Nightscape Sorcery

— PROJECT NAME

Cryptic Explorers

— PUBLISHER

Tempest Tome Games

— ROLES

Core Design & Concept

Lead Game Designer

Art Direction

Graphic Design

Box/Component Design

Crowdfunding

Publishing

— DATE

2015-2022

— LINKS

Game Info

Boardgame Geek

Player Elimination Review

Kickstarter

Tabletop Simulator Mod

Cryptic Explorers (and its Alpha Return expansion pack) is a tabletop game: a content-packed squad tactics dungeon crawler with a sci-fi horror theme and black-and-white art. It's asymmetrical with 1-3 players taking the role of Cryptonauts, power-armored scientists, soldiers, and magicians from Earth plunging into the Realms of Death, the world beyond life and the corporeal. Against them stands 1 player as an overlord Goddess of Death, protecting her extradimensional domain. There are 52 distinct Cryptonauts to choose from and form your squads, and 6 different Goddesses to play as, each with their own unique spells, monsters, and abilities. Oh, and several unique maps to play on, 6 in total. Cryptonauts need to enter a Realm of Death to steal occult knowledge and complete objectives before escaping, and the Goddess needs to stop them in their tracks. No two matches are the same, this game is packed with variety and stories.

My first tabletop game release (originally called Necronauts) and a huge labor of love that consumed years of my life before being crowdfunded on Kickstarter (after two failed attempts) and becoming a cult classic through Tempest Tome Games. I started the design, art, and studio at my kitchen table with paper notecards, eventually developing into a full game release. This game formed the bedrock of my understanding of making tabletop games – from design, testing, game conventions, social media promotion, crowdfunding pages and campaigns, web design, graphic design, communicating with backers and testers, art direction, manufacturing and working with Chinese factories, etc.

— PROJECT NAME

Terrors from the Cosmos: Series One – 'Hidden Horrors'

— PUBLISHER

Tempest Tome Games

— ROLES

Core Design & Concept

'Tombship of the Lich' Writer

'Aphrodite' Writer

Art Direction

Graphic Design

Box/Component Design

Crowdfunding

Publishing

— DATE

2022-2023

— LINKS

Tuesday Knight Games

Tempest Tome Shop

Kickstarter

Terrors from the Cosmos: Series One is a boxed set of 5 adventures for the Mothership sci-fi horror RPG system by Tuesday Knight Games. The adventure pamphlets are packaged in a beautiful slip-case box, which itself is contained in a plastic shell with obi strip. Our campaign also unlocked NPC cards, art prints, and shirts. We have had the pleasure of being an approved third party publisher for Mothership, and jumped at the idea of creating some adventures for our favorite rules-lite, high mortality RPG. It was crowdfunded on Kickstarter with a very successful campaign and fulfillment, and is still carried and sold by vendors now, on its second print.

Each adventure pamphlet is a double-sided, with all the information, images, and mechanics a Warden needs to easily and quickly run a unique Mothership adventure. Similar to Cryptic Explorers, I was the head of most aspects of game creation, with two Tempest Tome team members writing 3 of 5 adventures, and wonderful illustrations by our friend Jota Cravo (who ended up creating illustrations for the actual Mothership rulebook after involvement with TFTC!).

This was also a joy to work on coming from Cryptic Explorers as this was a much smaller project and package, lean and mean. And, I was equipped with all the knowledge of the game creation pipeline I had learned prior.

— PROJECT NAME

Terrors from the Cosmos: Series Two – 'Abyssal Depths'

— PUBLISHER

Tempest Tome Games

— ROLES

Core Design & Concept

'Abyzoz Enigma' Writer

'Secrets of the Coral Crypt' Writer

Art Direction

Graphic Design

Box/Component Design

Crowdfunding

Publishing

— DATE

2024-2025

— LINKS

Tempest Tome Shop

Backerkit

Terrors from the Cosmos: Series Two is similar to Series One in being 5 adventure pamphlets and a series of NPC cards housed within a slip-case box, but with a new aquatic horror theme. My responsibilities and contributes to this release were more-or-less the same as the first. Similarly, our crowdfunding and release went very well, and we were able to also print a new run of TFTC 1 in the process. TFTC 1 and 2 are sold by many places carrying Mothership products online, including Tuesday Knight Games themselves.

— PROJECT NAME

Order of the Black Chalice

— PUBLISHER

Tempest Tome Games

— ROLES

Core Design & Concept

Contributing Worldbuilder

Contributing Writer

Contributing Graphic Designer

— DATE

2020-Current

— LINKS

Free Demo

Game Info

Order of the Black Chalice (OotBC) is an alternate-history medieval tabletop RPG setting and system, combining dark fantasy and spiritual mystery. Players portray Pilgrims, oathsworn servants of the Heavens chosen by a miraculous relic to walk a destined path. Each of them is charged to heal the wounded sky, to confront the hellish perils that permeate creation, all the while guided by the omens of a blood-red star. For their nigh-insurmountable task, Pilgrims are directed by the titular Order of the Black Chalice – a secretive agency of the Church versed in hidden agendas and obscured lore…

Mechanically, OotBC is based on the PANIC Engine by Tuesday Knight Games, used with their permission. Players are bound together by a sacred relic that serves to give immediate context and purpose to their group, and provides the Warden with a magical item to use in their adventures, with each relic having its own unique powers and personality to draw upon. The game also features a simple but deep combat system wherein players have many possible combat maneuvers to choose from with progression being purely a matter of skills. Combat is extremely deadly – even a simple peasant with a knife could kill a player under the right circumstances.

OotBC was originally conceived by myself around 2020, with adventures and a core rulebook written and play-tested, but was shelved for other projects. Upon Tempest Tome Games' expansion a few years back, two team members took it upon themselves to dramatically expand upon the universe and writing, bringing my 150-ish pages of writing over two adventures and one book to over 1100 pages over three books!

OotBC is still under development, with a Backerkit release likely in 2026. A free 100+ page demo, adventure, and character sheet are already available on the Tempest Tome Games website.

— PROJECT NAME

After Years in Dark Tunnels

— PUBLISHER

Self Published

— ROLES

Core Design & Concept

Writing

Pixel Art

— DATE

2010

— LINKS

Game Link

After Years in Dark Tunnels was my first actual factual game release, a 2d sci-fi atmospheric platformer, where I wrote the game's story, designed the game, and created all the pixel art. The story revolves around an unnamed astronaut crashing on an alien world and attempting to find his lost crewmates and their possessions. Key mechanics included a "hope" mechanic that dwindled over time, converting the visuals to a monochrome gray, and praying to restore hope, as well as self-termination as an option.

A wonderful dungeon synth project called Forgotten Lands provided the eerie atmopsheric track played through the game. This game was released back when browser-based Flash games were very popular and accessible as an indie game medium. I created After Years with my college friend Elisha Seely during the middle of our university education at Full Sail.

The game received very good reception, especially for an indie game, with even Notch of Minecraft fame played and vouched for the game on the Indie Game Forum, and also tweeted positively about the game.