Week 1 - Overview

This devlog series will track the progress I make on the project each week until its release. Here you can see everything I did in the order in which I did it. With that, let's dive into exactly what this project, Into the Woods... is all about.

I got the idea for this project when I decided to join the Never Alone Jam which had the theme:  Into the Forest. Prior to this project I had been working on an adventure gamebook set in space but it wasn't coming together quite like I wanted. What I ended up doing was taking parts of that idea and transitioning it into what would be this project with a new theme. Trust me when I say, this kept maybe 10% of the ideas from the original project.

The Premise

I keep a file on my computer for when I have a good game idea. Here's what I wrote for Into the Woods...:

It's been five years since the forest started to change. Every venture presents new wonders, and new challenges.
Only the elite, known as Hunters routinely enter the woods... and return alive that is. You are no such Hunter, but you still need to survive.

• Card driven w/tables.
• You have stats, unsure what they are yet. Probably 4, one for each card suit.
• D6 system with a + from stats. Get a 4 or better to succeed.
• You need to eat, run out of food, you lose. Start with an amount.
• Utilize D66 table to give a general event with some card interaction.
• Goal is to make it through the entire deck. Each card is a week and helps define events.

Obviously, I did not keep all of these ideas but this is where I started. What made it through to the final design was:

• Card driven play w/tables.
• 4 stats, one for each suit (Strength, Spirit, Survival, and Stealth).
• D6 resolution system requiring a 5 or higher for success.
• Resources management in the form of Food and Health.
• You still need to make it through the entire deck, but it is split up into four piles, one of each suit, instead of the straight 52.
  • Each set of 4 cards represents a month with events.

Making these changes took the first couple of days. For this portion of the project I did everything by feel.

Designing the Feel

The rest of the week was actually spent on designing the cover image and writing the first page. This may sound silly, but setting the tone upfront helps me with keeping the project tight and consistent. Here's what I ultimately went with after a few revisions:

You’ve lived in these woods for many years. It’s treated you well all this time. The passing of each season has brought with it great beauty, but it has also presented unique hardships. Still, you managed to always make do and survive. Lately, you’ve noticed the forest has begun to change as less people dare to venture into this serene, magical place. Now only the Hunters rarely cross your path. This doesn’t bother you though, you’ll always do as you have and survive.

Into the Woods… is a solo tabletop role-playing experience that tasks you with surviving a full year in an ever-evolving forest. There will be magic, whimsy… and of course, danger! As the year progresses, the challenges you face will grow but you’ll have to overcome that adversity in order to survive.

I also designed this image and setup the game's page here:

Beyond that, I outlined everything that needed to be done moving forward. Since I'm writing this entry retroactively, I apologize for not remembering exactly what I wrote but here is a general grocery list of what I needed to do:

• Create tables
• Write rules
• Finalize basic definitions for key words

That was it for week 1, it may not seem like I did a lot, but even this resulted in about 10 pages of near complete content.

Week 2 - Overview

For the second week I spent that time making all the templates for tables and finalizing the starting bonuses table. I also wrote up all of the rules for play. If you want to see what that looks like, just download the project (I mean, it is free). Don't see much point in showing that here but I will talk about how I did things some.

Making the Document & Tables

I use a combination of a word processing tool and a spreadsheet tool. The first is for putting everything on paper and the second is for table creation and running statistics to ensure the game has some balance. As I create things kind of inside out, that means I don't do any actual testing during this process, I largely play it by ear. When I create things this tends to be my process, but like I mentioned, I did run some stats to ensure that things aren't totally broken.

During this process I also hyperlink everything up. I still need to convert this all to a PDF and add in my branding, as create this alongside my other professional endeavor, Jon Spencer Reviews. I'll also need to slap my licensing on the project too. This should take literal minutes, and the only reason it isn't done at the time of writing is because of how I'm laying things out (it would impact that negatively).

Anyway, not all of the tables and such got completed in week two but most of them did. Putting them into the document is a pain and there is a secondary process that has to be done with each new table, which I'm saving for last. This sometimes requires me to make new entries regarding abilities, equipment, or events. That step is done right away, but the bestiary section that accompanies this is reserved for last. It isn't complex, I just don't know how many entries I need and want to lay things out logically for the player.

Week 3 - Overview

Week three has just started and I'm working to finish the last of the tables. Last week I got about half-way through them. Once that is done all that's left is to create each entry for the bestiary, create rewards and setbacks for each encounter, and then proof the project. I estimate the project will need another week or two at the current pace. I'm a busy dude working on other stuff so that gets in the way of me completing this any faster. I tend to spend about 1-2 hours at most a day (minus weekends) on stuff for Into the Woods... so you have an idea of how much time I'm spending here.

A Silly Mistake & Table Improvement

As I was finishing up the tables for the week, I noticed that I had made an error that should have been obvious. Tables should be labeled Ace, 2-10, Jack, Queen, King. However, I had all the tables that required card pulls referencing a bonus "1" value that shouldn't exist. This oversight resulted in something interesting though! As I was altering the tables to have the proper values, I obviously needed to delete a row of data in my 4 key Season Tables. Since I used some math and patterning to write entries, this kind of throws everything off, but in a good way. Now the tables are not as well balanced and the patterning I used is far less obvious as a result. Each table lost a more benign option, which is good because we don't want too many boring/easy type encounters.

