Another review of In Between (Polish version)

Yet again, I was poking around over at RPG Kepos only to find that In Between has been reviewed again. It got a positively glowing review this time, no doubt thanks to the great layout and translation work done by the RPG Kepos team.

This time the review comes from Poltergeist, a Polish blog interested in all kinds of geeky things. The review scores were broken down into a number of different categories, but all of them came out as either 8 or 9 out of 10. I don’t have a lot to say about the review this time around. The reviewer didn’t really mention anything they didn’t like about the game for me to think about. Man, I hate it when they only have nice things to say!

It seems a common theme between this review and the last are that the mechanics for the game are really good. This is great news since back when I originally submitted In Between to Game Chef the main complaint was that the mechanics were weak. The game has come a long way since then and moved away from the Universalis-style bidding to something much different. The game still uses a power economy, but that economy is built within the confines of ritualized components and twisting narrative decisions. It is a much different beast from what it was two years ago.

Categories: In Between, Poland, Poltergeist, RPG Kepos

A review of In Between (Polish version)

I was browsing the posts over at RPG Kepos and discovered that their Polish translation of In Between has been reviewed, and positively at that.

The review was from a blog named K20 and got a score of 3 our 5 which, if I understand the comments, is a pretty good score coming from this particular reviewer. One of the issues that the reviewer had with In Between is that The Wasteland was too empty and with too little direction. I can’t say I can disagree with this, The Wasteland acts as a gateway in the game. The players meet each other there, learn about the afterlife and in some cases may become involved in a conflict with a demon. While I can’t see removing The Wasteland phase from the game as it is by far the most evocative aspect of the setting, I can certainly see putting a little more flesh on its bones.

The second issue that K20 brought up was that they felt that the demons are an unnecessary component of the game. I’m not sure I can agree with that one. The demons fill three roles in the game, the first is as a threat to the characters. The demons are there to add an element of danger and drama, something that can pose a threat in all of the phases of the game. The second role they fill is as a balancing mechanic. They exist to counter exorcists (and vice versa). Finally, they provide an alternate path for players to take in the game, they answer the question of “What happens when I do evil/selfish things in the mortal realm?” In fact, through playtesting I soon found that players wanted to be able to go down a darker road. A lot of the demon rules did not exist until version 2 of the game, prior that they had mostly acted as set dressing. So no, I don’t agree that they are unnecessary. Players want to have that darker option, even if they won’t use it. They want to know what happens if they don’t try and redeem themselves. If someone wants to play a game more centered around personal exploration, without the threat of demons (and possibly exorcists), then I think they should go right ahead and do it. It’s very easy to houserule out that portion of the game. Perhaps I should talk a little about that in an Optional Rules/Tweaks section. The Polish version of the game actually has a section like that where the translators added a few house rules that they like to use and I see no reason not to add it to the English version.

The final thing that K20 didn’t seem to enjoy was that the game is GMless. That’s far from surprising. Story games, especially GMless ones, are a very small niche of the RPG world. In this case the reviewer likes to have someone in the role of GM to guide the game, they aren’t interested in sharing that role. That’s fine, not everyone enjoys sharing that role and I can’t hold matters of personal taste against the reviewer.

Those things out of the way, it was still a positive review of the game. The reviewer thought that the mechanics were solid, the theme was interesting and the game was entertaining. Perhaps not to their personal tastes, but entertaining nonetheless. I’ll chew on their criticisms for a while and see if I can make the updated English version even better.

Speaking of the English version: yes, it is on the way. I haven’t forgotten about it, I’ve just been busy with other things. Tweet, the fellow that did the layout for the Polish version, supplied me with some layout and logo files that will make this the nicest version yet. I also have the revised set of rules that was hammered out in the back and forth during the translation. This means that the Polish version is actually more up to date than English version because they translated from my in progress new edition and not from the published second edition. Layout work is slow going, but I hope to have this finished up sometime in the summer.

Categories: In Between, K20, Poland, RPG Kepos

There is now a Polish version of In Between.

Just like the headline says, the folks over at RPG Kepos that reviewed In Between so long ago have actually gone and translated the game into Polish. This was the last thing I ever expected to come of a game I made in 10 days for Game Chef almost two years ago.

