NEW Devil Art! | Player Classes are Drafted | On Schedule for Playtesting |
Welcome back, Operatives.
Congratulations on passing basic training. You have now been approved for access to intel files at 墨 SUMI level.
As many of you will know, Field Commander Slightly has been away in Japan on official business — business which will, for the moment, remained classified at 金 KIN level. Worry not, squad. All will be revealed in good time. Trust us, you're gonna like what we've been cooking up.
You do trust us. Right?
Absolute Class
What Operative Slightly has cleared me to share with you, however, is that all Operative player classes and subclasses are now drafted up to first Echelon, meaning we're on track for internal playtesting next month as scheduled.
Open playtesting will come a bit later. We've heard you, we've seen the comments, and we know you're all out there chomping at the bit for us to get the playtest materials out. Well this is a huge domino to fall on the way to that.
Just a little more pa...
...tience, please.
Devils in the Details
So that's the Division well on its way, let's talk about the Devils. Progress on the main enemies you'll be facing is coming along nicely, and we'll soon have a healthy roster of deathly monsters ready for you to Detect, Detain and Destroy.
We're focusing at first on filling out the lower echelons for playtesting, which are incredibly fun to put together. Devils are formed and strengthened by negative human emotions, so the higher-level Devils are born of huge, terrifying concepts and universally-held fears. That leaves the lower echelons full of uncommon phobias, vague discomforts, obscure revulsions, and strange nightmares. Weirdos and freaks, basically.
We've also — and this is the really exciting bit — got art back for a few of them from our incredible Devil artist MABO.
Wanna see? Course you do.
The Tattoo Devil
The Drowning Devil
Euuurrrrgh, look at 'em! So gross. So great. MABO has really knocked it out of the park with everything we've asked for — and we've asked for some weird stuff. Simply incredible work.
There's still a hell of a lot more where they came from. We'll keep working away behind the scenes making fresh horrors for you all, and we promise to keep you updated as we get closer to releasing the playtest materials. Feel free to gawp at these gorgeously grotesque Devils until then — I know I will be.
Community Highlight
If you'd like to keep up with what we've got going on at Slightly Reckless HQ, join ourDiscord!
As well as just being a great hangout spot full of the most welcoming and friendly Devil hunters you'll ever meet, we've got channels set up specifically to talk all things Night Shift: Devil Division, including theories and speculation, a Devil Dossier where you can discuss what monstrosities and atrocities you're hoping to see in the game (or even homebrew your own), and a dedicated channel for OC art.
Here's a recent favourite from Spectre: a Baseline Operative whose rig-out hits on some of my personal favourite 90s touchstones; ECW-style weaponry and skate punk.
I mean, it seriously flaunts the Division's uniform regulations, but I'm not gonna be the one to tell her...
Until next time, squad.
// Operative Mill and the SRG Inhuman Resources Team out.
Wait, is this thing still on? Alright, there's still time. Hit the broadcast.
We want to take a sec to shout out Top Notch International. They're the team behind Gates of Krystalia, an isekai anime TTRPG that uses cards in place of dice.
Due to budget constraints in creating a TTRPG book with over 800 full-colour illustrations, the original Gates of Krystalia made use of AI for some of its illustrations, which they were very open about but is obviously a hot-button issue for a lot of people (ourselves included). Well now the guys are back with a whole new campaign for Gates of Krystalia: Full Human Edition. This campaign includes all of the core products of the original, but now created with 100% human-created artwork. So if you loved the vibe, style and mechanical ideas of the original game, but you want your games clanker-free, go check them out.
The work continues apace, and it's genuinely so exciting to see the player character classes and Devils taking shape before our eyes. We can't wait to share them with you... But we're gonna have to. We know some of you out there are climbing the walls waiting for playtest materials to be released, and all we can say is, "They'll be ready as soon as they're ready." We promise to keep you in the loop.
In the meantime, here's a tasty morsel to whet your appetite.
The Role of a Lifetime
In a previous update, Operative Slightly mentioned that we'd identified 12 distinct roles that each of the classes would slot into in different ways. But, cagey sod that he is, that was as much as he was willing to divulge at the time.
