My first game, Game of Runes 1: The Swamp of Nok, is a fantasy narrative adventure. With combat, traps, encounters with strange folk, it’s a fun example of the genre. Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

But while I love. love. love narrative fiction games, playing Game of Runes is limited to people with a reasonable grasp of English and are over the age of ten years old. (There’s combat and alcohol and stuff.) 

And I want to create a game that has as few barriers as possible to playing, a universal game that will appeal to everyone and where language and age and gender and other barriers are not present. Or at least as minimised as possible.

I have a large extended family which includes an age spread of eight five to the not quite born yet. And I live in Europe. Do you know how many languages are spoken in Europe? Nope, nor do I, but I reckon it’s a lot. 

And my family includes people from Germany, Peru and Japan. So rather than have multiple languages explaining ‘How to Play’, as  TV instructions may possess, I’m going to have as few words as possible.

‘Game title’, ‘Play’, ‘Win’, ‘Lose’, ‘Play Again’. – That should cover it. And I’m going to have a think about making those words even more universal. So, no instructions as to how to play. Press ‘play’ and the game must be very quickly understood. I might substitute symbols for everything but the game title. All games need a name, right?

Age – we’re all kids at heart, so this game must have a childlike quality, i.e. simple to understand (there’s no instructions remember) but there must be peril and reward. So some sort of ‘lives’ mechanism, communicated graphically and with immediacy. And the reward system must be communicated the same. But I also like numbers – numbers are great – so a High Score and a running total is necessary, but they will sit alongside some sort of graphic indicating the extent of success, and how far there is to travel until WIN! 

Gender, race and other demographics – whatever gender you are, I want to find yourself in this game, or at least not not find yourself.  So I removed all humanity. That’s right, I’ve just committed genocide and wiped out the entire human race. No people = no genders. This game is going to be populated by marine life. Fish are great. I love fish.

This is a visual-based game, so if you’re visually- impaired I apologise. I haven’t forgotten you guys, hopefully I’ll address this in the future.

So, this game is to be a fish-based, non-language visual game with peril and reward. The good news is I’m already quite far down the development road and I’m game-testing at the moment. Hopefully the game will be with you guys in a couple of weeks.

So is who is Player One? 

As many people as possible.

Game of Runes is a fast-paced fantasy adventure game with monsters, magic and the occasional terrible pun.

No fee! No registration! No loot boxes! Play now!

If you prefer your adventures old school in paperback Game of Runes is also in your local Amazon online store!