“It’s an RPG about running a medieval fantasy Tavern, and It’s going to be a bit like ‘King of Dragon Pass’.”

And the response is one of two things… More often than not, the response is a nonplussed expression, followed by “What? Never heard of that game”. But when I tell someone who knows and loves the references, the response is a much more positive “Omigod! Take my money!”.

The Waycross Inn is going to be (it’s too early to say ‘is’) an RPG / adventure game about running a medieval tavern. If you’ve played any of the ‘Atelier’ series, or the ‘Harvest Moon’ games, imagine those, but with a ‘choose your own adventure’ novel mixed in there as well.

Again… blank expressions.

It’s one of those things you just have to play to get I suppose. And if you think it sounds hard to sell, just imagine what it’s like to be throwing hours and hours of your free time into making it. I have no idea if it’s going to work either.

So, The Waycross Inn is about running a tavern in a politically volatile fantasy world, which is situated at a crossroad between four diverse towns. Your tavern is pretty much the only place where people from these different towns and cultures will meet.

Taverns have typically been places where you might rub shoulders with people you wouldn’t normally associate with, and over a drink, realize you’re not that different and that you all share a basic humanity.

The question the game asks is this; Can one location, in the right place and with the right management, build bridges between cultures and classes enough to prevent a brewing civil war?

But that’s the much bigger picture.

Most of your time will be spent deciding upon the menu, keeping guests happy, brewing your own ales, trading for resources… and tons of other stuff I haven’t even decided upon yet.

I’ve been working on the game for two months now, and I’m aiming for a ‘Computers’ release, I haven’t ruled out mobile either.

If you like the sound of the game, please let me know in the comments below, and if you would like to keep track of development, the best place is probably my Titter Account (@StewHogarth).

Thank’s for reading, see you next time.

Stu xxx

this is the first post on the new Smiling Bag 2.0 website, so I though the most appropriate thing to do would be to summarise the last year and let you know where we’re aiming to go next.

I went for a rummage through my old files to try and find a document I’d written a year ago, which contained a ‘plan’ about what I aimed to achieve in the first year. I found it, and here’s what it said…

I aimed to get I Am Level (then in development) finished and played by 100,000 people in the first year, and to release two more small mobile games. One about controlling waves and another about particle collisions.

It’s been 8 months since Smiling Bag started. I Am Level has been played well over 100,000 times, and we’re about to release our third game, iON Bond.

In summary, we achieved our first years goals in 9 months. Which is nice. So, it’s about time to start thinking about the next year. The aim is to use the momentum from the first three games to step it up a gear and make something a bit bigger with a larger team.

As for adding more people to the team… well, that’s progressing as we speak. There are regular contributors, which is why I use the term ‘we’ when talking about Smiling Bag, but I’m still the only core member. So that’s the first objective, to add more people to the team. Then it’s simply a case of picking the right project.

Currently, there are two bigger projects being mulled over. One is safe but simple, and the other is risky and niche. Not sure which one we’ll go with. Who knows, maybe both.

Watch this space.

Stu x