What I love about the cover is that it feels
warm and inviting and the colors just POP. You see right away what this game is
about, friendly monsters welcoming you into their world, into their academy,
for you to learn and experience life alongside them. I just smile every time I
look at this cover. Both of the monster girls on the front cover are designed with
so much care towards their individual personalities, and you can tell that they
are friends. They probably serve as the school’s welcoming committee to new
students!
If you’re interested in more of Flavia Mikaella’s
beautiful illustrations and artwork, you can find her on Fiverr here. She was a
joy to work with and kept me informed of and involved in every step of the illustration
process, which I absolutely loved!
Brightnight Academy features 12 monster ancestries.
I knew I needed a physical representation of each of the monsters so that the
player could visualize themselves playing as one of the ancestries. With that
in mind, I hired an amazing artist named Undead Puppet (you can find her on Instagram
as undeadpuppet.exe and on Fiverr here) and she created 12 unique, highly
detailed, and fiercely adorable illustrations of the monsters of Notneth.
You may have seen some of these illustrations
at the top of a couple of my other articles here on the blog. They are in black
and white, and they are so detailed that they don’t need color. Every time I
look at one of Undead Puppet’s monster illustrations, I notice a new detail or
aspect to the illustration that I hadn’t noticed before, and that makes me
smile. I love when an artist dedicates themselves so fully to a project that
their art almost seems to take on a life of its own. Her artwork inspired me to
market my game to a broader audience, as I just found the illustrations so
appealing and dynamic.
There is also a map of the academy campus
included with the game. It’s a lovely map created by my professional cartographer
husband, Lance Duncan, who has his own blog where he talks about Dungeons &
Dragons and map design here. I knew I wanted a professional map made for this
game because I wanted the player to look at the map and really feel like they
were looking at a map for a college campus, trying to navigate around the campus
on their first day of school.
Brightnight Academy uses the MMUGS engine for gameplay,
which means it leans heavily into journaling and solo play. I understand this
may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really felt the cozy aspects of MMUGS
lent itself to gameplay in an academy environment. It’s also a good system for
beginners to TTRPGs, especially if they’ve never played a solo game before.
Brightnight Academy is available on itchio here and drivethrurpg here for $4.99.
I’ve got some supplements I’m currently working
on for it. I just love the land of Notneth that Brightnight Academy takes place
in, and I want to return to it over and over. I hope you’ll feel the same way
when you play Brightnight Academy.
One last thing: Don't forget to subscribe to my new newsletter, available through Substack! My handle is @sarahsoloadventures and you will get weekly updates on all of my games, articles, and upcoming projects!
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