10/1/24

Thank you to everyone who stopped by my booth last Saturday! It was a pleasure to talk to you all, and to see so many people interested in my game. I’m looking forward to exhibiting at some other conventions upstate as well!  

With the second edition getting further and further along, I’ve updated the pricing on the first edition. Online book orders will be 30$ plus shipping, PDFs will now be 15$. Westside is now 10$. DriveThruRPG prices will be updated soon. I’m still not set on a monetization model for the second edition yet. A lot to do and think about.

Shawn.

7/25/24

Time marches on. Hey, what's up. Not much, how about you? In my absence I’ve been learning a lot, working on some small teams. I can’t talk about it too much, but nothing has been released. I think it's common when you're making games for work to just… disappear. It reminds me of my youth, making levels no one would ever play on. TDOTS never had many sales, but it’s real. I can hold it.

So I’m making something real again. Moonlighting like it's 2015. The second edition of TDOTS has been under development for a couple of months now. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Ten more classes, fifteen more races, max level is now twenty-one up from eight. The world has been greatly expanded, and there will be better tools to start the game. I’m going to try a different approach to monetization. I’m looking for a decent publisher, thinking about Patreon as an option, and making the game pay-what-you-want. Sales on this site have always been pitiful, so I stopped paying for the privilege. Playtesting has already started, and the book is nearing half completion. My workflow has improved a lot and I’ve been feeling a lot better lately.

Shawn.

4/29/23

Big sale from big Shawn. Happy May, I hope summer will be nice. 70% off. Sale ends the 13th. Grab both the TDOTS rulebook and the Westside mod for the price of a large sub! Use code “ BIGSPRING ”.

For actual news, not much to show. I’ve been doing a lot of writing and learning. A sci-fi short story I need to edit, a couple of chapters for a novel project, and some stuff for the games I’m working on. All this stuff might show up in my writing portfolio but I want to keep that fairly curated. So who knows. Probably. Oh! And I picked up Suisei’s SPECTER, that album is awesome. I’m not super into vtubers but I’m 100% into that music god damn.

Also I totally forgot to link that TTS mod I made here. Whoops.
Here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2919386016

1/15/23

So its been a little bit. Happy new year! I’ve been going hard at the job search and doing some other fun projects. One you’ll see soon, but I had to do something else first. Something prompted by a company I already had some problems with before about how they treated their properties. Big business is going to be big business, but I encourage you to go and read the description of Stone-Throwing Devils. It is a perfect irony, and describes the situation better than I could. So in response, I am releasing a “Shareware” version of TDOTS. It’s about 40 pages and will give you everything you need to start playing, as well as a little tutorial encounter for players to cut their teeth on.

A link to it is HERE , as well as on the main TDOTS page. Stay tuned for a weird one day board game challenge I did. I still need to figure out some bugs in Tabletop Simulator. But I did finish it in one day!

4/23/22

Hello! 

I just got back from ECGC in North Carolina and it was awesome. If I met you and gave you a card, thanks for checking out my stuff! Also allow me to personally thank:

• Sid at Inxile for talking with me, I hope you and the team find the game cool!

• Dr. Hall for his panel on ttRPG design and for staying around after to chat.

• Ryan Grady for the portfolio review, hope you like my game as well.

• Thanks to Paxton and the others at the FUNCOM booth! Also a big thanks to the other two guys for talking to me about old MMOs! I don’t think I ever got your names, but I hope you guys find my game fun.

• Thank you Graham and Sasha for the elevator interview!

• And thank you to the guys at Solanimus for showing me your game and taking my card! 

Also a general thanks to the people I met and talked to throughout the con, it was pretty sick. Anyone feel free to reach out to the email on my card anytime. My phone number was also there if you prefer to call, if you do so please leave a message so I can get back to you!

Shawn.

2/1/22

Hey, it’s Shawn! The module, TDOTS: Westside, is done! You can pick it up to play HERE for $19.99! The DriveThuRPG version will be posted soon after this post goes up (HERE). I don’t plan on releasing physical versions of Westside at this point. I've been working hard to make this an experience to remember. Please enjoy it!

