A tag-based cyberpunk-fantasy roleplaying game in a megacity of tech and myth, powered by City of Mist.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Quick update + some new art
10 months ago
– Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 05:42:54 AM
Hi there chrome-armed privateers fencing illegal Sources,
This is just a quick update to let you know the content mill is still churning. The best news to report is that I personally have become free from our last project (QUEERZ!) to finally focus on the final reading of :Otherscape and also on completing some of the rules chapters everyone has been waiting for, with the aid of our incredible team and especially our new resident game designer and my friend Itamar Karbian, who has previosuly written for City of Mist's Shadows & Showdowns.
Having already read through some of the finalized setting material, I'm so excited about the different, cinematic take this game is going to have on cyberpunk in general and mythic cyberpunk specifically. The sheet variety of characters you will create, items you can obtain, and challenges you will face is thrilling, as is the fast-pace and intensity of it all, compared to the slower-paced investigation style of City of Mist.
As promised, by the end of this month we will already start releasing some of that sought-after material, especially the game's upgraded and unique ruleset.
One side effect of the staffing changes we reported about last update is that things have been quite serial rather than parallel for a while (i.e., we're doing one thing at a time). As such, I am now turning my gaze back on art, recruiting additional artists who will help our existing team to catch up. One such artist, the amazing Fran Matos, has created this first art for the Ningbo, the Japanese 'merfolk' (a term I used more for brevity and less for accuracy), whose flesh is supposed to grant eternal life (this legend featured also in City of Mist's Nights of Payne Town). In Tokyo:Otherscape, these folks fight back, and deal with harvested human organs. What do you think of this art? Let us know in the comments.
Stay tuned for more,
- Amit
Silent Period About To End
10 months ago
– Tue, Jun 27, 2023 at 01:05:27 PM
Hi there Wired Worshipers at Places of Power,
We are a week late on our two-week update schedule and it's time to get back into the routine of it. The past couple of months have been that deathly-silent stretch where the team has their nose (Noise?) down to the grindstone, but there is still not a lot to show visually. Editing the huge chunk of adventures has for the most part been completed, as well as for the METRO Megacity creation and character creation chapter, which contains literally thousands of tags, in hundreds of theme kits that describe anything from profession, through life goals, cybertech, magical items, and down to feelings -- each and every one of which needed to be fine-tuned to ensure that when you use Rapid Character Creation, you get an instantly playable slickcyberpunkcharacter in less than 5 minutes. Or, when you grab gear for your Loadout Theme during the game, it's a silky smooth gameplay experience that resonates with the worldbuilding of :Otherscape.
Luckily, this phase is almost over, and July will be the month for us to reveal more and more of what we've been working on all this time. In the mean time, us five -- developer, editor, two game designers, and yours truly -- will continue to hone the game you've all been waiting for.
In other news, our trusty Game Producer of 5 years, Omer Shapira, has sadly had to take an indefinite leave of absence from his role this week due to personal reasons (he's okay, just turning his attention to other aspects of life). Omer has been my right hand man in running SoO for as long as I can remember and has done amazing work as Game Producer, so this will definitely take time to get used to as we search for someone to take his role (but not his place in our hearts!). This won't affect :Otherscape directly, as Omer wasn't working on this specific game, but we definitely lost a few days this week re-calibrating after this news.
I'm excited to soon start revealing the finished texts of both METRO and TOKYO, chapter by chapter.
Thank you for your continued patience and see you in two weeks!
Amit
Assembling Parts
11 months ago
– Wed, Jun 07, 2023 at 01:16:41 PM
Hey there wielders of cybertech and artifacts,
It's a couple of days past our usual bi-weekly update schedule so it's time to catch up.
Generally, editing continues on both the Metro:Otherscape core book and the Tokyo:Otherscape supplement. As predicted, the adventures are taking the longest to get through but work on these is going on pretty much nonstop.
Today, let's take a look at some of the new building blocks we've been working on for the layout of game.
