The twenty-first update patch for the pre-alpha testing phase of Raph Koster’s new MMORPG Stars Reach has dropped last Saturday. And it both is and isn’t a big update this time. It is big in that w...

In a previous post - What is Story? I tried to provide a clear and useful definition of the terms “story” and the main pillars it’s made up of: “setting”, “characters” and “plot”/”narrative”, in or...

Welcome back, to another post on a Stars Reach pre-alpha update. This time, the update is called “Twilight” - and the name has been chosen, because night-time in the game is less dark now. Well, t...

If you are following still unreleased video games, no matter how closely, from the day you first learned about them until they finally get release - you ideally should know a few basic things about...

In this post we will look at how to create a basic, turn-based D12 TTRPG combat rule system, using opposing/comparative rolls. We will be making use of the delta/difference between the attacker and...

Last Thursday, the 24th of July, the latest update patch for Stars Reach’s pre-alpha test landed. The new shaders and fog, teased in the previous testing blog post, aren’t in yet, but a lot of tree...

Stars Reach is the lifelong dream of game design legend Raph Koster. In some ways, it’s the game he has wanted to make for over 30 years now. The culmination of all his ideas and ambitions for virt...

There are many different ways, methods and axes along which you can categorize stories: by medium: literature, movies, games, theater, visual novels, etc. by length: novel, novella, novelette...

It’s been nearly a month since the last patch, which is an unusually long gap as normally we see new updates coming every two or three weeks - and more often two than three. But Stars Reach just ha...

This is my first post of what might potentially become a series on designing TTRPGs - with a focus on rules and game mechanics. In this post I’m going to take a deep and close look at die rolls - t...