Recent content in Blog Posts on Binary Star Games
On August 11th, 2021, I uploaded version 0.1.0 of APOCALYPSE FRAME to itch.io. I had been working on a fully different game when someone tipped me off to LUMEN (in no small part because of the tag-based design 1 on top of very fast tactics). I had been trying to finally cross Xenoblade Chronicles X off of my list that summer and writing a game heavily inspired by it seemed like a fun little thing…
This post is written for Prismatic Wasteland’s Random Blogwagon . I rolled an 18 on the first table (post on June 18th), a 4 on the second (one plain paragraph, no frills), and pulled a Jack of Diamonds for the third (must reference Luke Gearing’s blog). So let’s get going. Clocks have been a staple of indie TTRPGs for the past what, maybe 10 years or so? I’ve gotten kind…
Hi there! Did you know that not only is NULL_SPACE out , not only is it out in physical form , and not only does it have a printed job packet …it has its first official supplement, called Supplement #1: Violence ? What’s that, you maybe didn’t know that because I suck at promoting it? Well let’s fix that and talk about it then. We’re gonna need a good, overly…
The Binary Star Promise is that I will get a great idea for a prototype, start something, and put it on the backburner for a bit if it’s something I don’t owe people and would need a lot of legwork. Valiant Horizon Tactics is, indeed, no exception to this. But thanks to having a genuinely atrocious week and needing a little pick-me-up, I decided I’d start thinking about it again…
What is the intended vibe of NULL_SPACE? “Cyberpunk-esque” # Shannon at The Novel Gamemaster described NULL_SPACE on bluesky as having “a low-powered mothership feel but leaning towards more cyberpunk-esque rather than space horror”, and then I spent like twenty posts in a thread meandering on what I was trying to do with it. This is a paraphrase and extension of that…
Hi there! It’s once again that time of the year. Every year I take stock of what I accomplished, go through my numbers, chart what I did and how well it did, and try to draw some conclusions. Here’s last year’s, for reference. I have too much stuff for one post going on nowadays, and also I’m very tired, so I’m splitting this up into three posts: this one has a general…
Or: Everyone always says what combat is doing, but nobody ever asks how combat is doing. The TTRPG community (well, the blogging part of it) sure does love to define combat as one specific pithy thing. Sport, War , My Balls 1 , there are others. Save for the last of those, I don’t really care for any of these definitions! For one, I think they very quickly lend themselves to being derisive -…
Content warning: This is a game about a plague. There’s basically no way I can’t talk about the current, ongoing one. Every year I try to do a little something indulgent for Minimalist Jam , or at least try to stub something out that’s been on my mind. So last week, out of nowhere, I dropped Death Has Come to This Town . This was an idea I’ve had for awhile that I held…
Created as part of Prismatic Wasteland’s Appendicitis Blog Bandwagon. Influence is a very hard thing for me to specifically quantify a lot of the time. I don’t usually think of an Appendix N - an explicit list of influences - going into a game. Sometimes I go into a game thinking I’m going to be influenced by one thing and then come out influenced by another thing by accident and…
Created as part of Prismatic Wasteland’s Holes Blog Bandwagon, in which we all write about holes. Some holes are more literal than others, I suppose. And maybe one of these days I’ll get out of the hole that is “devlogs/retrospectives about my own games”, but not today. “When you get right down to it, (mech game, show, etc etc etc) is about the people .” If…
NULL_SPACE # Liminal Void is has been consigned to the void. Well, the name has, anyway. Going forward, it will be called NULL_SPACE! When I spoke about it last , I said both of the following: (in the context of priorities for the game:) De-emphasize combat. Over each edition, the degree to which anyone can easily do combat has been relegated more fully to explicitly chosen weaponry and…
