Announcing: Pocket Operations!

Announcing Pocket Operations! Campaign 01: Those Who Are Without Sin!

We are roughly halfway though the production cycle for this game!

I’m happy to have two projects in the studio, as I have more than enough to keep me busy.

I am shifting my focus to this upcoming release, as the hope is to get this released some time in May 2025. PO! is a smaller, more bite-sized game, and thus a shorter end-to-end development process. The idea for this game had been floating aground in my head for a few years now, and with the delays happening with Shadow Tower, I figured this would be the perfect time to distill these ideas into a playable thing!

BTW… Shadow Tower is playable, (and fun!) but still needs a lot of work. My hope was to get SOMETHING released this spring/summer, and with the changes still to be made and ALL the illustration and typesetting still to be done, the release date for it is much much further down the pipeline (likely Q4 2025).

That being said- not canceled, just our second release! 

So-

What is Pocket Operations! Anyway? Here is the splash text for the game

‘Pocket Operations is a rules-light military strategy campaign game for the solo player. 

Fight your way through 6 unique bite-sized dice games that will put your command skill, and your luck, to the test. Depending on the outcome, you’ll earn Boons or Setbacks that will help or hinder as you progress through each chapter. Command the forces of the Grand Union as they push south into enemy territory to secure a strategic POI that will change the tides of the war, and carve out a new, powerful foothold on the Eastern Front.

Do you have what it takes to fight on the global stage?’

Really what this means is a 6 chapter military campaign game where you earn Boons, or Setbacks depending on how you perform in each chapter. Say you perform very well in one particular chapter, you can earn additional support for later chapters (like using a heavy tank, or more troops, etc.) and vise versa. This game is designed to be pretty light weight, so there is no branching narrative like you might find in an RPG a-la Skyrim or the like, but it does have a narrative that will continue through future Campaigns, with factions, a world map, and history. 

Each game (Chapter or Operation) plays out in about 15-20 minutes, and has an objective that can be met, failed, or sometimes exceeded. Each game is totally unique, and sees the player commanding troops on the ground, organizing logistics from the backline, and more. The challenge for this project was that each game or chapter could only have 1 page of rules. It was a lot of fun to develop something that feels narratively complex (and most importantly fun), without being crazy rules heavy or just plain clunky. I guess the playtesters will let me know how I did with that.

There will most certainly be a Campaign 02 that will likely follow the perspective of one of the world's other factions, as I really had a blast with this project from the beginning.

I hope that you are excited for the release of Pocket Operations! as I am! Make sure you sign up for the mailing list to get updates on the release date of PO!, or our other games like Shadow Tower. 

PO! will be available here on the PSAnalogue webstore, and (hopefully) a few amazing local Boston establishments (details forthcoming).

Thanks for reading, and rock on!