While I’ve come up with dozens of semi-tangible concepts over my time as an amateur games designer, only a handful ever became anything more than notes on scraps of paper. Here I’ll give a synopses of games that made it to table and might have already been enjoyed by people other than myself.
My Most Notable Projects Over The Years
Early Projects
Mecha Sci-Fi Tabletop Combat Game
– Working Title: C32
This was entirely inspired by my first interactions with FASA Battletech, in my young mind Battletech was too convoluted, and the minutia of rules deterred me really enjoying it, I wanted something faster but with the overall same feel. Developed in a period of perhaps only a couple of months this was a moderate success with my gaming peers and this project more than any other was how I keened by proverbial design blade.
I still have an archive of this, but it now languishes as a forgotten and never truly finished concept. My thanks to all those that supported my efforts and were there to enjoy this with me.
A Skirmish Scale, Modern Era Combat Game
– Working Title: Trigger Happy, aka: In-Action
After enjoying Warhammer 40,000, and later Necromunda, I had a curious notion of making something close to Necromunda but kept inline with pseudo-modern setting. If you can recall movies such as Delta Force or Escape From New York, or perhaps even The Expendables, I wanted to create a game that captured cinematic combat action and put it into size sided dice and 28mm scale models.
Originally under the title ‘B.A.N.G’, (I never spent much time on titles…) This was a strategic design of this idea, and again, the support of my gaming peers made this game a small success, it gave life to silly stories of the events that played out, and that is exactly where I was aiming. I still keep this project on a very low back-burner and hope one day to make a public release.
As of 2024 this game now lives as a product you can buy! Check it out on my Patreon shop: Buy In-Action, only £3 It’s a vastly cut down version of Trigger Happy, but I hope that others might now enjoy something I made.
A Vietnam War Era Role Playing Game
– Never Titled
This was by far one of the most successful games I devised, I ran a very successful campaign among friends with this, I spent a very long time recalculating the GURPS inspired system that the original Fallout computer games had implemented. I went as far as almost entirely re-writing a new combat interaction system from the available Fallout PnP details that were available (this was long before Fallout ever got a real tabletop game of any kind)
What I ended up with was an uncomplicated skill oriented RPG system which allowed a very narrative style of gameplay. To this day I have very fond memories of this. Sadly after I had completed my campaign my focus shifted entirely and this game simply ceased to progress any further. To my old friend ‘Farmy’ Dan, this one’s for you pal.
A Card Focused, Ancient Era, Strategy Combat Game
– Never Titled
This was a step away from my other efforts, I needed to remove myself from huge lists of percentile effect or numerical pondering and so headed into logical inductive response, each choice a player made would influence the choice the opposing player made. The setting of ancient gladiators became a choice that fit the purpose exactly in a game designed for one vs. one short play interaction.
This was as finished a project as I could hope for, but I never felt that it was interactive in the way I had hoped. I will one day publish this as it is a complete game system, just not one I want to work on to refine any further. It did however spawn a new idea…
Abandoned / Hiatus Concepts
A Card Focused, Feudal Era, Strategy Combat Game
– Working Title: Nita Kage
I twisted my existing Gladiator game until it became something else, a Ninja Game! Everyone loves Ninja right? Once more I’m inspired by B-roll cinema movies, this time the classic Ninja flick, I wanted to capture every ridiculous trope and make it into a combat game. I think this is one of my more successful efforts at concluding a design.
The game plays exactly how I thought it should and the player interactions feel weighted and important. It took many revisions over literally years of processing to finalise the game system but I now have a finished game awaiting publication. At the time of writing this I’m working on self publishing, but it a new challenge all of its own.
A High Fantasy, Classic Concept, Role Playing Game
– Working Title: Five Hit
One of my oldest gaming passions is role playing games, I’m a D&D player ever since I was still in school. While I have always appreciated the absolute detail and construction of Dungeons & Dragons in all editions I’ve played, I wanted to mix tabletop simplicity with RPG narrative. This game was an attempt at merging two things I loved playing the most.
