🚂🍭📓 First Impressions: Origin Story
Nov. 12th, 2025 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solo_knightFirst Impressions: Origin Story
What is it?
Instructions for creating a superhero. In comic form. You don’t have to draw the panels, but you still need to describe them.
Is it playable out of the box?
If you grok comics, definitely. There are 44 unique prompts (queens are allies that help you, kindgs are confrontations with your nemesis) and what I’ve seen looks interesting.
Amendments:
I’ve used the dice tower mechanic from Ice Station Zero which worked better than any of the other alternatives I've seen. An actual tower would not work with my setup (too easy to nudge the table and destroy the narrative).
Tools
A dice tower (or equivalent), a deck of playing cards, ten tokens, a d6.
Price:
$7
Verdict
🚂 Honourably Retired
🍭 This one is weird
📓 It's still a journal if you draw.
I got to the first instruction, where you're supposed to put down your name and your superpowers, and I just froze. Instant stress reaction. Completely blocked, could not think of anything, just completely in a state of fear.
Yeah, I don't know what's up with that, either. I've always had a problem with being creative on demand.
Compare that to all of the characters I have created recently with Colorful Characters some of who were a lot weirder than your bog-standard superhero, I come, once more, to the conclusion that anything that starts with a stylized description is a bad match for me (I always freeze when character creation begins with 'name, hair colour, shoe size') even though the journey in ColorfulCharacters *does* have name as the first category, but there you're talking about why you're called that, and you may be prompted to say more about your name(s).
I bailed at the first comics panel. One day I would not mind attempting to make a comic or graphic novel (I even have a couple of ideas, though not the drawing skills), but you need a certain amount of brain to translate story into comics panels.
It's a great exercise. It's super creative, and you get great prompts. It's just not for me. I'm not keen enough oncomics OR superheroes to want to do this. So goodbye, BlueTack Woman (who can mend anything at all), I guess BlandMan (not invisible, just unremarkable; he'll blend in anywhere) wins this round.
Honourably retired. I don't think I'll ever want to play this, but it feels solid, and I think someone else will have fun with it.
What is it?
Instructions for creating a superhero. In comic form. You don’t have to draw the panels, but you still need to describe them.
Is it playable out of the box?
If you grok comics, definitely. There are 44 unique prompts (queens are allies that help you, kindgs are confrontations with your nemesis) and what I’ve seen looks interesting.
Amendments:
I’ve used the dice tower mechanic from Ice Station Zero which worked better than any of the other alternatives I've seen. An actual tower would not work with my setup (too easy to nudge the table and destroy the narrative).
Tools
A dice tower (or equivalent), a deck of playing cards, ten tokens, a d6.
Price:
$7
Verdict
🚂 Honourably Retired
🍭 This one is weird
📓 It's still a journal if you draw.
I got to the first instruction, where you're supposed to put down your name and your superpowers, and I just froze. Instant stress reaction. Completely blocked, could not think of anything, just completely in a state of fear.
Yeah, I don't know what's up with that, either. I've always had a problem with being creative on demand.
Compare that to all of the characters I have created recently with Colorful Characters some of who were a lot weirder than your bog-standard superhero, I come, once more, to the conclusion that anything that starts with a stylized description is a bad match for me (I always freeze when character creation begins with 'name, hair colour, shoe size') even though the journey in ColorfulCharacters *does* have name as the first category, but there you're talking about why you're called that, and you may be prompted to say more about your name(s).
I bailed at the first comics panel. One day I would not mind attempting to make a comic or graphic novel (I even have a couple of ideas, though not the drawing skills), but you need a certain amount of brain to translate story into comics panels.
It's a great exercise. It's super creative, and you get great prompts. It's just not for me. I'm not keen enough oncomics OR superheroes to want to do this. So goodbye, BlueTack Woman (who can mend anything at all), I guess BlandMan (not invisible, just unremarkable; he'll blend in anywhere) wins this round.
Honourably retired. I don't think I'll ever want to play this, but it feels solid, and I think someone else will have fun with it.