As if translating a game from English to Polish wasn’t enough work, the Polish version of the game is quite a bit nicer than mine. They secured the rights to some artwork, got a nice layout put together, and generally prettied things up in ways I couldn’t even begin to do on my own. I got in touch with their layout designer, Tweet, and he agreed to send me that files he used to gussy-up the game so hopefully I can make the English version look almost as nice some time in the near future.

I’ve actually been emailing back and forth with RPG Kepos while they worked on this project and between clarifications on rules and additional playtesting done by their team the rules were reworked and added to. There have been enough changes to the rules that it wouldn’t be remiss to call the Polish edition version 2.5 of In Between. One of the highlights of the new additions are rules for taking a more demonic path rather than the path to redemption. While I have a copy of these updated rules in borrowing old .doc format, there isn’t a nice PDF in English available. Those updated rules will make it into the version using Tweet’s layout which will probably show up whenever I have a free weekend to work on this stuff.

You can see the Polish version by visiting RPG Kepos, which I have handily provided as a translated google link. If you’d like to just go straight to the PDF then click here.

Categories: In Between, Poland, RPG Kepos, Translation

A review of the In Between 2.0 from Poland

Those Polish gamers are at it again. This time they have played my revised version of In Between and it looks like they had a pretty good time with it. You can read their review here. It does happen to be in Polish, though.

The review author was kind enough to send me the gist of it via email. It sounds like most of their problems were due to vagueness in the writing, something that I’ll definitely fix when I get around to updating the game again. They also spotted a few mistakes. Whoops, looks like I need to spend more time proofreading. They seemed pretty happy with the less competitive nature of the game and the system mechanics rework.

I love hearing from people that have played my games so please let me know if you give them a try.

Categories: In Between, Poland, RPG, RPG Kepos

In Between v2 is finished.

I’ve spent a lot of time procrastinating in regards to the second version of In Between. I’ve had all kinds of notes and ideas sitting in a dropbox folder for months, but when it came down to compiling them all I just kept putting it off.

No more! I sat down this week and put them all into the lackluster layout that is the official version of In Between. Those of you that are actually interested will want to know what is new. To help with that I have provided this handy list:

• No longer requires more six sided dice than any reasonable person owns.
• Play now moves through distinct phases and provides a more on topic and ritualized way of playing.
• The narration control system has changed significantly from a very open universalis-like approach to one more focused variety.
• This means less direct competition between players.
• The Power economy has been reworked to require less dice rolling and has a few more quirks than before.
• Much less competitive than before. You don’t need to possess a mortal in order to fulfill your atonement goals.
• Demons have been fleshed out. They actually affect the game now and more selfish characters can walk down the demonic path.
• Exorcists have been added to the game. A new threat (or ally) in the quest for redemption.

There are a few other things, but that'll give you a good idea. The game has gained around 4 pages of new content all in all. It still lacks a lot of examples and those may eventually come if I do another revision.

I’ve put the game up on Google Docs, so check it out! 

Categories: In Between, Release, RPG

A New Version of Seedfall + More In Between News

As promised, I’ve put together another version of Seedfall that contains a number of changes and (I hope) improvements. I’ve added quite a bit more background information to the setting, mostly because people wanted to know a bit more about what kind of technology they have at their disposal. There has also been some major changes to The Seed, specifically puppeteers. I’ve made them significantly scarier at the cost of the overall viciousness of being impaled by a vine. Still, the change is for the best and I think making them inhalable so that they might fill your lungs and then squirm their way out of your mouth more than makes up for it. I also added an entire section on role playing as a colonist or puppet along with specific rules related to becoming a puppet, cures, and other puppet features. There are quite a bit more changes since the game grew by quite a few pages, but the changes are escaping me at this time.

You can get the latest version here.

I’ve discovered another quick review of In Between, this one is quite a bit more favourable than the official Game Chef one, but also not as in depth. It's short, so I'm going to quote it entirely:

The Good: Stuck between worlds trying to atone for sins? I love the concept and I like how the bidding system works with the dice and your power pools. It gets harder the more you accomplish because you lose power.

The Bad: Dice, lots and lots of dice. You need at least 15d6 per person. If one theme this year is maps, the other one would be dice.

The Other: I love how striking the title page is. It’s simple black and white, but it really made me interested in the game.

Would I play it? Yes, several times because apparently like a cat I have nine lives.

Thanks to Jonathan for his quick thoughts. He has also gone through and done the rest of the 58 Game Chef entries. What a job! Check out his blog.

