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Hello, I am an indie RPG publisher. I appear as Chris Longhurst, potatocubed, or Certain Death, depending on which way the wind is blowing at the time. You may know me from such Kickstarters as Pigsmoke or Bleak Spirit. Right now I'm working on a variety of things. Something for Zinequest. Unnamed Farming Game (a Stardew-Valley-inspired slice of life game). Unnamed Space Marine Game (W40K RPG with the serial numbers filed off). Something so unformed it doesn't even have an Unnamed Name yet, based on shounen anime fighting serieses like Baki and Kengan Ashura. And a solo card game about being an elder god waking from slumber and eating the world. I have no idea how far any of these are likely to go. Unnamed Farming Game at least is likely to reach completion one way or another.
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Jan 4, 2020 21:35
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 18:36 |
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I like dafont.com. You can filter by license if you want to, and there are lots of decent fonts in the 100% free category.
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Jan 4, 2020 23:06
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Hedningen posted:If you can’t tell, I’m really not confident in my abilities as a writer or artist despite the work I’ve put in, so for actually-properly-releasing-stuff people: how do you get over that? In the very, very large category of 'solutions that work for me but that I'd hesitate to recommend to anyone else': spite. It's pretty easy in the TTRPG sphere, to be honest. I look at someone like Monte Cook (for example), who has turned his mediocre game design skills into more money than I'm ever likely to see, and I am filled with motivation. Like... "I can do better than this, and by God I'll prove it." On a healthier level, one of the things I learned back when I was doing martial arts on the regular was that sometimes you just have to go for it and trust that you know enough to handle the result. Same thing goes for job interviews. And lots of other things in life. You find out if you're good enough by testing yourself. If you fail, you can improve, try again. But if you succeed -- that's a powerful confidence boost. As a tangential aside: The reason I named my company Certain Death is because I was sure that it would fail and lose me my whole initial investment within a year.
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Jan 5, 2020 11:08
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I don't do stretch goals. I've seen too many creators get dragged under by the weight of things they said they'd do, then realised they couldn't. I mean, a) that's leaving money on the table that you might otherwise be able to grab and b) perhaps someone with a less slapdash approach to accountancy than me could make a safer go of it. But it might be worth considering? As for backer rewards, 'get your face in this book' and 'work with me to add some content' are always popular, and relatively simple. Personalised copies are also super-popular (like the School Spirit tier for Pigsmoke) but are way more complex than you'd think to execute.
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Jan 13, 2020 20:56
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The only thing I think which requires your absolutely real real name is Kickstarter; they want all sorts of financial details before they'll let you start your thing.
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Feb 16, 2020 12:48
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I think ZineQuest isn't quite at saturation, but according to some numbers someone pulled from last year, you'll do way better if you launch Feb 1st. Sort of thing I wish I'd bothered to look up before arbitrarily setting my date for the 18th. I think the issue at the moment is more the ongoing Kickstarters for big-name games like Hunter, Descent Into Midnight, and coming soon Beam Saber. Those are going to vacuum up people's budgets and attention in a way that ZQ doesn't.
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Feb 19, 2020 18:06
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UnCO3 posted:Also, I'm gonna neaten up the list of people in the third post (and cut down on the details), so if you want to be on the list, say what you do and provide any links for where people can find you and your work e.g. UnCO3/Speak the Sky designs and simulates games ([itch], [dtrpg], [twitter], [patreon], etc.). If you're specifically looking for or offering work (for money or for payment in kind), you can mention that too. Hello, I'm Chris and I write/design games of various kinds. itch, DrivethruRPG, Twitter.
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Apr 15, 2020 14:59
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On the one hand you're not wrong: Lancer and Beam Saber are going to dominate the mecha genre for years to come. On the other hand you should always have a proper stab at projects like this because if nothing else, you're going to learn something making it. You're going to have an idea for a mechanic or a hook that you can recycle into something else, or you're going to learn how to finish a project, or you're going to pick up some other skill that'll serve you well in future. Like, the first complete game project I ever made was a hack to let you play D&D in Fate (specifically for Planescape, but it worked for other D&D as well) and I'm not sure anyone ever played it other than me and my playtest groups. But I learned a lot about the construction of D&D adventures, the ways different systems do different things, and the existence of Fatescape helped get me a writing gig with Evil Hat for Gods & Monsters. Which then got me work in other places, which got me more work, and so on. Similarly, brevity quest is a janky mess, but I've got narrative designer interviews -- and had something to talk about in those interviews -- because it exists and I learned things by making it. So... make the thing. It'll be worth it one way or another.
