To game or not to game, that is the question

As most of you will probably know, since the introduction of Malifaux 2nd edition I have struggled to find a home in gaming.  I have tried a number of different games and although most brought something good to the table, nothing really stuck and the only game that has even piqued my interest is Infinity.  Like most gamers, the hobby consumes a vast amount of my spare time and for me, that investment in time should come with a certain amount of enjoyment.  The bottom line is that at the moment, that enjoyment just isn’t there.  Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my club mates and fellow SST hosts but it has kind of turned into chatting while going through the motions.

This left me with the all too serious decision of whether to leave the hobby and look for that enjoyment elsewhere.

I’m sure you’ll have all noticed that there’s been no new episodes of Soulstone Train for a few months, my blog has been untouched and I’ve not logged into Twitter for an age (although the promise of a Matt Spooner story about a lesbian stripper at the weekend was tempting!).  Given the dilemma outlined above, these actions may lead you to the conclusion that I have all but left the hobby.  As my Facebook friends found out yesterday, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Given what’s happened to my hobby in the last two years it would be easy to just walk away but god damn it, I’m British!  Rather than bitch and moan about the games that are available, I decided to design my own and have so far spent a couple of months setting out the basics.

The game in question is a fully fledged, story driven skirmish game with a full campaign system.  I’m not going to go into details at this time but there are some interesting mechanics, especially for attacking and damage.  I’m nearly done with the first draft of the rules and enough of the characters to allow for some initial playtesting.  To start with the playtesting will be done locally by the hosts of SST and select members of York Garrison (my local club), further down the line I’ll be inviting gaming friends from other parts of the country to get involved.

My general aim is to do a deal with a sculptor and have the game on Kickstarter within a year.  At this point I don’t know if that is a realistic target or even if the game will work as well on the tabletop as on paper but it’s good to have something to aim for.

Thank you to everyone that has been supportive of this project so far, it’s a bit of a personal gamble and it really means a lot.  You’ll be able to hear more about this project on the next episode of SST which will be coming soon (we’ve tried to record about six times so far!).