Making a game Forged in the Dark? Looking for a publisher?

Making a game Forged in the Dark? Looking for a publisher?

Making a game Forged in the Dark? Looking for a publisher?

If so, ping me. Evil Hat is interested in publishing more games that are based on the Blade in the Dark ruleset, i.e. Forged in the Dark.

What we’re looking for:

– Complete or near-complete games that have been thoroughly playtested.

– Game manuscript in plain text format (not in layout).

– Setting/genre that would fit in Evil Hat product lines.

– Some mock ups of character and crew sheets as a point of reference for the graphic designer to work from.

– Ideas about layout and art aesthetic (including artists you have in mind).

– A willingness to work with us on all aspects of the game as we go through the editing, layout, proofing, art direction, and indexing to get it ready for print.

– A partner in marketing the game along-side us by playing it online, at conventions, with local groups and generally building the excitement that comes from play.

Services we provide:

– Finishing (we have a stable of talent to do editing, layout, art, proofing, indexing, etc).

– Project Management (we’ll work with you as well as all the staff assigned to the project to complete the game and make sure it meets our standard of production quality, which is pretty damn high).

– Marketing (this is co-operative aspect. EHP will use our marketing engine but the most ardent fans will always come from you).

– Manufacturing (developing the print spec, getting quotes, proofs, and working with the printer to complete the book).

– Fulfillment (delivery to wholesale, direct vendors like IPR, and backers/pre-order customers, along with the customer service and ongoing inventory supply management needed).

We’ve worked with John Harper to publish Blades in the Dark and we couldn’t be happier with what a great game it is. We want to work with you to make even more of them. In fact, we already may be working with some of you now 😉

Ping me and let me know if you’re interested! seannittner at gmail.

Questions about Blades in the Dark licencing

Check out all the info about using the Blades SRD here: https://bladesinthedark.com/licensing

58 thoughts on “Making a game Forged in the Dark? Looking for a publisher?”

  10. Shane Liebling, I just sent an email to John about it. The SRD is done and we’ve got in on the blades site. We just need to do some DNS work and we can launch it. Some of the licencing bits will still be forthcoming, but the SRD is done.

    Will Adkisson, it’s what John came up with, so that’s what we’re going to use. There isn’t any licencing attached to that terminology yet, but once we get that written, we’ll release it on the blades site as well (see above).

  12. I’ve been waiting for someone to come up with a term like “Powered by the Apocalypse” for Blades hacks. Forged in the Dark is cool. Not quite as catchy as Powered by the Apocalypse, but I like it.

  17. Hey Sean Nittner​, I’d love to do that, but I don’t have the time nor the resources to participate like that. May I still label my game “Forged in the Dark” as I continue to work on it?

  19. Alexander Kovalenko, only one can be pinned, but I have John’s old post saved and will re-pin it in a bit.

    Matt Chodaczek, sure thing. Once he’s got all the licencing sorted out, John will put up the logo and rules for making a game Forged in the Dark.

    To be clear though, you don’t need to publish through Evil Hat to make a game Forged in the Dark, but we’re interested in working with folks who are!

  20. Sean Nittner Excellent! I’m excited about the legitimacy this label will bring to our community.

    Also, I like “Forged in the Dark”. It’s catchier than “Powered by the Refined-Demon-Whale-Blood Engine”.

  21. I can’t believe the term “Forged in the Dark” survived this whole process. Congratulations Manuel Fischer, you coined a whole product line. I can’t recall who of us both came up with the idea, but you well deserve the place of opening it up to the world.

  23. I was about to ask about creating something but not being able to fulfill the other requirements (as I am based in Manila, Philippines) but then I read your reply to Matt above and that cleared things up for me. I’m tempted to make a Time Traveler game. The “flashbacks” are more time jumps to counteract the opponent’s moves.

    Sorta Jumper meets Doctor Who meets Hustle.

