[This post originally debuted on Patreon, and I’m migrating it here now after a delay. Future blog posts – save for immediate announcements – will be up on Patreon first, so subscribe for early access!]
I’m pleased (and relieved) to announce the imminent release of BLACK IRON ENGINE, a tabletop roleplaying game coming to my Itch.io page one week from now, on May 26th.
This game is close to my heart, as the first (fully illustrated and publishable) RPG I ever finished. And I finished back in 2021, but never released it! Perfectionism held me back. Now, with the accrued wisdom of those intervening years, I’m polishing it up and finally making it available.
In the world of Black Iron Engine, every aspect of the material world is created by an arcology-machine known as the Engine, hidden in higher-dimensional space. You are an engineer of the secret civil service, a clandestine government agency tasked with repairing the Engine whenever it breaks down, before the general public learns of the glitches in reality that malfunctions cause. The game uses a unique diceless resolution mechanic in which you must tilt circumstances into your favor, or otherwise accept sacrifices to get the job done. The simplest way to explain the system it is to imagine Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine reworked into an investigation-dungeoncrawl-downtime loop.
Over the next few days I’ll be posting about this game’s long, woeful history, as well as diving in to the primary mechanics. Look for that first one tomorrow.
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