Game Jams and Fast Publication
Making a Pirate Borg adventure in 2 weeks
So I just published a small Pirate Borg adventure called The Isle of Sin. It’s free! Though you can add a little tip if you like. I made this thing in just 2 weeks. It probably took around 16 hours of work. Something around that time frame at least. It’s not easy doing writing, your own editing (always a perilous task), sourcing art, layout, and then publishing it online in just 2 weeks. But let me walk you through it. Hopefully it helps some folks out there improve their own process. First, I became aware of the Cabin Fever Jam.
Limithron is offering some pretty awesome rewards for participants. Enamel pins and stickers for all who enter something solid, and cash prizes for a bunch of different categories. As I’m currently between day jobs (I guess that I’m a full-time TTRPG creator for the time being), the cash prizes sounded appealing, plus Pirate Borg is awesome and I’ve got the extra time on my hands. I found out about this on May 2, when the update about this was put out on the Ship of the Dead podcast. I got to thinking about what I could do for a submission.
I looked through my notebook for anything particularly piratey but actually already was thinking about an adventure idea that I’d had probably a year or 2 prior. I foudn that note, which essentially said, “An adventure with a Sauron-like gaze. 1-in-6 chance of being spotted and being transported to an alternate world. Chance might go higher if certain magics are used.” That seems like a cool thing to stick on an island. So I flipped to an open page of my notebook and started writing down ideas: what the thing was, why this island, different areas on the island and what could be in them, etc. After that was done, I was ready to transcribe things into Google Docs and start my first revision.
During this time, I was also checking the Pirate Borg discord server to make sure that I wasn’t doing something close to what another individual might be talking about creating. Plus, Limithron is quite active there and responds to the questions of other folks. I got some good advice there that helped me find the right vibe. But in that first revision (not really the correct word), I went from an outline to a solid 1st draft. But I hadn’t really written it in the Pirate Borg style, and I knew it.
I put the words into Affinity Publisher and started layout work. I just wanted to see how many pages of words I’d written. It was 4 pages worth. Ideally, I could keep it to just though 4. In the end, I wanted to create a cover so it became 5 pages, but having an even number of pages feels “more correct” to me so I added a 6th page that’s just an add for a Pirate Borg pamphlet that I’ve done (What The Hell Is A Fishblade?).
After I had the words in layout, I became revising my writing into the Pirate Borg style. Things just needed to be more concise. Here’s an example below:
Before:
1. BLOOD OCEAN. The moon weeps blood into a poisoned ocean. Breeze and waves pull towards a distant isle.
Temptation Manifest: The ship is naturally drawn towards it by wind and wave. The ship is considered In Irons unless the Captain succeeds an AGILITY DR 18 test.
Sanguine Sea: Alchemists using this pelagic blood gain +1 to tests to craft potions. However, using the potion results in a Magical Mishaps (pg. 66-67) unless a DR 10 Spirit test is passed.
1d4+1 Eldritch Eels (pg. 88) barrage ships who sail away from the isle or swim in the waters.
Sail to Shipwreck Shore [2].
After:
During this time, I was also looking for art. In all likelihood, I’d be earning little to no money unless I win the big prize. So the budget had to stay low. That means stock art and public domain art. I spent about $32 on stock art and used most of it. I also used some public domain art that I found on Pixabay. Then I image-bashed a map together that is usefully but a bit too “Morky”. I’d going to try to redo it prior to the end of the game jam and then upload a revised version of the adventure.
The art and layout probably accounts for half the total time spent on this project. And I’ll be spending further time polishing it so it still goes on, albeit in small amounts. The last 10% of any project is usually the hardest and takes the longest. So that’s the quick version of it. Thinking, outlining, writing, revising, sourcing art, editing art, and layout. I learned about this on the 2nd and published it on the 13th. I hope to see folks submit some more awesome things to the jam.
Have you participated in Game Jams before? What’s your experience?
What else is going on?
Big Trouble For A Little Blood
This campaign is live! Two new level 2 and level 3 new adventures for Weird Frontiers, and a new zine for Weird Heroes of Public Access (WHPA13).
