Wild, Wild, Wasteland

Courier » Devlog
5
43 days ago by Sleepy Sasquatch Games (@SasquatchGames)
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Hello,

This week for the devlog I'm touching on the world events system that will be included for Courier -
Repacked edition.

As briefly discussed in the Factions, Tension, and The Wasteland devlog, Courier - Repacked asks the
player to track a world timer uptick after each turn. Once the world timer reaches full, 6 total, a new
World Event occurs. These events last one entire world timer and are designed to mix things up for
players by taking them out of their comfort zone in the game. For example:

Credit Crash - A recent malfunction in the closed credit tracking system has reduced the available Credits
in the wasteland for buying and selling. Items and Gear are unavailable to purchase or sell until the next
World Event.

OR

Cargo Drought - Something outside your region has blocked trade coming in for the factions, either war,
weather, or logistics. No new Contracts can be generated until the next World Event.

OR

Hostile Robots Released - A surge of robots has swept across the wastes. All Combatant Table results are
Haywire Robots (3W, d12, 1H) until the next World Event.

Fallout 4 robot from in game

A robot might be the least of your worries out there.

World Events Design
When designing the possible events I wanted to follow 3 design rules: simple, fast, and functional. Many
times when I play a game with an lasting timer I will forget to do the big something when the timer fills
or even forget to move the timer up at all. My idea to resolve the forgotten timer was using a single d6 ,
a physical tracker compared to a progress clock.

A progress clock, also known as skill wedges or TTRPG clock, is a circle divided into equal segments that
fills when something happens to warrant it. These have become exceptionally common in the past 5
years and offer the dreaded, and much needed, sense of urgency to the characters actions.

Blades in the Dark clocks

I've been a big fan of clocks as progress and urgency design, especially when playing solo games. The
clocks further functions as a ever-moving force forward, much like how a GM would push you towards
the next plot point if you are dallying around too long. As for the designs...

Simple
Players roll on a table of possible events. A few of these events are special events as they introduce a
permanent change to the wasteland. Each event takes less than a minute to resolve and implement. For
example: a new wasteland faction appears and needs to have a faction base added. They are easily
added to the map and follow the same rules as another faction the player is already familiar with.

Fast
No additional rules lookup needed. What you read is what you get from the World Events. The player can
make a quick note on their character tracker for the current event if they need it. For example: radiation
sweeping across the wasteland adds a single point of RAD to the player at the start of each turn. This
requires minimal bookkeeping and time investment from the player.

Functional
None of the world events are fluff or filler. Each event is designed to make changes to the players routine
and push the exploration of other mechanics available. For example: Without the ability to generate new
cargo for the next 6 turns, will the player take on the less than desirable contracts sitting in their pool or
will they instead go explore the wasteland and get into some trouble?

As with the core design philosophy of Courier - Repacked, yet not something I've touched on thus far, the
World Events system is modular. If a player wants to create their own world events, or add an additional
set of world events, they can do so as easy as changing the die roll or table reference. The player can
choose to not play with the World Events as well, as there isn't anything in the events table that would
prevent reaching an end to the game.

In fact, next week will be touching on the modular design of Courier - Repacked and how I hope it serves
as a strong foundation for hacks and expansions. This is something I've spent a lot of my time look
through other indie games and believe that I'm now ready enough to talk about it for my own work.

Until next time,

- Cody

Hello,

This weeks post is about combat and defending yourself against the dangers of the wasteland. This will
be a shorter post as I've spent a lot of time streamlining the flow of combat.

Choosing When to Fight

In Courier - Repacked the player might often want to not engage in combat unless they have prepared
for it ahead of time. Fighting is deadlier, faster, and less in favour to the player, when compared to the
first edition of Courier, with the option to run-away from encounters being introduced this time around.
I've planned from the start to give the choice to participate in conflicts as many solo players look for
more relaxed experiences when considering the feedback I've received over the past few years.

Benny Shoot Courier

What if you could just run away from Benny?

Getting the Lead Out
When in combat, the player will roll their weapon's dice value (D6 through D12), adding any bonuses,
and compare it to the Strength value die roll of the target. The higher total wins, dealing Harm (damage)
equal to the Harm value for the weapon. The player character will have Protection available, if they've
purchased some and kept up with repairs, which will reduce any Harm dealt. If the protection has no
Durability remaining you are not going to be shrugging off the hits!