Well, word's come down from Division HQ that we're now cleared to release a little more of that juicy intel.
Yes please, space-fascist Doogie Howser.
So Roles; what are they? Well in a nutshell, each class in the game is tagged with a Role, which is a way to tell at a glance what that class is built to do best. Are your powers and abilities designed to maximise damageoutput, provide support to your teammates, or to draw fire that others couldn't withstand? Or maybe a combination of these? Your Role will tell you.
Players are never handcuffed to their Role, though. Each class may be built with a Role in mind, but you as a player are free to deviate from them and play however you want. Just think of them as serving suggestions.
They're the kind of thing that is often implicit in game design -- there are probably a lot of character classes or archetypes in games that you may think of as 'support classes', and that's not by accident -- but in NS:DD, we're making those implicit concepts explicit. We think this will be a big help to players that are playing a class for the first time. And for everyone else, having a clear understanding of where each party member's strengths lie will help make the game feel both moretactical and morecinematic.
Pillars of Assault
The Roles are built around three core pillars: Tank, Support, and DPS. These are working titles and are likely to change, but the core concepts will stay the same.
These pillars give rise to 12 distinct Roles: 6 are pure, sitting fully inside one pillar - 6 are mixed, leading with one pillar and borrowing from a second. Mixed Roles carry a two-letter code to tell you which is the main pillar; so a T/S Role is Tank-first with a Support lean, while an S/T Role is Support-first with a Tank lean.
Without going into too much detail at this stage, here's a hand-dandy graphic to give you some hints as to what each role is designed to represent and achieve. Please feel free to speculate wildly.
Choose your fighter: sexy mask, Pac-Man ghost, or brick wall.
Community Highlight
Right, that's yer lot for this time. If you want to keep up with the day-by-day goings on at Slightly Reckless, join ourDiscord!
You can chat about your games - past, present and future - share fan theories, speculation and headcanon, and there's even a channel for OC art. That's where Eli posted this adorably spooky sketch of three OCs that's giving 'Devil Division but make it The Beano'.
Sudden urge to make a Dennis the Menace Devil.
Until next time, squad.
// Operative Mill and the SRG Information Control Team out.
Pre-Orders Store | Class Outlines | Devils | Oh my
Greetings, Operatives. I am your substitute Duty Manager, Operative Mill. I’ll be handling updates for the foreseeable future, while Operative Slightly attends to some urgent matters overseas.
What urgent matters? Well, we’ll have to keep that on a strict need-to-know basis for the time being. But I am authorised to tell you that Operative Slightly will be at Tokyo Game Show this year, if any of you fancy finding him and saying hi. Regrettably, files we have at HQ indicate that ’Tokyo Game Show’ is a massively popular video game convention and trade fair, not a hilariously cruel TV show.
Shame. We'll just have to do this when he gets back.
Anyway, on with the update!
Pre-Order Store
The pre-order store is now open! Check it out for all NS:DD pre-orders, and spread the word to anyone you know who would love this game but missed out on the crowdfunding campaign. You can also pick up our first game, RŌNIN, and pre-order its upcoming expansion, RŌNIN: Densetsu.
Just to reiterate a point from the last update; add-ons and pre-orders will be charged when you add or order them, while shipping costs will be calculated and charged later, as close to the actual shipment date as possible. This is pretty standard in crowdfunding these days, as international shipping costs remain difficult to predict in advance with any greater accuracy than a magic 8-ball.
Player Character Classes
After wrapping up our creative meetings on the PC classes, we now have a final outline for each of the classes that will be featured in the Division book, including what powers and techniques they’ll possess.
Next up comes the detail work: nailing down all the precise wording of each class’s features and abilities, and getting the balance right between them all. We want beginners to have all the options and support they need to just jump right in and create the anime protagonist of their dreams. At the same time, we want to make sure savvy players can feel rewarded for cunning character builds, without leaving any glaring, game-breaking exploits in there. It’s a tricky balancing act, but rest assured; we have top men on the job.
Trust us. That's an order.
Creative Meetings: Devils
Next on the docket, we have more creative meetings booked in to go over Devils, the main antagonists you’ll be fighting and the raison d’être for the Division itself. The central concept of ‘beings created from the fears and negative emotions of humanity’ gives us licence to go absolutely hog wild, frankly. This will be fun.
