PARPG

[TheHarlequin]

It's time for a little news update )

 

We've boiled down possible setting and game mechanics aspects in the last week. So far we've agreed on a nuclear winter setting; furthermore the game will take place in Northern Europe / Scandinavia. In case you're interested about the details, feel free to check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

 

Some poorly thought out choices already. While I certainly hope for the best for your project I am expecting vaporware.

[mvBarracuda]

Please enlighten us about the poor choices so we shall learn from our mistakes )

Edited March 9, 2009 by mvBarracuda

[Slowtrain]

It's time for a little news update )

 

We've boiled down possible setting and game mechanics aspects in the last week. So far we've agreed on a nuclear winter setting; furthermore the game will take place in Northern Europe / Scandinavia. In case you're interested about the details, feel free to check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

 

Some poorly thought out choices already.

 

Such as?

 

 

edit: Barracuda beat me. :/

Edited March 9, 2009 by CrashGirl

[Magister Lajciak]

I wish you luck on your project. I am pretty impressed with the engine project you worked on, so I guess the chances of this being completed seem higher than for most enthusiast-led open-source projects.

[TheHarlequin]

Please enlighten us about the poor choices so we shall learn from our mistakes )

 

> So far we've agreed on a nuclear winter setting;

 

Well if you go the realistic route the game would (should) be more about survival (clean food, water, shelter, radiation) in such a world then most anything else. If you are using it just for a backdrop so you have a excuse to show pretty FX with little to do about day to day survival then that's going to be in the end a immersion killer I think to any half serious RPGer. In effect take fallout3 x5 in the survival focus. In either case that's running into some pretty large self imposed hurdles. I would take either the mad max (limited nuclear war) or fallout (thrust into the world half a century+ after the war) route. In either case while parts or most of the world is a wasteland and difficult to survive its not to the extent its your #1 focus. I don't know if you have done any research on nuclear winter survival but its not pretty nor fun. Unless you are going for a simulation path for this 'game'.

 

> furthermore the game will take place in Northern Europe / Scandinavia.

 

I know you are trying to break with tradition but frankly you need a more popular setting. You are going to loose folks who don't care about said area or know little about it and thus going to turn them off. RPers want to walk across and explore the ruins of NYC or London. Not some city they are not familiar with or only heard 4 times in their lives if that. Plus, if you really want to grasp the most interest & players it should be set in north america. Not saying this out of ego or pride but simple statistics of where gamers are from. They will be more receptive to a real life location they are aware of then some place they are not. Why do you think the fallout series is placed near major cities in cali and DC and not Istanbul or some city in the middle of no where in west africa?

 

Unless of course you are aiming specifically for European players and don't care about those across the pond. If that's the case then ignore the above.

 

That is my first impression of your design choices.

Edited March 10, 2009 by TheHarlequin

[mvBarracuda]

Well if you go the realistic route the game would (should) be more about survival (clean food, water, shelter, radiation) in such a world then most anything else.

Yep, we actually plan to introduce survival elements. Here are something starting points:

* Food, water, endurance: http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=19.0

* Realistic encumbrance as survival element (no way to simply loot everything, have unlimited food with you): http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=77.0

 

I know you are trying to break with tradition but frankly you need a more popular setting. You are going to loose folks who don't care about said area or know little about it and thus going to turn them off. RPers want to walk across and explore the ruins of NYC or London. Not some city they are not familiar with or only heard 4 times in their lives if that. Plus, if you really want to grasp the most interest & players it should be set in north america. Not saying this out of ego or pride but simple statistics of where gamers are from. They will be more receptive to a real life location they are aware of then some place they are not. Why do you think the fallout series is placed near major cities in cali and DC and not Istanbul or some city in the middle of no where in west africa?

As Morrissey said: America is not the world. These are the forums of an US-based publisher so I can understand that an US setting would appeal to the most people here. On the other side: if you got for isometric 2d graphics, survival elements, choice and consequence, complex combat mechanics, realistic encumbrance and wounds, you don't really care to appeal to the largest target audience anyway.

 

Our lead mechanics designer comes from the US, another important writer on the team is from there as well; both are fine with the setting. Exploring PA America was already done in Wasteland or Fallout so why not mix it up a little?

 

Unless of course you are aiming specifically for European players and don't care about those across the pond. If that's the case then ignore the above.

