Secret of the Crystal Gate Post Mortem

These Post Mortems are coming sooner and sooner after the release of these projects lol. IDK if I’m unconsciously leaning into the “Fire and Forget” style release pace that the internet demands. I’m just gonna roll with it. 

Secret of the Crystal Gate is my best attempt at making every facet of my design conform to the spirit of the jam’s prompt. Usually I try to be all clever and put a spin or twist on the formula since that’s what normally gets the queer electricity in my brain to arc around, but I really wanted to fulfill what Questing Beast was looking for in this jam as a way to support what Knave is and what Knave does. Hilariously, in hindsight, I really tried to restrain myself in terms of concept. “What if two assholes were just arguing in front of a portal?” Seeing how that blew out into the 4 scenarios is an excuse to laugh at myself. Even when trying to be controlled, I still make some nonsense trying to be clever.

The two factions represented in Crystal Gate, The Pythagorian Cult and Baebylonian Fundamentalism have been brewing in the background of my 2025 Zinequest project and were pretty developed before I even thought to join this game jam. For the lore of my home games, I tend to make some pretty wild shit up on the fly, and it’s always super fun to hammer them out from their misshapen 2AM slag form into a fantasy sword to harass my players with. They appear in Crystal Gate simply because I knew that it would make the module stand out in terms of vibe from other OSR works that focus less on the “whys” of adventuring and more on the “hows.” I hope I was right!

Crystal Gate was a joint venture between myself and Wayne over at Kismet Games, and I was very fortunate that he agreed to work with me. He’s an old school vet and it shows. While I came up with the general concept and did most of the assets, the complete vision was elevated so much due to Wayne’s layout sensibilities. Doing game jams with other creators is definitely the way to go. I had much more fun and was able to keep myself far more sane. Thanks Wayne!

Some Quick Thoughts On Each Scenario-

Baebylonian Archive:

This is a little microcosm of the bigger piece I’m working on, and it’s going to inform what that bigger piece looks like. In art, one should always make a tiny version of the bigger thing one plans to make. Games are no different. In fact, it may be even more important given how many different disciplines one needs to master to create a good game. On a lighter note, The Baebylonian Works table has 10 fake works, and 3 real works. Can you guess which are which?

The Chase:

When considering the way OSRheads approach situations and problems, my first thought is to prepare for murderhoboing. In a situation with two snarky doofuses arguing the finer points of arcanum, the party meathead just says, “I swing my ax!” This created the bossfight scenario, but also prompted The Chase. The Chase scenario only happens if the players side with Panaetion, the angrier and shittier of the two men. The concept here came from asking myself what the whackest and most ironic outcome to siding with him would be: his own death of course!

Institute of Conciliation:

When divvying up the work for the project, I pitched all my ideas to Wayne and let him have first pick of the lot. The one he chose was “3 Room Dungeon in a University Teaching Deescalation and Deradicalization.” He took this admittedly flimsy concept and turned it into something truly awesome. My favorite aspect of the Institute is that it includes details that solely serve to build the vibe. I tend to create TTRPG content with a million tandem connections to adjacent context and obsess over how everything fits together. Wayne lets his design do the talking. Speaking of Wayne and talking, we break for a quick word from the man of the hour:

Wayne’s World - 

It was a great exercise. I think having restrictions and deadlines helps my creativity and gives me more focus. It was great workin with you, since you mapped out the scope and had such great artwork as inspiration. We work well together, so were able to do quick iterations. Knave 2e's design made it easier than most, though there were still challenges -- like how to best express "difficulty.  I wish we had been able to playtest, but I did not have the time having just finished up the Dragonburn 10 contest, like 10 days before!

Boss Fight:

I like boss fights. Games should have them. I don’t know what the source of the anti-boss fight rhetoric in the zeitgeist is, but I don’t, haven’t and never will agree with it. Boss fights are intrinsic to gaming. They are moments in which the tension ratchets and the players know that the stakes are as high as the difficulty spike. These moments matter, especially in fantasy! I’m a child of Y2K era game design. Back on the OG playstation, games like Symphony of the Night and Metal Gear Solid relied on their game design to build rich tapestries of lore that set your imagination alight. It’s no coincidence that those games feature prominent boss fights. Speaking of the OG playstation, the thing the golem says about 594 triangles came from research into how many vertices and triangles make up a PS1 era 3d model. Neat!

The last thing I want to mention here is how supportive the community has been through this game jam. I took a lot of time to rate other submissions and I noticed a lot of other creators doing the same. I really support these events in the scene because of how much new stuff gets created. TTRPGs are inherently a collaborative medium- hella resonant with an indie art scene ever evolving and hella resonant with my personal creative ethics.

Thanks to Ben Milton of Knave and Questing Beast as well as Wayne of Kismet Games. Shoutout to all of the folks who participated in the jam, and who are reading this hastily written word vomit.