More Doom Machine is Coming on October 6th!

So here’s a fun thing: Doom Machine turned five this year. Wild. Looking back, I never thought this brutal little 18 card mint tin dice chucker game would do as well as it has. To date, I’ve sold over 5,000 physical copies of Doom Machine - well beyond the original Kickstarter totals. Plenty of traditionally published games don’t even move that many units, so I’m truly grateful for the game’s success and everyone’s support. I’m genuinely surprised it has been so well received. Thank you!

In the years since, I’ve prototyped a half dozen Doom Machine sequels and successors, even getting as far as finishing the art for a few of them. Now that I’m back in the saddle, I’m digging back into old unfinished designs again, but my main focus right now is working on a bunch of small roll and write games for my new Write and Erase Solo Series.

On that note, I have good news: The next game in the series launches on October 6th. And yup, it’s a Doom Machine game.

The cool thing here is that you’ll write in die values directly into the nodes on the cards. Each card has a base score on it that earns end game points for the Doom Machine, so taking them out is important. When you destroy cards, you also get instant bonuses like recruits that can be trained and used to score combos, extra die rolls, and free space fill-ins.

One clever thing I like about the design is that in addition to the part card’s suit affecting the firewall when the part first arrives in the tableau, it also has a unique effect when a card is destroyed. Each game will feature several randomized sequences of special targets with symbols that align with the three suits in the game. When a part is destroyed, you can fill in its suit symbol on the special targets card — assuming you do so in the right sequential order, which is part of the puzzle element that shifts game-to-game. Completing major and minor targets earns you more end game points.

Doom Machine: Death Hack

Doom Machine: Death Hack is a different animal from its predecessor, but if you enjoyed the original you absolutely should check it out when it drops. Instead of chucking a bunch of dice and working to block damage and destroy machine parts, it takes a very different, more puzzly approach that feels a lot deeper than the original — using only 3 dice.

Much like the original, each turn a new machine part card is added to the Doom Machine’s tableau. This time, however, each card bores a little deeper into your firewall, based on its suit. You’ll roll your three dice and allocate them to either rebuilding your firewall or hacking nodes on part cards in an attempt to destroy them. It’s a quick, simple loop, but there are a bunch of layers that make it a lot more thinky than it might seem.

While it’s a bit similar to the shields of the original game, the firewall operates a bit differently and has its own nuances. Different dice values are more effective than others at rebuilding it, and as damage progresses further to each new section of the firewall, it locks you out so you can’t go back and erase previously finished sections. Not only does the game end immediately if the firewall is breached, but if you survive the Doom Machine gains a point for each marked space it has hacked.

Part cards operate differently as well. You hack nodes by allocating dice to match various symbol formulas and conditions, occasionally gaining bonuses or affecting other areas of the game with each choice.

There are other layers to the game that I won’t go into for now, but needless to say there’s a lot packed into this small 18 card and dice game. It’s also just as bitchy as the original, though I’ve included an A and a B side to all the resource and mechanic cards, and there’s three difficulty levels that vary those up in different ways to tune things to make the game a bit harder or easier.

In any event, Doom Machine: Death Hack will be launching as a PNP download in my web shop, on Gumroad, and on itch.io for $6.66 on October 6th!

You can watch the full in-depth How to Play video down below. Cheers!