 

That is my first impression of your design choices.

That sounds a bit ignorant. Of course we care about US players, actually we care about all players regardless where they are from. But if you follow your logic, Fallout would have been just popular in NA. If you look into the facts, you'll see that Fallout is quite popular in Germany, Poland and especially Russia. So why would a PA game set in Europe scare away the NA audience while it didn't happen for Fallout the other way round?

Edited March 10, 2009 by mvBarracuda

[Whipporwill]

I know you are trying to break with tradition but frankly you need a more popular setting. You are going to loose folks who don't care about said area or know little about it and thus going to turn them off. RPers want to walk across and explore the ruins of NYC or London. Not some city they are not familiar with or only heard 4 times in their lives if that. Plus, if you really want to grasp the most interest & players it should be set in north america. Not saying this out of ego or pride but simple statistics of where gamers are from. They will be more receptive to a real life location they are aware of then some place they are not. Why do you think the fallout series is placed near major cities in cali and DC and not Istanbul or some city in the middle of no where in west africa?

 

As Morrissey said: America is not the world. These are the forums of an US-based publisher so I can understand that an US setting would appeal to the most people here. On the other side: if you got for isometric 2d graphics, survival elements, choice and consequence, complex combat mechanics, realistic encumbrance and wounds, you don't really care to appeal to the largest target audience anyway.

 

You're perilously close to being too hip for the room.

 

Of course we care about US players, actually we care about all players regardless where they are from. But if you follow your logic, Fallout would have been just popular in NA. If you look into the facts, you'll see that Fallout is quite popular in Germany, Poland and especially Russia. So why would a PA game set in Europe scare away the NA audience while it didn't happen for Fallout the other way round?

 

Because Americans have little to no interest in the rest of the world. Sad but true.

[Tigranes]

Yep, we actually plan to introduce survival elements. Here are something starting points:

* Food, water, endurance: http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=19.0

* Realistic encumbrance as survival element (no way to simply loot everything, have unlimited food with you): http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=77.0

 

I would suggest that having the plot and NPCs make sense in such a harsh setting is even more important (and more exciting), for instance with towns which are loathe to even let you in because of a lack of resources. But I'm sure this is being thought about.

 

The setting choice hardly seems as important as Harlequin is making it out to be IMO. Shogun: Total War did great... and it's an indie game to begin with.

[mvBarracuda]

I would suggest that having the plot and NPCs make sense in such a harsh setting is even more important (and more exciting), for instance with towns which are loathe to even let you in because of a lack of resources. But I'm sure this is being thought about.

Yep, at the moment we're considering a "nature is the enemy"-plot. If you don't mind spoilers (it's not set in stone at this point anyway), feel free give it a read:

http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=35.0

[TheHarlequin]

> Yep, we actually plan to introduce survival elements. Here are something starting points:

 

'Survival elements' is what FO3 has and far from what I was referring to about my points in a setting placed in nuclear winter. Again the impression I am left with after you skirting my comments is using a setting in a very unrealistic way. Clearly you have done little to no research about the effects of nuclear war/winter and survival in such.

 

> As Morrissey said: America is not the world.

 

Correct no, However minus north america and japan and you are left with scraps for a target audience if you alienate them. No offense to our European friends but of the statistics I have seen that is the nucleus of the gaming world.

 

> you don't really care to appeal to the largest target audience anyway.

 

That's all you needed to say, you don't care about appealing to a wider audience or those in north america. Fair enough.

 

> Our lead mechanics designer comes from the US, another important writer on the team is from there as well; both are fine with the setting.

 

Clearly they have done a lot of research then on sociology, trends and statistics of gaming and have experience on game development then. My bad for assuming since they are drinking your cool-aid they wouldn't be the most impartial or educated views.

 

> That sounds a bit ignorant.

 

There certainly is some ignorance being posted here, I'll grant you that much.

 

> Of course we care about US players, actually we care about all players regardless where they are from.

 

ermm.. well do you or don't you? Your above comment seems to contradict this.

 

> But if you follow your logic, Fallout would have been just popular in NA. If you look into the facts, you'll see that Fallout is quite popular in Germany, Poland and especially Russia. So why would a PA game set in Europe scare away the NA audience while it didn't happen for Fallout the other way round?

