RPG Publisher Spotlight: LunarShadow Designs

You know how this goes! Thank you to Patrons for the spotlight.

Thanks also to Craig Duffy of LunarShadow Designs for taking the time, care, and diligence to answer this month’s feature. Patrons voted to learn more about LunarShadow Designs, and Craig stepped up for us.

Furthermore, how does a 25% discount on everything except Hopes and Dreams of the Orbital Bound from the LunarShadow Designs Etsy sound?

Who are LunarShadow Designs?

As is traditional, we start at the start in the RPG Publisher Spotlight and set the scene. One day, though, we’ll start in the middle.

Who is LunarShadow Designs?

LunarShadow Designs is the self publishing name of Craig Duffy – like so many indie creatives in the RPG sphere I’m a one person, hobbyist operation, handling everything from designing and writing games through to layout and publication.

What are you best known for?

At conventions I try to sell myself as the sci-fi and spies guy so hopefully that! Those genres are my two big loves and the focus of most of my work. I grew up during the tail end of the Cold War constantly reading and watching sci-fi so it’s probably not surprising that I’ve carried them forward into my gaming.

Away from my games people might know me from my blog posts where I regularly release sales numbers and talk about money. I’m operating on a next to non-existant budget and I want people to appreciate that most of the creators within the hobby are working at that sort of scale. You tend to only ever hear about the big, breakout success stories and not the vast number of hobbyist creators that make up the bulk of the industry.

Exploring The Dyson Eclipse

The Dyson Eclipse is a phrase I noticed quickly while researching LunarShadow Designs. The more I nosed around, the more I got it… but let’s ask the questions.

You grew up watching sci-fi and right now DriveThruRPG lists your “Hopes and Dreams of the Orbital Bound” and “Signal to Noise” as your hottest games right now. They both are sci-fi and they both mention The Dyson Eclipse. What is The Dyson Eclipse?

The Dyson Eclipse is my growing sci-fi setting that follows humanity to Tau Ceti after they discover mysterious mega-structures in orbit around the star. It kicks off with Signal to Noise, which is a two player epistolary game set during the departure of the generation ships that are sent from Earth to Tau Ceti. That game explores two characters trying to maintain a connection when one of them gets picked for the voyage and the other is left behind on Earth. It’s a bittersweet and emotional game that was very much inspired by my experience of lockdown and suddenly being forced to communicate with friends and family over temperamental zoom calls.

The bulk of the setting though is about their descendants, the people that settle Tau Ceti, and their exploration of the megastructures. There are gigantic, continental sized habitats, vast networks of solar collectors and immense weapons, protecting the system from unknown forces. But there’s no sign of their creators. Hopes and Dreams of the Orbital Bound focuses on the everyday lives of the citizens of Tau Ceti and how being surrounded by these immense and overwhelming structures has made them ordinary and almost mundane in the face of day to day challenges. Meanwhile out on the far edges of the system Rock Hoppers puts you into the life of a scavenger, isolated and alone following a cave in while exploring a remote asteroid. Each game tells a different story, with mechanics specifically tailored to the tone and genre I’m aiming for.

Which sci-fi series is The Dyson Eclipse most like in flavour and tone?

I’m aiming for a mix of classic, grandiose 60s-70s space opera novels with more modern “realistic” portrayals of space such as The Expanse. I want to convey that sense of scale and wonder that older sci-fi often had. A lot of sci-fi (looking at you, Star Trek and Star Wars) tends to jump from place to place and you don’t appreciate the size and complexity of even a single solar system. I want to give the setting the sense of wonder I felt reading Ringworld before zooming in to explore individual lives and stories.

The Expanse is a great example of a modern take on this. The Ring Builders are almost unknowable but have left behind these vast ruins that are far beyond the understanding of humanity. At the same time you never forget that this is a series set in space – the characters are constantly being challenged by their environment and forced to come up with solutions that are believable, even if they do bend the rules of physics from time to time.

You’re building The Dyson Eclipse through several independent games. Why not just release a setting book first?

