Gamebook Friday: Bardsung and 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas

Neither of the subjects of today's Gamebook Friday blog post are gamebooks, but they may both be of interest to fans of gamebooks.

In a nutshell, Bardsung is a cooperative RPG dungeon explorer for 1-5 players, from the creators of the Resident Evil™ & Horizon Zero Dawn™ board games. Descend into the depths of an ancient forge, building your dungeon, customising your hero, and creating your legend as you explore in either campaign or one-shot play—no game master needed. RPG immersion meets elegant mechanics in a board game where your choices matter*. Featuring guest writers Rhianna Pratchett, Ian Livingstone, Luke Gygax, Yours Truly & more.

You can find out more about what myself and the other writers are planning here, and you can back the Kickstarter here.

Available now is 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas, the first release from ACE Gamebooks Roleplay and the fruits of my own Kickstarter labours from earlier in the year. Fully illustrated by Tony Hough, it is a labour of love and an object of beauty, and it's not a bad RPG either**.

Currently only available as a PDF, both softcover and hardcover editions will be available soon. You can find out more here.

It's also Black Friday day/weekend/week, so feel free to ignore Amazon and buy some signed copies of my ACE Gamebooks direct from the author!

* In other words, it features gamebook elements within the game design.

** Even if I do say so myself, which I do.

Bardsung: Legend of the Ancient Forge

I am delighted to be able to announce that I am one of the guest writers on the new board game Bardsung: Legend of the Ancient Forge, from Steamforged Games, that is currently funding on Kickstarter.

Here's the newsflash that appeared on an update this week:

I will be writing a standalone adventure for the game, which includes gamebook mechanics, as well as those of a board game and tabletop wargame.

Anyone who is already aware of my work will know that I have an abiding love of steampunk, golems, things with too many tentacles, and Scandinavian/British folklore. I also enjoy a good mystery, so I plan on my adventure containing elements of all of these.

There are daily updates and unlocks on the Kickstarter campaign page, and I have been particularly excited by those revealing new monsters that will be appearing in the core box, as well as the Lost Levels expansion.

I hope to use elements of these in the story I want to tell, and already have a number of ideas jotted down in my planner. 

So, if you've not checked out the Kickstarter campaign page already, why not do so today, and pledge your support?