 

I really do not have the interest to invest in this topic to the degree it would take to properly answer this. However suffice it to say those gamers in Germany, Russia and Poland know about California and DC much more so then asking someone in north America to feel a association with some town in Scandinavia they have never heard of. If you can't see that very simple point and flaw in your logic then, to me, that raises red flags.

 

Like I said I hope for the best but expect this to end up vaporware.

[TheHarlequin]

The setting choice hardly seems as important as Harlequin is making it out to be IMO. Shogun: Total War did great... and it's an indie game to begin with.

 

On paper the setting in this context means little. You could have it set in the wastelands centered in kenya and prob make the game work. My only point I am trying to get across is does he want to appeal to a wider audience or not. If not then my views are moot. If he does then I think he is shooting himself in the foot.

 

As for your example how many people in north america have NOT heard of japan, samurai or the like? Now many of those same gamers could go into detail about some Scandinavian town, history or/and culture? That is my point.

[Tigranes]

Fair enough, I just think it's not as massive an issue for an indie game like parpg as you are making it out to be. I'm not saying it's a non-issue, I agree with your logic, but I also think the type of people who won't try a game just because it's in scandinavia won't try indie games anyway. Sort of like how the sort of people who're offended by VD's interviews probably won't buy Age of Decadence anyway. I also think it would be a real pity if even indie projects didn't try to do something like this - bloody sick of "NEW YORK ON FIRE / IN RUINS" x 100.

 

What I think could be done is make the setting interesting and clearly defined in a way that can spark people's imaginations. If you do that with the unique details and fictional history of the setting itself and the art direction, it's not so important whether it's in New York or in Scandinavia, because your own setting has an identity of its own.

[Magister Lajciak]

I don't know how much you know about nuclear winter, but I do want to point out that a nuclear winter would not actually last an enormously long amount of time. Depending on the scale of nuclear exchange percipitating it, nuclear winter would last anywhere from a few months to something over a decade (let's say 20 years at most). Whereas even at the lower end of the scale it would be long enough to wipe out most mankind from exposure and food shortages, you should bear that in mind if you want to keep the game realistic - no multigenerational time spent in nuclear bunkers (because nuclear winter would definitely be over long before that) and probably no drastically new technologies or major radiation-induced evolution of new life-forms due to the inherent time-constraints. You could, chose to ignore this aspect of realism, but that is what it would be like. After the nuclear winter ended, you would actually get global warming...

[Magister Lajciak]

TheHarlequin, can you point us to those statistics, which you say indicate that the U.S. is the biggest market for games and Europe is relatively insignificant by comparison? I am asking, because my impression was that although the U.S. is the biggest market for games overall, much of this is for console games, and for computer games Europe may well now be a bigger market than the U.S. (in much of Europe, computer gaming still dominantes over console gaming) ... and this is clearly meant to be exclusively a computer game.

[mvBarracuda]

Concerning the whole target audience discussion. I think the project will attract the following types of gamers:

* Open source enthusiasts who either run Linux or some kind of BSD distro.

* More mature win32-based players who are fans of old school isometric (2d!) RPGs such as Fallout, Arcanum, Planescape: Torment. Basically everything pre-NWN.

* Pen and paper RPG players who don't mind complex mechanics but rather appreciate the love for these details.

 

I personally like playing games that are set in parts of the world I didn't know much about. I hope others enjoy it as well but the setting is set in stone so moving it elsewhere is no option at this point anymore. We'll give our best to make it a fun an entertaining game but I somehow doubt that the majority of the players who are scared away by a game playing in Scandavia would appreciate the gameplay we have mind.

[Monte Carlo]

TheHarlequin, can you point us to those statistics, which you say indicate that the U.S. is the biggest market for games and Europe is relatively insignificant by comparison? I am asking, because my impression was that although the U.S. is the biggest market for games overall, much of this is for console games, and for computer games Europe may well now be a bigger market than the U.S. (in much of Europe, computer gaming still dominantes over console gaming) ... and this is clearly meant to be exclusively a computer game.

 

From this article in the Times newspaper (UK).

 

In defiance of the gloom sweeping other industries, UK sales of video game software and hardware in 2008 were up 23 per cent year on year, breaking through the

[Magister Lajciak]

There you go, Monte Carlo, thanks for finding some evidence for my assertion!

