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by M Charles

'Ello, M. Charles here. Back so soon? Yes... the dev updates will slow down soon, I promise.

PART VI: WHAT IS THIS SIM YOU SPEAK OF?

Returning back to something I said in the first log, I've always wanted a D&D-like experience but as an actual board game. But I struggled to figure it out. And I'm still uncertain. Early days. But let's walk through it a little bit.

To be clear: it's not an exact immersive sim, since we're talking about a board game here, not a video game. What defines such a sim?

(1) Environmental storytelling (i.e. Dark Souls, Fallout, Uncharted)

(2) Semi-sandbox/player-driven

(3) 'They do not readily use scripted or fixed events. Instead, they use a consistent series of rules and systems throughout the game.' (Mark Brown.)

At the same time, I was inspired by things like RuneScape (2001-) (a very particular MMORPG), Kya: Dark Lineage (2003) (a PS2-only action RPG); and things like CrossFire (1996) (a turnless miniatures wargame, akin to Blood Bowl's turnover system). I was also inspired by two particular types of RPGs: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017). The former played a vital role in getting me from A to B (that is, the concept of 'two worlds'), and the latter helped inform the entire design approach, in terms of sandbox, 'open world' design, and the idea of survival RPG (Cooking/Food, etc.), which feeds nicely into other games and related subsystems, including Resident Evil 4, RuneScape, and Dark Souls. I borrowed from dozens of other games, too. For example, The Swindle (2015) has the mechanic, where you can choose to cut your loses and leave early (safer route; less reward). At the moment, I've taken this mechanic for Red Delve. Meaning, if you don't want to play to the end of the Dungeon, or don't think you can make it -- you can simply leave at the indicated Exit.

Anyway, 'Immersive sim' is simply the best I could come up with, in terms of defining the entire project at this level of analysis. But it's clearly moving in a hybrid direction -- semi-immersive sim, action Roguelite, card-driven, survival sandbox board game, and so on. Mainly 'and so on'.

There are a few ways to go about this. The most common one is... book-keeping. I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. The real trick is making such a system work without much book-keeping or a dungeon master (of course, since the game is solo). I have a few ideas, but I won't know exactly what to do until the prototyping stage. I just wanted to leave this with you. Know that I have ideas, and I'll hammer it into place until it works.

I'll give you one random example. Quests. How would Quests work within a sim framework, without book-keeping? I'm thinking about two directions:

(1) The solo player is also the dungeon master. You must slowly build the way as you play, and decide what happens. To avoid this being too TTRPG-like, it would require some book-keeping, where the book tells you what happened. One benefit here is that you can slowly improve and discover new methods and tactics each run, just like a video game Roguelite. The negative is that it requires a lot of reading and memory.

(2) The environment informs the player. You must interact with the world, such as an NPC, and you instantly get the outcome you desire as to progress forward. For example, let's say you really want to start a Quest. The Quest NPC you seek turns up. It just happens. This method is amusing, in that it creates a feeling of coincidence -- this works well with the tonal story, but may feel cheap/wrong to certain players. It has the advtange of being both narrative-driven and streamlined/anti-bookkeeping.


PART VII: WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

Not much. At the moment, I'm just defining the story and overall game approach, from the player's viewpoint. I'm also still working on the cast of characters, the sci-fi elements, and a few other things. Often, a modern story comes in song, or is closely identified with a song. Lyrics from Anya Marina's song 'Move You' -- as opposed to a more traditional source, such as Dylan -- come to mind, in this case:

'Manifesting men of all kinds in my spare time /
But oh, how I struggled in vain /
To solve this riddle with my brain /
When the answer's in my hands /
So I'm gonna move you around /
Got to turn you inside out...'

Somehow, that is the mood of the game (though without the sexual overtones, of course), of the narrative, and of the player (not unlike Gloomhaven, with all its classes and puzzles and riddles, and tactical card-driven combat).

The question is this: how much do I want? How much of this; how much of that?

It's easy enough, making a puzzle game, or RPG, or deckbuilder, or sandbox, or TTRPG, or Roguelite, or print & play game. It's not so easy to know what to keep, and to what degree, and of what kind, and for what mechanical and deeper narrative purpose, and in relation to what psychometric profile, or even meta-narrative. (Is he done yet?) Or deck construction instead of deckbuilding, or open open-style gameplay, or the exact type of 'dungeon', or how Soulslike it should be; and should it be real-time or turn-based combat? And what kind of combat should there be? And what is the progression system like? And what of the metaprogression, across runs? (No, really. Is he done yet?) Then, we must consider the Shop/currency system, and the exact nature of the upgrades and unlocks. Just how much 'stuff' is there to keep track of -- floating modifiers, visual trackers, actual component trackers?; all cards or dice and cards? What about 'Skins' as character unlocks, instead of power progression? And have you considered type of input randomness? What about surprise-based output randomness? And the list goes on, and it never stops.

Sometimes you're inspired by something. Let's pause. When somebody says, 'inspired by', what they tend to mean is either 'based on' or 'borrowed' (and this is often termed 'stealing'; incorrectly in my view). I don't use the term 'stealing' in this context. I want to get a little system clear in our minds, if you don't mind? See below, the 6 Layers of Taking Stuff.

