It’s not every day I come across a dungeon crawler roll-and-write that also has a solo campaign tucked into it, yet here we are!

Thanks to Spyros and Myrto, whose Hidden Realms: The Mummy’s Tomb still finds its way onto my table every now and then, I’ll soon be heading into the Misty Isle as a Mistwalker, wandering into the mist and dealing with whatever dangers lie ahead.

Cue: Forgotten Paths!

I was absolutely delighted by the response from you guys after the previous Behind the Scenes issue featuring Soliman’s Overclock, so I’m very happy to welcome you folks to the 12th Behind the Scenes!

And this time, Myrto is taking over to tell you how Forgotten Paths came together!

One step at a time. That’s how we do our best work. Also walking. Lots of walking! When you’re stuck, go for a walk.

That’s how Forgotten Paths came to be. It took many miles of walking, and then going home to test our ideas. Day in and day out.

It started as a simple idea, inspired by D&D and other RPGs.

We knew we wanted to create an exploration game with a feeling of unpredictability and highly thematic mechanics. Those were our non-negotiables. The biggest problem we had to overcome was finding a way to introduce unpredictability without making a game that relies heavily on randomness. We love unpredictability, we hate blind randomness. It took a lot of experimenting but we feel we have accomplished exactly that. The dice decide the outcomes, but strategic choices and adaptation always win.

At that stage, experiments looked silly on the page. It’s not worth spending time on making something that looks good only to throw it away because it doesn’t work. It’s actually best if it doesn’t look good. It’s also easier to judge something fairly if you don’t get charmed by its looks. And you have to be brutal with your judgement, because the core of a game has to be solid before you move on to the next step.

Once we had our core we could finally move to the really fun stage of game design. The extras.

What if we make several maps with unique rules that have a heavy impact on the gameplay? What if we introduce different terrain types? And if we do that, wouldn’t they look great if they also looked different? What if we created a variety of characters that play differently? What if they can also buy items from a marketplace and unlock talents to gain access to permanent abilities? Wouldn’t it be interesting for the player to test the various builds and adapt the character to their preferred playstyle? And the greatest “what if” of all. What if we create a story that binds them all together into a campaign, like a Game Master who creates an adventure for their players? And hey, that’s not scary enough, let’s also add branching choices so that the players don’t feel railroaded.

If you think I’m joking, I’m not. We actually said all these things to each other. You guessed it, while walking.

Thinking back, I don’t know how we thought we could pull it off. But we did. One step at a time. We’d focus on the next map. The special rules and their thematic meaning. Or the other way around. We’d start with the thematic challenge and then find the rules that could translate that into game mechanics. We didn’t think too far ahead because if we did, we’d feel overwhelmed.

Instead, we focused on the excitement. The creative process. We loved every bit of creating Forgotten Paths because it matches exactly what we enjoy in RPGs. If you’ve ever been a Game Master, you know what we mean. If not, maybe you should try it out!

At times, we doubted ourselves and thought that we added too many maps, too many quests, too long of a story. But we didn’t want to hold back and get rid of something simply to make the game more compact. So what if it has 18 maps? Isn’t that a good thing after all?

The greatest challenge, however, was the presentation. We were prepared for it, but still, not having a budget for an artist or a graphic designer meant we had to be very creative with the tools we had. It’s funny though, because the end result is something we are truly proud of.

Funnily enough, the easiest part was writing the story. Don’t get me wrong, I (Myrto) am acutely aware that I’m not a writer. English is not my native language either. But I had a blast writing the Storybook and I’m equally terrified and excited to see what others think of it. The feedback so far has been good, but the real test is always the players.

Creating something and then putting it out there for others to play, enjoy and, unavoidably, judge is scary. But it’s also liberating and fun. Knowing that we gave it our all, is enough for us. We can only hope it will be enough for you as well!

Reading through Myrto and Spyros's journey, it’s wild how much went into getting Forgotten Paths to where it is today! Long walks, plenty of experimenting, maps tackled one at a time, and moments where they wondered whether they made the game too big.

But here we are... 18 maps, a full campaign, and a whole Misty Isle waiting to be explored. And I cannot lie... the sheer scale of it, for a PnP, has me pretty stoked!

Forgotten Paths is launching on Gamefound in less than 10 days. Follow the campaign if you're up for an adventure.

Just don't get lost in the mist!

- Tas.

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