A WYRD March
Monthly News Letter
Welcome to the Happy Jak Games monthly newsletter. When trying to figure out what to do with this substack we figured starting with a monthly update would be a great place to start!
WYRD Dungeon Kickstarter
We’ve only 14 more days of the campaign which ends on March 16th. The great news is that we hit our first stretch. If that’s all we get to I’ll still be very satisfied with how my first crowdfunding campaign went. My original expectations was that, being an unknown developer, it would take the full length of the campaign to hit our funding goal. So getting to this point has been wonderful.
That said, we’re headed toward the second stretch goal and it may be achievable thanks to…
Tony Plus One
This Friday at 5pm EST we’ll be showcasing WYRD Dungeon on a 3 hour stream! You’ll be able watch us generate a dungeon and start playing a level, live, and see how this thing works. We’re super excited to show it off and have Kirby from Disaster Tourism, the designer behind the WYRD Framework join us.
Tune in at Tony Plus One this Friday.
Crypt News
While I’ve been focusing mostly on WYRD Dungeon, work on The Crypt Has Opened has also been going strong. Earlier this year I ran an amazing playtest that really helped show areas that needed work. Those notes have now been written and are currently being rolled into the new SRD. We’re doing a full new layout of the document to make things easier to read and have a better flow for the mechanics.
What we’re most excited to add to the game are the expanded Specials for each Trope. Now instead of just one special that was kind of mid, there are now three to choose from that really expand on the themes of each Trope. Can’t wait to show them.
There is now also the inclusion of the “Human Die” for rolling mundane skills. Prior to the playtest, mundane skills only rolled two dice in the pool rather than three like casting spells. This made the players feel it was a bit too disconnected mechanically. With the inclusion of the Human Die, it replicates the Spell Die but lacks the same punch as it will remain a flat d4 for the life of the character. Ultimately a player should always be looking for a spell to cast rather than using their mundane skills and the Human Die continues to reinforce that idea.
What’s Next?
Once WYRD Dungeon is out the door I’ll need to decide on what to develop next. I’ve several ideas and all of them equally exciting. What I know for certain is it will be Cypher System related and be a setting book. My three main choices are:
The Crypt Has Opened Conversion (my reservation with this is it may feel too close to their Gods of Appalachia game)
Daunten Cove. A Diesel Punk game set in the massive port city of Daunten Cove. A world defining war between nations has come to a tenuous truce after one of the Living Gods was killed by a force known as Entropy.
Texas Rex. Think Wild West meets Dinosaurs on a planet in the far flung future.
Palaghast. Upon the death of the god Palaghast against The One From Beyond, the planet was literally ripped into 7 chunks. These chunks are now ruled over by angels who claim to be the avatars of Palaghast. It’s High Fantasy and loads of fun.
Right now I’m leaning toward Daunten Cove. It’s a setting I haven’t visited in a long time but has A LOT written for it. I think it’s a perfect setting for Cypher System, too.
Social Media
While this will be a monthly newsletter, if you want to keep up on semi-daily news then be sure to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Just search for the handle happyjakgames and look for Smiling Jak.