First and foremost I’m a gamer and I want to write the games that I’d like to play rather than presenting a fully detailed world book. I want people to be able to build their own interpretation of the setting, guided by the games rather than being presented with a dry encyclopedia of the solar system. The other factor is that it wouldn’t sell! I’ve got a lot of notes that I could turn into a giant setting book and I could adapt it for use with a generic system such as Traveller but without a big following it would disappear into the darkness. So I’m staying focused on small, individual games that tell unique stories, reveal a little bit more of the setting and that, eventually, will form something more than the sum of its parts.

At least that’s the plan! Ask me again in a few years and we’ll see how well that goes.

Life outside the sphere

LunarShadow Designs is more, it turns out, than a vehicle to bring The Dyson Sphere to life.

You said your other interest is the Cold War. Where did that come from and what are your aims in that sphere?

I was born in the early 80s in a UK military family so grew up with both the backdrop of those global tensions and with regular exposure to aspects of the armed forces. The first major global event I remember is the fall of the Berlin Wall so combined with the media of the time it’s a part of world history that I suppose I’ve always been immersed in. My first game, Project Cassandra, was inspired by action orientated TV such as The Man From UNCLE and real world events into psychic abilities (including the notorious MKUltra experiments).

I’d love to explore the topic further and to explore the tensions of the period through games. I co-wrote Numb3r Stations, a solo RPG in 2022 that has players tune in to real (and still active) transmissions as part of the game. I’d love to create a map based game that puts the player in charge of a ballistic missile submarine and forces them to confront the ethics of their mission during a time of crisis. That’s a long term goal though as I want to do a lot of research before I take on such a difficult subject.

Life as an indie publisher

Since we’ve left the world of The Dyson Sphere so far behind and on to difficult subjects, let’s talk about a challenging one – life as a small publisher. It’s not easy!

Here’s another ‘why not’ question, and this time about publishing because you do sell print editions of your books, but not through DriveThruRPG, and through Etsy, Indie Press Revolution and your own site, among others. Why not DTRPG?

Primarily time and logistics – the process for print on demand via drivethruRPG is rather arcane compared to mixam, who I currently use for printing, and I know of multiple creators who have required several rounds of proofing to get the process working properly. It’s something that is definitely on my list of things to do but as someone doing this as a hobby in my spare time my priority is always going to be on the fun parts of the process and arguing with pdf file specifications doesn’t make that cut.

Let’s talk about the Japanese theft in just a bit because other than printing and publishing challenges, what other challenges does a small indie publisher like LunarShadow Designs face?

The biggest challenge is always getting your work in front of people as a new/small creator. Social media has become increasingly hard to use and events such as ZineQuest have reached a saturation point. There are so many creators out there now that standing out is difficult. That last bit isn’t a complaint, I’m loving seeing an increasingly diverse range of creators and games get spotlight time but it does make it hard to be seen (and it’s even harder for minorities). If you’re able to attend a game convention I’d definitely recommend doing so, even if it’s just a small, local event. It’s a fantastic way to reach an already invested audience and have the opportunity to chat with fellow creators.

As a small, solo operation my other big challenge has been money. I’m in the lucky position that I’ve got a day job that pays the bills, so everything I earn from RPGs can go back into the business. I’ve been able to commission some art, hire an editor and attend conventions without being out of pocket but I’ve only been able to do that because I don’t need to pay myself. If I ever got to the point where I was reliant on gaming income I’d be in serious trouble. My advice to anyone looking to hire people for the first time is to work out what you can do yourself, do your research and respect the quotes people give you. It’s part of the reason I’ve yet to hire anyone to write for one of my projects – its a step I can do myself which allows me to allocate more money to the bits I can’t do. Art in particular can be expensive but most artists will have extensive portfolios so it’s always worth asking if they have anything you could license if you can’t afford to commission them directly.

Your blog’s sales numbers and money are very transparent. Why did you start doing that, and does it help? Do you wish other publishers did the same?

I started posting my sales numbers for a couple of reasons but mostly because I think it’s important to share and I wish I’d had access to similar info when I started out. Putting together my first kickstarter was really daunting as I just didn’t know what were reasonable costs to include. I’m fairly good with numbers so I was able to put together a reasonably accurate budget but it would have been much easier if I could have looked at someone else’s spreadsheets first!

