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Quinn McDonnell - Systems Designer
Rogue Magic
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Description
Rogue Magic is a short comedy roleplaying game about a group of wizards breaking into places and trying to steal really rare artifacts. It is a 2-5 player game with another player taking the role of the game master who creates a castle for the players to steal stuff from. The players goal are to leave with as many artifacts as possible without getting caught or straight up dying. They can use a small pool of "terms" to create spells from, but with each roll they increase their chances of a magical explosion happening with themselves as the epicenter.
The game was developed originally as a school project and final but I decided to develop it further afterwards to publish on Itch.io.
It Started development in April 2024 and is still in development.
My Role
I was the solo developer on this project, so all the decisions I made were based on a desire to create an incredibly rules light system that allowed players to do what they want without them ever being overpowered.
VIDEO/REEL HERE
What I Did
I spent time looking through how a lot of rules light games balance their systems, specifically Blades in the Dark. They created the stress system when players want to push themselves to succeed. I took that idea but applied it to base rolls. So the players roll would also increase the chances of something bad happening. At first I wanted this to be more long term but this inherently rolling worse makes life difficult would not have made for a good long term game. But the short burst people played led to a lot of really funny moments that people did not take seriously. And instead of shunning that I realized that was what I should have leaned more into. So I took the project, condensed it down to a nice 4 page landscape document and created a more 'one shot' or single session tabletop game inspired by the itch.io game Definitely Wizards where players could lean however they wanted to with their terms to come up with solutions are roll dice to determine if they succeeded or not and let players have than be concerned with number stats or their characters viability.
What I Learned
I learned a lot with this project. I learned a lot about not strictly following one singular idea until the end and using player data to drive how to develop the experience. I still made what I wanted to but I made it in a way that was more enjoyable and could reach a wider audience. Especially when it's hard for people to dedicate time and money into a weekly 4 hour long campaign with their friends. There is merit to player driven experiences and seeing how players react can help make the game enjoyable for everyone.
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