Dev DIARY #2 - WHAT’s THE HOLD UP?

Now that the holiday is over and our first snowfall came and went, it is time to discuss...WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG???

Recently I was running Fists & Fiends at Carnage GameCON in Vermont. It was a blast! I met some really cool people and had some amazing sessions. Especially the session unleashing a new supernatural fiend for the first time. I was grabbing a coffee from the gift shop of the hotel in between sessions where I ran into someone who had played the game with me at a previous convention early this year; roughly 6 months ago. After they asked if the games was out yet, they expressed surprised that when I answered, “No”.

I thought I would share some behind the scenes reasons for this, especially since it has been 4+ years since it began. Keep in mind I am one person. It is easiest to explain this in the framework of each year, but keeping it focused on the game and not the other reasons in life such as: keeping a business alive through a pandemic, family, house, restarting the business, etc, etc, etc.:

YEAR ZERO (2020)

The first year of the game was focused on the kids having fun, and getting the most out of it for their martial arts training and community building during the pandemic. This was also the early development of the combat system and trying to figure out how best to handle and convey realistic martial arts combat in a TTRPG while keeping it fun and exciting.

YEAR ONE (2021)

This year was turning the game in my head into written rules that someone else could actually follow. This took well into 2022 as it is far more complicated when accounting for the likelihood that a GameMaster, and the players at the table may have zero experience with martial arts, much less twenty years. While challenging to say the least, it was attainable. The introduction of AI art became a thing, and it looked like at the time that I would be able to quickly assemble this into a book that could be published for others.

YEAR TWO (2022)

Late winter/early spring I playtested the game at a convention in Boston. This was one of the first times people with no experience were able to try the game. Things went well, and while there was some post playtest fixes to make, they were relatively minor. It was at this convention that I met Doug Shute who was running the table for Free League Press, a TTRPG developer out of Scandinavia. Their now popular Year Zero Engine based games were introduced to me by Doug, and I immediately became enchanted — gritty, challenging, nail biting, and anxiety inducing. All perfect for a martial arts game. I was too late in development though, so I went home and tried to squash my excitement and stay the course.

A few months later I was ‘game complete’. I reached out to the publisher, who I will leave unnamed here as they were very gracious and helpful, and submitted a proposal for them to publish it under their brand since I was using their dice engine underneath, and although I modified things heavily to work with martial arts and get the combat ‘right’ (subjective), I was/am super thankful for their work and inspiration. Unfortunately, they were not taking any submissions at the time due to their other projects. They recommended I publish it myself under their community rules. I’ll spare you the details but after careful review of the legalese, it became apparent that I could not publish the game under their brand or related to their brand as it was. I would have to chop it up into supplement material and hope that people picked it up for their existing games/systems.

The meetings I had with Doug and our conversations about the YZE came rushing back to me. Although I was very happy with this version of Fists & Fiends, my one regret when I saw the Free League titles was, my game was too ‘pulpy’. In my opinion, especially when dealing with martial arts, there is enough pulp out there to run an orange juice factory when it comes to gaming. I was really excited about the prospect of gritty, realistic, edge of your seat, you may die from a punch, combat.

This was The Fork. I scrapped the game and started over from scratch using YZE as an inspiration. I’ll write more about this in an upcoming post, but this was where the game turned into a MARTIAL ARTS SURVIVAL HORROR theme with combat that is realistic, gritty, anxiety inducing, and action action action oriented. A super exciting project!!!

YEAR THREE (2023)

This entire year was laying out rules, writing, and playtesting combat, mission types (how else do you ensure combat happens in a martial arts game?), story, and a full campaign to include with the release of the game, All of this was super exciting, but took tons of time.

I was introduced to another indie game developer, Matt Orr, who also started from scratch, and has now released several titles under their brand Wet Ink Games. Matt was super sparing with his time and in the sharing of his knowledge and experience. He was instrumental in helping me figure out what my goals are for the game. He helped me realize that seeking out a publisher is not what I want, because I want to keep ownership and be able to make content for Fists & Fiends for as long as I live. Giving away the game to someone else for a payout would be a tragic mistake that would destroy me from within.

On top of all that, Matt helped me find an excellent artist (more on that in a moment) who as a bonus, has intimate knowledge of the time period and setting that Fists & Fiends takes place in — The late Qing dynasty in China, Steven Wu has worked with Wet Ink Games for years, and even has his own game he published under them.

ART: This has been a bit of a challenge since first meeting Doug back in 2022. I showed him a very early, and in honest hindsight, train wreck of a game book while we were chatting at the convention. He humored me and was nice, but he did offer one piece of advice — “Ditch the AI generated artwork.” I was shocked. His reasoning was sound though, and I had already heard rumblings of it in the video game community — gamers were rejecting anything using AI generated art. They were on a noble crusade to keep artists employed, and were getting any game using AI cancelled post haste by weaponizing social media against them.

I took this to heart and began shopping for an artist. I found someone overseas and while happy with their work, it didn’t have the right feel for what was now a gritty, survival horror game. Steven and his style are a much better fit, and he and I hit it off immediately in our shared passion for the project, time period, history, and theme. Art began to be developed, but the game rules were still being revised and edited so the attention was on some of the set pieces and less on the page art. This was a highly productive year and I was sure a 2024 launch was within our grasp.

YEAR FOUR (2024)

This year has also been extremely productive, and positive on a professional front. That positivity however caused a months long hiatus from working on Fists & Fiends over the summer. Things were going smooth the first half of the year, and we began summer with a fully edited book, quotes and preliminary agreements on the printing and publication, and more artwork finished.

Between my own professional commitments, and Steven’s travel schedule, we were not able to pick back up on development until September. Steven and I are working on the art and I doing the book layout on my own. Some graphic design classes in college and my art background have been extremely helpful here, but do require time. With a bit of a push, I felt strong we could get the game out by the end of the year, but now the realities of funding such a project came rushing in. Printing books is expensive. Even more so if you are trying to have Gamemaster screens and other add-ons produced as well.

Initially I had hoped to fund the printing costs on my own, but with these totaling thousands and thousands of dollars, that became untenable. Kickstarter became the logical direction to go. After meeting with a consultant in October, I was advised to wait until spring to launch the kickstarter campaign. They are industry experts and for a bunch of reasons I’ll spare you the details on, I took their advice to heart. We’ll use the coming months to get the word out more (please spread the word!!!) and generate some interest before we go live. This has also allowed Steven and I to take a relaxed pace on the remaining art assets for the books. The player’s handbook is 85% complete (see preview attached).

YEAR FIVE (2025)

As we round off the 2024 year we continue work on the art and layout and start getting the word out to more and more people. 2025 is coming up fast and I’ll be running the game at more conventions and introducing more people to the excitement, fun, Fists & Fiends as the year kicks off. TotalCon in February is the next one up. Check the events page regularly for upcoming locations to play. The plan is to launch the kickstart in early spring with your help. The faster we can grow the email list, and the more followers we get to the website, the better the success of the launch.

Stay hooked for some How To Play videos on our new Fists & Fiends YouTube channel as well.

Coming Up Next…

PULP NON-FICTION: The move from pulpy fantastical fantasy combat, to gritty realism, with tension and high stakes…