Good morning, Everybody!
I hope everyone has had small beautiful happenings to enjoy this week!
I’m super excited to share this month’s The Guac! We have a free Mothership adventure that ties in 4 Spicy Tuna Modules, only happy news in the Spicy Tuna Update, and I found a new font designer who makes pay-what-you-want/free, public domain pixel fonts I’m excited to share.
The Guac 012 Docket:
Free 8pg Adventure. THE CHILD: STORYTIME
Free Pixel Fonts by NotJam
Spicy Tuna Modules Updates: Constant Downpour + What’s Next
Spicy Tuna House Systems Updates
Current Inspiration: Null by Spencer Campbell and Down We Go by Markus Linderum
Free Adventure. THE CHILD: STORYTIME
THE CHILD: STORYTIME is a big-faced horror module where a mysterious alien entity is attacking the planet Julip IV. Local enforcement continues to get bested by THE CHILD, and a crew is hired to find the solution. Armed with laser rifles, laser pistols, violently explosive grenades, and spidroina silk CHILD-proof suits with a giant CHILD’s face guarding their head, it’s the crew’s turn to save a planet.
Download THE CHILD here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10CBK4cHVJFt0BAr6lthfmxTtJ9FudD9k?usp=sharing
It comes in the Digital full-color version, Printer Friendly, and Booklet for easy printing (instructions on the Booklet cover).
THE CHILD uses elements from 4 Spicy Tuna modules.
Familiar Faces Vol.1 will provide more introductory and/or outro context for the adventure as it takes place on Julip IV from FFV1 - a planet that relies heavily on its agriculture industry, is completely government-owned, and utilizes biotech and genetic modification on plants and livestock. More info on Julip IV and the entire Julip IV system sandbox in FFV1.
Spicy Tuna Stories No.34 contains the one-page comic that inspired the adventure.
Yucatan Tech Co Retro Catalog 1 provides the weapon details for The Narwhal and Blaster Rifle VI used in the adventure. (Coming out by the end of the weekend!!! You can follow us on spicytunarpg.itch.io to get notified on release, or expect the PDF through DriveThruRPG if you purchased the module during the Constant Downpour Remastered Campaign).
Professional Rebels introduces United Fleet Delivery and gives context for the Warden to continue using UFD as a recurring corp the crew interacts with after its release (releasing Q4 2023 in a super secret project we’ll share more about in the next few months).
I’m super stoked to share this one!
Note: The module uses Mothership 1E stats as all the modules it references are third party licensed for Mothership 1E, but THE CHILD is not licensed through Tuesday Knight Games and is not affiliated in any way with them because it is a quick release and free adventure.
Found Pixel Fonts
I stumbled upon these ten pay-what-you-want fonts by NotJam a week or so ago….and I used two of them in the free adventure this month (NotJamChunky8 and NotJamSlab14). It’s a great series of fonts all around. I can see Chunky Sans 6 and Serif 11 working well in the same design. And Not Jam Pixel 5 and Not Jam Mono Sci 10 are a bit harder to read but are wonderful and will easily fit designs.
Not Jam has been releasing these about every week and announcing the release on their Free Font Day posts on Twitter.
Here are some examples from NotJam’s itch page https://not-jam.itch.io/
Spicy Tuna Module Update
Constant Downpour Remastered: Digital releases coming by the end of the week! The Hardcover advanced copy came in!! Holy shit this feels great! We couldn’t be happier with the print quality.
Hardcovers, zines, patches, and CDs on their way to fulfillment partners. Everything is in motion, and we’re stoked to have gotten past the hurdle of off-set printing. Shipping begins the final third of June/early July.
A Butterfly Dies: Digitally released! Zines, pamphlets, and patches en route to fulfillment partners in UK. Arrived for US fulfilment partners. Shipping begins soon! This is the first module going directly to WOGD and I can’t wait to check out how the printed version came out!
3 Sneaky Releases coming by the end of the weekend:
Yucatan Tech Co Retro Catalog 1
Yucatan Tech Co Retro Catalog 2
Stims From The Dark Web 1
All were released as part of the Constant Downpour Remastered Kickstarter, and with fulfillment coming in the next few days! They will be digitally released through spicytunarpg.itch.io and drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/19517/Marco-Serrano shortly after. You can follow us on itch.io to be updated on the release.
A sneakpeek of all the spreads in The Guac 011, but here are some close ups.
Each zine is an 8-pg player-facing catalog designed to be shared as in-world items at the table, virtually, or for quick reference for the warden. Each weapon in the retro-weapon catalog has its own illustration, and we’re real proud of these designs! I can’t wait to see some Mothership games spiced up with some retro coolness!
What’s Next for Spicy Tuna?
Outsourced: The Luko Fin Corp Deception pre-launch page will be going up hopefully next week!
Since it is our next Mothership 1E release, the launch will be in Q3 sometime after the Mothership 1E boxed set is released so we can tidy up anything that needs it.