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Apr 15, 2020 22:44
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I just posted a financial postmortem for the Bleak Spirit KS which explains where all the money went, in case people are interested. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/179941520/bleak-spirit/posts/2820467
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Apr 25, 2020 23:59
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At the time 10c/word was a decent going rate, so I worked out that a scenario was somewhere in the ballpark of 800 words, hit up some contributors and said 'Hey, here's roughly what I want, I'll pay you a flat $100. Interested?' I've just opened the files to check and Kienna's piece came out at 653 words, Takuma's at 781 words, and Alastor's at 682. The five I wrote average out at 756.6 words each, so it's all in roughly the same bracket.
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Apr 26, 2020 19:08
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UnCO3 posted:Thanks—I'm considering asking for paid contributions on some future projects, so it's good to know. Increasingly I'm in favour of working out an approximate word count, rounding up, and offering that as a flat fee. Especially for small things like that. Makes it easier to budget for Kickstarters and the like too.
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Apr 26, 2020 21:05
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Just filed my tax return for 2019/2020 and ouch. That number. My tiny business seems to pendulum back and forth between 'kickstarter year, huge tax bill' and 'non-kickstarter year, tax rebate'.
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May 7, 2020 15:09
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It's because I have a day job which pays ~£30K, so about 25% of everything I get from a KS goes off to the taxman.
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May 14, 2020 21:47
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Me too. 'A combat system which emulates fighting games while being simpler than fighting games' has kind of been on my to-do list for a while, but instead I'm making yet another fantasy tactical combat game.
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May 27, 2020 23:28
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I haven't actually listened to the RPPR run of Pigsmoke because now I'm homeschooling my kid, my podcast-listening time has gone way down. (I used to do it at work.) But yeah, it's always nice to hear your work played by people. There's at least two other Pigsmoke AP podcasts kicking around -- Big Gay Nerds and PnP Bullshit both did some -- and Beholder's Eye actually managed to play some Milkshake, which I secretly suspected might not be playable. (I heartily recommend the Big Gay Nerds podcast by the way. They're probably my favourite crew, and not just because they play my stuff.)
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May 30, 2020 13:58
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Sign me up.
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Jun 1, 2020 09:09
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Not an LLC, I'm afraid -- I'm set up as a sole trader, which is much simpler but I think less financially efficient than an LLC.
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Jun 22, 2020 07:26
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If you like Trophy incursions, here's one for you: https://twitter.com/potatocubed/status/1280095761196294146 Pretty much all the incursions I'd seen so far were very physical in nature, even when the theme was something more nebulous -- so I decided to go for something more existential. Not 100% sure how well I landed it, but it's there.
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Jul 6, 2020 23:48
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Hey, I've put together a pitch form on Google forms for my latest project. Could I get some feedback on it please? I'm specifically looking to know if it tells you everything you'd need to know to pitch me something, and if it has anything which immediately puts you off or is otherwise a huge red flag. https://forms.gle/P3V9YBogiQsiNCqK6
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Jul 10, 2020 18:38
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That's some pretty solid advice from Avery there. One of the things I think is kind of buried in the middle is that it's way better to get the hang of bookkeeping while you're throwing around hundreds of pounds and printing 50 of things than trying to get up to speed on thousands of pounds and print runs of hundreds. E: Also, thanks for the feedback on my form. I'll tweak it a bit. Double-E: I've tweaked it. If you wanted to sign up, it'll be open for a couple of weeks. potatocubed fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Jul 11, 2020 |
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Jul 11, 2020 11:20
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Just posted a financial postmortem of my Zinequest project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/179941520/sunlands-a-hexcrawl-zine/posts/2898109 Long story short, the guy who told me I needed to raise my prices was right. Consider me justly chastised.
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Jul 19, 2020 19:18
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I mean... the launch date is "mid July/early August" which is pretty much already in the past.
