Seeing Rockalypse in Movies Again

I tend to be pretty low-key about my work in the tabletop gaming industry. I don’t feel like I did a ton of things that couldn’t be (or haven’t been) done by others. I think I have a few unique ways of approaching things, such as the kind of thorough, interconnected worldbuilding I displayed in Steamscapes and my work on the Urban Settings Guide for the Sentinel Comics RPG (which may or may not see the light of day, depending on what happens to Greater Than Games).

But there’s one game that I think may be my most unique contribution, at least as of this writing. It’s self-contained, nicely concise, and it makes a strong case for my view of game design: that games are best when every element works together to create a unified experience. With such a game, you can feel that ethos when reading it, playing it, running it, or even just talking about it. For me, the best I’ve ever done at achieving that was Rockalypse.

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Recent Teen Band Movies

While I try not to use the term “guilty pleasure” – because it implies that there are things we should feel bad about liking – I admit that I don’t quite understand my enjoyment of teen romantic comedies. With a few notable exceptions, I hated most of the movies targeted at me when I was a teen. They didn’t really speak to me about my own life experiences, and often rang quite hollow. Continue reading

Introducing Rockalypse

All our shows are secret shows.

-Kim Pine, Sex Bobomb

Mentioning a project on the internet is one of the ways that I commit to doing it. With that in mind, I would like to announce that work is underway on my first major RPG project outside of Steamscapes.

Rockalypse (working title) is the post-apocalyptic game of musical adventuring. It will be powered by Fate Core and will use the full advantages of that system. There will be no physical combat whatsoever – all conflict will be resolved by how hard you rock.

I have already started developing the game, but I am going to save the details for later. For now, I’ll just leave you with a short list of influences so you can get a taste of where I’m going with this:

  • Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
  • Tank Girl
  • FLCL
  • Six String Samurai
  • Brutal Legend
  • The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension