Guac 011: New Releases + Joel Hines Interview
Discover more from The Guac Newsletter
Guac 011: New Releases + Joel Hines Interview
Happy April!
I hope it’s treated everyone well so far! We’re excited about the spring and wrestling our projects into gear so we can get both Constant Downpour Remastered and A Butterfly Dies into backers' hands.
We’re also excited to finally release Spicy Tuna Stories No.34 and Reviews.Books.Ads. ! Plus share a nice interview with our friend Joel Hines about his newest Mothership module Tide World of Mani now on Kickstarter.
On to the news!!
Docket
New Releases! Spicy Tuna Stories No.34 + Reviews.Books.Ads.
And more highlights from the LoFi Mothership Jam
Constant Downpour Update
Mythic Space by Peter LaCara and Illustrated by several illustrators including David Simons (Constant Downpour, Knights of Lazarus)
Tide World of Mani interview with Joel Hines
Playtesting for Spicy Tuna
Spicy Tuna Stories No.34 + Reviews.Books.Ads.
Released as part of the Voices of the Void LoFi Jam hosted in the official Mothership Discord, these zines were finished in August of 2022. Because of the number of submissions, logistics, and assistance needed there were many delays…but well worth the wait! Some really wonderful ideas and designs were made during this jam.
I’m excited to highlight some really cool zines below and share more in detail about our releases. All of the submitted zines are in-world, player-facing artifacts that ooze flavor. Here are our two submissions.
Spicy Tuna Stories No.34
Mercenary poetry, LiDAR burrow maps, space horror sketches from recollections, and four Tales of The Laughing Sphinx Co’s 1-page comics showcasing odd happenings and mysterious technological artifacts found while clearing space debris. “Happy Space. Happy Place.”
The zine optionally ties in/extends other Mothership 3PP zines including “Familiar Faces Vol. 1” and “Outsourced” by Spicy Tuna RPG. This “found artifact” is an in-world lofi zine that is statless and player-facing compatible.
These 1-page comics were my favorite part of making these LoFi zines. These are 2 of 4 of comics that detail happenings and technological artifacts found by The Laughing Sphinx Space Debris Removal corp (From Familiar Faces Vol.1 and the Julip IV System, but not needed to use.) Each one intended to spark a little something that can be enjoyed as a comic or extrapolated into a happening during shore leave or inform the crew something new to procure.
Reviews. Books. Ads.
Reviews of book covers, posters, and ads from a bored and beaten merc. Each cover and ad is “cut-and-pasted” into the zine by the “reviewer” providing a large illustration on every page. This zine provides context to the world Mothership players live in.
The zine optionally ties-in/extends other Mothership 3PP zines including “The Cleaning of Prison Station Echo”, “Knights of Lazarus”, “Familiar Faces Vol.1”, “Incorporated Vol.1”, and “The Oceans Are Endless On Meridian”, and “5th Quinquennial Interstellar Interdisciplinary Conference”. This “found artifact” is an in-world lofi zine that is statless and player-facing compatible.
A book cover design I made for The Oceans Are Endless on Meridian by Mystery Spice and Jet McFin. Appreciate getting permission to do so!
Julip IV poster to direct players to the sandbox shore leave location in Familiar Faces Vol.1. You may recognize it as a printable digital extra for FFV1.
You can pick up Spicy Tuna Stories No.34 + Reviews.Books.Ads here:
Digital PDF downloads:
https://spicytunarpg.itch.io/spicy-tuna-stories-no34
https://spicytunarpg.itch.io/reviews
US from Tuesday Knight Games: https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/spicy-tuna-stories-34
https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/reviews-books-ads
UK from Peregrine Coast Press
https://shop.peregrinecoast.press/products/spicy-tuna-stories-no-34
https://shop.peregrinecoast.press/products/reviews-books-ads
Also want to shout out a few of the LoFi zine submissions from people close to Spicy Tuna RPG (Missing many so check out the Tuesday Knight Game store to see them all!!)
