Change to PWYW
Hello, mortals! :)
After four months since I've released October Rust, I decided to change it indefinitely to Pay What You Want mode (4,50$ of suggested price). The reasons are:
- For a first 30 days after a release, the main rulebook had been downloaded 170 times (Itch.io and DTRPG) and that lead to 9 purchases.
- Then, at 5$ price followed by two sales discount, it managed only to get additional 9 purchases. Plus nine Community Copies taken.
As you can see, almost no-one buys this game. This is just secondary problem to me, because I just wanted to compensate the cost of making it (not done yet). The issue lies in recognizability. My main goal is to convince as many people as possible to play this game and share thoughts about it, or at least to read October Rust. Holding this game behind a paywall won't help, I'm sure. I think that not sticking it into PWYW indefinitely was my mistake...
Two weeks ago I slightly adjusted (lowered) the price from 5$ to 4,5$ and it didn't help. I'm tired of experimenting with sales, discounts and market strategies, just to receive almost no feedback after all.
That's why, I decided to stick into PWYW. Will that cut potential sales even more? Well, the sales are non-existent after all. Recently I have seen some couple of views at October Rust's Itch.io page. I'm sure that if the game was available for free back then, somebody would download it...
For those who already buy this game, I want to thank you for support! :)
Get October Rust
October Rust
A game about personal fall for the greater stand, set in early modern & gothic cliches.
Status | Released |
Category | Physical game |
Author | Common Fortress |
Genre | Role Playing |
Tags | Dark Fantasy, early-modern, Gothic, Medieval, Minimalist, One-shot, PbtA, Tabletop role-playing game |
Languages | English |
More posts
- April 2022 versionApr 09, 2022
- New add-on, Suffering From SuccessMar 21, 2022
- January 2022 versionJan 16, 2022
- Community copies + the second thing.Nov 20, 2021
- November 2021 VersionNov 13, 2021
- October Fiasco & The FutureOct 29, 2021
- October Rust has been released!Oct 15, 2021
- Just one step before the final - typsetting.Oct 10, 2021
- I'm working on...Sep 23, 2021
Comments
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Hi Michal.
I read the text, thanks to your PWYW set. I usually don't play those "micro games", so I literally read it just as I have skimmed a book in a brick'n'mortar hobby store: I'm used to do it, and then I return, and pay, only for the games I actually play at my table.
If you accept a short feedback:
- I know, it's sad to see your labor not repayed. Our hobby is really niche, so it's really hard to gain a fair price for a game. Also, there's already a good number of fine professional games, and a huge number of derivative ones (or original, but totally oscure ones...). So, if a unknown game want to emerge, it has to be a really damn good one, and create a very good community around it.
- I skip over the graphic / layout part. Simplistic, essential. However, today, even amateur micro-games search for a pleasing aesthetic (just to bring you recent examples I saw, give a look to Matteo Scuttieri's Bloodstone, or Jinx, or Tavern Stories: https://matteosciutteri.itch.io/ )
- I see that you took inspiration from PbtA/BitD games, but you removed all the "mixed success" part. I totally love that part, for me it's one of the best mechanic around, from Apocalypse World onwards. The biggest fun I have at my table with those kind of games is the whole "Yes but..." "No and..." I gain from that mixed results. Consequeces, prices, costs, hard choices, all emerge from that.
- So, from what I see, you often "mark month/s", even on successes. How many scenes you think you'll have during a game? Few, I suppose, 'cause your months/HPs are really limited. Usually games with very few rolls (ie. 1 for each scene or so) create a "detachment" by the players toward their characters: I see that it's easier for my groups to narrate smaller bit of fiction (so, resolving small bits of scenes, in contraposition to moving a whole scene on), so they can be more involved. But of course this is a preference of mine, other groups could enjoy differently.
- It's unclear (for me, at least) if those "months" are really chunks of time from a scene to another one, or not. Probably, not, however calling HPs as months could be thematic (maybe), but it's confusing, if you don't state it clearly. Also, you start with 5 months already marked off, but technically that's more than a season burned away (I'd expect to have 4 months marked off, if a season of my life has slipped away).
- I'm not sold on all the whole Rust/Storm mechanic. Theoretically, seems thematic and cool, but, 'cause it's totally predictable, ie. not influenced by GM choices (for example no "you fail, so I add a Storm sector" or "you can do it, but the Storm approaches" this is a form of mixed success that you don't have in the game), probably it will be rarely seen in game. Let's say there are 2 players and the GM. So, they have 3 Rust point, and a 4 sector Storm clock. They wouldn't fill it, probably, 'cause a +1 difficulty means they probably will have to waste 1 HP/month more for every roll (ie. the same bonus they had with their burned Rust). Also, they wouldn't fill their Rust clock, 'cause they lose immediately 2 months, if they do so, ie. in the end they wasted 2 months, more or less the same if they didn't use 2 Rust points. So, probably in the whole session you'll see those 2 players simply using the first ("free") point of Rust; maybe 1 more for one of the players: this way the Storm isn't activate, and they didn't waste 2 months.
There's no thrill, no uncertainty.
Ok, I think I said all that came to my mind during the reading. Hope you can find it helpful.
Best luck for your projects,
Andrea
Hi Andrea.
Thanks for your review! I appreciate that.
Considering Rust/Storm mechanic, I'm aware of that and I don't think that's actually an issue. When the group decide to abstain from spending more than "[3 x player count] - 4" in order to avoid The Storm, still it does mean that their resources became even more scarce.
And the previous paragraphs. "October Rust" doesn't have three-way oracle-like resolution, because it simply doesn't need it in my opinion. Every conflict you take, has built in cost: except of a case "Theme 3 vs Obstacle 3, minor intent", you always need to either spend your resources (trappings, rust points, one use of a background) or be forced to accept at least one die, so at least +1 month. In other hand, "Yes, and" or "No, and" always has that "but/however" ingrained in the engine. The uncertainity lies in details: how player/GM elaborates their stake (if given narrative rights), how GM interprets Forces of Evil ideas, how the fiction interacts with Scale of Intent, etc. It works by a clash between intents of both sides...
It creates a limit for actions through out the game, and securing "100% success/your intent" is possible just to a certain moment. OR is designed to grind out player characters.
Considering scene count, October Rust enforces at least three framed scenes by a structure (pre-Final Question play, Final Question, Epilogue Questions). In practice (and by instructions in the book), each Force of Evil can work as a different scene. Epilogue Questions can be written in a way that they'll need two separate (short) scenes for them, because of "you can't answer both EQ in one conflict" rule.
In practice, I'd expect like 5-6 scenes, depending on player count.
Anyway, thanks for feedback. The rulebook itself still needs more clarification in certain areas, or at least make few mechanics more transparent to a reader.