 

Besides, I think U.S. gamers are much more open to non-U.S. locations than is commonly believed. I am currently in the U.S. and my interactions here provide anecdotal evidence that the fabled U.S. insularity is greatly exaggerated.

[Magister Lajciak]

the setting is set in stone so moving it elsewhere is no option at this point anymore

 

Fair enough, but did you read my comments about how nuclear winter works in terms of timing? Are you going to take it into account?

[TheHarlequin]

TheHarlequin, can you point us to those statistics, which you say indicate that the U.S. is the biggest market for games and Europe is relatively insignificant by comparison?

 

Since that's not what I said, no I can't.

 

Plus once you establish what I did say you don't seem to be net incompetent, you can use Google to find these articles just as well as I can.

Edited March 14, 2009 by TheHarlequin

[zenbitz]

I don't know how much you know about nuclear winter, but I do want to point out that a nuclear winter would not actually last an enormously long amount of time. Depending on the scale of nuclear exchange percipitating it, nuclear winter would last anywhere from a few months to something over a decade (let's say 20 years at most). Whereas even at the lower end of the scale it would be long enough to wipe out most mankind from exposure and food shortages, you should bear that in mind if you want to keep the game realistic - no multigenerational time spent in nuclear bunkers (because nuclear winter would definitely be over long before that) and probably no drastically new technologies or major radiation-induced evolution of new life-forms due to the inherent time-constraints. You could, chose to ignore this aspect of realism, but that is what it would be like. After the nuclear winter ended, you would actually get global warming...

Hi, I'm leader of the game mechanics design for "Par Pig" as we are calling it - the nuclear winter is sort of my idea.

 

This is not specific to your comment - but others have said "why europe" - because actually we want to have late-cold-war era Soviet equipement lying around. I originally wanted to put the game in Germany (since mvBarracuda is German) - but he wants to avoid too much conflict with Zero Projekt. We also wanted the "feel" to be a snowy wasteland (in the sense that FO1/2 , Wasteland was Desert), but the game will not be ALL Arctic Tundra (i mean, it's an RPG... you want to talk to inuit all game?). I actually wrote up an alternate location that took place in Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michegan/North Illinois area but it didn't have much traction with the graphics dude who came up with the "Sweden" setting...

 

Well, you are not the only one who can read a wikipedia article, you know. However, like most climatology - Nuclear Winter is a theory. So the _exact_ effects, dependent on actual tonnage of dirt and debris thrown in the atmosphere are not exactly known. There was a time when Nuclear Winter was totally "debunked" as a thoery, but it's made a comeback with people applying the latest and greatest climate simulation models (the ones that predict global warming).

 

Here is my thought - and it doesn't have to be realistic to the point of "in congruence will all climatology to date" - but it does have to be plausable. There is a BIG nuclear war, following a conventional war in Europe ca. 1988. Nuclear Winter (as above 5-10 years tops) + starvation and disease and other secondary effects wipe out 90-99% (we haven't decided yet) of Western European population. The game starts in 2008 (20 years after) allowing us to have a mix of "war survivors" and "new world kids" as characters. What if the Nuclear Winter triggers another Ice Age? We know that there is a (excuse the pun) positive feedback effect of Snow/Ice on lowering global temperatures? Could the NW have pushed it over the edge? Ice Ages happen throughout history WITHOUT any sort of Nuke war - all we are doing is stopping civilization for 20 years... So that leaves the PC in a world on the cusp of a new ice age... and starting in the far north latitudes where the effects would be felt earliest.

 

So - I am not asking if the above is "theoretically sound" - and we have an issue of "geological time scales" conflicting with game time scales on the order of a few years... but is the above plausible enough for a video game? Even a gritty, realistic one? I think it's substantially better than most.

Edited March 14, 2009 by zenbitz

[zenbitz]

> Yep, we actually plan to introduce survival elements. Here are something starting points:

 

'Survival elements' is what FO3 has and far from what I was referring to about my points in a setting placed in nuclear winter. Again the impression I am left with after you skirting my comments is using a setting in a very unrealistic way. Clearly you have done little to no research about the effects of nuclear war/winter and survival in such.

 

Since the game is still being researched the amount we have done to date is not totally relevant. How can you critique "how we will use the setting in a realistic way" - since the only thing you have to work with is "fallout like" which means "not a hell of a lot". I am EXTREMELY concerned about the realism of this game - and you are commenting on decisions of devleopment that haven't even been proposed let alone made.

