Closing out the Year

by | Dec 28, 2024 | Blight, Doom, Dungeons & Dragons, General News, Table Top Gaming

For the end of the year, the holidays, birthdays, and family get-togethers tend to keep most of us busy, even during our time off. But some work has been progressing well. We have expanded the lore and content of Valendera ten-fold. We hope that it will bring a whole new crowd of players to the table when the game system is finally released. For now, all of the original Crusader Games campaign modules will be brought under the Valendera game world. While many of the other games we have in development will fit into one of the many worlds in that system. We plan to create a unique experience where players may spot Easter eggs through our game, and point to our TTRPG with excitement. I know where that comes from. That several worlds that encapsulate different genres, but all the fantasy stuff will be brought under the Valendera umbrella.

The modules themselves will still be self-contained, but the characters may be used in future Valendera modules. That also opens up my campaigns to a whole set of lore, from previously written material. Other games like Pip’s First Adventure, Farmcraft, and Tornado! will be set in their own universe. In Darkness will be in another universe, which itself is horror themed. This one is tricky, because In Darkness is based on real mythologies, inspired by actual events, and adapting a game world with it’s own lore for something darker is a harder challenge but and exciting one.

On the DOOM front, Blight had to be updated with a minor change, but will not be featured on this site. We call v1.4a and 1.4b. We’re working with Doomworld to get it uploaded to their unofficial Archive, but mustn’t contain unaltered assets from DOOM. Unfortunately, since Blight v1.4 has added a new intermission map, it uses the default blood splats and You are Here arrows that highlight map locations on the intermission screen. This was an oversight, so these images were altered and the mod was resubmitted. But, it has only been resubmitted to the archive, not to Bethesda or this site. Those locations still feature the original intended red blood splats. Moving forward, any updates will feature the altered images.

With the next year quickly approaching, we’re excited to see what new games we can get out to the public, and the progress we will make on our current projects. Here’s to 2025.

Extinguishing Old Content…with New

by | Dec 10, 2024 | Dungeons & Dragons, Table Top Gaming

I have been out of the office the this current week due to some health issues, but it’s given me some time to work on remastering an old Dungeons & Dragons module from several years back. As mentioned in a previous post, we are working on reissuing all previous campaigns again. The trade dress for this module is a call back to the old modules from the early years of D&D, and I’ve been working on fixing up many of the story and layout.

And, the maps. Oh, how I love maps, and making maps. There is just something about a hand drawn map (or in this case a digital drawn map) that, in my opinion, out ranks any VTT map. There are tools out there to help people craft amazing looking maps, but for me, I’d just soon open up Photoshop and draw with a pen on a tablet, or draw on a piece of paper. It’s relaxing to decompress and do something I’ve enjoyed doing since I was a child. Drawing maps.

These maps though are in the style of the old blue and white (or black and white) that was printed on those old yellowed pages. It felt almost like the ink would rub off on your thumbs as you flip through the pages and read the text on the pages. That is the style I’m going for. It allows for me to be more abstract when I don’t have time, talent, or a large team here at Crusader Games to draw these large scale maps comparable to the published campaigns of our current era.

With abstract maps, I can simplify the design to only what matters. This comes into play on dungeons the most, but even in towns, we’re not forced to make realistic looking maps. We can do simple layouts that allow the theatre of the mind draw the maps for you. But, it doesn’t make creating the maps any less complicated. I have layers upon layers, with styles and masks several levels deep. It takes time and the layers have to be in the precise order to look the way you want. Solid, Dithered, White, Grid Lines, Terrain Lines, everything has a place.

This just means it may take a few weeks before we get the first campaign up online for purchase. But working on the project and getting to update it has been a treat. And the homage to old school gaming manuals. As always, Happy Gaming, and lets hope to get this first one (and maybe two) out before Christmas.

What’s Coming New from Crusader Games?

by | Dec 7, 2024 | Dungeons & Dragons, Table Top Gaming

A year or two ago, when Wizards of the Coast was romanticizing the license structure for the 2024 version of D&D, there was a uncertainty about the content that was placed on the DMs Guild, and whether that was going to be owned by the creators or owned by WOTC. Due to the, at the time, unknown ownership of where our D&D campaigns would ultimately fall to, it was decided to temporarily remove them from the internet and house them back on our digital bookshelves until said time was further fleshed out. It turned out that none of the hyperbole was ended up the case, but our campaigns were already removed from the website.

Our next goal for would be to relaunch those 3 campaigns and the supplemental class as a purchase through our own website. This way we can have them back up for publishing, perhaps retool some of the nitpicky issues with the adventure modules and clean up a lot of the sticky parts of the stories, all the while, seeing if they would need adjusted for the 2024 ruleset. For some of the team, this means that the story will need to be fleshed out, and for the artists, reworking some of the maps to make larger dungeons, or cleaner visuals.

The best part of tackling this is to dive into some 1980s red box set D&D campaigns and redo all the visuals in the style of those maps. There is always a piece of that in our hearts, and we personally have loved the old blue print maps from back in that era.

We’re also exploring the idea of including additional merchandise on the store front that could be sold based on previous works by Crusader Games. That portion of the website will be developed as time comes, and we’ll be sure to announce it on our social media pages as well.

Until then, Happy Gaming.