As for the future, who knows! I’m stopping dev time on my personal projects to try and get something moving. I’ve been treading water for two years at this point and I need to move forward. I know everyone lost a good chunk of 2020, and all of 2021, but it’s not like we get to cash in that time later. 

And to catch up with the wonderful people I met at RIT, I never was able to make a return after the second shutdown. Also, I don’t think I was even allowed in the first place after reading your club rules. And to top it all off, Millennium and Just Games (the two closest LGS I have) have not started any more in-game play that isn't directly related to DnD, Warhammer, or MTG/Yugioh/Cardfight, so I have had ZERO events in two years to even go to. 

I’ve also had people telling me to go to conventions, and that was a no-go. In years past independents may have had a space at these events, but there wasn't a single one I could go to without dropping over a grand on flights and booth fees. And if I may add my own two cents, what conventions? Everything shut down again before the circuit had a chance to start back up. There were some in Florida that I could have stayed with some friends to go to, but none of them were even board game related.

The last year hasn't been hard per say, but incredibly uneventful. And for housekeeping, I know I haven't uploaded any of the expanded creatures yet. They just got pushed back and back and honestly I forgot about them. But, then again, no one has ever commented that they’re not there. So, uh… I'll get to it eventually.

I hope you have a wonderful day. And thank you very much for reading.

6/1/21

Hey, not much to report. I’ve been applying for some video game positions, some quest and world design jobs, and I’m still chugging along with the module. After my two week break from my last post my parents got a puppy so I’ve had less and less work time. But now that they’re a few months grown I can get back to it. I’ve kept up with practicing drawing fundamentals, as you do. Here’s a sketch of Yoshi P (the FF14 and now FF16 guy) I did the other day for practice:

I also started to learn Japanese as a hobby which has been fun. My brother has been, in his words, “conversational” in Japanese for a few years so he’s been helping with directing me on resources and what to learn first. My friend picked it up alongside me so it keeps motivation for it high. And with restrictions in NY lifting I can start in-person play sessions! If your LGS is in the Rochester area I might be there, and I’m going to look into the RIT/UofR public clubs to see whats up. Anywho, I hope you’re having a wonderful day and thanks for reading.

2/20/21

It only took about a year, due in part to the world almost collapsing, but the books are finally in and printed. And they look incredible. After all this time it really is surreal seeing my early design ideas, like the colored-coded spine, in reality.

Also, it gives it a distinct look. At any rate, I will be gone from the 26th to the 14th, so any physical orders won’t be shipped until I get back. I think I’ll still be able to check my email, however, depending on how much time I’ll have. Digital orders, from me or Drivethru, will always be available and have instant delivery!

02/11/21

Hello, Shawn here. Fist and foremost, I’ve got printing! So physical copies should be ready for immediate order any day, and I can take that disclaimer off of the TDOTS page. In other news: Over the past months or so I’ve been mentioning a module I'm working on for TDOTS, and I wanted to give and update on how that's going. In short, good and bad. For starters, not much has been done on the original module I wanted to release, which is in the style of a desert trail-game (like Oregon Trail). I got very distracted with a new and much more interesting idea, at least to me. A module that puts you in the shoes of a GTA police officer, so to speak. Let me explain. It takes place in one district of a large city, a city that has four total. So each subsequent module could add a new district, like unlocking islands in GTAIV. I should note I am not releasing these like this for the money, I would just want time developing each part of the city to an equal quality level. It would mainly consist of maps, main cases, sidequests, and random encounters with the people of the city. And of course, having you interpret the laws of the city to administer justice as you see fit. With other restrictions like a political hierarchy, a miseducated population, and a fantastical post-ww1 type society. 

I think the inspiration is due to playing some Yakuza games recently, and they made me appreciate the strength of single city RPGs. Honestly I would love to see Cyberpunk do the same, just keep building onto Night City and adding more depth with each game. THe problem with Cyberpunk was they tried to do a lengthy single player RPG, and build a gigantic detailed openworld along with it. And now that you have the world, just use it again and put all of your dev time into the story, set dressing, and expanded RPG elements.