 

> you don't really care to appeal to the largest target audience anyway.

 

That's all you needed to say, you don't care about appealing to a wider audience or those in north america. Fair enough.

 

Did it ever occur to you that the size of the MARKET for a FREE game is not particularly a big concern for the developers?

I mean OHNOES I sold only 200 copies for $0.00 rather than 2000. We are going to make a game we think is cool and would like to play. We think other people might find the game fun too. The number of people who appreciate art is not the sole metric of sucess!

 

I really do not have the interest to invest in this topic to the degree it would take to properly answer this. However suffice it to say those gamers in Germany, Russia and Poland know about California and DC much more so then asking someone in north America to feel a association with some town in Scandinavia they have never heard of. If you can't see that very simple point and flaw in your logic then, to me, that raises red flags.

 

Yeah but those are COMMERCIAL games. They have to PAY PEOPLE to work on them, they have to MAKE MONEY for their parent corporations.

Why would this apply at all?

 

An actual issue - which you didn't even bring up - is that any game that's based in a real world location (be it California, DC, or Timbucktu) should have at least a couple "local cultural" experts... if not you get a "San Francisco" like in Fallout 2. I live in San Francisco, and the version in the game is wholly unlike my home town. So this could be a problem... but not an insurmountable one, or even a medium sized one, at this stage. We do have some contirbutors from Finland so far. I'm sure if we make a cool demo we will pick up a Norwegian, Dane, and Swede along the way. Those dudes have nothing better to do all winter than work on some indy OS game any how.

 

Like I said I hope for the best but expect this to end up vaporware.

 

That would be insulting if it didn't apply to oh, 99% of all FOSS games. Frankly *I* don't expect it make it out of demo state. I hope that it does, and I might even be a little disappointed if it crashes and burns, but what the hell... PRODUCT is not the only reason to do something.

[zenbitz]

Good luck with your game, heartily ignore grognards like me!

 

Grognard, huh... what you play?

[Magister Lajciak]

I don't know how much you know about nuclear winter, but I do want to point out that a nuclear winter would not actually last an enormously long amount of time. Depending on the scale of nuclear exchange percipitating it, nuclear winter would last anywhere from a few months to something over a decade (let's say 20 years at most). Whereas even at the lower end of the scale it would be long enough to wipe out most mankind from exposure and food shortages, you should bear that in mind if you want to keep the game realistic - no multigenerational time spent in nuclear bunkers (because nuclear winter would definitely be over long before that) and probably no drastically new technologies or major radiation-induced evolution of new life-forms due to the inherent time-constraints. You could, chose to ignore this aspect of realism, but that is what it would be like. After the nuclear winter ended, you would actually get global warming...

 

Hi, I'm leader of the game mechanics design for "Par Pig" as we are calling it - the nuclear winter is sort of my idea.

 

Hello, nice to meet you here!

 

This is not specific to your comment - but others have said "why europe" - because actually we want to have late-cold-war era Soviet equipement lying around. I originally wanted to put the game in Germany (since mvBarracuda is German) - but he wants to avoid too much conflict with Zero Projekt. We also wanted the "feel" to be a snowy wasteland (in the sense that FO1/2 , Wasteland was Desert), but the game will not be ALL Arctic Tundra (i mean, it's an RPG... you want to talk to inuit all game?). I actually wrote up an alternate location that took place in Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michegan/North Illinois area but it didn't have much traction with the graphics dude who came up with the "Sweden" setting...

 

Well, I actually think Scandinavia is a pretty good setting for such a game. Indeed, because of its status as 'European periphery' it would likely be targetted with fewer nuclear warheads and it would actually, therefore, be more plausible that a greater proportion of the population survived there than in other regions of Europe.

 

Well, you are not the only one who can read a wikipedia article, you know.

 

Actually, although nuclear winter is only peripheral to that, international security with the concentration nuclear weapon issues (deterrence, proliferation, etcetera) is, in fact, my Ph.D. focus field, so no need for Wikipedia for this.

 

However, like most climatology - Nuclear Winter is a theory. So the _exact_ effects, dependent on actual tonnage of dirt and debris thrown in the atmosphere are not exactly known. There was a time when Nuclear Winter was totally "debunked" as a thoery, but it's made a comeback with people applying the latest and greatest climate simulation models (the ones that predict global warming).