Analog Survey by Joshua Justice
https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/analog-survey
https://joshua-justice.itch.io/analog-survey
Known Frequencies by Alfred Valley https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/known-frequencies
https://shop.peregrinecoast.press/products/known-frequencies?_pos=1&_psq=known+frequen&_ss=e&_v=1.0
https://alfredvalley.itch.io/known-frequencies
Corpo Culture Killed My Dog #8 by Christian Sorrell
https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/corpo-culture-killed-my-dog-issue-8
https://plusoneexp.com/collections/meatcastle-gameware/products/corpo-culture-killed-my-dog-8
https://meatcastlegameware.itch.io/corpo-culture-killed-my-dog
PROXI Marchindeses Technologiques by ChrisAir Games
https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/proxi-marchandises-technologiques
https://chrisair.itch.io/used-android-catalogue
5th QUIIC by ChrisAir Games (I wrote a piece for this I really enjoy! + 12 total authors!)
https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/5th-qullc
https://chrisair.itch.io/5th-quiic
Last thing to mention about Tuesday Knight Games’ store. They have Spicy Tuna’s Planet Builder patches.
https://shop.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership/products/planet-builder-patch
Constant Downpour Update
We’ve hit a ton of roadblocks with working with high-end offset printers for the first time. Most of it is growing pains and wishing we switched software sooner so we had more control over settings and exports. All materials have been ordered and their ready to print when we can figure out the files on our end. We’re looking at getting final approval next week.
The Backerkit Preorder store is still open with 3 Free zines with every Hardcover order! Here’s some sneak peeks of the 8 pagers that are accompanying Constant Downpour.
Cryo-weapons, laser blasters, tactical grenades, and stims made from Venusian DNA. All player-facing compatible as catalogs.
Here’s the unlabeled hex map 🙂
A Butterfly Dies Update
A Butterfly Dies Preorder Store is Open!!
Everything is finished for the zine and we’re looking at a May delivery!! This adventure was a blast to write. I’m happy with the movement of the world despite the player’s actions and how much their choices can change the course of the villages and disrupt traditions. Plus, working with Christian Sorrell on editing is always a treat!
Cocoxoca is the pamphlet adventure that explores more of the Mexican-inspired setting. It’s my first pamphlet published and I’m proud of the worldbuilding packed into it.
A few highlights for the Preorder Store if you don’t have everything SpicyTuna.
Get A Butterfly Dies and all Kickstarter Bundles at KS discount
Planet Builder + Planet Design Book Bundle
Knights of Lazarus + Familiar Faces Vol.1 Bundle
*All bundles can be purchased through the Preorder Store without ordering A Butterfly Dies.
Mythic Space by Peter LaCara
Cover Art by David “Arcvein” Simons
“Mythic Space is a science fiction tabletop role-playing game that is a love letter to Halo, Mass Effect, Cowboy Bebop, the Expanse, and all the sci-fi classics. Build a crew and explore the galaxy in your own spaceship! Get into engaging tactical combats with space fascists, corporate thugs, pirates, and eldritch horrors lurking in the black! Delve into ancient precursor ruins and find technology sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic!”
Disclosure: I worked with Peter during the Tabletop Mentorship Program this past summer. His game had already gone through several sessions of playtesting and iterations and was in the stages ready for art, layout, and marketing. We worked on the crowdfunding, layout, hiring artists, and getting the word outside of the project over the summer together.
A few things I love about this project.
It’s been playtested for several months and with several groups. Peter’s been really successful in keeping an updated available playtest game. (Link available on the Kickstarter page)
David Simons (Knights of Lazarus + Constant Downpour Remastered) is one of five artists on the project. I’m obviously biased there, but all of the artists are incredible. I’ve gotten a sneak peek of a ton of art that is already done, and it’s incredible.
Giant world scifi that’s optimized for low-prep improvisational play, lightweight ship-building rules, and an incredibly innovative combat system that “feels like a mash-up of XCOM and D&D 4e”.
The game has an online character sheet app https://jump-gate.net/
Some of the best updates during a campaign I’ve seen in the indie TTRPG space. There are a ton of game developmental notes and artist spotlights.