When either the player or target is reduced to 0 Wounds (HP) the combat is over. Rewards are given to
the player for a victory by rolling on a table of loot possibilities. If the player is defeated then they must
resolve the defeat rules, which means losing items and credits but returning to the safety of a friendly
faction's base. Death or defeat is not permanent in Courier - Repacked.

That is about it for combat. There will be items and other gear that changes attacks or values but things
are fast, simple, and easy on the math.

Super Mutant Smash Courier

This might not end well for you.
Running Away
If the player wants to escape a combat encounter then they roll their Strength and Agility dice together,
no bonuses. The player compares this result to the Strength of the target. If the player has a higher total
then they escape combat unharmed. If the player has a lower total, they take Harm as per the normal
combat rules. This can be attempted any number of times as long as the player character has Wounds
remaining.

Running away does not provide any rewards and does not cause any detriments to the player. It is
mathematically easier to run away from combat than it is to win a round, by design.

I hope that you've enjoyed this quick look at Combat. I appreciate all the readers coming back each
week. If you haven't already check out the Kickstarter Pre-Lauch Page for Courier - Repacked to be
notified of when it goes live in early February.

See you next week for a look at World Events

Welcome back!

This week we are looking at the contracts and the business side of Courier - Repacked.

Contractor Work
Contracts are a core mechanic of Courier - Repacked, taking over for the Quests found in the original.
Each contract is a working agreement with the faction that provided it. A contract is generated for a
faction when the player is in a faction base or settlement location on the map. By comparing the current
strength of the faction to the contracts table, a total number of available contracts are created. Newly
generated contracts are added to the Contracts Tracking Table, which tracks the current status of all
contracts available in the game for the player. If a contract is taken, it is marked as "Started" until the
package makes it to the destination.
Contracts in Courier - Repacked are always about delivering cargo. Rewards will be offered in the form of
Credits, multiplied by the total amount of cargo but in different denominations. You could have a
contract for 2 cargo worth only 1 Credit each, or another contract worth 4 each! I like to think of the
reward as high value items sometimes appearing for the wasteland, with the majority of cargo being
everyday goods.

If the player wants to remove contracts from the table for a faction, i.e. they might not have enough
cargo space to take the delivery, they can choose to do so at the cost of 1 reputation with the faction
that provided it or wait until the contract age has reached above 3. The age of all none started contracts
is increased by 1 whenever the player generates any new contracts. Removing a contract because it is
aged-out does not cause a reputation loss for the player. This gives the option for the player to go out
into the wasteland to explore if the contracts they have available are not worth the effort.

Business Minded
As the player completes contracts they will earn Credits. These credits can be put towards upgrades for
the player, items, gear, or business investments! Business investments give bonuses to the player in the
form of passive income, increased contract availability, and unique mechanics to make delivering across
the wasteland easier.

For example: the player can purchase an Automatic Delivery System (ADS) to take small contracts for
them. This little robot moves independently across the wasteland to the destination of the contract.
Upon arriving, the ADS completes the contract and earns the player credits and reputation, in the same
way the player would if they delivered it. This is a great tool to clean up small contracts for the player,
like mentioned earlier, instead of waiting for them to age-out of the available contracts table.

Another upgrade for your courier business is Contract Cargo Catapult (CCC). This tool can be loaded with
a contract's cargo and fired into the wasteland, safely. The player can then pick up the cargo when they
have time and/or space to do so. This activate a contract to keep it from aging-out and gives flexibility to
deliver it when the player has time to do so.

The committed players in Courier can eventually choose to form a Binding Contract with a faction,
meaning that the player must take all contracts for the faction they formed the Binding Contract with. A
Binding Contract will provide additional benefits to the player as given for each faction. For example: a
Binding Contract with the Independents could mean you will always have help in combat when attacked
by Raiders or wildlife, or that you get a bonus amount of Credits no matter the size of the contract!

