Award-winning game developed by Edmonton man gets deluxe treatment

An award-winning role-playing game created by an Edmonton man is getting a makeover.

Slugblaster: Kickflip over a Quantum Centipede, the brainchild of Mikey Hamm, takes game-players into a world where teenagers sneak other dimensions to skateboard, go viral and not get into trouble with their parents.

That was the idea in Hamm's head a few years ago when he thought it would make a good tabletop role-playing game.

"I call it a fun first game, I try to make it everything in it as fun as possible," Hamm told CTV News Edmonton. "I think it really appeals to ... everyone wants a chance to either be a teenager again or be the kind of teenager they don't feel they are, relive those things and without the consequences and be more rebellious than they were maybe or be more popular than they were and that kind of stuff."

Hamm originally published Slugblaster himself two years ago. Now, after the Indie Game Developer Network named it Game of the Year in July at the 2023 Indie Groundbreaker Awards, gamemaker MythWorks is reissuing a new edition of Slugblaster.

The hardcover Game of the Year edition is slated for release next year, packaged in a pizza box with a dice set and map playsheets.

A fundraising campaign by Hamm and the California-based MythWorks for the deluxe version of the game closed Oct. 26 and raised US$41,915, beating the goal of $30,000.

Hamm said the new edition of Slugblaster, which features some artwork created by Edmonton artists, will be printed over the winter and should be available by spring or summer.

Even if those who buy the latest edition don't play a lot of role-playing games, Hamm hopes they might get something from the book that will be part of the package.

"I tried to make the book just enjoyable to read, even if you don't get a chance to play it, because for a lot of people, it's hard to get time to play a game like this but they're interested in these types of games," he said.

"Their experience with the game might for a long time just be reading the book. So I tried to make it fun for them to do that. There are little examples of play that they can read, sort of little stories in here ... one part manual, three parts just fun."

Hamm said he based Slugblaster on his experience growing up in the Alberta town of Three Hills, located 205 kilometres south of Edmonton.

"I tried to make the world as feel as real and evocative as possible. In the book, there's all these in-world advertisements or public services announcements from concerned parent groups about the dangers of going into portals and stuff like that," he said.

"I put a lot of love into the game. In some ways, it's almost a memoir, because it's a lot about my teenage experience in the town that it takes place in. It is exactly my hometown of Three Hills ... and I think maybe that came across and people respond to that." 

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson and Dave Mitchell