Categories: In Between, RPG, Seedfall

A review from Poland.

I also got a very cool email last night from a group of people that had played my Game Chef entry. The neat thing is that they're all the way in Poland! They liked the game but had many of the same problems that came up in the Game Chef judging. Looks like I'm going to be hard at work getting a better ruleset put together.

If you can read Polish then go ahead and check out their review. I found Google Translate did a good enough job to get the general idea across.

Categories: In Between, Poland, RPG, RPG Kepos

In Between didn’t make the Game Chef cut.

Not everyone can win and I'm glad I wasn't the person that did. There are many games better than mine that were submitted to Game Chef. I liked In Between, but I knew that it was a mess mechanically when I submitted it. That's what slapping a game together in just a few days will do if you aren't careful.

Here are the judge's comments:

Concept: Players take the roles of dead souls traveling back into the mortal world through reflective pools in the Wasteland, a purgatory-like afterlife, and attempting to make amends for their crimes and regrets. The first player who removes all their fetters to the living world can enter the Golden City, a different and hopefully better afterlife.

Execution: This author was nice enough to include a very simple, sketchy layout, but it does wonders for the ease of reading and understanding the text. Nested subheadings, woohoo! I feel spoiled, almost. Overall, this game takes a couple steps forward compared to some of the other abstract and setting-free games in terms of providing a attractive premise that is substantially more provocative. The Wasteland, its silver pools, and the Golden City all sound pretty awesome. Plus, seeking to make amends and fulfill regrets is both emotionally and narratively powerful. However, this game continues an apparent trend of taking a GMless game of personal exploration and structuring it by having the players (if not necessarily the characters) compete directly with each other using limited mechanical resources. This trend is especially striking to me because it does not seem very natural to match the mechanics of inter-player competition to the theme of individual exploration, yeah? When you watch The Fountain or American Beauty, is Universalis the first game that comes to mind? Probably not. And yet several designers have made just that connection, which suggests that inter-player competition may be the sort of dynamic they feel most comfortable designing around. But there are other ways – Polaris, Great Ork Gods, Geiger Counter, Fiasco, Montsegur 1244, etc. – to design GMless games and encourage other players to take on NPC or antagonist roles without putting the players themselves in direct competition to win. I feel like this game and several others may have been more successful if they’d taken a different route and created a more cooperative GMless dynamic between the players, which might have also led to more innovative mechanics. I don’t mean to pick on this game overly much in this regard, but just wanted to point this out explicitly since it’s at least the third or fourth game to do it.

Completeness: There is some missing text between pages 5-6, describing demons. Otherwise, there are some places where the “power” token economy seems to have issues. For example, there doesn’t appear to be any incentive to spend tokens on narrative control if players are ultimately trying to spend them on winning control of possessed mortals and resolving their issues. I also wish there were more guidelines for what was supposed to happen either in the Wasteland or the mortal world, because right now that’s entirely open-ended, even though it comprises the vast majority of play. Additionally, as with some of these other GMless games of personal exploration, I wonder if the game could be strengthened if the various characters could actually meet each other in the Wasteland or mortal world and interact directly. That seems possible according to the premise and maybe even the rules, but isn’t discussed at all. Finally, what’s the point of having these different classes of dead souls – wanderers, unmarked, and demons – if they players don’t get to choose or explore which one their character ultimately is? Seems like a wasted opportunity.

Cookery: The theme is definitely here, and the ingredients are well included. The author did a clever and evocative job with the requirements here. Very impressive.

Conclusion: The solid premise of this game makes it at least as strong as the World Riddle, perhaps more so, and ultimately more narratively compelling than Symbolon and If Wishes Were Horses, I think. However, like the other games mentioned, which all operate in similar thematic space, this game needs a bit more work if the rules are truly going to support the potential of the premise. I really want to see a game in this vein make the playoffs, but I haven’t quite found one yet.

As you can see, they aren't all bad. It looks like they quite liked the premise. That's good because I’d thought the setting was the strong point and my actual game mechanics were the stumbling block. All of the judge's criticisms are valid and I’m already working on putting together a version of the game that does away with competitive structure. No idea when that will be done.

Speaking of games that will eventually get some work done on them; a new version of Seedfall is forthcoming. It should see the light of day sometime in the next week.

Categories: Game Chef, In Between, RPG