Things are still moving slowly for us, but I did get past my block and finished writing the third adventure of To Predict and Serve: Rate of Change. That means that all three adventures are written and are ready to playtesting and revision. Of course, that’s where the big slowdown is. We have limited playtesting [...]

[SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't had a chance to check out our FREE TPA adventure Flight 101 then do so now as I'm about to dissect it in detail]

Adventure rewrites are exhausting and tough. We learned a ton from releasing the first act of TPA; layout choices, adventure designs, writing styles, how to edit and play test our game. During a recent playtest I began to think about our choice in adventure design, specifically running an adventure on rails. We chose to write our adventures on rails purely because it fit well with our setting. When Daisy sends out the agents into the world she does so with a plan in mind (the adventure) which makes it easy to guide the players as we have an in-game reason for them to follow the path set out. As players we hate feeling that we’re on rails that our choices don’t matter, but when given the illusion of choice we think it’s the greatest game ever.

The Patriot pre-gen was my first character idea for TPA; I fell in love with him at first thought. Daisy had always been designed to choose the agents that were best suited for the task. Agents couldn’t volunteer, train, or even will themselves into the TPA. They had to be chosen. The concept that this strong jawed, ex-government type not only wanted to volunteer but was actively throwing himself into danger was bit of a wet dream; he was perfect. The Patriot unlocked a number of writing bits for us, we began to understand the greater mythos of the world, and we had a great deal of fun deciding how he’d likely react to things. We began weaving these ideas into our adventures, planning bits for all of our character types (PUSH LITTLE CART!). Backstory can be mind blowing when used correctly and can be developed using a couple of simple rules.

Part of the fun of a TPA campaign is that it’s set in the real world, today. Inspiration for a mission can easily be found in the news or on Wikipedia. Take for example, the Phillips explosion of 2000. On March 27th, 2000 (which coincidentally, is the day Daisy went live), an explosion in a polyethylene plant killed one and injured seventy one people. This could be the basis of an adventure. The most obvious possibility is to have the PCs stop it or a similar industrial accident. But what about some other ideas?

Early this week we received a fantastic e-mail from a reader and TPA fan. I found it so amusing I immediately read it to my wife, the baby, in womb, and sent it on to the entire Apathy crew. After I was finished nerding out I asked for permission to repost the letter to all of you and share how awesome our fans are.

I want to thank everyone who entered the contest, and do apologize deeply for not drawing the winners sooner.  I will make no excuse for what happened but will vow it won’t happen again in future contests, thank you.

So as we announced we’d be entering everyones entries and picking three at random, the first drawing would win the grand prize, a copy of the Complete Pack (All Three Acts, and the Agent’s Handbook, with the follow up drawings winning the Agency Core (Act 1, and the Agent’s Handbook).

We loved everyone’s entries and are proud to announce the following winners:

It’s the end of the line for the TPA Complete Pack. If you want to get in on the special $9.99 price, you must act by the end of the day on July 7th.

The complete pack comes with the Agent’s Handbook, Act I of To Predict and Serve, and will be updated to include Acts II and III when they become available.

To coincide with the Temporal Probability Agency: To Predict and Win contest, we’re also announcing the end of the Complete Pack’s availability. The To Predict and Serve Complete Pack comes with the Agent’s Handbook and Act I of To Predict and Serve, plus will be updated to include Acts II and III when they become available. This is your last opportunity to pick up all three acts for the low price of $9.99. One week after the contest ends, so too will sales of the Complete Pack. So, if you enter and don’t win, you still have a week to pick it up.

We know you’re all sad at this announcement.  It’s OK, Timmy is too.  We thank everyone who has bought the Complete Pack thus far, it’s been fantastic seeing the support for the game thus far.  If you’ve picked it up already let us know what you think in the comments, it’s always awesome to hear feedback.

We’ve been quite happy with the reviews and praise for Temporal Probability Agency. It’s garnered us attention from all over, with people wanting to talk with us about the ideas behind the TPA and how we came up with the adventures.

We’ve been happy to answer, but it got us thinking: what kind of objectives would you, our fans come up with? So we decided to ask the question, and back it up with a little prize. The winner will receive a copy of TPA: To Predict and Serve Complete Pack, with a copy of the Temporal Probability Agency Core given to two runners up.

Apathy Games is proud to present Flight 1o1, the first adventure in our upcoming product, To Predict and Serve Act 1: A Function of Probability. And it’s absolutely free!

It started innocently enough. You won a trip to Honolulu from a sweepstakes you don’t remember entering. Everything was great—until the trip back. Now you have a gun pointed at your head and a football-shaped hijacker waving an Uzi in first class and screaming about freeing Abkhazia.

Armed with a KnightStick™ and whatever else you can find, you need to save the day.

Download inside!