Midnight Dark - What Next?

While I wait on tenderhooks for the test print of Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark to arrive (any day now!) I have not been idle. I've been working on a printer-friendly edition of the rules, which I plan to make as part of the PDF purchase, so people can buy the PDF and have the full-colour version with all of the rules, and a much shorter version with none of the art, photography, fiction or fanciness, and which won't consume an entire year's worth of printer ink for those who want to print a copy of the rules for easy reference.

I am also going to make the printer-friendly rules FREE for all patrons at Elite level and above. This should be up for you guys this weekend if I can just fix the endless lay-out issues... Every time I think I've got it sorted another pops its bloody head up...

My next piece of work will be to create a Try-Before-You-Buy version of the rules, a bit like Training Run, but not just for solo play. My plan is that this will be Just Mechs. So it'll include all the rules you need for running light, medium, heavy and superheavy mechs, plus the mech upgrades. But no armour, infantry or tactical air assets. No heroes. No solo rules. And just one mission. Also, just basic terrain rules.

I'll also strip out a lot of the fiction and art, but keep as much of the photography as I can.

My plan is that, assuming the print edition does manage to get released before Christmas (I have literally already had one dream in which the print edition arrived full of errors that I couldn't explain, not that this is stressful or anything), I will have the printer-friendly edition out at the same time as the others, and the Midnight Lite rules (geddit?) out by the end of January. This is somewhat predicated on me not securing a new job that starts immediately after Christmas.

I also want to make some videos!

Obviously, I'd like to make an HTP video for Midnight Dark. But I'd also like to do a Horizon Wars: The Story So Far video, explaining the journey to this point.

Getting Midnight Dark published is A Big Thing for me, conceptually. It puts all three volumes of the Horizon Wars trilogy into the market. And although that doesn't mark the end of Horizon Wars (there will be supplements and new editions and suchlike over the next 5-10 years), it marks the end of the design journey and the start of a new adventure, exploring within the parameters of the design. It's a journey I hope others will undertake with me because, with all three games out there, Horizon Wars really becomes the emotional property of its players (while, you understand, still being very much my intellectual property...).

I have two supplements for Zero Dark well developed towards completion: Operation Kurgan is about 75% done in manuscript terms, while Antediluvium is probably only 25% done, but with lots of ideas burning their way out of my skull. I really need to do the FAQ for Infinite Dark, as well as flesh-out some concepts for supplements for that game. And Midnight Dark is going to get at least one campaign book to cover Operation Plantagenet. I also have about 10% of the manuscript done for a solo roleplay game based on Zero Dark.

Importantly, it opens my brain space up to explore other things, including returning to Blood & A Black Flag, with a view to turning that into a fully realized game system, and, of course, the ever-troublesome Ballmonsters! I can't decide if I should just give up on them and look for a buyer of the property and miniatures or take one more stab at it from first principles.

Last, but by no means least, I have Nameless.

Nameless is a concept I've been working on, on and off, for as long as I've been trying to write miniatures games. It's a high fantasy skirmish game that dips deep into alchemical traditions and tarot imagery and has a really fun character-building system but... I've never managed to make it work mechanically. It's supposed to be a playing card driven system inspired by Texas Hold 'Em, but where the players' characters fill a role like the Flop. Anyway, I'd like to put some more time into seeing if I can make it work again, in 2024.

Watch this space for the printer-friendly edition of Midnight Dark coming very soon. Midnight Lite will follow shortly and will be FREE for ALL my patrons.