AddiCube is a casual flash game that is part virtual-pet game, part resource-management simulation. To reflect our commitment to transparency and education, both studios will be sharing all details about the development process, including our legal documents, design documents, and numerous personal anecdotes about the collaboration. Upon release, all art from AddiCube will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution license and the code will be available under an MIT license.

Our funding model for this project involves contributions directly from our community via Kickstarter. In addition to releasing the game for free once we’ve reached out funding goal, we’re also offering fun rewards to all levels of contribution, from $10 to $250. As a special thanks to the $250 level contributors, we’re offering to include a logo and link on the loading screen of the game. This is a great opportunity for you to show your support of indie game development. As we intend to distribute AddiCube on Kongregate, New Grounds, and other Flash game portals, this is an affordable opportunity to promote your studio, business, or web site.

The HoneyComb Engine site provides forums where we are actively seeking feedback on the rough draft. We plan on taking all comments under consideration as we begin our revision of the printed edition of the handbook. Additionally, all the changes, additions, and new art will be folded into the site content as we edit. By the time we are ready for publishing, the entire text of the handbook will also be freely available online.

The HoneyComb Engine site is not even 24 hours old and already we’re ripping the guts out of the site and replacing them with something more suited to our long term needs. We’ve started by implementing a forum system that is considerably more robust.

Our next step is to replace the front-end and integrate the look and functionality of the entire site.

I found myself emotionally involved in the story, and instead of being confused and hindered by the rules, which I expected as a first time player, they were motivating. While waiting for my character’s chance to speak, I thought about what my character would do in the situation, and then used the framework provided by the HCE to build my responses as part of the larger story being told by the other participants.

You can read the rest of Travis’s impressions on his blog, The Autumnal City.

A lot of systems, particularly Dungeons & Dragons, are designed around, ‘How can we keep everybody from doing crazy things.’ My system is more designed to say, ‘How can we enable you to have a really awesome story experience?’

You can read the full interview at Edge.

Video games contain the potential to change our notions about storytelling in far greater ways than any medium before it. I contend that it will change them to such an extent that our notion of story will be completely transformed. Ironically, I also believe that this new storytelling form will be virtually indistinguishable from the earliest culture’s storytelling forms, which consisted of the performative and participatory rituals that evolved into what we call playground games today.

You can read the full interview at the Narrative Designer’s Network.

Rev 03 can be tightly integrated into your storyworld, as it represents an elemental cosmology that can be discussed without ever “breaking character.” This decreases the amount of time spent explaining rules before playing, as novice storytellers are able to explore the system while they explore the world. The system is also designed to be as accessible as possible, with only a single ten sided die and basic math skills needed.

Rather than serving as mere records of mathematical data, the Rev 03 character sheets, Life Wheels, represent the flow of elemental energy into and out of the characters as they exert their wills upon the world. This approach provides a compelling kinesthetic metaphor for character interaction that serves to bring storytelling and character closer together, rather than turn the character into an abstract collection of statistics and data. Furthermore, the Life Wheel design lends itself well to a wide variety of craft-based interpretations. Storytellers may fashion their own personal Life Wheels using embroidery, wood carving, paper folding, or even LEGO™ building blocks.

HoneyComb Engine: Rev 03 will be published for free online, and as an electronic and print-on-demand manual. Life Wheel patterns will be made freely available, and Life Wheel craft kits may be made available for purchase. Electronic storyteller tools to assist with the creation of stories will eventually be made available as free and open source software.

Rachel began the 365 Project as a contribution to a Flickr group. The challenge was to create a patternless knitting project and add to it every single day for a solid year, posting pictures as evidence.

At the onset, Rachel decided that her project would not be limited to two dimensions, but reach out in all directions, evolving organically as she progressed. And as the project evolved, it became apparent that it would serve as a diary of her year. One portion of the sculpture brings Rachel back to a vacation in San Francisco, a scrap of yarn from a scarf she knit for her mothers, provides a gateway to memories of interactions they had while the project grew.

Early in the project, Rachel decided to use predominately mohair yarn and this limitation proved to be a catalyst for creativity and the project took on a very organic, almost aquatic feel. Other members of the Flickr group began sending her scraps of Mohair, and the occasional bead, for inclusion in the sculpture, turning the end result into a community effort.

Rachel’s experience with this non-traditional form of storytelling has led us to explore the idea of storytelling as a lifestyle, rather than vocation or expression of language. It has also led to to think about ways we can incorporate other crafts into our storytelling efforts, from the Drachurae Cycle RPG to an exciting unannounced project we’ve just begun to work on.

No Man is the story of three men, each of whom have been convicted of a violent crime against a woman they profess to have loved. The story is designed to challenge the audience’s perceptions of masculinity, gender roles, and encourage them to think about the impact of society on men who find themselves struggling to live up to traditional societal expectations.

Originally intended as a short animation, it wasn’t long before No Man evolved into a one-man show where each of the three male antagonists reveal the truth behind their crimes in emotionally taught twenty minute acts. After filming some test footage for an editing project, Corvus realized he was unsatisfied with even this traditional structure and shelved the show before it was ever performed live. But even as he moved on to other project, No Man was never far from Corvus’ thoughts. He know there had to be a way to increase the effectiveness of the message, to draw the audience in and help them become invested in these troubled characters.

As we began to develop our theories about participatory storytelling and its role in modern culture, an idea slowly began to form, drawing upon the work already done on No Man and incorporating elements that serve to draw the audience into the reality of the show. Now Corvus is seeking funding to stage No Man as a participatory theater experience in which the audience will be asked to decide the fate of the three men after directly interacting with them over the course of the show. The current plan is to stage No Man for the first time in the fall of 2010, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

In preparation for the Book of Yetl’s release, we are designing the first card game to use the deck. Renown is currently being tested around the world and the feedback has been invaluable in helping us clarify and streamline the rules. The overall consensus is that Renown is an original and fun game that requires a balance of cunning instinct, careful strategy, and fleeting alliances.

The first draft of the Renown beta manual can be downloaded as a PDF here. A second draft is expected in the spring of 2009 and the current publication target date for the final game is summer of 2010.

The tight production cycle of the golem led to many time saving decisions regarding textures, lighting, and music, that dramatically influenced the look and feel of the finished animation. The end result, we hope, is a story experience that transcends the limitations of the medium.

Although this animation was created long before the founding of Zakelro Story Studio, it is included among our projects for a very important reason–it reflects our philosophy of storytelling. In the animation, a golem goes about its work-a-day life until it discovers a chest containing three masks. Trying on the masks, the golem is transformed into a storyteller and finds that the transformation extends into its reality, or its perceptions of reality.

Download the golem (12.2 MB .mov)
Watch the golem on YouTube