This year’s RPGaDay (a month long discussion of Tabletop RPGs created by David Chapman of Autocratik) has launched and I’ll be (trying) to cover his daily topics over the month of August.
Today’s topic is forthcoming game you’re most looking forward to. That’s an easy and difficult one for me. It would have to be Will Hindmarch’s Project: Dark.
It’s easy because that’s the one game that comes to mind if you ask me what I’d most like to try out, that I haven’t yet. It’s difficult because the project is now a year late and that’s very frustrating.
Why am I excited about trying it out? I love thief-based games. Prior to the flurry of such games (Blades in the Dark, Guild of Shadows and, of course, Project:Dark), I had assembled my own Dungeon World hack creating an all-thief adventure in a crusader-era city in a middle-east like region. It’s a great role-playing environment and one that I love running and playing.
But, what makes Project:Dark sound so intriguing is it’s design:
Will: I designed Dark from the ground up to cultivate the tension and suspense of stealth gameplay. For the players, the game hinges on regular playing cards, rather than dice. This allows players to better plan, make both dramatic and tactical choices, and benefit from patience and precision in tangible ways. The better hidden your character, the more cards you have in hand.
I love that concept. It’s a fascinating new way of playing and I love new concepts in role-playing. I’m really looking forward to trying it out to see how it plays in action.
But, sadly, I have to keep waiting and waiting and waiting. There’s still not even a target date for its release, only teasers about new artwork and game setting background.
It’s very frustrating, but hopefully worth the wait when it finally arrives.
Justin Schmid
Justin started tabletop gaming in 1983 with Basic D&D (red box) and never looked back. He runs and plays in a wide variety of games, including Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, Trail of Cthulhu and many, many more.
He also writes professionally for role-playing games, including writing and creating Night's Edge an Alternate Reality Universe for Cyberpunk 2020. He went on to write eight more adventures and sourcebooks in the Night's Edge line, adding vampires and other supernatural perils to the already dangerous world of Cyberpunk.
As a freelance writer, he wrote The Bermuda Triangle for Call of Cthulhu, Shadows of the Mind, and Psi Wars for Conspiracy X and contributed to Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPG, as well as to Cybergeneration sourcebooks, and many other games.
When he's not creating imaginary worlds for his daughter, he's running games for his friends and writing new adventures or designing new game systems. He currently lives in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
I believe he started this project two years after his first project, well after people were complaining about not getting their books. Many people were saying that they still hadn’t gotten their books from the first project only a couple of months ago – about a year after his second project launched.
It seems like a solid game in principle, but we might need to dig in for a lonnnnnng wait…