Smunchy Games
Building Systems of Tanistry
We aim to explore an often neglected succession system, tanistry, and explore how it can be applied to your writing and worldbuilding.
Dev Diary—The Art of Fray
An inside look at the development of art and design of Fray, from the earliest iteration before Smunchy Games' involvement to its final form.
Dev Diary – Paths: World of Aida PGB 1.8.8
It has been a long and satisfying year. While we’ve had our bumps and bruises, experienced burnout, and run into numerous complications, the developmental work for the Path: World of Adia Player’s Guidebook is done. I can’t describe how incredibly happy we all are to check off the final items on our to-do list. While we enjoy working on the game, everything needs to come to an end. After all, we w...[Read More]
Dev Diary—Fray: Design Goals
The design philosophy of Fray, details on how the card's power and effects were assigned, and a glimpse at some of the game's strategy.
Avatars of the Divine
Gods do not exist solely in their ivory towers or temples. People throughout history surrounded themselves with depictions of their faith—and continue to do so today.
Dev Diary—Fray: Humble Origins
The origins and story behind Fray, a card game by Smunchy Games coming to Kickstarter March 3rd, 2020.
Dev Diary – Paths: World of Aida PGB 1.8.7
The long-awaited patch is finally here, the Equipment update. We have about a month of development left on Paths before we send it off to the editors and formatters. The good news is that we are on schedule. The light is at the end of the tunnel. You can check out the latest version of Paths Player’s Guidebook here. This includes character sheets, patch notes, and the Player’s Guidebook. What this...[Read More]
Blood for Money: the Origins of the Mercenary
This article presented by by B. K. Bass “Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.”—Frederick the Great, Prussian King (1712-1786) Everybody has likely heard the phrase “the world’s oldest profession” associated with prostitution. However, that phrase originates from the 1889 short story “On the City Wall” by Rudyard Kipling. While there are ancient references to the occupation of ...[Read More]
Dev Diary – Paths: World of Adia PGB 1.8.6
It has been a very long year for us here on the Paths team, and we still have several more months of hard work to go. I first updated the Assassin class back in March before the Kickstarter. Since then I have been working to update every single class. A heavy burden has been lifted off of this team as the final classes are making their way into the book. We can finally focus on fixing the other is...[Read More]
Thinking Sideways About Wooden Walls
This article presented by by Robert Meegan While thinking sideways is a great tool for working around an obstacle in your worldbuilding, it can also be useful in other situations. One of these is differentiating your world from everyone else’s. Irrespective of your genre, it’s almost certain that you’re going to come face-to-face with the same needs and constraints that others have faced. What sep...[Read More]
“How well will my game sell?” And other game publisher questions (Part 2)
What you missed in Part 1 If you’re new to this article series, “How well will my game sell? and other game publisher questions” you can read part 1 here. In fact, I highly encourage reading part 1 as what we are about to get into in this article will depend on a few of the topics we had discussed in part 1, such as quick validation and understanding the outcome of your idea. The...[Read More]
Dev Diary – Paths: World of Adia PGB 1.8.5
To me, the most interesting part of Paths is the class system. While much of what the classes were originally has changed, they have more or less remained the same since I started working on Paths. During the Kickstarter, I did some math on a brand new character that came to staggering numbers of combinations. The low end of that calculation came out to a minimum of 300 unique ways to start, and t...[Read More]
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