Mythic Space has 5 days left on its Kickstarter and recently funded this week!! If you want to learn more check out the Kickstarter page and updates or you can listen in on Pete’s interview with Mildra:
Mythic Space has 6 days left on Kickstarter. You can find it here
Jumpgate by Ivan Juarez
The Nemesis Blight by Jimmy Nijs
Tide World of Mani Interview With Joel Hines
Hi, Joel! Thank you for answering a few questions about your upcoming revolution sandbox adventure Tide World of Mani. I’m excited to dig into it.
Q: The influence list is great! Waterworld, Mad Max, historical revolutions, and modules like A Pound of Flesh. Can you tell us about your favorite manifestation from these influences in A Tide World of Mani?
A: Sure, I think one of the top ones is the precarious existence people on the planet share over the waves and the grungy makeshift aesthetic is deeply influenced by having watched Waterworld a couple times.
Also the Land Barons style and position on the hierarchy of the Last Atoll holding a precious resource definitely has some inspiration from Mortician Joe in Mad Max as well.
Q: Who’s the person or faction you can’t wait for players to interact with, or which location are you most excited to share?
A: I think the huge former generation ship turned Ship Palace in the center of the Last Atoll will be a lot of fun as it has this blend of high tech and baroque medieval opulence to it. The palace built atop the ship offers a lot of opportunity for intrigue and interaction with the ruling class of Mani while the cavernous and dilapidated guts of the ship should offer some quality sci-fi dungeon crawling opportunities.
Q: One of the most appetizing aspects of Tide World of Mani is the high level of player agency, in that it’s very choose your risk to reward. You can relax in the corporate beach compound or crush a rebellion and many things in between. Mess around on shore leave or stick around and smuggle arms. Can you share more about how you crafted a volatile space with opportunity to go about without engaging in the deadliness?
A: I think it's important to my style of sandbox design to leave room for player directed engagement and provide a wide variety of interesting content that pulls in many directions. Some crews will be more interested in a relaxed shore leave for a session instead of heisting hovertrains or delving the depths and that's absolutely fine, my job is to make even the potentially more mundane elements of the setting evocative, weird, and at least potentially dangerous. For example, while a crew can come to Mani and just stay at the Sharpe Co. corporate enclave's faux beach there's a gradual revolution boiling away over time and if even they don't choose to interact with that, on their next visit or over an extended stay on Mani they may be forced to reckon with the way the situation has evolved into chaos that affects them even without their earlier interaction.
Q: As a spiritual successor to Desert Moon of Karth what similar experience do you hope players get to relive or feel again that they may have gotten while exploring Karth? And, what unique experience do you hope players get to play through most while visiting Last Atoll?
A: I hope that players who found and enjoyed Desert Moon of Karth will also dig the same type of open sandbox and interconnected web of strange factions and locations woven for Tide World of Mani. Differently while Karth is defined by isolation and space in between, Mani is a more crowded and evolving space that has several variants on each location in the book depending on which stage the revolution has advanced to, I hope this adds a sense of unpredictability and a living world that can be influenced by the actions of the players on this planet of eternal sunset.
You can find Tide World of Mani now on Kickstarter. It has 5 days left!! Joel has already unlocked a “Hover Train Heist Generator”, Smyth-sewn hardcover, and is in spittin’ distance to an original soundtrack! The book looks amazing, is incredibly well priced, and is guaranteed to be great coming from Silverarm.
Playtesting Spicy Tuna Modules
If you like early access, playtesting, and you have the time to check out some of our upcoming adventures, we’d love some feedback.
We have a number of adventures and scenarios that will be ready to playtest in a few weeks. I want to format them quick so they’re easier to run than working off of a Google doc. For the most part, the playtested material will be part of a whole so it won’t spoil an entire book.
Here’s a lineup of upcoming modules to playtest
Outsourced: Bunker Escape Adventure written by Christian Sorrell (Mothership)
Outsourced: Celsio-X Toolkit by Marco Serrano (Mothership)
Outsourced: Trace Atko Toolkit by Marco Serrano (Mothership)
Knuckles Co by Marco Serrano (Mothership)
If you’d like to get in touch about playtesting feel free to drop me a line at marco@spicytunarpg.com We can set up a gchat or discord call to meet and talk over anything.
Much love, Fam! Thank you for making it through this episode of The Guac. Have a lovely weekend ahead!
Marco