‘Heretic!’ is Released!

With a short but intense development period over with, my miniature game Heretic! is now released for free as part of the Noncombat Tabletop One Page Peacejam! The result of the jam is the second volume of the NCT Almanac, an online zine focused on games that seek to tell interesting stories without violence. You can download the whole zine (about 45 games!) here, and you can join the amazing folks over at the NCT Discord here!

The concept for Heretic came to me very suddenly one day at work about two months ago. Since the simple text file I wrote that day the rules have actually changed very little. Each player controls a small team of rabble rousers as they try to hang up posters without getting spotted by the authorities or one another. If you haven’t guessed already, the game contains no violence. It’s very much about the spectre of violence though, and the risks people take to share ideas their authorities dislike. This is a game about protesting in the shadows, when protesting in the light could kill you.

To that end, the Authority figure in every game is controlled by a random player at the start of each round. This figure may be on your side for a time, but you can never trust him. The next turn he may be ripping down your posters and shouting at you, brandishing his badge. No player should feel safe around the Authority, and it was important that the rules reinforce that. You aren’t in charge here.

Despite these ideas being part of the game, playing it doesn’t have to be any more serious than you want it to be. It’s meant to be a bit of fun in between games like Mordheim, explaining where all of the “The End is Nigh!” posters came from. Here’s a list of inspirations your revolutionary crew might draw from:

• Cultists spreading the word of their banned religion
• Punk musicians flyering for their next show
• Teenage hive gangers sent out to mark new turf
• Spies hiding messages to their undercover operatives
• Queer organizers resisting fascist rule
• Exorcists purifying a demon-infested city with pages of their holy text
• Miniature gamers trying to promote their rival clubs
• Elderly genocide survivors trying to stop more atrocities from happening
• Survivors of a comet-strike raving about the rat men in the sewers
• Underhive scum protesting space marine occupation
• Kids telling the whole school that their principal is an alien (or vampire)
• Anarchists organizing against the oppressive Victorian government
• Vandals tagging mansions and dodging the HOA

On a personal note, this is the first game I’ve published! Although I’ve worked quite seriously on any number of projects over the years, this is the first one random folks out in the world have access to. It’s just a one page game in a free online zine, but having something I care about available like that means a lot to me. Thanks to the organizers (especially Matt!) of the game jam for giving me the motivation and continual encouragement to get something like this done. I hope this will be one of many projects that I’ll be able to give back to the tabletop community that’s meant to so much to me for decades.

Big thanks as well to all of my wonderful playtesters! The game would never have been finishing in such a short time without a great community of miniature gamers in my life. Y’all are my heroes.

If you end up playing Heretic and want to send me a picture or two, that would make my whole day. You can contact me here or just tag me on Instagram (@worldsinamber).

If you’d like to scratch-build a monument for playing Heretic, check out the tutorial for how I built my own.