quigjam
Villager
Fact sheet
Developers: Ethan Yen, James Quigley
Launch: February 3rd, 2025
Platform: Tabletop Roleplaying Game
Price: $10 Digital, $20 Print
Available here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/355301516/prequel-rpg
[Madison, US] January 22 - Ethan Yen’s Glyphtide Games announces it will crowdfund their new tabletop roleplaying game, PREQUEL, starting February 3rd, 2025.
PREQUEL is a tactical storytelling game of heroic sacrifice where you play as doomed heroes fighting against their final adversary. Over the course of the game you play out a tactical combat while building the Heroes’ quest using the world, events, and bonds that led the heroes to this point. Although you will not defeat the Evil, you can still leave a legacy for future generations.
“You will fall, but you are not The End.”
PREQUEL is a oneshot game for a GM and 2-4 players. The game consists of a “final fight” that results in a collaboratively-built setting complete with story seeds to start a long-term campaign, if desired. PREQUEL is built using the Lumen 2.0 system by Spencer Campbell and draws upon world-building elements from Microscope by Ben Robbins. The game focuses on the burdens heroes accumulate across their quests and the legacies their actions leave behind.
Features
● Fight the final boss in challenging tactical combat while building the quest leading up to
this point
● Use your hero's unique abilities to change the battle, add to their history, and forge their
legend
● Build a world for future campaigns by creating legacies and “broadcasting” the Evil’s
weaknesses for the next generation of heroes
● Upgrade your heroes by constructing a timeline of the group’s past adventures
PREQUEL is crowdfunding during Kickstarter’s Zinequest 7 from February 3rd to the 16th. You
can grab a digital copy of the game for $10 or a printed copy for $20. A free preview of the
game is available at the link below.
ethanyen.itch.io/prequel
Developers
Ethan Yen (he/him) is a tabletop game designer and writer. He provides contract production support for Ghostfire Gaming and has worked with publishers including Evil Hat Productions, Hit Point Press, and Wet Ink Games. Ethan co-created the solo journaling game, Fetch My Blade, which was featured in Polygon’s The best tabletop RPGs we played in 2023.
James Quigley (he/him) is a digital and tabletop game designer. He co-authored the card-based apocalypse rpg Afterworld along with self-publications for Dungeons and Dragons 5e. In his fulltime job, James works as a game designer at Iron Galaxy Studios where he’s contributed to a number of AAA titles such as Teamfight Tactics.
Press Quotes
"Why did you start writing Prequel? What was the main inspiration?"
Ethan - “The main inspiration for the PREQUEL is the first six minutes of the Fellowship of the Ring. The movie opens with a prologue featuring this massive battle between the united armies of good against Sauron and his army of evil. The evil is seemingly defeated, but the story is not yet done. The choices of those heroes at the end of the battle has major implications hundreds of years later. I started PREQUEL as a way to play as those heroes from before, where their time in the spotlight has ended and their choices have very real consequences for the “actual” heroes of the story generations later. Relatedly, whenever I play traditional fantasy TTRPGs, I always consider the thoughts of my characters during combat. What is my character thinking when they’re making that attack? What pertinent flashbacks occupy the mind? That was one of the core goals of PREQUEL: how can we blend the narrative motivation with the tactical combat choices as closely as possible so that one feeds off of the other?”
James - “I think I saw Ethan’s first PREQUEL devlogs and I had been thinking alot about what makes combat fun in tabletop games with D&D-esque combat. The premise was super sick and I loved how the game was trying to ride the line between world building and fighting. At this point I still had Critical Role’s Exandria Unlimited: Calamity on the brain and I really wanted to build a
game for people to tell similar stories. Ethan was kind enough to let me jump on board.”
"What's an unexpected or interesting challenge you've ran into while developing Prequel?"
Ethan - “We knew going into development that blending the tactical combat with the storytelling aspect of the game would be a challenge. There are games out there that treat combat as a conversation with quick narrative beats. There are games out there that treat combat as tactical, methodical, decisions and optimizing actions on a grid with miniatures. These two treatments of combat can be at odds in both goals and play experiences. James and I wanted to see how close together we could bring these opposing sides with the understanding that there would be a lot of tension between concerns about keeping the story moving and wanting to make the optimal tactical decision.”
James - “I definitely never expected player burnout to be an issue. Since players are usually using the same ability multiple times in a game, they find themselves repeating the same Worldbuilding. It’s been a challenge to find the right wording that allows players to take the same text in multiple creative directions. For example, we had an ability that asked players to narrate a time they had to “sever something to succeed” everytime they used it. By the end of a session, usually one to two characters were without arms.”
"What are your hopes or desires for the outcome of the project?"
Ethan - “Ultimately, I want PREQUEL to be a fun game, and a game that people play. As a game designer, that is my dearest of desires. We’re already seeing some of that with playtesters asking us if they can playtest the game with their home group. My hope is to hear strangers share their play experiences with others and learn how their Heroes left legacies of their own.”
James - “I hope we create an experience so fun players want to try again, even though they all died. It’s always so cool to see players thinking about what they could have done differently. If we’re able to get players wanting more from a weird boss fight combat game, that would be a huge victory for me.”
Advance Praise
Fennec Fables - "a fantastic game for those looking to pull players into worldbuilding and lore from the beginning. The struggle of knowing you will fail but leave the keys to success to those That follow is bitter sweet and perfect for drama"
Veritas Tabletop - “[PREQUEL] is a unique blend of narrative worldbuilding storygame and tactical combat that I haven’t seen elsewhere... It makes you think about the ways that history is forgotten, and which moments are important enough that they imprint in
our social consciousness.”
Links to Downloadable Assets
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nYJlgqGqKoeoEu-s8guqLOgBgwE4XE8nQB-0_2Tt-KQ/e
dit?usp=sharing
Contact Information
Email: ethan@glyphtide.games
Twitter/X: twitter.com/ethanyen
Bsky: bsky.app/profile/ethanyen.com
