AnnaBlackwell
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For Small Creatures Such As We -- Sneak Peek
🕑 Added 2022-01-12 20:55:34 +0000 UTCIts no secret that I absolutely adore Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series, especially the first book The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet and its sequel A Closed and Common Orbit so when the thought struck me that I should try and capture that feeling of interpersonal discovery and empathy that makes her books so great, a big long title was only fitting. Hence, the mouthful of a Carl Sagan quote:
For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.
What's The Goal?
At the start of your playthrough, you choose or randomly determine your Mission which will see your ship and crew travelling across the galaxy, stopping in at friendly planets and overcoming great odds to ensure that you succeed. Your mission could be to ensure a diplomat makes it to an important political summit or to deliver cargo to a frontier planet or even to recover a failing deep space satellite so it can be repaire.
But the goal of the game from a player's standpoint is to create alien species that are unique and interesting and aren't the usual colourful skinned bipeds that popular science fiction has lumped us with. Then, as you play, you'll have the opportunity to learn about the unique individuals that join your crew over the course of the game as events bring you closer and allow you to generate their thoughts and opinions while prompting you to write about their cultures, technology, and biology.
And biology is an important part of the game. As captain, you'll be in charge of ensuring that your ship is fit for the various crew members that join you by buying and installing various Systems on your ship. Have an amphibious crewmember? Buy a Watertight Module or install a Gravity Controlled Pool for them to wet their skin in. And if you have any aquaphiles, you might even notice their Mood improving as they get to splash around as well.
How Do You Play?
Like the majority of my games so far, For Small Creatures is playable with a standard deck of playing cards and something to journal in. There will be a couple of sheets that can be downloaded and printed from blackwellwriter.com or blackwellwriter.itch.io once the game is released but it will be playable without these as well.
I'm keeping the event system from Apothecaria as I find it really enjoyable to write for and I feel that it gives each explorable planet a lot of character and potential for unexpected narrative.
At the moment, the game is quite high concept and while I'm beating it into shape, it has quite a way to go before I can say much about how it plays. Suffice to say, at this stage I know it will have:
* Alien creation
* Crew members that you can interact with (usually prompted by events in the travel events below)
* Travel Events (drawn from a deck of cards or maybe combined to give a ridiculous number of prompts? Again, unclear so far)
* Explorable Planets (Looks to be around 5 so far with more included as a crowdfunding stretch goal)
* Ship Blueprints and Ship Systems
Like all my solo journalling games, For Small Creatures Such As We has a lot of gameplay in amongst the journalling and while it is cosy sci-fi, space is still a dangerous place and failing to take care of your ship and your crew can end in disaster.
Sounds Good, How Do I Help?
If you like the sound of this, I will be making a formal announcement next Friday and having your help to signal boost that would be greatly appreciated.
Likewise, when I get the Kickstarter pre-launch page up and running, signing up and sharing with your friends will really help with the loss of exposure that Zinequest's rescheduling has caused. Hopefully ZineMonth is a success regardless of Kickstarter's crappiness.
And finally, letting me me know you're excited or things you want to see in the game is so unbelievably appreciated because nothing sucks more than designing in a vacuum.
That Was A Lot Of Reading, Reward?
I promised a sneak peek and here it is, the first mockup of the first planet ;)
Names and such are definitely going to change though Corncob City is the kind of silly alliteration that grows on me.
Comments
Anna Blackwell
There will definitely be an option to undertake a new mission at the end of a journey as much like you, I'd want to keep my crew for ages :)
Kelsy
Reading and thinking about this a little more, I love the idea of the generated goal at the start of the campaign. Given how some of them are transporting something from one place to another, would there potentially be a "new game +" option at the end for people who maybe get attached to their crew and want to keep going with a new goal?
Anna Blackwell
Thank you :D that is really encouraging to hear :)
Kelsy
Seriously just keep thinking about this while I am currently playing apothecaria and like obsessing about how much I want to play a space solo game with the charm of apothecaria.
Kelsy
This looks amazing!
Melissa Cruz-Campbell
This sounds like fun!
Ephraim Mallery
Wow! This looks so fun! And perhaps, in the spirit of Kirstyanne's work, you could add a sexy planet. :)
"Corncob City" should stay. It evokes thoughts of Corncob 3D which, if you hadn't played it way back when, is amusing since it also has to do with aliens.
Kirstyanne Ross
Fingers crossed we both get back to that stage xxx in the meantime Apothecaria is my new project and I'm loving it x
Kirstyanne Ross
I have chronic illnesses and pain so I find myself reading at all weird and wonderful times. I read 384 books last year so kindle unlimited is like a life saver for me as I would never be able to afford them otherwise xx I hit 65,000 words by the end of Nanowrimo and have probably another 15 to go on the first book x
Anna Blackwell
Best of luck with the trilogy, I hope you manage to get past the burn out and find the joy of writing again soon. Hopefully I'll find that joy again soon as well and will be able to get my novel written :)
Anna Blackwell
Damn. Kudos to you for getting a bunch of it done during NaNoWriMo, I always come up short or have other commitments during November :L I was gonna say "damnnnn 30 books in 40 days" then I remembered Worm and how easy it was to just dive into massively long series but still damnnnn.
Kirstyanne Ross
At the moment, just my hard drive 🤣 I got a massive chunk of the 1st book written during Nanowrimo and burnt out on it, but I have the full plotting for a trilogy and a couple of scenes from the 2nd and 3rd books from needing a break from book one. I'm really hoping this will get my creative juices flowing again so I can finish it off. It's a reverse harem/why choose. The main character is the only daughter of Lucifer and the goddess Diana (the goddess werewolves pray to). Kaiden is a hellhound in the book and is her first familiar. By the end of book 3 she will have a nice little harem of 5. I love reading reverse harem, but I soak in any and all Paranormal. Stephanie Hudson is one of my current favourites and luckily her 3 series (that all work together in the same world) are on kindle unlimited because I read all 30ish books in just over 40 days lol
Anna Blackwell
XD I'm curious but frightened. Where would one look if they wanted to read your work? 👀
Kirstyanne Ross
Paranormal reverse harem. It *might* be why my familiar turned out to be a hellhound 🤣
Anna Blackwell
Thank you :) it can be intimidating but getting to see people interact with it is always so worth it. What sort of fantasy do you write? :)
Kirstyanne Ross
It's easy to see how much you love the creation though. As a fantasy writer, I created a whole world in my head - but to put it down in the way you do, to allow others to roam free in your creation, I wouldn't even know where to start. It's clear you love what you do.
