Sometimes things just line up nicely.

(Which is to say, if you’re doing enough random stuff, the chances are higher that something you’re doing will mesh with some other random thing that comes your way.)

So I was working on this fully cooperative cyberpunk board game all about the players investigating several shady organizations vying for control of a fictionalized, future Cleveland. I’m really happy with the core concepts and many of the details, but have been dragging my feet on finishing it up and starting testing.

Enter Alderac.

Alderac is a board game publisher that’s trying to build a series of games around a shared setting called Tempest. And Alderac is looking for new and veteran game designers to make games in this setting. You can sign up, get access to a ton of Tempest literature and artwork that can be used in game prototypes, and then submit your game for consideration when you’re ready.

Tempest is a city-state in a renaissance-ish world, filled with intrigue and various shady organizations… sound familiar?

I think what I’ve got so far for my cyberpunk board game would fit well in this universe. And it might teach me a little bit about this whole world-building thing, reading about someone else’s world and trying to work within it.

Of course, I couldn’t mention all this without mentioning the whole don’t-do-spec-work thing. And while I gave that some thought, I figure this is a win-win. If the game gets picked up by Alderac, I get the full marketing muscle and brand recognition of a respected studio backing up my design. If Alderac doesn’t pick it up, I still will have gained some great experience, I will have had some great motivation to actually finish this, and I get full creative control of my final product.

I can’t share too much about the actual world or characters; there’s a sort of NDA thing going on, but I’m encouraged to babble about it on my blog, which is great since I’m not really happy working on new stuff unless I can share what I’m learning.

So expect more babbling about that, as I once again backburner all my other stuff that doesn’t involve other people to work on this more. 🙂