Layer 1: Actual legal theft (moral or not; by the author's permission or not). Taking a copyright/trademark, etc. from the company in question (sometimes, if it's personal usage or not-for-profit, you can get away with this; otherwise, you never can, legally). In other words -- 'stealing'.

Layer 2: Legally copying, in some direct fashion, a part of a work or the whole work (e.g. rewriting Harry Potter, with sufficient changes as to avoid the law). In other words -- 'copying' or 'direct copying'.

Layer 3: Basing your work on another. Not quite as tight or a strict 1:1 mapping compared with layer 2, but not extremely loose or 'reimagined', either. In other words -- 'indirect copying' or 'based on'.

Layer 4: Creating a 'reimagining' of another work. This is often looser than simply 'based on', but it nonetheless a transplant, in part or whole. For example, taking Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and turning it into a sci-fi piece. That's a reimagining. You've fundamentally changed its scope or setting or style, but you've kept most of the details, names, story, characters, and themes intact. If you plan to sell this, or make a film or video game, for example, then this layer requires legal permission (or that the work be in the public domain). In other words -- 'reimagining'.

Layer 5: Borrowing from sources. The implication is that it's not only legal but the author is fine with it, or has been dead so long that it's a non-factor (at least, you're in control of how much of a factor it is) -- and the other implication is that it's not only moral but normal, common, or even necessary. Such items, images, and archetypes include 'goblin' and 'wife' and 'wizard' and 'dark castle'. In other words -- borrowing.

Layer 6: Being inspired by sources. The implication here is that your work is very different; in fact, it may be impossible to even see the inspiration or source material. It may have just sparked something by association, or in terms of lateral thinking. Otherwise, it's typically subtle enough that you'll only see it if you already know the source and/or went looking for it. (This feeds into a related concept or semi-layer: homage/reference/Easter Egg. This is when you actually nest something, such as a number or proper noun, within your work as a kind of in-joke.) In other words -- 'inspired by'.

What was I inspired by? Many things. And as I just indicated, you won't find them in the game -- or, you'll have to really look, and draw connections. One such example is Portal 2 (2011). What I was interested in here was the rich companion/secondary character type nature of Wheatley. I coupled this with a few other game ideas (including the Cat/Dog in the Stardew Valley (2021) board game). That led to my companion mechanic, which was now a composite sketch: it was inspired by a game, and it directly borrowed from a few other games, and it was based on various English mythological creatures. This isn't new, it's just one of many things I didn't touch on before. But it seems to have come up, now.

I don't know how you guys feel about this, but I'm in love with the idea. He's a large black dog/wolf called Shuck (pronounced 'shook'). You can use a black pawn for him, or any dog/wolf miniature you like. This grounds the player even further, and the hero of the story/gameplay. The idea is five-fold (try saying that five times fast):

(1) Shuck helps the player as a comeback mechanic (when you die, he appears to help -- or something).
(2) Shuck is a Companion reward after defeating him as a Mini-Boss.
(3) Shuck allows for interesting, two-character gameplay and puzzle-solving.
(4) Shuck has unique abilities/playstyle, that gives the player more tactics and variety.
(5) Shuck is a vital story element, grounding both the hero character (since it's practically the only non-scifi element) and the player.

You can let me know what you think about this. I'll likely make a poll about it, anyway, for more direct feedback. But not yet.

Okay. I'm going to leave you, now. Next time, I'll move towards prototyping (I think). See you then.

by M Charles

'Ello, M. Charles here, and this is the second dev log for my upcoming solo print & play Roguelite game.

Housekeeping

First, I want to say something. I'm sorry if the last log is a bit messy. Although I indicated that I would go through my 100,000 words of notes and carefully construct a dev log, I actually went through this process mentally. It's more natural and much quicker, but can lead to errors and confusions. If you thought it was fine, then that's even better! Either way, I'm flying blind again.


PART IV: BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME

Note: The part system will carry over between dev logs.

I said in the last dev log that I never planned for a Roguelite/like. I should briefly go over some of the gaps here, and even earlier dev. It all began (and I mean it this time... well) roughly 3 weeks ago. (I don't want to jump into anything earlier than 3 weeks ago, because it would be overindulgence.)

The moment I saw the (fairly) new map for Gloomhaven (Second Edition) (2025), I knew instantly that I wanted to create my own rich, vast, non-Legacy video gamey dungeon crawler. The concept of a large print & play was in my mind already. This was merely the vehicle for it. And I already had a few narrative and worldbuilding projects, and possible genre hybrid ideas, in the back of my mind. It was just a question of stitching them all together.

The game went through all kinds of changes. It started as a Gloomhaven homebrew. Then it became an original dungeon crawler, but was directly compatible with many components from Gloomhaven. And as I slowly added more to the game, or took certain elements away, the Gloomhaven of it all began to fade, too. That's around the time there was enough of an opening to shift gears from some kind of 'campaign-based, story-driven game' to 'Roguelite'. Of course, I still had a lot of story in my mind -- one of the biggest obstacles was figuring out how to create a story-rich Roguelite board game.

