The Kickstarter has LAUNCHED! Make sure to go check it out, and spread the word! You might be wondering, “hey wait a second… why should I care about Spellstorm?” Here’s five reasons. Reason #1: Beautiful, charming artwork The art in this game is by Christina Zhong, and it is full of personality and color. Here’s a handful of paintings that are on some of the cards. Bunny Wizard soars through the air!     Derby Pocket scrambles to bring coffees to everyone on the team.       A mighty Storm Dragon roars at the peak of the rocky crag of the Spellstorm.     Omar ..read more

I realized I haven’t actually posted about it since it went live, but the Kickstarter for SPELLSTORM is now live! Please spread the link around and show your support, here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dinofarmgames/spellstorm ..read more

While it is occasionally possible to have a design come together right away, there are times when you need to toil over a design for some time before something changes, and only then will the system start to shine. Many times, this change comes in the form of a breakthrough rule that unlocks the potential of a system. With the Kickstarter right around the corner, I’d like to talk about Spellstorm’s breakthrough rule, one that made the game significantly more fun to play, and why that is. Spellstorm’s Pre-Breakthrough Rules     I started working on Spellstorm in late 2021 – you can f ..read more

Narratively speaking, Croh Vosh is probably the most important character in the game. At the end of Gem Wizards Tactics, the Omni-Gem was destroyed. This was a great thing for those battling the oppressive occupation of the Business Demons on the western continent, which had largely been enabled by the Omni-Gem’s magic. Eve Williams and Derby Pocket (both Dragon Bridge characters, also in Spellstorm) decided that the best thing to do would be to destroy the Omni-Gem, and so they did, with the help of Andromeda Robin. The gem was shattered into much smaller, mostly harmless shards that flew hun ..read more

With the Kickstarter right around the corner, today I’d love to introduce you to my favorite friend in the Spellstorm cast: Bunny Wizard! Bunny is a very positive and optimistic guy.   Bunny’s Story One day, Bunny Wizard was flying around in a fancy new automated blimp. He was headed to see a concert in Goldenbridge when the blimp he was on took a very bad route to get there, one that passed right through the Spellstorm. You’re not supposed to fly blimps through dangerous storms, so Bunny did not understand why the automated blimp did that. Perhaps it was broken, Bunny thought. Soon, the ..read more

Hey all. Today I wanted to talk about the SKILL GRID for my upcoming RPG, and talk about how it interacts with playable characters. I also give an update on some of the games I’m playing. Enjoy! The FFX “Sphere Grid”, an inspiration for our Skill Grid Don’t forget: you can support my work by going to www.patreon.com/keithburgun and becoming a patron!   ..read more

Big news: the Spellstorm Kickstarter campaign will be launching on April 17th, 2024. If you’re not already signed up to get notified, make sure to click the button over here at Kickstarter. Stay tuned ..read more

I decided to make a word cloud that lays out some of the associations between certain qualities of a game, and the term “RPG”. Check it out, and let me know what you think ..read more

Videogames, at least the kind I’m talking about (RPGs, adventure kinds of somewhat narrative videogames, Zelda games, Elden Ring, etc), have essentially three “places”: Outside – Hyrule field. Most of the game is Outside, just running around in a grassy area or a snowy mountain. It’s kind of the glue between all of the elements but there can be all manner of things Outside. Outside is the most flexible, but it typically has the lowest density of monsters, NPCs, shops, etc. Dungeon – The sewers, the final boss’ castle, a factory full of monsters, or a literal dungeon. Dungeons have LOTS of mon ..read more

Hello all and welcome to the first episode of the Bannet Bulletin! It’s still the Clockwork Game Design Podcast feed, but for awhile I’m going to do a series of shorter podcast episodes that talk about what is going on and what I’m thinking about with the RPG I’m making. This episode is an overview – what is this new game? What’s important? When can you actually play it? In future episodes, we’ll do deep dives into other aspects of the game. If you enjoy the episode, let me know – it will encourage me to take the time to make more! And as always, you can support this show and the creation of ..read more