We won’t be tilting our hand too much this early in the game. But if you want to join in on the speculation, we have a channel on our Discord called Devil Dossier, where members can discuss their fan theories, pitches and homebrew about which Devils will be stalking the streets of Tokyo. And without giving too much away, some of the guesses already on there are correct…
Community Highlight
And speaking of the Discord, we already mentioned in the last update that we’d be posting OC art from the lovely folks over on our Discord. If you want to showcase your OC art, head on over to the Art channel there and share away. This month we have this creature sketch from the very talented Myco. They also dropped some awesome music in the same Art channel recently, so go check that out!
It's like if the Jack of Hearts was also a harbinger of the apocalypse.
See you next month.
// Operative Mill and the SRG Tactical Response Unit out.
Classes Have A Plan. Pledge Manager & Pre-Order Store Is Going Live.
Hey Operatives. Busy month. Let's get into it.
Creative Meetings: We Have A Plan.
We've now wrapped the creative meetings for all the classes, Contractor aside, and we can say with confidence that we know what this game is going to be. Every class has a direction. The Hybrid sessions got heated at points, genuinely heated, but we pushed through and came out the other side with something we're all excited about.
Actual footage from SRGHQ
Across all the classes we've identified 12 roles that each class draws upon in different ways. We're not going into detail on those yet as they'll make a lot more sense once we start releasing actual materials, but they're the backbone of how the classes will feel distinct from each other at the table.
Now that the creative direction is locked we can start designing abilities and doing real game design work in earnest. Once I've had four to eight weeks with the material I should have a much clearer sense of when we'll be ready to release things for public playtesting. We'll keep you posted.
The best part of wrapping these meetings was the feeling in the room at the end. Everyone walked out on the same page about what Night Shift: Devil Division is and where it's going.
Pledge Manager and Pre-Order Store.
The smoke test has gone out, so a select few of you will have already seen your surveys land in your inbox. No issues so far, which means the rest of the surveys are going out today.Keep an eye on your email!
Any add-ons or pre-orders will be charged when you add or order them, exactly like a traditional pre-order.
Shipping is a separate charge and will be collected later, as close to the actual shipment date as possible. International shipping is, as everyone is aware, an ongoing chaos situation and what looks fine today can look very different tomorrow. Charging shipping as late as possible means you get the most accurate costs and we don't end up absorbing unexpected differences down the line. This is standard practice in crowdfunding at this point and nothing out of the ordinary, but we'd rather explain it clearly than have anyone surprised.
Any questions on the pledge manager, hit us in the Discord.
Community Highlight
We're starting a thing where we'll be posting OC Art from the lovely folks over on our Discord. Here's this months by fish.
Welcome to the first of our monthly post-campaign updates. We said we'd go quiet for four to six weeks, we managed about thirty seconds, and then everything sped right back up again. Classic.
So, what have we actually been up to?
Creative Meetings: Classes.
We've kicked off a series of creative meetings covering the classes and the first few have been genuinely great. The format is simple: everyone gets pizza, everyone says what cool things they think players should be able to do, and somehow a game gets designed. It's a good system.
We've got a solid sense of direction for both the NDOs and XOs coming out of those early sessions. Next up we'll be covering Baselines and Hybrids, with the Contractor following once we've got the Devils outlined, since that class is built around what's captured and we need to know what's being captured first.
More detail on specific class directions as things solidify.
Pledge Manager.
We're tinkering away on it steadily and the current plan is to have it open for pre-orders and add-ons by the end of July. We've got a lot done on it already so it may well be done sooner than that just depends how long it takes for our logistics partners to review everything.
More updates to come as the months go on. Hop in the Discord if you want the more day-to-day stuff in between these.
Over £269,000/$360,000 raised in a month. Our biggest project to date, and it isn't close.
Obviously the amount of people and funds raised are amazing but for me personally, the best thing has been seeing our little community grow even bigger. I used to be able to pop into the Discord every day and have a sense of everything that was going on. That's not possible now, and I mean that as the best kind of problem to have.