 

Right, but we actually have some decent indicators for this based on vulcanic eruptions, so it is not as nebulous as it might seem.

 

Here is my thought - and it doesn't have to be realistic to the point of "in congruence will all climatology to date" - but it does have to be plausable. There is a BIG nuclear war, following a conventional war in Europe ca. 1988. Nuclear Winter (as above 5-10 years tops) + starvation and disease and other secondary effects wipe out 90-99% (we haven't decided yet) of Western European population. The game starts in 2008 (20 years after) allowing us to have a mix of "war survivors" and "new world kids" as characters. What if the Nuclear Winter triggers another Ice Age? We know that there is a (excuse the pun) positive feedback effect of Snow/Ice on lowering global temperatures? Could the NW have pushed it over the edge? Ice Ages happen throughout history WITHOUT any sort of Nuke war - all we are doing is stopping civilization for 20 years... So that leaves the PC in a world on the cusp of a new ice age... and starting in the far north latitudes where the effects would be felt earliest.

 

So - I am not asking if the above is "theoretically sound" - and we have an issue of "geological time scales" conflicting with game time scales on the order of a few years... but is the above plausible enough for a video game? Even a gritty, realistic one? I think it's substantially better than most.

 

Sure, it is fine for a video game. A completely realistic video game would probably be pretty boring. All I wanted to suggest is that when a departure from realism is made, it should be made with the knowledge of what the realistic outcome would have been. I am glad that that maxim is being followed.

 

In any case, good luck with making the game, back to studying and paper-writing I go.

[zenbitz]

Well, I actually think Scandinavia is a pretty good setting for such a game. Indeed, because of its status as 'European periphery' it would likely be targetted with fewer nuclear warheads and it would actually, therefore, be more plausible that a greater proportion of the population survived there than in other regions of Europe.

 

What's interesting is that I had trouble swallowing the thought of the soviets (let alone NATO) nuking places like Oslo and Stockholm until I found this site: http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/. Buried within are even studies / plans of a Soviet ground invasion of Sweden (not going to comment on the actual likelyhood.... but at least someone else thought it was possible) - and the early cold war games by the Warsaw Pact seem to indicate that they would liberally use strategic and nuclear weapons to further their ground invasion. But perhaps you have other thoughts on this?

 

Well, you are not the only one who can read a wikipedia article, you know.

 

Actually, although nuclear winter is only peripheral to that, international security with the concentration nuclear weapon issues (deterrence, proliferation, etcetera) is, in fact, my Ph.D. focus field, so no need for Wikipedia for this.

 

Touche'.

 

So, in your estimation - seeing as you are an expert - what % of European population would this kind of scenario kill? For the game we have been using 90% as a default, and then consider modelling in the game roughly 1000:1 (so if 2008 nuked norway has 300,000 people, we would have 300 NPCs or so). Maybe more "brainless" ones with no dialog.

 

Sure, it is fine for a video game. A completely realistic video game would probably be pretty boring. All I wanted to suggest is that when a departure from realism is made, it should be made with the knowledge of what the realistic outcome would have been. I am glad that that maxim is being followed.

 

It is actually precisely my philosophy.

[mvBarracuda]

Yes! It's Monday again, that means it's time for yet another news update ) As always: lots of progress over the course of the last week so I'll keep things short and you simply click through the various links if you find a topic of interest.

 

This time we're looking out for graphics artists and musicians who would like to get their hands dirty by contributing to the project. To give them something to do, the proper infrastructure needs to be in place as well, so our graphics artist Lamoot created a first Blender rendering setup as starting point. Furthermore we decided to set up an asset repository to find out if it offers any advantage for contributors who would like to avoid wrestling with SVN and other VCS solutions that are more geared towards tech-savvy users.

 

There are some new starting points for interested programmers and some reinforcements have already arrived as well. We're currently working on a playground for the writers to test the story format while trying to retain an overview by maintaining a per milestone ToDo list.

 

Zenbitz got his hands dirty again as well and elaborates on use and study-based learning and the next (prolly rather short) news update will already arrive at Friday as I'm traveling to The Hague at Saturday.

 

Interested in all the details? Check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog )