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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8105819" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Free League has really impressed me. I’ve only actually played two of their games, but I’ve looked at a couple more, and they all seem solid. Their production value is certainly top notch.Both games I’ve played use the Year Zero Engine, though I didn’t even realize that was the case until later on. Looking back at them now, it’s easy to see the similarities, and to see that the core mechanic is indeed intact. But each game had its own things going on, and they’re also so thematically different that it was kind of easy to not notice that the core was the same.Tales From the Loop and Alien are both very solid games. Easy to grasp the essential rules and mechanics, but each one tailored to fit the genre and feel they’re going for. Any system that can so easily deliver an authentic 80s Spielberg kids in trouble vibe, or the ever-escalating paranoia of the Aliens films is doing something right. I agree that Blades in the Dark has inspired a lot of variations and hacks. It’s interesting to see what people can do to tweak the core system and deliver a slightly different experience. The Forged in the Dark system seems to have both strong appeal and hackability. There are different areas of the rules that you can revise to try and deliver a new experience or a different kind of fiction. In that way it’s very much like Apocalypse World, which is a clear inspiration for the game. Sig sounds interesting. I may have to back that. Beyond seconding Free League and Blades in the Dark, I’ll just say that the explosion of indie design on Itch.io is pretty amazing. Not that every game is great or to everyone’s taste, but the sheer scope of games and topics and the obvious energy that many of the designers have is just remarkable. Chances are if there’s an interesting topic, someone on Itch.io has made a game about it.</blockquote>

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