Assembly Devlog v.1.1

23 Dec, 2025

Patch Notes can be found down near the end of this post!
If you’re interested in checking the game out, you can find it here: The Assembly

Preface

I’ve been working on this too much and it needs to stop.

Recently, I participated in a Game Jam on Itch, the TTRPG Bookmark Jam hosted by Unknown Dungeon¹. It was great, there were tons of entries, some focused on traditional mechanics or condensing dungeons into a compact format. Other games increasingly bent the nature of how one interacts with a book as they read it. This was a route I explored, drawing great inspiration from my practice outside of game design. Mechanically, it focuses on mutilating the text, similarly to the cut-up methods of Acker and Burroughs² (I hate giving these bozos the credit, but canonically, it works.) In flavor, it’s loosely inspired by an insane DMT trip I had years ago, as well as Half-Life’s infamous G-Man³.

The Game

My first uploaded version was basic. You read, encounter characters, and recruit them as “Assets” to manipulate the story. I’ve always enjoyed the accidental slip of flipping a couple of pages ahead and glimpsing an event yet to come. Sometimes you’re too far in advance to recognize the seeds planted for it to occur. I wanted to emphasize this by bringing it into the game where these characters aren’t necessarily jumping forward in time, but instead being activated to access a later point in the story. For this, I ruled that each time the character is mentioned, it triggers this occurrence (I’ve labeled this occurrence as Interventions within the game). Although there may be another novel way to induce this effect, I like the idea of their mention being a trigger to echo further into the story.

Besides these basic mechanics of Interventions and Assets, I had incorporated a basic method of recruiting these Assets using a roll above system on a d20, the same die type used in most games, and the only die needed for this one. There’s an increasing difficulty rating I’ve labeled “Recruit Rating”. It begins at 10 and increases by 2 for each Asset you have on your Roster, maxing out at 20. It was only in editing this minor update recently that I realized there’s no need to reach 20, as you aren’t able to recruit another Asset if you’re already at 5. I’ve left this as I have also added some other mechanics that push & pull on the player’s ability to play the game itself.

Thoughts on Changes

One issue I found in playing the first version myself was the uninhibited usage of different Interventions. I felt a bit like I was able to make any change I wanted without worry of the book fighting back. That was an element I wanted to bring forward. While I love this for its ability to facilitate a crafty experience when reading, it was ultimately distracting me from the narrative and a coherent goal I would typically aim to create within a solo-play game such as this. To counter-balance this feeling, I’ve tinkered with some pre-existing systems and introduced a new one. Firstly, I’ve changed the name of the Asset Modifier to “Experience” because it’s a value that increases as an Asset intervenes in the story. This hasn’t changed much, as it’s still able to aid in recruiting new Assets when a preexisting Asset is referenced/mentioned on the page. However, it has an additional function in reducing the threat level I’ve named “Influence”. The new system of Influence acts simply: As you Intervene in the story, you have more Influence over it. If you have too much Influence, the story will notice. This was implemented to bring this back into a territory where you can lose. I don’t mean to limit a creative force when it’s ploughing ahead, so if anyone wants to ignore it, please do! However, I intend for this game to be an exercise that balances both a creative and strategic method. Influence has very little bearing on gameplay besides being a tool for locking the player out should they get messy with their gameplay. For this, whenever you finish a session of reading/playing the game, you roll a d20 and see if you’re able to roll above your Influence; if you fail, you’re done, “dismissed”. (YOU'RE FIRED) I have some future ideas for what happens after this failure, but I’m still figuring out the logistics of it (I may be biting off more than I can chew lol).

While I was happy with this addition, a fear of balancing began to brew. How does a player mitigate their increasing Influence on the narrative? How could I creatively allow them to reduce it? This is where the Asset’s Experience comes back into play. Previously, I had the conditions when Recruiting, wherein a failure would reset the Utilized Asset’s Experience and possibly Dismiss them from your Roster if they lacked Experience. Adding more to Dismissal as a tool, now whenever you Dismiss an Asset, you reduce your Influence by 1-3, depending on their Experience. I imagine this will allow players to cycle Assets throughout a story, dropping some as they phase out and picking up new ones as they’re introduced. While that balancing act rewards them for doing so, it incentivizes them to read for longer sessions, so they’re rolling less frequently.

Additionally, I will now refer to Asset actions at large (Interventions & Recruitment) as Utilizing. Any Utilizing of an Asset can grant them Experience. However, Assets can only gain Experience from Recruiting another if successful, Recruiting doesn’t risk increasing Influence.

I’m still testing some of these changes myself, so I may have other edits to come. I have made some other smaller edits that are less consequential to gameplay, such as changing some terminology and editing text for clarity/formatting.

This update will coincide with the submission of this game to the “Barely a TTRPG” Jam hosted by Jellyfishlines⁴, and the “Forever Open Source 2025” Jam hosted by Rev Casey⁵

With this, I will be publishing v.1.1 of The Assembly under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License⁶. Allowing anyone to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. Sorry, not sorry.

v.1.1 Patch Notes:

New Additions:

Influence

Added Influence system to the game
Influence is gained whenever you Intervene with an Asset. Censoring increases this value by 1. Cut & Paste increases it by 2, and Cover-Up increases it by 3. This gives players an important challenge to balance actions as Influence increases.
(This may break the game without me realizing it yet. It’s the most likely of these changes to be adjusted further or reverted entirely.)
Added Influence tracker to the front of the bookmark.

Utilizing

Unified Asset actions such as Interventions and Recruiting, known broadly as “Utilizing”.
Assets can now gain Experience through being Utilized. Do note that reference to Utilizing an Asset is distinct from Interventions and Recruiting. While performing an Intervention is considered Utilizing an Asset, it increases your Influence, where Recruiting is also considered Utilizing an Asset, it does not.

Experience

Added Experience section
Previously known as an Asset’s “Modifier”
Clarified that Experience is gained through Utilizing an Asset

Dismissal

Added Dismissal section to Recruiting, now known collectively as “Recruiting & Dismissal”
Dismissing an Asset reduces Influence
Whenever an Asset is Dismissed, you reduce your Influence an amount equal to their Experience modifier.
You may now Dismiss an Asset at any time

Gameplay Changes:

Goal

Removed the “Optional Objective” to recruit the main character.
I thought this just took up space. While I like trying to keep players to Recruiting side characters, I feel like players will realize how secondary the main character can become while playing.
Edited and formatted text, for clarity.
Removed the art previously there, and also formatted some of the language to fit the rest of the bookmark.

Instructions

Clarified that you will be affecting a “# of lines”, not an amount of words.
Previously, I had noted that when you roll, the number dictates not just how many pages forward you skip, but also how many words/lines you can alter. Bluntly put, I like the idea of a book with very few lines/words per page being used, but I can see no real reason to differentiate, as in that situation, it’s essentially the same difference.

Interventions

Renamed “Revise” to “Cover-Up”.
Just makes sense, you literally cover up the text. It also sounds better.
Interventions now add to your Influence
Censor increases Influence by 1
Cut & Paste increases Influence by 2
Cover-Up increases Influence by 3
Edited text to clarify each Intervention

Recruiting & Dismissal

Edited text and terminology for clarity and cohesion with other changes.
Recruiting remains largely unchanged, some details have been clarified and language changed to reflect other mechanics properly.
Recruiting is considered Utilizing an Asset, now grants Experience when successful.
You can now gain Experience when an Asset is Utilized to Recruit another.

License Change:

Now published under CC BY-SA 4.0.