Candy Sorcerers of the Scrumptious Kingdoms

But I've been having fun. I've taken part in game design contests, have hosted one, did work on another game (for pay! And royalties!), and in the process had very little time to devote to this project. Which is not to say that this project is forgotten. The basic system for this game was supposed to be done by September, but that will not be the case for two reasons: First, because I worked on other things, and second because those things I worked on made me rethink and redesign a great deal for Candy Sorcerers! The setting remains the same, the scope of things you can do remains the same, but the basis behind the system becomes more solid. All the elements already there will be kept in: Flavors, Colors and all that will appear in new and much improved iterations. Everything is renewed, refreshed and hopefully made more interesting and fun! It does mean I'll have to do a lot of math and work in between other projects for a while, though, so there won't be a basic working Candy Sorcerer rulebook ready until December at the earliest. Here's a hint: If you've followed the Something Awful traditional game design contests, this does involve a version of a game I made for that called Wayfarer's Tales, partly illustrated by the inimitable Obfuscobble. A lot less violent, more tightly designed and simplified version, but nonetheless recognizable. Let's see where this goes!

I just happened to land a job! Ragnarök is coming!

In my country, we do not hunt for eggs or talk about rabbits. We have our priorities quite straight when it comes to what we want. We want candy, and lots of it. An it looks a little something like this. You're looking at a hard hollow chocolate shell (carefully recreated in CGI by our art department for scientific analysis - we take candy seriously around here). Within it is contained a selection of other candy, ranging from smaller chocolate eggs to jelly and anything else you might imagine. They can reach up to an entire kilogram in weight, though of course I wouldn't recommend that one for anything less than a family! Unfortunately I can be something of a glutton, so I got myself a size 5 - around 400 grams. But contained in each egg is also a proverb. For this year, my Easter Egg Proverb is: " Young to Dare, Elder to Rule ".  Yeah, let the young dare and the old think they rule anything at all. I agree. ;) Happy Easter! 

Dark, foreboding covers with grim people on them, studded all over with weird occult symbols, sex plastered on as if it were a default photoshop filter, and to top it off the books tend to be either absolutely massive, completely opaque as to whether you need to buy them to play, or both. That's not even mentioning the sometimes extreme, adult-oriented content in the books despite them usually not having any kind of ESRB rating or an equivalent to tell parents what to expect. But why am I concerned about this? It's a niche hobby, thinks the old-time gamer. Of course it's going to cater to niche tastes. Well, it's turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The niche is making itself more niche all the time. Gamers have spent so much time and effort in trying to be taken seriously by focusing on "mature" subject matters (often by adding juvenile stuff in as if that was going to work) that the hobby practically exudes an image of having to be very serious about playing, having to be mature before you can even thing about starting, and on the whole making it look like a difficult hobby to get into. Some parents have assumed based on nothing but the look of these books that you need to play in full period costume! And as for the people who want the hobby to stay that way, well, the less I say the better. We know this isn't a hobby that your parents need to be concerned over. It's one of the oldest jokes in the hobby. So why do we try so hard to make it look as if it is? It's time to address this dilemma, and that's part of what I am trying to do. But mostly I want to make a fun game.

Candy comes in a dizzying array of colours, and so colours matter in the Scrumptious Kingdoms. The trick is that you need to eat candy of the appropriate colour for the spell to work! The colour can be conceptual (such as red affecting fire or people of hot temperament), or it can be more literal (red affects red things). Characters can also specialize in using candy of a certain colour, and thus make spells using that colour easier.  There are other things that can affect a sorcerer's magic. Their personality traits can affect it as well! A Strong-tasting character has an easier time making things stronger, affecting strong things and so on. Salty folks have an easy time at sea and speak with lots of Arr's. Some people are just Sour or Bitter, and it shows in their spells. These personality traits are called Flavours, and each character has several. They can grant bonuses on any roll related to that Flavour, not just magic! The system is designed from the ground up to be extremely flexible in what you can do, so as long as you find some kind of explanation or description for it, you can probably use most colours to accomplish anything you want. This kind of creativity is encouraged! But be careful. Sometimes, recklessness can suck the colour straight out of the land, making it a dark and dinghy Grey. And though the colour Grey might be boring, it can also be extremely dangerous because no Candy Sorcerer can command Grey. It is inert as far as magic is concerned, or "achromatic" for those Sorcerers who want to be technical. And if you're very unlucky, sometimes the Grey will actively seek you out.

But enought about depressing things. You might have other questions about this project, and if you do please leave a comment! I'll get around to them as soon as is convenient. I'll hopefully be updating this site every now and then with stuff like what the nations are like, characters and mechanics. Maybe even art! Stay tuned.