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Aug 4, 2020 13:16
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Cross-posting from the KS thread, but I've just launched a new Kickstarter and I'd like your money please.I posted:Hello, time for me to self-promote!
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Oct 20, 2020 13:43
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I know I'm supposed to be running a Kickstarter at the moment but because I've had some time I wrote a whole other game as well. Guardian Mecha Generations is built on the bones of Quest -- which I know isn't too popular around here, but w/e I like it -- and borrows heavily from Pendragon in that it's meant for long-term dynasty play, and that your values are both a source of strength and a source of conflict with society at large. Also you get a giant robot. It's barely formatted and completely untested, but it's ~45000 words, feature-complete, and wholly playable. Now to take a break from my giant robot game by watching some giant robot anime (or maybe listening to a giant robot podcast) while building a small plastic giant robot.
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Nov 1, 2020 20:54
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Now that is a website that needs an 'about' page.
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Nov 20, 2020 17:33
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UnCO3 posted:I know what you mean. I think they're relying on word of mouth and the fact that the people behind it have high-3/low-4-figure twitter followings (dunno about elsewhere), so they can explain things on social media. I'm not sure how much traffic they're expecting from google etc. rather than directly through links they post and talk about. Yeah, but who are 'they'? I mean, the tabletop RPG scene is so riddled with bad actors that creating a storefront which doesn't identify the people involved feels like a huge trap. quote:Is anyone here interested in running a bundle to pay for marginalised creators with low incomes to get Affinity Publisher licenses? I'm looking into whether it's possible to bulk-buy, too, since I know that someone did a similar sale early this/late last year, but the alternative would just be paying people directly from bundle income. I kind of want to, but I only have one product worth putting on sale right now (Pigsmoke) and I already have plans to put that on sale in the Black Friday event because I could do with some money. So I guess it depends on the timing?
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Nov 21, 2020 12:55
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Thanks for the info! And yes, I find Jared Sinclair very annoying on Twitter so I muted him ages ago.UnCO3 posted:Nice! The timing's flexible. Early-mid January? That'd give people a break after Black Friday (I've also got a lot of stuff I need to do before the end of the year). Next year, I can do. Probably.
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Nov 21, 2020 17:29
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Off the top of my head: Do all your writing in some very basic format, like Markdown or XML, then keep that as a master version of the rules somewhere. Then you create a process for every format you're going to be publishing in, by which your master rules are transformed into something that can be read as a web page, fed into an e-reader, inscribed on stone tablets, whatever. Then every time you change the rules, you also follow every process to ensure that your book, your SRD, and your skywriting edition match up. It's a lot of setup, but in theory once you've got that framework in place you should be able to reuse it for every game with minimal fuss. Caveat: This is based on the process we have for updating documentation at work, so I know it functions under the right circumstances, but I've never tried applying it to an RPG.
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Dec 17, 2020 09:29
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It's on! ...but other than that, I don't know anything.
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Jan 20, 2021 17:45
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I mean, it was completely opaque last year as well. I think you're supposed to find out how to do it from somebody who already knows what's up.
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Jan 21, 2021 00:05
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potatocubed posted:Olivia Hill just published her RPG budget calculator. I haven't checked it in detail but I've given it a quick once-over and it looks solid. Cross-posting from the industry thread just in case.
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Feb 3, 2021 10:20
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I tend to release playtest games as a pdf on the end of a public Dropbox link but any format which is accessible to multiple people is fine -- just make sure you've got all the appropriate permissions set for a Google doc so people can't delete swathes of it for shits and giggles. On the copyright front, you have the copyright for anything you create and you keep it until you sell it or give it away. If you're worried about someone stealing your entire game and bringing it to market first... I feel that's unlikely to happen. I mean it could, in theory, but I'm pretty confident saying that it won't.
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May 12, 2021 18:51
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I have looked! I love the concept, first of all. I think 'gain new classes instead of levels' is a great twist. That said, I struggle to read the rules. There doesn't seem to be any order to where different bits are located, and there's so little whitespace my eyes just slide off the text, which combine to make reading it really hard work. If I was going to re-lay it I'd allow myself two double-sided sheets, one for 'slow rules' like exploration and character gen, and one for 'fast rules' like combat, with the idea that you only ever need to be focusing on one of them at a time.
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Nov 26, 2022 19:59
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