Wrap-Up
Players will start with little and soon be invested in their own business, creating contract runs across the
wastes and exploring new routes as they reveal their own map. The new contract system will bring more
options for the player and make planning of their next move much easier to do. I hope that the fun and
weird business upgrades I've created (and borrowed from Death Stranding) will provide a sense of
accomplishment and strategic planning for everyone.

As a final note, give Courier - Repacked a follow on Kickstarter! The project will be launch on February 4,
2024, as part of Zine Quest 2024. If the project reaches 200% funding I will be contracting additional art
(in addition to the new art already in progress) for the project. Other stretch goals will come as the
project advances toward completion.

Until next time,

- Cody

Welcome to the first devlog for Courier - Repacked edition!

To start off the devlogs I've chosen to discuss the changes to the factions system and how they improve
on the mechanics for managing factions in the game. This was something a lot of players reached out to
me about, including comments on how to improve it and what they were doing with house-rules to
expand it.

The Old
Factions in Courier were static entities in the player's world that only really provided encounters through
combat table rolls (very random) or the reputation system. The reputation system in Courier (old) is a
convoluted system using 2 stats: Fame and infamy. A player could gain points in either stat depending on
what they do during the course of the game including fighting or completing quests for other factions,
sort of like rivals hating each other and wanting you to pick them over all others.

On top of the need to choose a faction to be buddies with, each faction has specific bonus gains for
Fame and Infamy. These bogged down the process after each event and encounter of the game as the
player would need to run a mental list of which faction gained Fame for their actions, and which ones
gave Infamy. All factions were tracked at all times even if the player hadn't found a location with the
faction, which made little sense in the larger sense of a world where factions are clearly fighting for
territory and resources. No territory gain or takeovers are present in Courier (old).

The Fame/Infamy system is tracked using a reputation chart, essentially ripped from Fallout: New Vegas'
reputation system. Some of the Reputation levels offer big changes to the world, like Strand Society
adding new and powerful enemies to the combatant pool. However, the constant need to reference each
faction was ignored by a lot of players and ultimately didn't hit the mark.
The New
The faction system for Courier - Repacked has been written from the ground-up using the faction tension
system from the Year Zero Engine by Free League Publishing as a base of reference. This excellent, low
profile, and easy to use system for tracking conflict for multiple factions has allowed me to provide a
more living world and increase meaningful player choices.

As players complete contracts for factions the reputation increases positively. If the player does
something to offend or harm a faction, the reputation goes down. Reputation is a balancing scale ranging
from -10 to +10, with a simple reference chart of benefits or detriments for the player. In addition, the
player can only have reputation with factions that have been discovered and hold a faction base on the
the map.

Factions will gain bonuses to their presence on the player map as they gain more territory (more on this
below). These benefits increase the standing power of factions in the world, which can drastically change
the layout of a players world and present new choices to be made about how to approach their goals.
Will you join the fight back against Foundation's push for control, or join them to keep the wasteland
safe from the raiders?

This is an example of the Foundation's faction table for territory owned. As you can see, more territories
increase the strength and punish the number of available Contracts for the player to take with other
factions.
Faction Tension and Fights
Each faction has a starting Tension max and Strength die value. The current Tension of a faction will
increase at set periods by a roll of their strength die. If the total Tension reaches the faction's maximum
or higher, a Faction Fight triggers for the faction. This is the primary way a faction will gain territory on
the map, either by taking from other factions or claiming territory with no owner.

If two or more factions would fight over a location, the highest roll (plus and minus bonuses) wins the
location. The location is then transferred to ownership under the winner. The player character can
choose to participate in the Faction Fights for one side by contributing their Fight die to the chosen side.
Fighting for a winning side awards positive Faction Reputation, while losing the fight awards negative
Faction Reputation. This risk and reward system can help swing the borders of your chosen faction
towards better routes for your deliveries and exploration.

The above example shows 2 factions fighting over a territory that is on a shared border for the factions.
The winner takes control of the location being fought over, adding it to their total territory and strength
and making it harder for the faction to lose in the future.
This new system is quick to resolve, easy to visualize the boundaries of factions, and fun to see how your
own individual wasteland develops over your time in game and the choices you make. Ultimately, the
new system is more akin to my original vision of factions in Courier and something that I hope players
will enjoy playing with once Courier - Repacked arrives in 2024.