Hello. It’s been a while, but I’m finally setting aside some precious free time to make progress on my favourite personal project: Magewinds development!
My plan for the coming weeks is to work towards producing a reasonably chunky Summer Update, featuring rules updates and other nice things.
Rules Updates
Improvements to the Core Rules, disambiguating certain terms, overhauling how carriable objects work, and more.
Changes and additions to the Tempest Crusaders fighter pack, to rebalance existing fighter profiles and universal abilities and to add new ones, such as the Thief, Ranger and Alchemist.
Changes and additions to the Into the Tempest scenario pack, perhaps even breaking the 3 and 4 player scenarios out into their own separate pack.
Bringing the Ups and Downs optional module for vertical combat out of beta.
Same for the Neutral Fighters optional module.
To make these updates as good as possible, regular playtesting sessions will be starting up again soon. Please get in touch if you’d like to be involved!
Enbeautification
I’ll also be adding icons, diagrams and bits of art to generally spruce up the place. This work is long-overdue and definitely worth the effort – a good game is made by vibes as much as it is by rules.
Fighter Cards
If I have time, I’ll work on a way to condense fighter profiles into printable fighter cards, to be arrayed beside the battlefield for speedy reference and clutter-free damage tracking.
Timeline
I’m setting myself a provisional, arbitrary and achievable-sounding release date for the Summer Update of August 31st… just in time for Autumn 😎
Unless I’m particularly inspired to document my progress, the blog will, like normal, be quiet until then1. Therefore I shall wish you, dear reader, a pleasant summer containing many days of sunshine and relaxation. Farewell!
If you’d like to keep up with my goings-on and hobby adventures you can find me at my personal blog and on Bluesky. ↩
On Saturday 16th of November (two weeks ago) the first ever Magewinds Meetup was held at Knightly Gaming in Bathgate, Scotland. I think it was a success! 😤
With only three sleeps remaining until the event, this will be the final Road to Magewinds Meetup post.
I’m about 75% ready. My jobs for this evening include more printing, some painting, and starting to get things packed up.
Oh, I also need to publish the experimental rules for neutral fighters and elevation on the website, and print them too.
Here’s some booklets I printed already:
I’m particularly pleased with the automatic page numbering on internal references:
If I’m being honest, I wish I felt a lot more ready and that a lot more people were coming – but, given how busy I am at work and socially, I really ought to be pleased with what I’ve accomplished, and I should (and do!) feel grateful that anyone is coming at all! My friends are amazing, and that they’d be willing to travel so far to play a silly game I designed is a massive privilege. Get you friends like mine, they are excellent.
The Core Rules have been upgraded to support games with more than 2 players in v1.2.0. Many changes and small tweaks have been made to various fighter types in Tempest Crusaders v1.5.1. Into the Tempest has gained a new 3-4 player Battle Royale scenario, and numerous other improvements, in v1.4.0.
The work doesn’t end here, though – I need to come up with some special rules and narrative elements for the big day. It will also be an unmissable opportunity to try out rules for neutral fighters, such as monsters, and rules for playing on battlefields with verticality, so I should start writing those down too!
On top of all that, I should really do some painting… and making things like fighter card templates and other things to make playing the game easier… oof baboof 😮💨
Three magi, meeting up. (Photo by Rich)
