Hierophant
Posts: 782
10/13/2012
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Just realized I haven't advertised Zero Summer here yet!
From our updated game splat:
A GUNSLINGER WITH NO NAME. THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT. THE HISS OF UNNATURAL THINGS.
And you.
Nearly two decades after monsters cut the American southwest off from the rest of the United States, take the reins of A MAN WITH NO NAME in search of his own past and future.
You'll mix with preachers and gangsters and politicians, hunt down banditos and desperados, distill your own whiskey, and push back against the unnatural world. You'll explore the choice between finding your past and building tomorrow. You might even shoot a monster.
All before you've finished your morning coffee.
Our first major content block, Day 1, has been open to the public for a little while. It covers more than 100 storylets and takes about 500 actions to play through.
Why might you be interested in Zero Summer? Well: do you like westerns? Cyberpunk? Quentin Tarantino? Gravity's Rainbow? Firefly? Because we do -- and it shows.
We've also got this development thread and Facebook page we think you might like.
Thanks for your time. Now GO TRY IT OUT! 
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Head Writer
Zero Summer
zerosummer@outlook.com
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Hierophant
Posts: 782
10/20/2012
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Also we just released our first Nex-locked content!
You can learn more about it on our design thread. You can also just log in to Zero Summer and have a word with Absolom the Tinker at the Wall Market...
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Head Writer
Zero Summer
zerosummer@outlook.com
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iztarshi
Posts: 1
10/30/2012
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I'm making a game using UK folklore, about a brownie at a time when the fair folk are gathering to leave (driven out by church bells as per tradition). It covers the rather hectic time between having a lot of other fair folk gathering far too close to his/her humans' home and having to leave with the others him/herself.
It's not going to be a huge game - mostly I'm trying to get my head around the tools with the game equivalent of a short story.
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Matt Peairs
Posts: 12
11/4/2012
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Current idea: a murder mystery story. Kind of an Agatha Christie feel, with the player in the Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple role. You talk to people, search for clues, and maybe sneak around a bit to build up investigations into different parts of the story (the disgraced brother's motive, the unfaithful wife's alibi, etc).
I have this crazy idea about randomizing the killer's identity through a couple of coin flips in the initial storylets, but the sane thing to do is probably to write one version of the story first (while thinking ahead with respect to what might change in other scenarios).
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Jarvis Atwater
Posts: 7
11/30/2012
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I'm writing a hardboiled science fiction world. Hopefully it will be large enough world to stick around and play in.
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Hanon Ondricek
Posts: 417
12/1/2012
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I'm kind of inspired to try and invent a pure card game, using pinned cards for your "hand" and somehow battling against various other decks of cards. It would require a lot of thought.
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mobophone
Posts: 3
12/17/2012
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thinking about writing up a world where the player is a monk in medieval japan...it would probably be kind of large, so planning to work on it during comps year
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Hierophant
Posts: 782
12/17/2012
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mobophone wrote:
thinking about writing up a world where the player is a monk in medieval japan...
I would play that game.
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Head Writer
Zero Summer
zerosummer@outlook.com
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parmeisan
Posts: 6
2/28/2013
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Mine is a time travel game. I think part of the appeal would be that you can play someone from any time period. I have also made companions a big part of it, so that you can pick up allies whose abilities are very different from yours, and let them do things that are too hard for you to handle on your own.
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WillChapman
Posts: 2
6/23/2013
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Currently working on "Roma Aeterna", an alternate history sci-fi type thing set in a modern-day Imperial Rome. Here's my blurb:
"It's the 29th Century AUC. History marches forward, but the old empires never fall. Every teletheatrum screen broadcasts the propaganda of the Divus Imperator. The midnight-purple cars of the Praetorian Guard dog the movements of subversive citizens. The slums roil with ethnic tension and organised crime, foreign infiltrators play deadly games with the agents of the regime, and the Senate is sodden with corruption. Only the sick-minded call this "the civilised world".
