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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 2d

Showing off a new piece of Mirror Agents art. This time, we have The Decoy. We have a strong Marlene Dietrich vibe going.

Illustration of The Decoy from Mirror Agents. The image depicts a woman in a white evening gown, holding a cigarette in a long cigarette holder. She is sitting on a bar stool talking to two men in suits who are shown from the back.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 8d

That looks delicious.

Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 10d

Also a shout-out to Sarah Shipp of shippboardgames.blogspot.com
Whose articles and book are a great resource.

ShippBoard Games

Board Game Design Theory from a Fine Arts Perspective

shippboardgames.blogspot.com

Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 10d

David conducted a workshop on Thematic Game Design at a local board game. We decided he should type up his notes into a blog post to share as well.

www.absurdistproductions.com/thematic-con...

Thematic Considerations in Game Design

David discusses a recent game design workshop he facilitated and thematic design for tabletop games in general.

www.absurdistproductions.com

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 10d

A new illustration for Mirror Agents. I give you The Saboteur. Really love the way the lighting was done on this one, and if you can see a little grin on their face.

Illustration of The Saboteur for Mirror Agents. The image depicts a person wearing a trench coat and a fedora walking away from and silhouetted by the light of a fiery explosion.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 17d

For anyone looking to pick up the books, they are available on our website www.absurdistproductions.com

Home – Absurdist Productions

www.absurdistproductions.com

Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 17d

Thanks to #solosept, we have sold enough of our books this month that we've had to place a new print order. Thank you to everyone who has purchased one of them. We hope you enjoy them. We love to read the stories players come up with.

A photo of the solo RPG books, "Transformation" and "Seven Murders Til Midnight" from Absurdist Productions, being held up in front of a shelf of games.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 19d

Did some testing with our first full art prototype of Mirror Agents this weekend. Graphic design needs some fine tuning, but it's looking and playing great.

Photo of a full art Prototype of Mirror Agents. Showing a main board displaying a map of connected locations players move their guard tokens to. On either side are screens that hide player boards where each player secretly moves their Agent meeple along the same map. Face down decks of Asset cards are beside each player board, and piles of Intel tokens are beside the main board.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 22d

We are currently in talks with several human artists for upcoming projects. We've made a statement about AI before, but want to reaffirm that we are dedicated to not using AI in any capacity. We believe in supporting artists because each of them brings something unique of themselves to our projects.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 23d

Both of us here at Absurdist have backgrounds in educational games, so love seeing more things like this getting talked about. Because of their ability to engage and motivate, well designed games can be amazing teaching tools.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 23d

It's definitely a vestige of the early days of the format that just sort of lingers on. Most games have come up with plenty of alternatives for Dungeon Master. But Campaign somehow continues. I've seen Season for games that are more episodic, and White Wolf uses Chronicle.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 23d

Which really only defines a very specific sort of adventure. Which even most D&D games don't really fit these days.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 23d

A flashback to 2017, when we were first promoting Churrascaria before our very first Kickstarter. Showing it off at our favorite local game cafe, which is sadly no more. Dave also still had hair back then. We've come a long way since then.

Photo of David Thomas at the game store Loot and XP in 2017. He is holding up a prototype copy of Churrascaria for a promotional video being recorded by the shop. Beside him are one of the store's owners and a friend. On the table in front of them are several other newer games they were promoting at the time.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 28d

Just means you can go through again and see what new tale of tragedy and terror you create.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 28d

We came across a post from someone playing through Transformation and wanted to reach out to anyone else who has created their own story with one of our books. We'd love for you to share. What dark, tragic, or terrifying tales have you crafted with Transformation or Seven Murders Til Midnight?

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 28d

We look forward to reading your story.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · 29d

Wanted to show off a teaser image for Mirror Agents that will show up as part of one of the player screens.

The game is inspired by noir spy fiction. Do you have a favorite spy movie or novel?

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Sep 8

We received the final version of The Analyst, and I thought I'd create another progress video to show how it evolved from the initial thumbnail to the final art. This one had very little in the way of changes from the refined greyscale. Love how the lighting worked out in the final version.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Sep 4

It's also a weird industry in that outside of a few large publishers, the vast majority of companies are only 1 to 10 full time employees.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Sep 4

Your thinking video games (which is an industry in need of massive change), Elizabeth is talking about board games. Which is more like book publishing. Where designers pitch their games to publishers, who by the rights and then do final development and art to them sell them.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Sep 2

We've had this happen, but we also haven't had a campaign as huge as C&C. Some people just don't really pay attention.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Aug 26

That could make for an interesting narrative though. Druid is shackled in their cell, keeps sneaking out when no one is looking to steal food or other things and then back in their cell shackled when the guards do their checks.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Aug 26

Assuming the shackles aren't magical and designed to adjust in size to the wearer, then I'd say yes they could shift down to a smaller size escape them. Or conversely, they could theoretically absorb them as well, though the shackles would reappear as soon as they returned to human form.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Aug 19

Our artist continues work on the characters for Mirror Agent. Here is The Analyst, from the rough thumbnail to this gorgeous grayscale. This sort of progress and refinement is why we will always prefer working with actual artists. We should have colors soon.

A thumbnail sketch of the character The Analyst. Shows a woman holding a book in front of a board covered in tacked-up papers with strings connecting them.

A greyscale illustration of the character The Analyst. This is a more refined and detailed version of this illustration. Shows a woman holding a book in front of a board covered in tacked-up papers with strings connecting them.

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Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇 @absurdistprod.bsky.social · Aug 6

All three of those cons have also gotten pretty massive. And they tried PAX South in San Antonio, which sadly died after I think 6 shows because attendance started dropping.

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