Created as part of Prismatic Wasteland’s Blogclave 2025, in which we all write about clerics during the papal conclave. I don’t love almost any of the “core four” D&D classes - Fighter/Fighting Man, Rogue/Thief, Cleric, Wizard/Magic-User - if I’m going to be honest. Each of them feels simultaneously too vague and too specific, kind of thrown in there based on an…
Liminal Void received another update, somehow, bringing it to its 4th distinct iteration (not counting sub-iterations and tiny fixes). It’s a neat little subset of a game about how much it sucks to live in space under capitalism, largely at this point in its development through the lens of “what if your employer just sucked at keeping you alive”. It’s also been kicking for…
In Valiant Horizon , crystals and the magic from them are a big part. Drilling further into that, though, magic itself is further expressed through the 4 -Magus classes. Each of those represents one of the 4 elements. Why is it like that and where did I go with this? Crystals and Magic # Crystals in Valiant Horizon hold the souls of ancient heroes. This is one of the handful of setting elements…
This also went out on my newsletter , by the way! Sign up if you want periodic digests of posts, updates, musings, and so on. Hi there! It’s once again that time of the year. Every year I take stock of what I accomplished, go through my numbers, chart what I did and how well it did, and try to draw some conclusions. WARNING: I do go into money stuff in the middle of the article. I include a large…
So one thing where I feel like I don’t have like… authority in but at the very least have thought about is the concept of performance loss (and specifically avoiding it through process optimization) in TTRPGs: the kinds of things that bog down a situation in a process . WARNING: This post started as me making a little comment on a great, concise post on Fool’s Pyrite . Then I…
I’ve been meaning to try to post more on my blog/site following the death of Cohost, which made it very easy for me to toss design thoughts out. Writing into VScode and pushing to my site via git has no juice at all by comparison. But we press on anyway. Phipps23 # On November 27th of 2022 - a little less than 2 years ago as of writing this - Dan Phipps (of Gem Room Games , go check them…
Last time I did a brainstorm session like this was for Persona: 1 , 2 , 3 . This one's way shorter though. The idea is to flesh out some kind of specific JRPG-inspired campaign structure for Valiant Horizon . So let's say there's these crystals, right? Used to be 12 of them - nowadays there's, uh, let's say 3-5 PCs crystals remaining. Each of them has the power to maintain…
Last time I made a post about mechanics I talked about the Grid . Now I’m…still talking about The Grid, kind of! But it’s a different one this time. Home-ship construction is something that had been on our minds since the beginning. Originally it was going to be kicked to the final version! But we had a lot of backer items created that we wanted and so this was a good opportunity to make an…
Hi there! v1.1 of Valiant Horizon is out! This includes: Tweaked Create an Opening downward because it was Too Good By Far. Clarification of interaction of inverse with resist/vulnerable (it does the thing you’d expect and reverses the step to do less or more Harm respectively). Clarification on if moving to far counts as two near movements for the purpose of anything that cares (yes).…
Stamina is a resource I bolted onto both the RUNE engine and the NULL/CIPHER healthless idea for Valiant Horizon Tactics. It’s a very major change to how a RUNE-like does things. Notably it’s also not really a Valiant Horizon idea, it’s kind of something that came off of neither game. So what’s up with that? One prior that bears notice is that Stamina was in the earliest Total//Effect prototype…
Hi there! First off, a little update to this quickstart. A few big changes: Gaining your Background doesn’t give you a smattering of Attributes anymore. Instead, you get to grab another Trait. This can be another Profession’s thing, something from things that hint at a less savory Profession, or things that indicate where you came from. To support the latter two categories, there’s 7 more traits…
Hi there! I added a commentary edition of the game. This is exactly the same as v1.2 except I added 2” of margins on either side and added a bunch of red-text notes, development history, commentary, and self-criticism. Get it in the downloads! Until next time! (Read the original on itch here !)
