Hey folks, here's what I've been working on since you last heard from us.

Hello folks, this was just a small update on where we’ve been with updates and the rewrite for Pre-alpha 0.02 that’s refining and overhauling some rules for the next iteration.

So, major things getting reworked currently:

-Skills are going to be completely optional, and the base game is going to use only the core attributes for checks. The rules will instead provide guidance for creating a skill system that is catered to individual home brew games and/or games made using the barrage system.

-The social encounter system is getting majorly overhauled and simplified compared to the 0.01 version. The original version was a neat little idea for social encounters, but for a ttrpg it was clunking and overcomplicated. That system would work much better in a video game system that this game is not. The new system is split into two. Quick encounters, which is a more traditional and simple system for small, low-stakes social encounters. And Intense Encounters, which are more drawn out, high-stakes encounters where you are more actively debating and trying to convince your “opponents” to agree with you. Each will have their place, and hopefully it provides some structure for those who desire it in their social encounters.

-I reworked the downed system for combat, working to make it more unique compared to other ttrpgs and making it a system that is really doable in barrage.

-There’s still many systems I’m going to be tweaking and going over, but those are some of the ones I’ve been writing out and reworking more recently, there’s more updates as well.

-Barrage as a system is getting moved towards less of a “Modular system” and is more going to be a base system. Mechanically, this isn’t going to work too differently for how the game itself will work, but it is more a shift in development mindset. Many of the more complicated systems are going to be removed from the core system. Instead, they will be described as optional side systems that give guidance and advice for using them in your home games and/or games you make using the Barrage system. This will make core development much easier, plus making the core system much more useful as a base system for more games in the future. The development I’ve been working on with ancestries and classes and such is instead being moved to a separate game I’m making using the Barrage core system. This project is currently a side project of mine that I’m working on mostly out of passion. While its development will influence Barrage and vice-versa, it will mostly be through gaining experience developing a game for the Barrage system and finding points of friction and frustration on the front and hopefully rounding those out a bit.

Thanks so much for bearing with me, with this being a solo venture and having a day job that requires a ton of my personal time, it’s really nice to have all the positive feedback I’ve been getting! I hope to have the new rework out soon, but for now I’m still not completely sure when it will be. We’ve just entered the slow season for my day job so I’m getting a lot more of my time back, so hopefully I can have it out by perhaps thanksgiving. Thanks everyone!