Being a community led game company has always been our goal. Your feedback, your suggestions, your questions, your arguments in the server about which School is best, all of that is going to be a core part of how this game gets made. The playtesting journey starts with you and we intend to lean into that hard.
What Happens Next
We're going to go a little quiet for the next four to six weeks. There's a lot to plan: the pledge manager needs setting up, the next year needs mapping out, and the team needs a breath before we go heads down into production. We've earned it. So have you, frankly. Our commitment for all our projects is at least one update every month so look forward to them!
That said, the Discord will stay active throughout. If you're not in there yet, come and join us. That's where we'll be.
Thank you to everyone who backed, shared, commented, posted, and dragged a friend in by the collar. Thank you to everyone who asked questions in the Q&A, voted in the polls, and told us what you wanted to see. Thank you to Matt Colville and the MCDM team. Thank you to Tonton Revolver. Thank you to Dushan and the OMM team. Thank you to Grant and Raya. Thank you to Dave Thaumavore. Thank you to everyone who showed up at UKGE and said hello.
Here's to what comes next!
"As long as the Earth, Sun, and Moon exist, everything will be alright."
Congratulations on passing basic training. You have now been approved for access to intel files at 墨 SUMI level.
As many of you will know, Field Commander Slightly has been away in Japan on official business — business which will, for the moment, remained classified at 金 KIN level. Worry not, squad. All will be revealed in good time. Trust us, you're gonna like what we've been cooking up.
You do trust us. Right?
Absolute Class
What Operative Slightly has cleared me to share with you, however, is that all Operative player classes and subclasses are now drafted up to first Echelon, meaning we're on track for internal playtesting next month as scheduled.
Open playtesting will come a bit later. We've heard you, we've seen the comments, and we know you're all out there chomping at the bit for us to get the playtest materials out. Well this is a huge domino to fall on the way to that.
Just a little more pa...
...tience, please.
Devils in the Details
So that's the Division well on its way, let's talk about the Devils. Progress on the main enemies you'll be facing is coming along nicely, and we'll soon have a healthy roster of deathly monsters ready for you to Detect, Detain and Destroy.
We're focusing at first on filling out the lower echelons for playtesting, which are incredibly fun to put together. Devils are formed and strengthened by negative human emotions, so the higher-level Devils are born of huge, terrifying concepts and universally-held fears. That leaves the lower echelons full of uncommon phobias, vague discomforts, obscure revulsions, and strange nightmares. Weirdos and freaks, basically.
We've also — and this is the really exciting bit — got art back for a few of them from our incredible Devil artist MABO.
Wanna see? Course you do.
The Tattoo Devil
The Drowning Devil
Euuurrrrgh, look at 'em! So gross. So great. MABO has really knocked it out of the park with everything we've asked for — and we've asked for some weird stuff. Simply incredible work.
There's still a hell of a lot more where they came from. We'll keep working away behind the scenes making fresh horrors for you all, and we promise to keep you updated as we get closer to releasing the playtest materials. Feel free to gawp at these gorgeously grotesque Devils until then — I know I will be.
Community Highlight
If you'd like to keep up with what we've got going on at Slightly Reckless HQ, join ourDiscord!
As well as just being a great hangout spot full of the most welcoming and friendly Devil hunters you'll ever meet, we've got channels set up specifically to talk all things Night Shift: Devil Division, including theories and speculation, a Devil Dossier where you can discuss what monstrosities and atrocities you're hoping to see in the game (or even homebrew your own), and a dedicated channel for OC art.
Here's a recent favourite from Spectre: a Baseline Operative whose rig-out hits on some of my personal favourite 90s touchstones; ECW-style weaponry and skate punk.
I mean, it seriously flaunts the Division's uniform regulations, but I'm not gonna be the one to tell her...
Until next time, squad.
// Operative Mill and the SRG Inhuman Resources Team out.
Wait, is this thing still on? Alright, there's still time. Hit the broadcast.
We want to take a sec to shout out Top Notch International. They're the team behind Gates of Krystalia, an isekai anime TTRPG that uses cards in place of dice.