(This is a companion piece to Gila RPGs/Spencer Campbell’s recent stream about healthless TTRPGs , which is well worth your time if you have an hour to spend and goes into VH tactics a little itself, because the original impetus was based on his idea of healthless TTRPGs prior to this video. It would probably also be good to be a little familiar with RUNE! But I think everything makes enough sense…
Hi there! I made a big update to how Liminal Void works! You can see some previews of what I did in my newsletter post here . The big changes are: Static Assets from Profession/Background are out, attribute spending is in. You have 3 Attributes, of which a Profession gives you 5 and a Background gives you 3 more. You can spend them to use them as Assets and regain them by taking various…
Hi there! v1.1 is here! It brings a few major changes: Formatting Increased page size slightly. Various typo-fixes. Tightening up of layout. Combat Rules Missiles. Deploy now states the deployment range for missiles (0-1). Direct now lets you move 8 missiles by default instead of 5. Direct now states clearly when missiles count as “armed” (i.e. when they automatically attack if their target gets…
Liminal Void quickstart cover Liminal Void's quickstart has been around a little more than a year now. It's the first Total//Effect thing I put out and it's...fine. It's fine. Total//Effect is a strong backbone, the vibe carries it pretty far in my opinion, and again in my humble opinion, my two quickstart scenarios are decent. (Read it yourself and see if you agree. It's…
*Before I release the extra edition that tacks on like 2 more posts. In Part 1 we established what kind of game we're using. In Part 2 we tied together Valiant Horizon's class system with the tarot thing Persona has going on. In this final installment (because at this point more beyond what I'm covering here would involve just making the thing ) we're gonna think about using…
So we started poking at turning Valiant Horizon into Persona in Part 1 by establishing initial premises of what even this kind of game is like. It's got a lot of the DNA of urban fantasy/masquerade style games (WoD, Unknown Armies, etc) but with a very different emphasis, and especially the fact that there's a harder divide between the two "halves". Now we start digging in to what we…
I'm thinking about Persona* a lot lately, partially because P3 Reload is out and I kind of want to play it but also it's $70 so fuck that shit. But partially it's because I realized while putting together the playlist for Valiant Horizon how well the two concepts overlaid with each other with only a little reflavoring/stretching: Normalish people given extraordinary power Powers…
Machinations of Amirus A Machination of Court and Frame Binary Star Games *Does it really count as "mortem" if only like 1/3 of the game is out? I don't know but I'm sure going to post about it! About 6 months ago I put out the intro and first act of a visual novel, Machinations of Amirus . (It's free and will take you about an hour if you want to run through it before reading this.…
Valiant Horizon v1.0 is finally out! Some big changes: 12 incredible illustrations by Charlotte Laskowski! Editing and revision by Marx Shepherd! And some smaller ones: Swarm enemies don’t exist anymore and Prime enemies are a bit different. Relationship rolls are now reversed so high rolls are good. Various little fixes, typos, and tweaks. Thanks so much to everyone who backed the game! I’ll have…
Hi there! Last class overview devlog, because after these two we’re out of core classes! Introducing the final two, Tactician and Windmagus. Just in time for the full release on January 23rd! The Tactician From the start, I wanted one full-support class - not just for mechanical reasons, but thematically, I wanted someone whose almost exclusive role was to support and boost allies. As mentioned in…
Hi there! Valiant Horizon v1.0 is coming out on January 23rd! So we’re devlogging fast now. As noted in #1 , all role/sub-role talk is referring to Total//Effect’s role and sub-role concepts . The Knight Once of the martial ideas I wanted to replicate was someone who is just absolutely steadfast in every sense: physically and otherwise. I knew I wanted a Knight somewhere too - I just inherently…
Hi there! Valiant Horizon v1.0 is coming out on January 23rd! So I’d better get moving on these devlogs. As noted in #1 , all role/sub-role talk is referring to Total//Effect’s role and sub-role concepts . The Earthmagus All of my mages (the -magus classes specifically) are just a little off from what people expect. “Earth” is probably the most skipped element in video games on top of that - you…
Written for Prismatic Wasteland 's "make a new mechanic and give it a name" challenge. You have two approaches to a situation on either side of a spectrum. For example, let's say... Soundwaves and Emotions . Decide which is "high" and which is "low", then define your Number between 1 and 10, inclusive. A number skewed towards one side means that you'll have high chances of success…
Hi there! Long time no see! Now that Valiant Horizon is nearing full release, this is #3 in our design series. We’re back with the Commander and Dark Knight. As noted in #1 , all role/sub-role talk is referring to Total//Effect’s role and sub-role concepts . The Commander To get the elephant out of the room, yes, I came at this starting with the 4E warlord by way of its less acclaimed distant…
Make something that you'd want to play. Or wouldn't want to play, I guess, if that's your goal. Basically try to make something that holds your interest. Just feel it out, you know? You probably know what you want to do, practically speaking. Trust your instincts, they probably came from somewhere. Unless you don't have any clue where you're going which is fine too.…
We released a slight update to Celestial Bodies this morning. Fixes Refigured the layout to A5. Fixed a few typos, copy/paste errors, bad labels, and wrong icons. Fixed a few examples. Changes Ultra reactor now has the Reliable quality. Tackle is way more accurate (and Force can be used for it now). Direct rules now specify how missile speed works a little better. Thank you so much for your…
I know what you’re here for, mechanically. Let’s talk shop about The Grid™️. Loadout and Construction Every mech in this game is defined by a grid like this: When I say defined, I mean fully defined . First, the basics: Every frame (basically a chassis for a kind of mech) has HP (Hull Points!) equal to its grid size. So the one you see above has 12HP. Every frame has a unique trait based on its…
The sixth backer class has arrived! Meet the Shaman! The Shaman is an attuned, receptive hero. It focuses on supporting others by boosting their abilities, drawing attacks against them, and healing them. It’s a full-support class that can be played without taking any offensive actions! It’s in that backer classes PDF. Enjoy! (Read the original on itch here !)