Step into the sandals of a runaway slave seeking anonymity in the capital of the West, with a past best forgotten and wild dreams of a glorious future. Stay ahead of the authorities, manage relationships with mutually hostile religious and ethnic factions, and pursue your own murky agenda in a city that wants you dead. One false step could see you back in the slave barracks or face-down in the gutter, but Rome offers unique prospects to the ruthless, the talented and the astute. How far can you make it in Roma Aeterna?"
Be a while yet, but I'll keep you posted!
Will
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Hanon Ondricek
Posts: 417
6/23/2013
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Interesting idea. One thing I'm curious about: Are you essentially doing Rome as it was back then with technology or a modernized Rome that never fell? I ask because you mentioned sandals, and I always am wary of speculative historical fiction where they have spaceships but skipped all progress in between and still ride horses without a good reason (as, say in FIREFLY). You may have thought of this...like for example there are still gladiator battles with swords and togas as "tradition" even though the world is thoroughly modernized. Or, perhaps an alien culture dropped in and offered some limited technology that doesn't preclude a wood-and-stone age area. Just pondering!
edited by HanonO on 6/23/2013
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WillChapman
Posts: 2
6/23/2013
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Hanon Ondricek wrote:
Interesting idea. One thing I'm curious about: Are you essentially doing Rome as it was back then with technology or a modernized Rome that never fell? I ask because you mentioned sandals, and I always am wary of speculative historical fiction where they have spaceships but skipped all progress in between and still ride horses without a good reason (as, say in FIREFLY). You may have thought of this...like for example there are still gladiator battles with swords and togas as "tradition" even though the world is thoroughly modernized. Or, perhaps an alien culture dropped in and offered some limited technology that doesn't preclude a wood-and-stone age area. Just pondering!
edited by HanonO on 6/23/2013
Hi, thanks for the question, glad you find the idea interesting.
The story is actually set in the "present" - i.e. what we (and indeed the Christians, who are around in the story but decidedly in a minority) would call the 21st Century. When trying to work out what to do with things like technology and fashions, I decided to always take my lead from the culture. My approach was to try as best I could to reconstruct the "moral universe" and priorities of an ancient Roman (they were very, very different from modern Westerners, no matter how similar they might look at times!) and to try to imagine how tech would have developed over the past 2 millennia if the Roman culture had never been interrupted. What this means practically is that things which I figured the Roman state would be interested in developing (e.g., above all, military, infrastructure and communcations tech) would be at or near contemporary levels, whereas other aspects of society would be rather less developed. But, although I tried to infuse everything with Roman-ness, you'll find very little in the world that's still exactly the same as it was in the 1st Century. In terms of fashion, the basic old Roman units are still there, but with a twist (e.g. togas are purely ceremonial, but still worn at religious ceremonies and Senatorial debates; they still have tunics, but tunics with a modern twist, as the player will learn when she goes clothes shopping). I hint a little at the reasons behind some of these decisions in game for people who are interested in this sort of deep world-building. But I look forward to seeing whether my playtesters, when it gets to that stage, think I've done a good job with these choices. You certainly ask the right questions - these are the things that I've probably spent the longest amount of time working out!
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Hanon Ondricek
Posts: 417
6/30/2013
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Sounds like you've got it under control. I can't tell you how many stories I've read where there are some primitive characters wearing furs and roasting a rabbit they shot with bows and arrows over a wood fire and giving out story exposition with their holographic tricorder cell-phone communicator projector thingies...and I always have to give the note "Loved your story, but wouldn't they have invented some better clothes and at least a wood stove before moving to holograms?"
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Playersideblog
Posts: 397
7/2/2013
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I've got two simmering at the moment.
First one is a "master detective" game where you interrogate the suspects in a classic murder case. I'm working out a dialogue system inspired by how Alpha Protocol's system works, but much-improved.
The second one is a "trouble in space" game. If you've seen Firefly, think back to the "Out of Gas" episode; that's the sort of scenario I want to create. Can you make it to the end of your cargo run and keep your crew alive? Planning for it to be a weary trek to the end. That's the one I plan to do first--just as a way of cutting my teeth. The detective one comes later.
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My profile
I am now a Correspondent, and no longer able to accept invitations as an Author. (Or so I believe.)
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