It’s crazy that Outsourced has been in production for nearly a year now. The text and art are done, including Alfred Valley’s solo rules for tackling the Jiri Clovis Bunker Escape mission written by Christian Sorrell. All that’s left is for me to finish the layout and for our editor, Walton Wood, to do the final proofreading.
The reveal this month is that Alfred’s solo procedure will include their Combined Systems Semiotic Standard created for Thousand Empty Light. The Semiotic Standard oracle will be used with a new compulsion mechanic throughout solo play! I’m happy that we are working ahead of time with the solo ruleset and happy to share that the solo rules will be included in the hardcover book instead of a digital supplement.
And an illustration reveal from Evangeline!!
A refresher/intro to Outsourced for everyone that is new:
Outsourced is the prequel/sequel to Constant Downpour Remastered. It is a hardcover module introducing Luko Fin Corp, the mercenary outsourcing corporation that sent the crew to die on Venus 3 in CDR. It also includes a bunker escape mission, solo rules for that mission, and two toolkits for crafting adventures on deadly planets.
The Team:
Evangeline Gallagher: Illustration
Christian Sorrell: Adventure Writing
Marco Serrano: Toolkit Writing, Layout
Alfred Valley: Solo Ruleset Writing
Walton Wood: Editing
Spicy Tuna Systems Update
We’re excited to say we will be shifting some focus towards in-house games. We’ll keep writing modules for Mothership 1E and other miscellaneous systems / system agnostic modules as we have been, but we’ll be about 50/50 with third-party modules and in-house games moving into 2024.
Some of the Spicy Tuna games will be hacks, and others will be closer to in-house systems, and we even have some solo games on the docket.
All house systems will see ongoing support and most will initially release digitally with essential materials and continue further development until a crowdfunded release.
I’ve been all over the place with game designs since last fall, following where the sparks are instead of honing in on a single idea as I previously mentioned in past Guac issues. This has helped me a ton, but changed some release plans.
Here’s the synopsis of the first game we’re releasing (soon!).
Greenhorns RPG: Not All Creations Are Good A Down We Go/Together We Go Hack coming out in July!
Greenhorns is an RPG about creating planets from the core up with grandiose technology that no one actually knows how to use. The problem with creating worlds out of seemingly nothing, instigating rapid evolution and sentience, and crafting sea and land masses is…crazy shit happens.
Space ghosts, molten anomalies, goliath hostile sentient planet pieces, corrosive beasts, and life-sucking entities. Anything you could possibly imagine can and will try to kill you.
It’s a heavy hand of gonzo, science fiction on the extremes, and awesome powers paired with equal deadliness.
Here’s the current intro to Greenhorns:
The Krux Federation stumbled upon a gargantuan creation machine thousands of years ago. After some dusting off, the Creatora Machinika was discovered to possess the technology to turn dark matter, light, and anywhere between twelve to three hundred unknown substances from space into planets. From the core to the mantel, shaping the seas and molding land masses, to full on explosive evolution and sentience, the Creatora Machinika proved itself to be an origin of creation.
The people of Krux crowned themselves all holy, almighty, and slapped the responsibility of stewarding the creation of the remaining darkness on their foreheads.
You are greenhorns in the Krux Federation, standing proudly with feet planted against the steel floor of your ship ready to embark on your first outing in creating a world.
Current Inspirations
We’ll start with Down We Go by Markus Linderum. Physical copies here.
I feel like I’ve been sleeping on this one. I just read Down We Go and I love the storytelling rules simplicity! Everything is condensed to one or two pages, dungeons serve multiple purposes, and it’s just sweet to see.
It captivated me enough to pause the ruleset I’ve been whipping up, and make Greenhorns. As with most of the games I’ve been designing, it’s mostly notes from shower thoughts and jotting down concepts during my son’s karate classes, but once we hit another milestone with current projects I’ll be able to tie it all together and release a solid 20-28 pager - hopefully in time for the end of the Down We Go Jam.
Next is Null by Spencer Campbell. Physical copies here.
I purchased Nova a few weeks ago, but haven’t gotten to it. Null came in the mail from backing it on Kickstarter…and, I’m glad this was my first introduction to Spencer’s Lumen system!! (Originally on my radar from Attack from Space Kickstarter by Tabletops and Tentacles.)
Null has a ton of cool aspects and powers you can wield. The one mechanic I’ll point out that I really like for this one-shot style game is that a single operator doesn’t die unless the entire crew dies unless it’s facing the Root. Instead they are effectively unable to act for the remainder fo the current room, and must be brought to a Safe Zone in order to be patched up. This kind of play doesn’t work for all games, but in one that you’re going in with a high chance of losing it’s a great way to handle it and keep players playing while not eliminating risk.
Null came to my door at the right time. There are a few nuggets I’ll most likely adapt over to Greenhorns as the mechanics seemed to be near-perfect solutions to some of the problems I was breaking through. Excited for it!
That’s it for The Guac 012!
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Thank you for being here and have a beautiful weekend ahead!!
Marco