Anyway, that module may come out first. The book has already been designed; emulating a police handbook that gives a rundown of your given equipment, the laws, local gang colors, your overall creed and objective as an officer, all that stuff. To be honest, I don’t even know if these things exist in real life. I know they do for the military, I’ve used them in rebranding projects before. They have a ton of cool illustrations in them, very technical but interesting. A lot of 3/4ths angel exploded diagrams. I also realize that the political climate in America generally does not feel great about police officers, but I hope those who would be interested can understand that this is not a politically motivated thing. I just think it would make for great fantasy fiction. So look forward to that stuff!

Also I am recording the playtesting for the police module, so I might upload our sessions for fun on the YouTube channel. I would just need to clean them up a bit, as not everything a group of friends does or says in private is exactly… good for the public. Maybe a highlight video would work better.

12/25/20

Digital copies of “The Days of the Sun” will be 66% off until Jan. 3rd! Merry Christmas, and happy holidays.

11/24/20

Finally! A tutorial video for TDOTS! I go through the entirety of character creation with you in 34 minutes, as well as explain some of the mechanics you’ll be encountering while playing. With a surprise cameo from one of my wonderful playtesters telling you “How do I level up?”.

I also talk about my journey into advertising, failing to secure physical production, getting to know some people at my local hobby store, and getting stuck after the world shut down. Enjoy! Click here or the image banner of Stone the Rock to watch.

11/23/20

Heeey finally got a new landing page. This one is going to be more of a blog-thing for updates on what I’m doing. And I figure I might as well update anyone curious about my recent goings-on.

Work on the module has been good. It should be ready to go into layout and design by the new year. I’m changing up how I design this book a bit, some might say for the better, but I have heard good criticism about the style change. First, it’s only going to be digital. This gives me a lot more freedom with what I can do with layout design, especially coloring and with illustrations. The OG TDOTS had a ton of design decisions infuenced by the fact that I needed the book to be cheap to print. Low sales volume is a deathblow to printing, especially if you have full color books. TDOTS only had 30% of its pages be “full color”, with about 20% being spot color, and the remaining 50% as B&W. Also, zero full bleed illustrations or backgrounds.

You’ll also see the full image in the new character creation tutorial video I’m putting up. Well, it’s call a “system introduction”, because I also talk about a bunch of the rules and mechanics. Anyway, a keen eye-looker might see that it is, in fact, a new class. However, the class is not going to be included in the module. The class is part of 8 or so more classes I’ve been designing for a future expansion of sorts. One that cleans up a few mistakes I made in the rules, like clarifying what spells target multiple creatures or target the area multiple creatures are standing in. The latter meaning there is no roll to hit.

To give a brief introduction to this class, it is indeed a pyromancer. One of my personal favorite fantasy spellcasting tropes. This pyromancer, like many before it, suffers greatly from their power. Physically, mentally, and socially. Some of their class mechanics include: having to roll a harmful backfire effect from the spell you are casting, death is more costly than you might first think, and most of your spells target areas not creatures. The opposite of how the Mage was designed in TDOTS, a scholarly use of magic built upon cost efficient exchanges with delayed and escalating value, the pyromancer is costly, instant, and mostly unavoidable burst damage that is recklessly employed to the point that it may cost the life of you, or one of your party members. Honestly playtesting this class has put a smile on my face. It works beautifully. Last session a level 8 pyromancer just did 65 damage to herself after casting some setup spells, instantly downing her before she could actually cast anything at the enemy. Then the party starts asking “Wait, dead dead? Not dead dead right?” followed by “You better detonate if you just died! You can’t not, you owe me this.” and then “No no, don’t listen to Boarfrost, please.” It works perfect. She didn’t die if you are wondering, yet at least. We didn’t finish the whole fight. That’s next session. Anywho- this is a long first post here. Look forward to things! Buy my game! It’s fun I swear…