The fifth backer class has arrived! Meet the Arcane Knight! The Arcane Knight is a multifaceted, balanced hero. It focuses on the interplay of bladework and magic, and benefits from alternating the two. It’s extremely mobile! I love making extremely mobile classes. It’s in that backer classes PDF. Enjoy! One more backer class left after this, so stay tuned! (Read the original on itch here !)
Hi there! #2 in our design series, meet the Blazemagus and Champion! As noted in #1 , all role/sub-role talk is referring to Total//Effect’s role and sub-role concepts . The Blazemagus I wanted to go elemental for explicit “magic user” types - just the four basic elements, earth/air/fire/water. It felt very on-brand. And the first one of those four that I made was Blazemagus. Fire magic in games…
Hi there! v1.2 is up! I added two things: There’s now a little more on campaigns and running them. I expanded a bit on the mission prompts, changing crises into modifications on those prompts. HOPEFULLY this is the version that will be the last one because I’m going to be doing a print run soon! Stay tuned for that. Until next time! (Read the original on itch here !)
Hi there! We cracked $2000 last night, which is well beyond any expectations I had for this crowdfunding period. Thank you all so much for your support! The fourth backer class has arrived! Meet the Steward! The Steward is a cultivating, budding hero. It’s a support class focusing on healing and protection. It’s very concerned with the land itself: setting up “safe” areas for allies to stay in or…
Hi there! I’m gonna reveal class art every week and talk about their design as I do. I’m gonna go start to end alphabetically, so meet the Bard and the Berserker! On roles and sub-roles I’m going to be talking about roles a lot in these posts. This is because I designed every class using Total//Effect’s role and sub-role concepts as a basis. Each class has three sub-roles: two from one role and…
Hi there! I’ve uploaded the third new Class, made possible by a very generous backer. Meet the Astrologer! The Astrologer is a stargazing, prophetic hero. It can easily provide full support via re-rolls, Advantage, and Disadvantage. It has a lot of effects that mark or apply to locations, letting it shape the battlefield. It’s in that backer classes PDF. Enjoy! (If you want to up your pledge to…
Hi there! This post is about the various mechanical choices made in Valiant Horizon at a very high level. I group these into three categories: Diceless mechanics (stuff that works), Roll for Magnitude mechanics (stuff that works but you roll to see how much), and Roll for Success mechanics (stuff that works if a roll goes your way). Diceless The simplest kind of mechanic. This is what Assets,…
Valiant horizon logo This post is about the various mechanical choices made in Valiant Horizon at a very high level. I group these into three categories: Diceless mechanics (stuff that works), Roll for Magnitude mechanics (stuff that works but you roll to see how much), and Roll for Success mechanics (stuff that works if a roll goes your way). Diceless The simplest kind of mechanic. This is what…
Hi there! I’ve uploaded the second new Class, made possible by a very generous backer. Meet the Assassin! The Assassin is a deadly, subtle hero. It can choose to gain bonuses to its Total against debuffed enemies, with the caveat that the debuffs are removed afterwards. It’s a great combination of deadly and mobile, with debuffs and “finishers” - moves that cap out at extremely high Totals, but…