Due to budget constraints in creating a TTRPG book with over 800 full-colour illustrations, the original Gates of Krystalia made use of AI for some of its illustrations, which they were very open about but is obviously a hot-button issue for a lot of people (ourselves included). Well now the guys are back with a whole new campaign for Gates of Krystalia: Full Human Edition. This campaign includes all of the core products of the original, but now created with 100% human-created artwork. So if you loved the vibe, style and mechanical ideas of the original game, but you want your games clanker-free, go check them out.
The work continues apace, and it's genuinely so exciting to see the player character classes and Devils taking shape before our eyes. We can't wait to share them with you... But we're gonna have to. We know some of you out there are climbing the walls waiting for playtest materials to be released, and all we can say is, "They'll be ready as soon as they're ready." We promise to keep you in the loop.
In the meantime, here's a tasty morsel to whet your appetite.
The Role of a Lifetime
In a previous update, Operative Slightly mentioned that we'd identified 12 distinct roles that each of the classes would slot into in different ways. But, cagey sod that he is, that was as much as he was willing to divulge at the time.
Well, word's come down from Division HQ that we're now cleared to release a little more of that juicy intel.
Yes please, space-fascist Doogie Howser.
So Roles; what are they? Well in a nutshell, each class in the game is tagged with a Role, which is a way to tell at a glance what that class is built to do best. Are your powers and abilities designed to maximise damageoutput, provide support to your teammates, or to draw fire that others couldn't withstand? Or maybe a combination of these? Your Role will tell you.
Players are never handcuffed to their Role, though. Each class may be built with a Role in mind, but you as a player are free to deviate from them and play however you want. Just think of them as serving suggestions.
They're the kind of thing that is often implicit in game design -- there are probably a lot of character classes or archetypes in games that you may think of as 'support classes', and that's not by accident -- but in NS:DD, we're making those implicit concepts explicit. We think this will be a big help to players that are playing a class for the first time. And for everyone else, having a clear understanding of where each party member's strengths lie will help make the game feel both moretactical and morecinematic.
Pillars of Assault
The Roles are built around three core pillars: Tank, Support, and DPS. These are working titles and are likely to change, but the core concepts will stay the same.
These pillars give rise to 12 distinct Roles: 6 are pure, sitting fully inside one pillar - 6 are mixed, leading with one pillar and borrowing from a second. Mixed Roles carry a two-letter code to tell you which is the main pillar; so a T/S Role is Tank-first with a Support lean, while an S/T Role is Support-first with a Tank lean.
Without going into too much detail at this stage, here's a hand-dandy graphic to give you some hints as to what each role is designed to represent and achieve. Please feel free to speculate wildly.
Choose your fighter: sexy mask, Pac-Man ghost, or brick wall.
Community Highlight
Right, that's yer lot for this time. If you want to keep up with the day-by-day goings on at Slightly Reckless, join ourDiscord!
You can chat about your games - past, present and future - share fan theories, speculation and headcanon, and there's even a channel for OC art. That's where Eli posted this adorably spooky sketch of three OCs that's giving 'Devil Division but make it The Beano'.
Sudden urge to make a Dennis the Menace Devil.
Until next time, squad.
// Operative Mill and the SRG Information Control Team out.
Howdy Reckless!
I was in the midst of moving when campaign finalized so I had to reduce to pledge manager access.
Unfortunately the cost for digital alone is so much more expensive than the campaign price, I just can't find a way to merit the price as it comes to 56 instead of 37 (Digital Operative Bundle) and it won't include the following:
×1
Digital Starter Kit (VTT-ready tokens, resource trackers and handouts)
×1
Early Access: PDFs delivered before physical shipping
×1
The Operative Starter Set (Digital Pack)
At this point, I'm good with you keeping the 1 but just wanted to verify this was intentional.
Thank you!
Nilk
Firstly I wanna say I don’t want to request a refund as I love all my projects I’ve ever backed from slightly reckless games but my dog isn’t doing to well and I can’t afford the vet fees and am trying to recoup any funds I can. Would there be anyway I could refund this order for now and I do want to let you know I intend to pick up a base variant (hopefully a limited edition if available second hand) later on when things are better with my doggo. Much love guys you truly make good content and I’m a fan for life and I’m sorry to make this request
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