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#Introducing Nurl Sanctum

This year we have big goals to help empower our game designers and publishers with Nurl Sanctum.

Sanctum allows teams (no matter if you are solo or well-known) to have a true version-controlled space to build, validate, test, and iterate games faster so you can get to publishing more confidently that your game will be the best it can be.

We do this by breaking down the process into 4 main steps:

  1. Ideation
  2. Foundation
  3. Creation
  4. Validation

#Ideation

Ideation is the process of coming up with a game idea. This is the phase where you will start your game design at a high level.

Sanctum helps you to accomplish this with our TTRPG Canvas™ - a thinking framework that helps you to break down your game idea into smaller, more manageable pieces so you can better understand the game you are building.

This is one of the most important steps in the process and often the most difficult noted from Reddit poll.

Your Canvas IS your product. Your game is just an interpretation of your canvas.

Most designers spend most of the time building and testing to understand how successful their game is. However, we believe this approach is backwards.

We believe that you should spend most of your time understanding the core system of your game and how it will be played.

If you instead work on validating your TTRPG Canvas™ before you build it, you will be able to build a game that is more likely to be successful faster.

#Foundation

Foundation is the process of creating the core mechanics of your game. This is where you will create the "blocks", "rules", and "formulas" of your game.

Sanctum makes this process simple by providing an easy to understand interface for creating and managing your game's foundation while also providing meta tools for the things that matter regarding foundational mechanics:

  1. Dice distribution analysis
  2. Success determinations
  3. Rule relationship maps
  4. Impact analysis for each block (i.e. how does this block affect the game)

And much more. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

#Creation

Creation is the process of building your game. This is where you will start putting your blocks, rules, and formulas to use.

Here, we will provide a simple interface that builds on this Lego™ like design that allows you to drag and drop your blocks, rules, and formulas to create your game parts. We call it the "Game Builder" (for now).

For example, you want to create an archetype for your game. So you drag some attribute, stat, weapons, and maybe even some spell blocks together. Just like that, Nurl Sanctum creates the structure that you need to validate and test how this combination works.

#Testing

Going a step deeper, Sanctum will also allow designers to run automated tests (or create manual ones) to ensure the stability of your game content.

For example, a there might be a test that ensures "GameX" always has a "Y-Weapon" that scales to "basic-legendary" modes. If a new member joins the team and removes that weapon without understanding the consequences - it will be caught in the test.

In theory, this allows designers to have a 3-level safety-net:

  • Level 1: version control displays the difference that is going to be published
  • Level 2: validation fails if there is a test for that item
  • Level 3: test itself fails because it is now missing

#What about extending other games?

Because Sanctum has built in Licensing support, designers can extend other games with their own unique spin on the game. This allows designers to build on top of existing games and create their own unique take on the game without the worry of copyright infringement.

For example, a designer might want to extend Mörk Borg with their own unique spin on the game. You do this by creating a new game system and then assigning the Mörk Borg license to it.

This will automagically add the Mörk Borg blocks to your system to use in the Game Builder.

#Validation

Validation is the process of ensuring your game is balanced and fun to play. This is where we put all the hard work to the test!

By integrating with Nurl Play, we can provide low-level analytics for IRL game sessions that are delivered via a high-end consumer experience for your testers.

Once you are ready to validate your game system, you simply mark it "ready for testing" and it will instantly be available in Nurl Play and notify testing pools that it is ready to be tested.

You will also be able to create "test pools" that are groups of players that you can invite to test your game system. This allows you to test your game system with a group of players that are interested in your game system and can provide feedback on how to improve it.

#What is Nurl Play?

Nurl Play is our consumer app for in-person tabletop role-playing games. It allows you to enhance your physical game with video-game level automation accompanied by group tools like notes, chat, combat tracking, and more.

#How does it work?

Nurl Play uses the Sanctum API that has crafted your system into a format that allows us to provide the video-game level automation to help game sessions flow like a video game without being distracting.

We additionally make the UI game-agnostic (i.e. no branding or art) so the testing remains pure and unbiased. We want to ensure people loving playing your system in it's purest form. If this is successful, then it doesn't matter what your game looks like - it will be successful.

#Version Control

At it's core level, Sanctum provides "real version control" of your game system.

This concept comes from software development via "Git" that creates a historical record of every contribution to a codebase. If there is contribution that conflicts with the original source of truth (the published code), it helps to bring that to your attention before you merge it into the code base.

Sanctum brings this concept into the TTRPG space and automates the process so you don't have to understand it.

This empowers designers to build safely with a historical record of what they did when in case something needs to be reversed for the entire existence of your game system.

This is powerful because let's say you are working on a system that is years old and you want to "cherry-pick" a specific feature you shipped years ago - but removed later. With Sanctum, you will be able to do that with a few clicks.

#What's Next?

We are excited to see what our community will build with Sanctum and are looking forward to seeing the games that will be created.

If you are interested in learning more about Sanctum, contact us at admin@nurl.app and let us know what you think.

If you would like to get early access to Sanctum, please join our Beta Program and we will notify you when it is ready.