I can’t believe it has been over a year since I posted on this blog. Lately, I’ve been posting on X. Posts there coalesce then evaporate like smoke. Blogs are slightly more durable. It’s all just sand and fire, but sometimes leaves a lasting impression in the mind. And even this, too, only endures slightly longer.

Work continues on Atlantean Exodus. I’m on the third draft of the playtest material. The core of the game is the same. Some subsystems have been refined.

• Levels have been eliminated in favor of more granular and organic advancement, including a character’s starting advances.
• Fortune has been replaced by effort.
• Make an effort by spending up to 3 vitality. Each vitality spent grants +1 advantage die (1d6).
  (The resolution mechanic is 3d6+modifiers, rolling over a threshold number. Advantage dice are rolled in addition to the 3d6, keeping the three best die results.)
• The new effort system neatly ties into character advancement, ability masteries, exhaustion, injury, death, and other subsystems.
• Spiritism and other wonders in general are now more powerful, but have new tradeoffs for this power.

And there are a number of other changes that still need testing.

Because of the scope of the game (multiple generations of characters traveling across the green Sahara) and limited time, I have started writing code to simulate characters and the caravan on their centuries-long journey. So far, I can generate rudimentary characters. The name generation is improving.

More coaxing sand and fire into shape is needed. I’m a little rusty, not having coded for such a long time.