Rate top gamesANNA-X66: REDUX [ITCHFUNDING NOW]
About
CROWDFUNDING ON ITCH (PLEASE READ THIS FIRST!)
This game is in development and the text is nearing completion! We need a bit more time and money to get it across the finish line. You will have access to the current version of the game in PDF via this page. When the game is complete, you'll get the final version in PDF. There are also options below to get a community copy at reduced cost or a code to get a printed zine when those are available.
This game arrives as part of ZineMonth. Find other great zines using the hashtag #ZiMo2022.
ANNA-X66: REDUX is a tabletop roleplaying game that mixes together 80s and 90s sci-fi films, comics, and novels with a pick-up-and-play ruleset that powers Into the Odd. You wake up in a world that hasn't recovered from devastation and desperately needs your help. Luckily, everywhere you turn there's a friend and a half-buried artifact that defies the laws of physics. You can bet some shady characters want to get their hands on what you've found. Are your characters special? We don't know yet. Make them special! So far, they're just incredibly weird. There is also a super-intelligent AI that wants to "assist" you, but that hasn't gone well in the past.
ANNA-X66: REDUX evolved out of years of games of Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland by Chris McDowall. The rules of ANNA-X66:REDUX embrace the wackiness, the speed of play, and the impact of interesting (and risky) decisions. The ruleset is backed by Mark of the Odd, the engine that powers other successful games such as Silent Titans and Mausritter, and it has influenced many, many more.
Your pledge will help us to create a PDF and a physical paper zine (saddle-stitched, 8.5" x 5.5"). Gather pencils, dice, paper, and friends! This zine will provide the rules and setting tools needed to tell stories in the odd world of ANNA-X66: REDUX.
Roleplaying games should be made out of interesting decisions. This ruleset drives towards interesting and dangerous decisions right from the start. The system is d20-roll-under for ability score saves and no to-hit rolls (just roll your damage!), making it both quick and deadly. The core rules fit on just 2 or 3 pages, so mastering the system takes just a few sessions of play. That's why Mark of the Odd is many peoples' go-to for one-shot games.
For Protagonist Players:
Make your characters in minutes by rolling a few handfuls of dice and making a few simple choices. You've got just 4 stats to keep track of: Strength, Dexterity, Willpower, and Hit Points. You also have a small collection of useful items and abilities.
- You're an Explorer? take: several maps, night-vision binocs, and a radiation suit.
- You're a Zoner? take: a jar of nutritious self-replicating fungus, and the ability "Node - you can hear radio waves."
If your stats are low, you'll also roll NPCs or items that can provide help in sticky situations. If your stats are high, you'll owe some debts or favours.
For Game Masters:
I don't want the Facilitator (our GM) to know exactly what to expect as the game progresses. To that end, the book contains many random tables to roll on, for basic things like food, tools, NPC names, and monsters, to locations within the hex-crawl city and Mythics, which are powerful items that "break the game a little". There is also an ANNA, an Autonomous Neural Network Algorithm, in every game. It's a powerful AI NPC that can be a follower for the players or an antagonist, as needed. ANNA is Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Holly from Red Dwarf, Skynet and Terminators of the Terminator franchise.
The two key components of the campaign section of the game, which expand upon the core rules, are hex-crawl exploration and providing aid to communities. Investigating unusual locales and settling community disputes should be just as much a part of games of ANNA-X66: REDUX as fighting foes, disabling traps, and making ability checks. The hex crawl map looks like this:
As it stands, the text is nearly complete. You can find check out the Mark of the Odd rules and license by Chris McDowall if you want to see if this game will be the right level of "crunch" for you and your group. The game has been thoroughly playtested internally and we'll keep playtesting until right before sending the text to our layout artist, to ensure the best quality possible.
The zine will include the location of Capital City, a mix of glass towers and wastelands, with dusty ruins in between. It's high-speed, high-tech, high-risk, and high-reward.
Capital CityThe city that capital built. Buildings for government, world commerce, and the military were the first to be targeted, naturally. Whatever is left of them is ash lying at the bottom of a crater. The surrounding areas are irradiated waste ground with the odd stretch of brick or cinder-block indicating where walls once were. Large sections of the city are mostly undisturbed, having been far enough from the initial blasts. Now, they house settlements wherever someone was able to pen-in guinea pigs, or cover a rooftop with soil and add irrigation. Street-level is mostly empty, save for the occasional trader or hunter, leaving for the forests, or better yet, returning. Where humans have begun to rebuild, it is safe to walk alone. Unfortunately, the things you're looking for are likely to be found far from civilization.
A torn postcard is visible in the dust at your feet. "Visit Beautiful Capital City!" The city looks a lot different today. What would they boast of now?
- Get lost in the Series of Craters that dot the land!
- Visit Tech Hub City! - a group of techie survivors who never grow old
- Tour the Fungal Forest! - DO NOT TOUCH THE SPORES FOR THE LOVE OF $%@#^&
Each region has random encounter tables populated with helpful or harmful people, creatures, and robots.
- We rolled a 5 over water?: Mutant Salmon attack the boat!
- We rolled a 1 while lost in the fungal forest?: Roll WIL to kindly attract the attention of this human Spacer. He's contemplating life's mysteries and eating some tubers, but Spacers are known to be a little jumpy. Who knows? Maybe he can lead us out of here...
- We rolled a 2 in the city ruins?: A group of Press Gangers blocks your path. They want you to join their "war effort".
Hazards hide behind every pile of rubble. But helpful friends can be coaxed out of hiding too.
Other SettingsCapital City is just one of several locations that we've used during development. Other locales have included Sunk City, a half-submerged green-tech megalopolis and Harbour City, a smog-choked delta of scrap forts and military bunkers. We hope to turn these areas into fully-fleshed-out game material via stretch goals from Scablands Press and other talented folks in the online TTRPG community.
Slade Stolar - Has written the main text of the game. Previous RPGs from Slade include The Indie Hack and Dust, Fog, and Glowing Embers.
Carlos Andrés - Carlos is an artistic powerhouse of gritty designs, saturated colour palettes, and bold lines. He has drawn many pieces of amazing artwork for this project, and even more will go into the zine. Excellent examples of his work are all over this very Kickstarter page.
Megan Bennett-Burkes - Will be doing layout to make this game visually slick and easy-to-navigate. If you'd like to get in contact, Megan can be contacted at [email protected] Here is a mock-up of the layout:
Fulfillment
Printing and shipping are always difficult parts of planning crowdfunding that involves a physical book. This is even more true with the current global situation. We are working with MIXAM to create sustainable, high-quality physical zines at competitive costs.
Digital copies of the PDF will be distributed to backers via Itch.io. We will provide a code and collect shipping information for those who pledged at a level that has a physical zine reward once the project is completed; you'll only need to cover shipping.
We are asking for your financial support to complete this project in a way that is professional, comprehensive, and effortlessly usable. Art and layout of this high quality can get expensive, and a broad supporter base reduces per-unit costs. Furthermore, we want to be able to create even more content for the game. The number of backers will help us to know how much additional content we should produce.
As a designer, there is nothing more gratifying that knowing that people are playing your game (maybe having an early playtest go really well is tied with that). Playtesting this game ourselves has been excellent fun. But, I'd love to follow the conversation surrounding the game as it gets into other players' hands. Let's use the #ANNAX66 hashtag for play reports, reviews, or thoughts on the text!
Happy Gaming
-Slade