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The Shrieker Podcast 009: Nicholas Hopkins

After making things awkward with baby chickens, Nicholas Hopkins returns to The Shrieker to talk to us about the development of his first game.

Cyclopean Stars is a lovecraftian (not to be confused with cthulhuian) Powered by the Apocalypse game. Nick felt driven to write this game because other games in the genre just don’t do what he wants. Call of Cthulhu, the first mythos game, introduced a sanity mechanic to RPGs. Trail of Cthulhu, using the Gumshoe system, created a more flexible investigation system. Tremulustries really hard to emulate Call of Cthulhu, which was a misstep in Nick’s estimation. In Cyclopean Stars Nick wants to make a modern, narrative driven, long term game that is low prep (with a procedurally generated mysteries) that lets players quickly get wrapped up in a messy, corrupting world where you can’t help but get isolated from your past live. Nick’s game is still pretty early in it’s development but he’s hoping to playtest it as much as possible at Origins. You can follow or get involved in the development of Cyclopean Stars on the game’s G+ community.

This month you can download a Lovecraft inspired Apocalypse World style front, ready to drop squamulous horrors into your game.

The Free RPG Society: Quill is a pay-what-you-want, solo RPG based on letter writing. It’s fun but might not actually be an RPG. Look for a full a review on the Geeks Rising blog.

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