Introducing The Jukebox Journal (Devlog)

The Jukebox Journal (Devlog)

Update 8/17/2023: The Jukebox Kickstarter Pre-Launch is up! Sign-up to be notified on launch so you don’t miss the Kickstarter!

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For a few years I’ve been working on Jukebox: A Musical Roleplaying Game, and now, slated for October, I will crowdfund a print run of the second edition of the rules. This game is a passion project and it’s a goal of mine to hold a physical copy in my hands – this was, in fact, the goal I gave the Storytelling Collective as my 2023 Creative Laureate project goal.

What is Jukebox?

Belt out your karaoke favorites and tell heartfelt, dramatic stories in this TTRPG homage to musicals of the stage and screen!

Jukebox is a rules-lite, GM-less roleplaying game for 3-4 players. Over three acts, you and your friends sing karaoke and create a musical story fit for the stage or screen. It takes inspiration from story games like Follow, Downfall, Fiasco, and Ribbon Drive.

Version one is currently available on itch.io and DriveThruRPG.

Why am I making a Jukebox Version 2?

About a year ago I published Jukebox version one. Since then, I’ve been playtesting a rules update and working on creating a print version of Jukebox for crowdfunding.

The rules update

I have a more streamlined version of the rules that I playtested at Big Bad Con last year. I’ve also recently hired a developmental editor (more on this soon!). The aim is to get Jukebox closer to its core game goals, which are:

• Sing big, dramatic karaoke songs, and make those songs the bones of the story you tell

• Have meaningful and complete narrative arcs for each character and the story as a whole

• Collaborate in a way that lets all players shine, regardless of singing ability and TTRPG familiarity

I’m also working on creating playsets, similar to Dialect or Fiasco, that help players tell a musical story in a particular genre. My hope is to invite a few collaborators to help write these.

A physical edition

Jukebox was always meant to be printed: it’s designed to look like a playbill. Here’s what the version one cover looks like:

Printing and shipping a physical game is complicated and expensive, so the first version was only available as a PDF. A core part of my crowdfunding plan is to see if I can drum up enough excitement to make a physical edition of the game. This includes commissioning cover art and rethinking the layout. It also includes promoting the game enough to fund it, picking a printer, and worrying about fulfillment - a whole host of new, expensive, intimidating challenges!

What is The Jukebox Journal?

Jukebox Journal is my devlog as I work through all of this – it’s a way for me to share what I’m learning as I do zine production for the first time. Also, I want to talk about my game - the design decisions I made making a karaoke and musical-based game, what playtesting was like, and iterating on feedback. 

Fun fact: Jukebox was originally called “One More Song” and it was a goofy, but not entirely functional, D&D 5e module plus karaoke adventure. I was trying to capture Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s musical episode in a game: a bit like “<insert your campaign here> the Musical Episode.” I wrote 80% of that adventure and playtested it for the 2020 edition of Storytelling Collective’s Write Your First Adventure:

A flowchart for the story of One More Song

It didn’t exactly work how I wanted it to, but it was fun. It was the seed of an idea and over two years, a few more iterations, and a lot more playtesting, it eventually became Jukebox.

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Jukebox Journal articles will all be tagged Jukebox and linked in Jar of Eyes Game Gazette’s menu:

Speaking of which, I went ahead and also tagged all of the Project Management for TTRPG series. You can now find that here:

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Expect more soon and if you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to stay up-to-date on both of these series:

I’ve already got an article in the works about choosing a crowdfunding platform. As always, thanks for reading!

Over and Out,

- 🫙 👁️ 👁️