Announcing ONIROS + Protospiel Rochester 2024

 I have been working on-and-off on a standalone card game for a couple years now, and the second prototype is nearing completion, just in time for an upcoming local protospiel. Here's the rundown:

 

ONIROS is a 3-6 player card game that begins with a co-op phase, then transitions to a competitive phase. Players are radicals living under a fascist Regime, worked so hard that the only time they can contemplate revolution is in their dreams. With the titular, experimental wonder drug ONIROS, however, they can manifest their Dreams into reality and use this power to topple the Regime. The players all have Visions for a better future, but not all their bright ideas will see the light of day. Even if they overthrow the Regime, only one will emerge as the glorious new leader.

In the co-op Revolution Phase, players use Dream cards to defeat the Regime deck before it can reassert control after an initial Catalyst. They must also try to stockpile Vision cards, which will further their goals after the fall of the Regime.

If this is achieved, players turn on each other in the Iconoclasm Phase, competing to play the most Vision cards and sabotaging each others' Dream cards. Players who have no Vision cards left instead become Nihilists, and must thwart the remaining revolutionaries from meeting the criteria to play their Vision cards.

Throughout the game, players can use doses of ONIROS to get an edge in various ways.

As of the writing of this blog post, I have written up the rules and templated all the Dream cards, Regime cards, and Vision cards, so all that's left is to design the Catalyst cards and then draw some placeholder art, some of which I will probably post here later.

This is good timing because (not to go ahead and dox myself) there is a protospiel in my area on September 6-8, less than 2 weeks out! If you're not familiar, a protospiel is essentially a tabletop game convention where all the games played are all still in design, and the goal is for designers to gather feedback while they work on their projects. I've never attended one, but I'm excited to hear there's one in my area. If you're near Western New York, you should come check it out! Here's the link for further info. 

Watch this space for more info on ONIROS, both before and after the protospiel.