more mystical. There is a mystery and unknown for the player characters as they encounter an ancient civilization still living, while also exploring the dark ruins of a long dead one. Having come directly from civilization into this sort of wild world that lives on the outer fringes and in relative mystery, it occurs to me that there would be feeling more wonderment during the bulk of the adventure rather than doom or dread.

The image itself does not change the story. However, it definitely evokes more of the feeling I think most players will find in the adventure. To me, this is so much more important. And just so you know what I am talking about, the artwork is posted here (in lower resolution than will be in print).

What about Romp? Well, as you may know the first Romp game is set in the modern world. In it you play a member of a military joint task force as a coalition of U.N. forces become embroiled in an escalating conflict. Your team, made up of your player group, will take on missions, advance in skill, and earn access to a greater array of weapons and assets to help you accomplish your missions. You earn experience for completing mission goals and you are penalized for violations of your mission rules of engagements. The game is a high action, dungeon crawler style game.

I have finished the first initial draft and I am gearing up for alpha testing. I have started a thread in the community forums calling out for anyone interested in this early testing phase. The book itself still needs a lot of work. The design is done, but this is the easy part. Writing is as done as this phase will allow. That means that the book is written, but just about all of it is subject to an entire re-write. However, this rewrite occurs only after initial testing. It is the beta phase of testing that gets the draft that will be more or less the release edition.

I have also started the first four adventures (called missions) which encompass the series one books. Series is a term we applied to the missions that do several things at once. First, they give a guide to the overall character strength the players are expected to have. This is handled by expectation. Players are expected to have completed a certain number of missions in a previous series before playing the next series of adventures. The number of adventures is equal to the next series level. For instance, to play a series 2 mission it expected that two series 1 missions were already completed.

Secondly, the series actually occur within a time frame. Series Two Missions will build off of events that occured in Series One missions. However, it is not necessary for a player to have played specific missions. Instead, if a mission in a higher series occurs as a direct relation, or has characters or themes derived from previous series missions, it is assumed that another group of soldiers completed the mission. For instance, if a mission involves intelligence from an NPC that would have been captured in a previous series mission that wasn’t played by your group, then it is assumed that another group did capture him. Simply because your group was not involved does not mean that the mission did not take place.

As players play through missions the conflict begins to escalate. Players will find themselves at first playing through seemingly minor actions in missions that seem fairly simple. However, by the time the conflict really heats up they can see how the events in a series one mission actually set the groundwork for things as they develop. In this way, there is a meta-plot being explored. 

So progress is going good on two distinct fronts, and it is becoming more exciting by the minute as I delve into some of these new phases. The near future is going to be a lot of fun.

P.S. (dunno if these really work on blogs but what the hell)

I have come to a decision about one thing. Although I can’t be a soldier, I still greatly regard the men and women who make that commitment as true and real life heroes. I have decided that a portion of my own personal royalties from the Romp Modern game will be donated to the USO or some other military charity that I feel is a worthy cause. I will consider releasing books that don’t donate to these groups as well, as I know that some people out there may not want to support these institutions for whatever reason. However, I will only be actively promoting and linking to those books where the donations are active. 

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Descration, Developer Blog, E-RPG General Development, Overall Development, Romp, Writing Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.