Hello there, to anyone who is reading this post. As you will have seen I have recently released a rules light sci-fi rpg game and wanted to post a few words about its background and design.

Having worked on the Heroes of Adventure game system for the last couple of years, I wanted to take a creative break from this system (for a little while) and do something different. The sci-fi genre has always been of interest to me and I had the seed of an idea for a 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) type game using influences from things like Classic Traveller (rpg), Aliens (film) and X-Com (video game). 

This also gave me a chance to re-use the Heroes of Adventure game 'engine' and to rationalise and refine this further and test some ideas which I could re-use in the future. I also wanted to try out a completely different art style aswell.

Conscious of the size and amount of effort my previous project took (3x 64 page books plus supplements!) I set myself a target of producing a small zine and release this as part of ZineMonth. This would help focus my efforts on producing a minimum viable product (MVP) within this time period which I could build upon later. It took me about 4 weekends to build this from scratch although I already had a system I could adopt.

In terms of the key features  I've put together:

• Rules light sci-fi rpg (could also be run as a skirmish minis type game)
• d20 vs target number core mechanic
• Skill die system (skills rated from 0, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and added to your skill check)
• Simple 'traveller' style character creation system with 6 backgrounds
• Resource management aspect
• Equipment slots and token system (things to cut out and stick on your character sheet)
• Mission creation guidance
• Sample Humans, Critters, Droids & Aliens
• A starter mission

A few areas I had to make compromises or cut features:

• Had planned for this to be 16-24 pages, it ended up at 44 pages but features a fair amount of art*
• I had the idea of more complex 'base management' downtime activity but this got cut for the MVP
• I had the idea of a more detailed 'research' tree system but this got cut for the MVP

In terms of rationalising the Heroes of Adventure game 'engine' I made the following changes:

• Simplified initiative
• Used fixed damage (first value = standard damage, second = critical damage)
• Simplified critical successes and failures
• Implemented armour absorption
• Developed the equipment slot system (with some cut out tokens)

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how this came out although no doubt there will need to be a few tweaks and changes as I start to hear feedback now that it has been released publicly.

* On the subject of art, I appreciate there are mixed views over the use of AI generated art. From my personal perspective I consider myself a 'hobby' designer who operates on a budget of zero and releases content for free so these sort of tools gives me the ability to generate artwork for my projects and improve the presentation overall.