  25. Very cool to see this news. I’d spent about a year working/testing my hack, but put it on pause waiting for some more official movement on SRD etc.

  26. David aka Red Eye Ragnarok : It sounds like there’s a story behind the name “Forged in the Dark” that I’m not aware of. Can you fill me in?

  27. David P sure! The first mention of “Forged in the Dark” in regards to Blades should be Manuel “The Duriel” Fischer’s answer in this thread: plus.google.com – Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but do we have a sense of what …

    At that time Duriel and I were sitting in voice chat and talked about the SRD (iirc) and we also talked about how “Powered by Blades” as suggested by Sean’s post in the thread didn’t quite have the rang to it. We threw some ideas around and finally came to the conclusion that “Forged in the Dark” sounds really cool. After that discussion Duriel posted it, as seen above.

    I don’t know whether Duriel talked to John about it on the Blades Discord, but it seems to have stuck somehow.

  35. Hi Tien Spieleschmiede, the SRD content is available by CC-BY licencing, so you can translate it. If you’re interested in doing a translation of Blades in the Dark, however, please contact John Harper directly.

  38. Sean Nittner Randy Oest : I’m considering contributing to the repo via merge requests if it’s accepting merge requests. So far I’ve noticed a few formatting issues in the Markdown that I could fix.

    Would you be accepting contributions from the public?

  41. I’ve done quite a bit of work recently on a dark fantasy monster-slaying hack along the lines of Castlevania, Darkest Dungeon, or Warhammer Fantasy, but don’t want to step on the toes of Blades Against Darkness if that’s still going to be a FitD game. Any way to confirm the status of that?

  43. Charles Simon, Design is good! Even if others are doing similar things. Dylan is working on Blades Against Darkness now, but there is still plenty of room for Dark Fantasy goodness!

  45. Hi Sean

    We made a game Cowboy World which is based on Apocalypse World with some stuff similar to Fate. The game rules are done, its been playtested for two years and it works. I meant to self publish but life intervened…

    Please email me at bieljam@yahoo.com ,😀

  47. Thanks for sending me the link Charles Simon. I’ve read over the files you’ve posted and have some thoughts. If you’re interested, email me (seannittner at gmail).

  50. I have two very different hacks I’m working on in what little spare time I have, but with other work commitments at the moment, I doubt they’ll be at the desired point of readiness any time this year. As much as I’d love to look into doing this, I don’t know if the opportunity will still exist by the time I’m actually good for it.

  51. Daniel Tucker we’ll keep looking for Forged in the Dark games for a good long while. Getting me something in the next year or two is just fine! =)

  53. At one point, John tweeted a link to a document of do’s and don’ts of submitting a game to you guys. I think it was a blog post?

    Is there any chance of getting that reposted here? I have been googling my fingers dry but can’t find it.

  55. Hi Austin Ramsay, thanks for asking. This change shouldn’t substantially effect our offers on FitD games unless a bunch of them come in at the same time. Fate, PbtA, and FitD games are going to be our focus in the next year (and probably beyond) so if anything this hopefully clears the path for more games.

    That said, even with our previous project load we tend to consider a lot of possible games that we wait to see if they’ll mature into something that can go in a book, while only doing full time development on 1-2 games at a time.

    Luckily so far that has matched the pace with games in development, but I suspect as more and more get to those finishing stages we’ll have to stagger our offers to ensure we have all the resources for the games in our active queue.

  57. Hi Sean!

    I’ve been working on a blades hack for a few months now. If you want I can send you an email telling you what it is about. The main problem is that the material I have so far is in Spanish (my native language)

    I’m about to start the Playtest and the idea is that if everything goes well, translate it with a friend (He is an English teacher)

    So far I have several rules, playbooks, and “crew” sheets. But nothing in layout.

    Sean Nittner

  58. Hi Franco bianchini, I’d say keep playtesting it, get it to a point you’re happy with and then send it to me after you’ve translated it. I’m seannittner at gmail. Best!

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