New Challenge Layout
If you missed the discussion on Discord, you may be interested in knowing we are considering a new layout for the Challenges in the book which takes a step away from the City of Mist Dangers. The main changes are:
Statuses and tags which the Challenge has at the beginning of the scene get their own area (no need for lengthy Custom Moves for that)
Soft moves and hard moves are now paired, so that the MC can read the soft move as a threat, and then deliver the "damage" of the hard move if the threat is ignored or not handled (or cut straight to the hard move, if a player rolls a miss)
Countdown Limits have their maxing-out moves under the Limits section, and not stashed away in the custom moves section. (This part is still being worked on graphically.)
The purpose of this redesign is to make the Challenges much easier and much faster to use, and generally codify as much as possible using the existing rules of the game (e.g., statuses) and keep the custom moves section for unique abilities.
Down below, you can see how Power Sets can be attached to any Challenge, in a visual way, adding extra abilities.
New Layout for the Loadout Catalog
Unlike film noir, where gear isn't really a focus, in cyberpunk GEAR MATTERS. The new Loadout system will replace Extra Themes and allow PCs to obtain and equip gear and accessory story tags before heading out on their Jobs. Our awesome writers have created two rich catalogs to choose from: a general one for Metro:, and a Japan-focused one for Tokyo:. Each item in the catalog offers a main gear tag, additional (and optional) feature tags, and a weakness tag that can always be invoked for that gear.
Right now, we're trying to decide how to make it all look cool and readable. This is one attempt, we're still very much in the process of honing it (and the art is a placeholder, not the final design).
Character Creation Tropes
The :Otherscape character creation system will combine the best parts of the core CoM system and the rapid system introduced in Shadows & Showdowns. This combo is already working very nicely in QUEERZ! RPG.
In Metro:Otherscape, rapid character creation will have you pick one of 30 pre-made character recipes called Tropes (divided into 10 snazzy categories, think class and subclass), which will point you to 3 fixed Theme Kits and a choice of a 4th Theme Kit. Each Theme Kit can be customized as well in terms of tag choice. Tokyo:Otherscape will have another 10 trope categories with 30 variants, so you're unlikely to ever run out of character ideas, even if you are using rapid and not custom character creation.
Graphically, we went through a few options and iterations, and eventually decided to create playing-card-sized tropes, which will also have a printable version and will be handy in Session Zero, where you'll be able to let your group pass around the trope cards and make their new characters in minutes.
That's it for now. We'll keep you posted on our ongoing progress with putting this game together. Thank you all again for your continued patience -- we're really excited to bring this game to life with you!
Until next time,
- Amit and the SOO Team
METRO and TOKYO jobs in final editing
12 months ago
– Tue, May 23, 2023 at 12:06:25 PM
Hey there cyber-hustlers, eking out a living in the Megacity one job at a time!
It's been almost two weeks from the last update, and we're in the final editing stage for all jobs and location jobs for both the METRO and TOKYO books. This part of production -- the editing stage -- is usually very involved but more "quiet" and far less glitzy, because there's not a lot of new things to show. And it's definitely not as glamorous as art creation!
However, we're happy nonetheless to share the following job summaries with you, so you have a better idea of what to expect from the jobs and location jobs in both :Otherscape books.
Full-length jobs (adventures) and location jobs (scenarios) in the METRO and TOKYO books
METRO Adventure: THREADING THE NEEDLE
A full-length introductory adventure for METRO, involving a prison extraction from a thin-place aligned with the Labyrinth of Minos. Runs through all the basic mechanics of :Otherscape, from introducing the Core Moves, to how hacking works, and how to handle fights in this game.
Tokyo Adventure: A BRIDGE TOO FAR
A full-length adventure for TOKYO engaging the crew in a chase across the city streets to deal with a powerful substance capable of changing the Megacity forever. The job intertwines with many of Tokyo’s key players and most iconic supernatural entities.
