In which we learn about the bundle, what it is for, what I hope to accomplish and what games are included, with a few words about them.

Also, a little surprise with a bonus pre-release.

You can get the bundle here: https://itch.io/s/68467/bundle-to-get-a-break-from-the-grind

Bundle to Get a Break from the Grind

The long and short of it is that I am burning out. I am exhausted and since capitalism won’t take a month off of vacations, I decided to take the matter into my own hands.

So I put together this bundle with 5 releases and 5 pre-releases for only $5.

The starting goal of $150 will give me a breather to pay the most pressing bills and the tallest goal of $500 could mean about a month to take an actual break and do my hair and nails or something so I can feel more like a human that does not need to be “productive” to be worthy.

Let’s talk a bit about the projects included and why they are cool.

Maker

So this was my first kind of experimentation of a game as a personal or artistic expression.

Maker is a journaling ritual about possible futures. You write about something that is no more, something that is now and something that you hope it will be. By imagining a future, you make it possible.

It was inspired by the essay Write to the Future, by Georgina Escobar, and by the song Maker, by Anjimille.

I wrote several pages of journal over it over time. I probably should write more.

Roots & Flowers

A hack of Lasers & Feelings by John Harper, I made it for the Solarpunk Jam and the Applied Hope Jam.

I experimented with writing a game that was not focused on violence and combat, where the protagonists are troubleshooters in their community, and where the world speaks to you through the voices of the Ancestors, allowing ou even to perform a bit of magic.

I’m a sucker for magic.

The game is a bit beefier than most L&F hacks, especially as I write a few paragraphs regarding the setting and a bunch of pages around safety tools. I am looking forward for a chance to revisit it and update it with the knowledge I got in writing games.

Giant Metal Bodies

I wanted to experiment with the engine I`m playing within fantasypunk. And I was angry. I am angry now.

Giant Metal Bodies is a game about riding your GMB to a war you can only lose because the stakes are way too incomprehensible for us, mere footsoldiers. Its about our bodies and what they mean for capitalism, and about the Juice, we shed at every turn, for every maneuver, and about the existential dread of bodies that must fit a purpose. Its very small and very vicious and maybe you shouldn`t play it anyway.

Sol - Relics Unearthed

This is a weird one.

So one day I was playing around with AI Dungeon and well, long story short, the Ai-generated prompts gave me enough to make Sol.

Sol is a solarpunk setting of a fantasy world where that ended at least a few times and now people keep finding these artifacts, the Relics and are trying to reverse engineer them to learn about the world’s ancient history and to put them to good use in their communities.

To be fair, what I really think is interesting here is the breakaway from the bread-and-butter fantasy “races” thing, one because you can be and look like whatever you want, and also because of Cultural Trends.

Cultural Trends hope to describe what certain very common trends communities tend to form around given the main elements of the setting.

I think it’s a concept I can work further in other games. or even in future updates.

So now I’ve got the pre-releases to talk about, and I’ll start from the more conceptual and less fleshed out to those closest to completion.

Lua

Chris came up with this one (Chris is my hot, kind, and incredible partner, mother of my kids).

The concept is around exploring community, self, and toying around with the real moon.

Chris is no game designer but she keeps throwing these genius ideas at me and making me make them, so. Yeah. Let’s make this happen 😊.

Gadgets and Gizmos Aplenty

Another of Chris’ ideas. Simple: this is the little mermaid but post-apocalyptic and humans don’t exist.

It’s the concept for a solo game where you explore the ruins of human civilizations and you find weird things and try to figure out what they are for - wrong answers only.

Princess // Pain

The idea came out of the RPG Generator Bot, and Aaron Goss gave me way too much encouragement 9and ideas) for it so… well, it’s a thing.

I ended up making a kind of life-path mechanic (that you can look up here), and in my dreams, the character sheet is the art of a person that is half warrior and half princess, or like, a mirrored kinda visage of a warrior and a princess and you fill your stats across the sheet?

In any case, I got most of the mechanics down, some of the setting, and an idea about princessly exploring gender as Royal Domains.

Spellblades

Spellblades is another experimentation with the Burden system from fantasypunk.

In this game, you are magical warriors and there is a roll table-based setting and backstory generation for the players.

Another interesting bit is the stat system. You have stats such as offense, defense, and so on, and you don’t have a point limit to them. If you are stronger on a stat with a blade you are weaker at it with spell and vice-versa.

It’s an interesting design space where “incremental” doesn’t directly correlate to better.

The Sunstar over the Garden Gate

This one was partly an exercise prompted by the procedures from HTML and epub ttrpg creation, by James Chip. It came out so weird and marvelous, and it kinda has a mystery to it and I like it!

This one is pretty much ready. I just need to revise it and work on a nice presentation, but otherwise, I could just release the text for it any day.

That means it’s going to be the first to be finished from the pre-releases I got.

BONUS: The 10th Element

It turns out that Chris came up with another incredible idea one of these days and I decided to bring it forth using the Slow Fire engine, by Rúnica Games. I won’t tell much right now, but I’ll add it to the bundle once we reach the $500 goal!

Rest is Work

I often took Chris when she got bummed out that she wasn’t being productive that rest is part of work. Ironic I can’t kinda take the same kind of advice.

In any case, rest is what I need and what I am looking for, what I crave. Idk. I feel like there was something else I was meant to say but I don’t remember what it is.

Anyways! Thanks for reading this wall of text! I appreciate you!

Kindly,

Gabriel Caetano