After the success of Generational, I was inspired to develop other games under this d100 system. The goal for the base game had been minimal interference from the rules/rolls paired with a collaborative environment that allowed for equal involvement from all the players. 

Since Generational had been about the start of a world and didn't necessarily have an end in mind, I decided to create a game based on the apocalypse. I'll admit that I'd kind of cornered myself with the title convention of ending with -AL, but really that was perhaps my own stubborness rather than an actual necessity. 

Because Generational had had the message of shaping your world, I was inspired to make the next game about telling stories of heroes - the folks who helped humanity face its darkest hour and had ultimately lost their lives in order to save others'. This created the first challenge that I had thought would make the game unique, but really just made it harder to play. I had to have some kind of way to develop the heroes that would develop during the game as opposed to doing too much planning ahead - because my hope was that the characters would become fleshed out as the story grew. In Cataclysmal, the heroes are all named after the players at the table... but are specifically not those people. It was a quick way to give a name to a set number of pre-defined characters without needing additional inspiration, and as much as it made sense in my head, players in play-testing struggled. They weren't sure how to create stories around people they didn't yet understand and oftentimes felt like they only were allowed to control the stories of those heroes named after themselves. 

I also tried a new method of ideation for storytelling - the main ways players interacted with the dice were a) the number on the d100 indicated how many years had passed since the last story, and b) you could use the set of tables at the end of the game to decide what kind of character you would be telling a story about. I had been wanting to try my hand at games like "The Quiet Year" and many others that utilized traditional playing cards instead of dice rolls. So I relied on random card draws that would help develop the story and use during play. The ability to of the cards fit the mold for purpose B, but then there was little ability to fit with purpose A - which felt like a failing. Undeterred, I decided that numbers would equal hours - I felt that anything longer would make the timeline feel sluggish and lacked the urgency that came with the likes of an action-adventure movie where every second counts. 

Other new things I tried were limiting the game to a certain number of rounds by suggesting that one of the heroes dies in each round. This required a convoluted system that allowed the player with the same name to decide how that hero eventually perished in the service of others - which definitely didn't help the pervasive thought that one could only control "your" hero. I introduced dice back into the game (which with hindsight was probably unnecessary) to randomize when heroes would die, which just meant the process was more difficult to understand, even with the helpful diagram I made. 

At the end of the day, we successfully made it through one full game of Cataclysmal before I gave up on it. I felt the game didn't achieve what I had set out to do and the number of fixes to correcting it felt neither satisfying nor straightforward. 

In the future I hope to be able to publish the series of Alamanac Games, but for now, I'll need to do some serious editing of this particular game. I feel like it has potential, but perhaps needs to focus on what is essential to gameplay while also finding ways to encourage players who might be unfamiliar with this unique format. 

I wonder whether cards is actually the best idea for this game or if I have the chance to head back to d100 rolls. I think a list of possible changes might help me decide how to move forward. 

•  Define hero/heroes in a new way that avoids the player names
• Clarify or Reduce the needs for hero order (aka remove the dice)
• Simplify the cards or fine tune their prompts
• Perhaps include specific cataclysmic events that players can choose to use instead of leaving it up to storytelling
• Find best way to show progress of time, reintroduce timeline concept

Until then, let me know if you have any suggestions or would like to playtest Cataclysmal: A Story about Saviors