Tokyo Location Jobs - the following playable scenarios will be featured in the TOKYO book. These are jobs for your crew that are focused on one major location, similar to the playtest scenario of the BNZ4I-10 Cybershrine.
THE ANTHILL - An extraction heist delving beneath an opulent health resort. Ultimately pits the crew against a powerful hive-mind, bent on citywide assimilation and the pursuit of immortality. The PCs may need to talk their target out of an eternity in paradise.
BITING THE BULLET - A train heist job set within cyberspace. The PC crew could be the heist crew or the defenders depending on how you run it. A hacking and stealth job that ultimately turns into a fast paced action-adventure when things start to go wrong.
DISTANT THUNDER - Vengeful servants of a thunder kami seek to tear down Tokyo’s technological advancements, plunging the Megacity back into a feudal era. The PC crew must confront these supernatural powers in the ruins beneath the city where they tangle with would-be-samurai, cultists, and dangerous yokai.
THE KENKO RUINS - An exploration and scavenging mission in which the crew discover the dangerous location where a nanotech disaster occurred. They face strange technologies, mutant creatures, and fellow scavengers who worship the disease kami who inhabit the nanite clouds.
THE SERPENT IN THE STEAM - The crew are tasked with protecting the negotiations between a local gang and a powerful crime syndicate secretly run by a new incarnation of the legendary Shinobi. They must keep the peace at a bathhouse nightclub despite the interference of a manipulative kami who dwells there.
Please let us know what you think about those down in the comments, or discuss in more detail on the Discord channel!
Less than 48 hours remaining for the Alchemy RPG VTT Kickstarter
We are at the last couple of days for the Alchemy RPG VTT Kickstarter campaign! Our friends are closing in on 600K and have been unlocking more and more content making the deal ever sweeter -- and are bound to do so until the time runs out -- go check it out!
Editing Continues In Full Force + Alchemy RPG!
12 months ago
– Tue, May 09, 2023 at 12:16:12 PM
Hi there bright souls trapped in bubbles of Noise,
We're bringing you this update a little late, but overall we'll continue to stick to the bi-weekly update plan.
Overall, the editorial phase is continuing in full force. There's not yet a lot to share, but the team is working vigorously to prepare the books for release.
Editor Eran and Developer Kelly continued as planned and have completed editing the Key Player chapter and two out of five mini adventures, as well as a yet unrevealed City Generator. The adventures section still has 3 mini adventures and 2 large ones, so that will take some time to edit. After that they'll move onto the rules and player options chapters.
I (Amit) will join them next week with some final touch ups, following which each finished chapter will undergo proofreading and layout.
As I mentioned, we have recruited a new art manager. In addition, we hired an additional game designer to help us review and fine-tune the sheer volume of Theme Kits and Dangers in these two books, and to help us write up the Activities Directory, a section of the rules that tells you how to use the basic moves to do anything in the game, from aiming, through hacking, to intimidation.
We'll keep you posted as soon as we have shiny visible things to show, but for now know that the project is moving forward at a great pace!
Alchemy VTT is killing it on Kickstarter! (with City of Mist content included)
Our friends at Alchemy RPG have recently launched their Kickstarter for their cinematic Virtual TableTop (VTT) platform, where you can find dozens of RPG titles including City of Mist. While we don't know for certain yet if :Otherscape will be on the platform, there's a good chance it will be!
Their Kickstarter has already surpassed $400,000 and is set to be a huge success, taking the stunning Alchemy platform to the next level with Alchemy Version One.
Thanks to the awesomeness of the Alchemy RPG team, you will get a free key to Alchemy RPG for everything City of Mist you pledged for digitally in this campaign, other campaigns, or bought on our store. However, there is SO MUCH MORE you could get on their Kickstarter, including dozens of other games and access to Alchemy Enhanced, enjoying special content bundles and prices, only on Kickstarter!
Check it out!
This is it for now, tune in for the next update soon!
