Here’s a true indie game. The creator Sam Sorensen is still at University, at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he is learning game design. A successful Kickstarter means Rust Hulks becomes his summer job. Is there enough interest in an RPG with little artwork to show? The Kickstarter campaign page charts Sorensen’s success to date.
Script? What script? I like the fact Sorensen found somewhere to stand and pitched his concept to the camera. Games companies take note, that’s the kind of skills you want to hire.
$15 gets you a PDF of Rust Hulks when it comes out, and $30 gets you that, your name in the credits and playtest kits. However, only $35 will get you the PDF and the hardcover.
I kinda want Sam to succeed, though he’s probably come to Kickstarter earlier than some veterans would recommend (wait until the game is written, they’ll say).
This is a world without blasters or energy shields. Instead, you have the wonders of wooden crates, cans of boring food and radar scanners. I totally get the Firefly and Alien vibe.
Form a team, elect a captain and land a job. The structure of Rust Hulks should make it easy to GM and run. The team has to work together and working together, inherently, means volunteering for adventures. Sorensen points out that Rust Hulks works on a much smaller scale than most other sci-fi spaceship games. You won’t be saving planets. You’ll be saving each other.
There are nine classes (or playbooks) envisioned for the game;
- Bruiser
- Envoy
- Greaser
- Jockey
- Junker
- Runner
- Sawbones
- Smoker
- Tech
While we’re very light on art for Rust Hulks, we do have the proposed character sheets to look at
This isn’t actually Sorensen’s first Kickstarter. He funded a Cyberpunk zine. Nor is this first RPG, you can see his other projects at RIT.edu. Lastly, there’s the The Western Isles, his dormant until Winter, Twitch campaign.