But the biggest shift happened next: science fantasy. Let's pause for a moment. The entire project -- some 200 hours -- consisted of dungeon crawling elements, Roguelite mechanics, and a fantasy setting. I was inspired by Dark Souls, Labyrinth (1986), and dozens of other fantasy video games, board games, and films (since I'm more of a video gamer, miniatures gamer, and cinephile than strict board gamer or writer -- and I'm quite a visual person). More on this sci-fi backdrop in a moment.


PART V: ENTER THE SPACESHIP; OR, THE MANY PARENTS OF THIS BABY

You know almost as much as I do, now. But I should try to show you what's in my head (ooh, I wouldn't).

My vision is this:

Middle Ages knight (a Northern English mythology) finds a Relic, and is transported into the far future (same location). In the 'old world', the area was a fantasy dungeon. In the 'future world', it's a metal-dungeon.

I left out a few ideas and central mechanics and subsystems, too. Here is an image with some inspirational tags.



I have no idea what I mean by 'GH attack mod cards' -- likely just a GH-like system for combat and/or upgrades, as opposed to using dice. The Labyrinth (1986) comment, Dark Souls comment, and Spelunky comment are likely known to you. All this really means is that I want the core gameplay to be Roguelite/like, and I want to use the Bonfire-style checkpoint and interaction system, coupled with the Healing/Flask system. But we'll see. Labyrinth tone and style, for those who don't know, is grounded in Anglo-American magic, and a few other things thrown in. And it's extremely satirical and sardonic, but it's also quite archetypal and psychological; and has a few monsters and interesting companions, too. (More on this at some point in the future.)

I ended the last log talking about the Blood Bowl miniature. If you've seen Labyrinth, then you know this is really just a mixture of characters, including Sir Didymus and Sarah herself. In my mind, he also has a lot in common with a few characters from The Princess Bride (1987).

Finally, the board itself, the Gloomhaven world map/tracker, and the Goblin idea (large ball-like monster; the mini is from Warhammer and is known as a Squig). My idea here is inspired by a few sources, including Dungeon Bowl (2021). Imagine playing a sport, but instead of playing with a ball, you're playing with a ball-like Goblin, with many teeth (and he enjoys using them).

And that's the big element I left out before: Dungeon Bowl/blood sport. At the moment, I don't know just how much of a sport the game wants to be. We'll figure out that in the prototyping stage, and when I create a few polls for feedback. At the moment, my idea is to create a hidden movement mechanic for the Goblin. You must track him down and kill him for good loot. He hides in the Dungeon.

Oh, I should also say: I'm still working on the actual narrative structure, along with the finer details in terms of the story, setting, timeline, technology, POV (narrative structure), and much more, including the simple issue of inner consistency (as Tolkien called it). At the moment, my idea is to see the 'future world' through the lens of our Middle Ages hero. He teleports to this world, after all. What does he know about it? Nothing. What we do, the player, know about it? Nothing. So, when I say 'Goblin', I really mean, 'sci-fi Goblin, but not a real Goblin, the hero just calls it a Goblin, because that's his reference point, from his own time period'. The wonderful thing about this approach is, it means I can intentionally create a grounded sci-fi mythology, slowly explain both the old world and the future world, and also leave the player with some mystery about the exact nature of the future world.

The mystery part is vital, as it feeds into the entire 'feel' I want for this game, or the implicit genre: survival horror. On this topic, I was inspired by things like Resident Evil 4 (2005). Don't worry -- if you dislike really slow, tedious, small inventory sort of experiences, I have a few ideas in mind. I really want players to have more choice and playstyles. If you want to be aggressive and fast-paced, you can do that; otherwise, you can sneak around -- well, like a rogue -- and play it a little safer. (I don't know the nature of the class systems, etc. yet, for those wondering about such things. All of that will really come out in the prototyping stage.)

Red Delve (placeholder name until we find the best title for it) asks a lot of the player, as you can see. And it has even more parents than this, too. But I really don't want to waste time by listing 200 sources of inspiration, and old Icelandic texts and English poems, and God knows what else. There's too much to mention. Instead, I'll mention things as I come to them. Speaking of which, I want to stress something about the image above: the map won't be that big. Just 4 large tiles (1x1 ft) will be required. If you don't own Necromunda, you can simply print off 4 tiles or create your own out of card stock or cardboard, or foam or even wood (if you personally find that method better/cheaper). This is the best I can do, and still ensure my vision makes it to the tabletop. In the end, you'll want a mid-sized table (at least 2x3 ft), and you may require a few additional storage areas or side-surfaces. I know this requires more playing area than most print & play games -- but we're also trying to create something much larger than most print & play games. I'm always trying to both create the smallest game possible and never sacrifice my -- what would otherwise be termed 'big box' -- game vision.

I'm leaving it here. I know this is a short dev log, but I want the next log to be about the future, not what I've already done. (I can always return to earlier development if I need to, of course.)

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