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Finishing out 2024 with my third and final game of the year, I published I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE today on itch! It’s PWYW and I’ve submitted it to a couple of game jams that inspired me.
This was a fun one to write, but I heavily procrastinated on it. I was inspired sometime in early November to start it, based on the “Shitpost RPG” game jam. I did a search for the best shitposts, and found something about Mr. Bones Wild Ride, which is a Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 ride someone designed that is just absolutely awful. It’s mostly switchbacks, and takes 4 years of in-game time to complete. Once the riders exit the ride, they are returned to the entrance again, to begin their purgatory once more.
I drew a lot of inspiration from Dante’s Divine Comedy, deciding that all the riders in the ride would be 2024 embodiments of the 7 deadly sins: gluttony, avarice, envy, pride, wrath, lust, and sloth. I then made them even more unlikeable and gave a kind of Huis Clos feel to it by giving them all reasons to pretty much hate each other, but be stuck on this ride forever.
I’m not sure what caused the procrastination– I got stuck on creating the character playbooks. I know the questions the players have on their character sheets are instrumental in shaping the story, but I wasn’t overly inspired for what to ask. I finally just bit the bullet and wrote some questions that I think will be satisfyingly awful for everyone.
The game’s mechanics are based on The Skeletons by Jason Morningstar, which is an excellent story game that everyone should play at least once.