The main reason though was because I keep seeing people being put off when their game or kickstarter isn’t a massive, overnight success. Social media tends to amplify a small number of voices and it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of measuring your success against theirs, especially when you put a lot of work into a game and make only a handful of sales. I wanted to remind people that it’s normal not to sell hundreds of copies of a game and that you can call yourself a successful game designer regardless of your follower count. I’ve got well under 1000 followers on every social media platform I’m on and my best crowdfunding campaign raised only £2000. Despite that I’ve released 7 products in print, been stocked by multiple shops, attended conventions as an exhibitor and have built connections within the industry. I’m by no means a famous designer but I am known within the UK scene and I’ve built a small but supportive customer base. That’s what success looks like to me.

The Reconnaissance Bureau Drifting Ship theft

One of my favourite but sometimes worrisome parts of the RPG Publisher Spotlight interviews is when the publisher has some war stories from their life in the hobby. Oh boy, Craig has one!

Okay, Japan! Can you please tell readers about what happened to your game?

I published the first version of Signal to Noise in the summer of 2021 with the plan of funding art and a print run during ZineQuest in February 2022. January 2021, as I was putting together the campaign page, I received a message from someone I didn’t know asking about a Japanese edition they’d seen and whether it was official. It wasn’t, and this was the first I’d even heard of someone pirating it. Apparently it’s a relatively common occurrence in Japan and stems from a point where official translations of Western RPGs were really rare so amateur translators would produce local editions of whatever they could get their hands on. It reminds me a little of the anime fan subs/dubs that were common in the West in the late 90s/early 2000s.

The group that stole my game released it under the name of Reconnaissance Bureau Drifting Ship, which I love and I wish I’d managed to get hold of a copy. Obviously it was really frustrating to learn it existed but I want to know how they adapted the system. One of the key mechanics involves altering individual letters in the messages that you write and I just don’t know how that would work in Japanese.

What did you do about a print edition on sale in Japan once you discovered it? What could you do about it?

There wasn’t really much that I could do. I managed to contact one of the people responsible, who claimed they didn’t know how to reach me and half-heartedly offered to make a royalty payment. Then they disappeared. I later learned that they’d also translated multiple Traveller RPG sourcebooks so I suspect Mongoose had gotten wind of it and sent a formal cease and desist.

Did that experience give you any helpful takeaways, lessons or tips? Is there anything you’d do now, for example, that you didn’t know to do before?

Primarily not to ignore the non-English language market. Since then I’ve been lucky to sign an agreement with a French publisher for a translation of Signal to Noise and Rock Hoppers, which is just about to be released with a beautiful new cover. I’ve also actively reached out to a number of other translators and while nothing is currently in the works it has helped me to make more connections and increase my potential audience.

LunarShadows in the future

If events in the past cast their shadows into the future, I wondered what that might mean for LunarShadows. Ah, it’s also because I love asking this question.

What’s next for LunarShadow Designs?

My main aim for the year is a lot of behind the scenes development work. That said I’ve got 2 games I’m actively working on – the first is a duet game inspired by the novella This Is How You Lose The Time War which has the players sending messages back and forth as they slowly alter events across time. I’m just about ready to run the first playtests of that.

The second is another duet game, building on Numb3r Stations, the solo RPG I co-wrote with Alberto Furlan. This time in addition to the undercover spy there’ll be a handler directing them and it’s all about the competing priorities of the two characters. We’re still developing the framework for that so I expect it won’t be ready until the end of the year.

My final goal this year is to attend more conventions. All going well I should be exhibiting at UK Games Expo (as part of the UK TIN stall), Tabletop Scotland (as part of The Indie Connection stall) and on my own stall at Dragonmeet. If you’re going to be at any of these please come by and say hello!

Geek native will be going to both UK Games Expo and Tabletop Scotland. We should, with a bit of luck, see Craig there.

LunarShadow Designs

• LunarShadow Designs website.
• LunarShadow Designs on Itch.io.
• LunarShadow Designs on DriveThruRPG.
• LunarShadow Designs on Etsy.
• LunarShadow Designs newsletter on Substack