I also went and upgraded the language on all of the tables to be more interesting and less generic. There are still some standard RPG terms on there, but you have to have some staples. This is a normal wood after all... well, until you venture further into your year at least. Finally, I noticed I had made a key word and ability that could be granted to a character that I had never utilized. That's bad, so I made some special "Night Encounter" options that create the Darkness* key word for that encounter. Darkness causes a -1 penalty (unless you have Night Vision) to all non-Spirit related checks. That means there is a 1 in 4 chance you will dodge the negative, unless you got a lucky start.

*A note on Darkness. This is a key word that I want to utilize more in supplemental material. For this core book, I don't want it to be that important but since I included an opportunity for a player to gain an immunity to that status in setup, I did not want it to go unused. Like I mention on the game's page, if people like this core game I do have supplements outlined so it is something to think about. 

Caught up on Entries

I'm now current with writing these things, and should be moving forward. We are already at 21 full pages so my estimation of 50 or so by time we are done seems accurate. Since this week is the first one I'm writing as things happen, I'll have to update this in parts. This shouldn't go public until the project goes live though so you shouldn't really notice any gaps. Anyway, that's all for today because I'm just working on the above stuff like I already mentioned.

Week 4 - Overview

This week's goals are pretty simple. I need to finish up writing a handful of events and start work on the bestiary. The latter will take a little more effort considering I also need to decide on Rewards and Setbacks for each creature you may encounter during the course of play. I also may decide to have some monsters have other effects depending on what season you encounter them in (there are several that overlap, which makes sense when you see them. Example, wolves.).

Event Discussion

One of my design tenets when putting this together was that I wanted to input as little as possible in terms of the player's narrative. This is meant to be a journal game so most things should be filled in by the player. That said, to aid in making the world feel more unique and to help those who struggle with filling in all the gaps, I did decide to write some events for Into the Woods... Still, events are left intentionally vague as to allow the player more creative freedom.

In addition to this reason, I also went with this choice because of time constraints. One month is not a very long time to fully design and release a TTRPG. I'm a solo designer so the less "extra" stuff I have to add in the better. The downside to this approach is that events are fairly rare, you may never encounter one, but that will make them feel more special. Furthermore, I wanted to avoid writing an adventure book where the player needed to consult multiple pages to resolve a single event. This is from my experience on other projects (released or otherwise) and acts as an attempt to  focus this specific project. Basically, it is a way to challenge myself from how I would normally approach a game like this.

The major advantage to this is that if I want to modify or expand on this game at a latter date, it will be very easy to do so. There's just enough here to be interesting without giving everything up. If folks really like the game and there is demand for expansion, I will be able to provide it and it becomes a win-win for both designer and consumer. This is especially true as this core book will be a free standalone product, allowing me to monetize supplemental materials as I see fit should I decide to go that route. All of this is speculative of course, but having the room to make these decisions should go a long way.

Beautification

In addition to finishing up all the event writing and starting work on the bestiary, I began putting in some limited art. The final product likely won't have a ton of art, but  it looks weird to have a few pages of largely empty space (where tables had spill-over or some such thing that necessitated utilizing less than a full page. Which was rare.) so some appropriate art was slotted here-and-there. Here's an example of one such art:

I also gave the document a background. No longer is it just white, it now has a worn paper look that retains legibility while adding a little flair to the project. I could have gone for a more thematic forestry type background but I want things to be legible still, so worn paper is my go-to route with this sort of thing. I think it looks pretty good though.

Week 5 - Overview

This week was meant to be the final week of the project but I just learned that the Jam was given an extension until the 1st of July. I'll be taking advantage of that as well as giving myself a bit of a break. This week really won't have much going on. Lately I've been busy with some other projects and work so the break and extension is needed.

Future me coming back in here to just clearly state that I did not, in fact, make any progress on the game during the fifth week. Instead I worked on some other projects that benefited me financially and took some time off. This has allowed me a more fresh set of eyes for designing what will ultimately be the most important, but least time consuming, portion of the game.

Week 6 - The Home Stretch

We've reached the final week before submissions for the jam are due! I've started work on the bestiary and created an easy to read format that I'm happy with. Right now, I've only managed to complete the "how to read" section, but considering how important that is, I'd say I'm on track given that I'm writing this section on Monday. I've penciled out some of the lower level stuff but still need to properly include it in the product proper. Tomorrow's goal is to have all of the Spring and Fall bestiary entries completed.

Tuesday was spent doing part of what I had intended with the bestiary, but I also modified some mechanics and finalized some other portions of the document that were missing information (I had placeholder stuff there). I managed to get Spring totally finished and part of Summer, but even though I didn't hit the set goal for today's work, it isn't an issue since it lead to the completion of other elements. I'd say things are still on track. Wednesday goal is to finish up Summer and at least half of Fall, ideally all of it though.

For Wednesday I noticed that I missed writing some events. I've added those. Completed Spring and Summer tables. Clarified a rule about opposed roles when concerning combat. That's about it for today. Tomorrow and Friday I aim to wrap things up, put in a little more art, and then publish this :)

Some encounters are semi-future proofed. I wanted to make sure that if there was desire for expansion I had some things in place for that. You may notice some unusual choices that wouldn't make sense to take in a typical run, but that's why they are there. Any places I offered these I also offered an alternative that made more sense in a single year base game run.

Finished everything up and published this! Really glad to have it done, even if it may not be perfect. I didn't get the chance to test this, but please provide any feedback. I aim to support this moving forward so let me know. Enjoy the game!