I never truly got this game system into a place I was happy with it. My efforts are crowded by twofold problems, I despise having a gaming system that demands a player constantly reference from lengthy sets of rule detailing but at the same time, I loathe games that are too shallow or offer little variation from a static play format.
Forever filed away I doubt I’ll ever visit this even though I do still have a burning urge to have a perfect blend of gameplay and rule moderation.
A Fallout Homage Role Playing Game
– Never Titled
I’m a big fan of Fallout and wanted to mimic the post-apocalypse adventures. This project never really fruited as I found myself ever more pressed by increasing complexity without adding enjoyment.
I indefinitely shelved this after 2 years of slow development and now that there is officially released games within this franchise I think that my efforts on this will go no further.
An Item Collection Focused, Survival Game
– Titled: Castaway
This game is not one of my own, rather it is my re-imagining of one that a friend had designed. He had presented a truly wonderful and well balanced survival game one which I fully appreciated that he’d spent a lot of time and effort on. I saw what he had made and, in some design-jealousy wanted to bake my own cake with his ingredients.
I refocused the game away from a somewhat detailed numerically driven system into what I hope was a more fluidly player-interactive item collection system. Essentially it remains the same thing, I simply whittled it into a more slender version. I really enjoy this game, it presented clear motivation, challenge and reward gameplay interactions.
I take no credit for the original work on which I based my design, but I hope to one day make a public release of my derivative game. I hope to include my friend as a passive partner to acknowledge that my version would not exist if it weren’t for his own work.
A Card Focused, Micro-RPG Adventure Game
– Titled: Board Gamer Lands
From the moment you read the title it is impossible to not see that this game is entirely influenced by and based on the popular Borderlands computer games. Some of my most fond memories hearken back to Diablo, my first real experience of a computer ARPG. In the years that followed I track my Borderlands fandom back to that game. But Borderlands took ARPG’s and thrust it into a new recognition for me.
I cannot count the days I’ve spent enjoying the Borderlands franchise with friends, and for a long time I’ve wanted to bring all that action, the humour and the intensity down onto the tabletop.
Heavily influence by games such as Munchkin and Doom: The Boardgame I have come up with something I’m truly proud of. A fast paced game which doesn’t require reams of paper for it’s rules set and offers a nearly unique experience each time it is played.
I’m doing everything in my power to bring this game to realisation as a Fan-Project to play among friends. I wish I could push it further but I fully understand that publishing this project will be prohibited because I don’t own the rights to use the concept and material that is not my own.
Work In Progress
Revised version of ‘Five Hit’ For A Simplified, Role Playing Game
– Working Title: The Richard Peall Generic Role Playing Game
This project has been dawdling along as I’d lost my muse over the recent years, but with a renewed and thriving social community, I’ve dusted it off, and started twisting the screws once more.
While the core of this is shameless derivative work, and a project that has mutated several times in its short lifespan. My influences are pushing me into a new drive for a complete RPG game. “Mini Rogue“, spoke to me. It plays quickly and has no convoluted rules, everything is right there.
With the discovery of a new Role Playing system. My fascination with GURPS has allowed me to start looking beyond D20, and in this journey I found the Freeform Universal Role Playing Game, otherwise known as FU RPG. It’s super lightweight, narrative focussed and, so far, has been one of the best things I’ve managed to stumble across in some time.
And so I set out using the work from my previous Role Playing Game, and now including a vast array of work carried over from my Castaway project I’ve come to a heavily derivative and comparable game aimed at making something with the speed of Mini Rogue with the narrative of FU RPG all gently squeezed into a package that has enough crunch and detail but one that I hope makes sense.
10% inspiration 90% blatantly just attempting to re-envisage other peoples work
It’s a far cry from my old concepts, but it has playable and functional rules that are, dare I say it… fun.
A Strategic and Luck Based Deck Building Game
– Working Title: F**k This Place
Designed as a tongue-in-cheek satire of corporate jargon but with a core of a deck builder in which players aim to reduce a score to zero while their opponents seek to raise that same score to prevent a player from winning.
The game is player-Vs-player focussed, aimed at moderate groups of people (four to six) to play with a deliberate element of frustration to create tension and revenge within the game loop.