#4 THE ARTIST
over 3 years ago – Sat, Oct 08, 2022 at 07:07:19 AM

The Artist

Alida Pintus

Hi everyone!

This update is about our main illustrator, the talented Alida Pintus. We've asked her to introduce herself and what led her to the beautiful arts for our Must Be a Dragon! 

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Hi everyone! 

I’m Alida, nice to meet you! I’ve done the illustrations for this game.

I’ve been drawing since I can remember; my first canvas being the books around my house, then my bedroom walls. I've always got a great passion for narrative and animation; my friends and I always spent our afternoons drawing fantastical creatures and dreaming about magical adventures in far away lands. That's probably the reason why whenever I get fascinated by a compelling storytelling, my first instinct is always to make a drawing out of it.

I’m from Sicily, but it’s now been three years since I’ve graduated from high school and living here and there, off to new experiences, with my case filled with many sketchbooks, pencil cases, books and some spare clothes. I’m currently living in Rome, to attend a visual development school, while I’m working remotely as a concept artist for the videogame industry in Sausalito and as an illustrator for children publications.

About the arts of Must Be a Dragon

When Luca wrote me about the game, I instantly fell in love with the project. I was fascineted by Andrea’s evocative descriptions on how the environments and the characters should have looked like. I, for instance, really empathized with Irene’s quirk personality and did different preliminary sketches to portray it in a visual way. I looked for a distinctive character shape; a practical, carefree but somehow peculiar style of clothing, while her messy hair and cunning look are just the first features that I got in mind when reading about her.

I went on a quite similar process for the Red Dragon; for whom I played a lot with super randomic shapes and silhouettes looking for the one that gave me a mighty, fascinating vibe. As for the environments, I really tried to combine what was written in Andrea’s descriptions with something that resonates with my personal sense of wonder and magic.

It was really important to me to create believable settings, as if some incredible stories could actually happen in there. I took a lot of inspiration from my own bedroom and childhood memories for Irene’s cluttered but cozy studio, meanwhile I searched for many pictures and took some on my own for the outside environments. It was above all, constantly experimenting new tools and workflows, trying to enjoy and learn from the process.

I really hope I managed to share my love for this story with the final result, and cannot wait to get my hands back on it very soon!

- Alida 

#3 LET'S CHAT VIA DISCORD!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Oct 05, 2022 at 09:50:48 AM

Dear Explorers, I'm Luca, how are you? :)

As you know the project of Sushi Role started with this Kickstarter campaign. We've just launched the Discord Server of Sushi Role too! We are still few, but there is the whole Sushi Role team here to talk to you, first of all the author Andrea Carbone. Sushi Role Discord server this could be a meeting place to chat, ask questions and, after the Kickstarter campaign, to schedule some game sessions of Must Be a Dragon!

Join us on Discord at this link: https://discord.gg/9QhB383jmz , we are waiting for you!

Spread the word on this Ks Campaign to make this project come true!

#2 TOKENS AND GAMEPLAY
over 3 years ago – Wed, Oct 05, 2022 at 01:46:51 AM

Hi Explorers! This update is about two accessories for Must be a Dragon: Scale and Narrator Tokens.

Narrator Token

Each Scene of the game has players and a Narrator, who will alternate in the storytelling.
The Narrator is the one who begins to narrate by answering the first Question of the Scene, but will not remain Narrator for the duration of the game. In fact, in the next Scene, the role will pass to the player to the right of the previous Narrator. The Narrator will be indicated at the table with a Token which will be placed in front of them. This way everyone will always know who the Narrator is.

You can get the Narrator Token as add-on or directly with the pledge 'THE DRAGON'S TREASURE'.

Scale Tokens

Scale tokens are part of a game mechanic that provides the possibility of variability within the narrative, adding elements or modifying those already present in the course of events. This generates a sort of 'competition', aimed at improving the story or leading it in a preferred direction. Each player accumulates a number of these tokens and can spend them when they want to intervene in the narrative gameplay.

You can get a set of 40 Scale Tokens as add-on or directly with the pledge 'THE DRAGON'S TREASURE'.

Are you curious to discover the mechanic system and to play your dragon quest adventure? Help us carry out the project, share this campaign with your friends, the dragons are waiting for you, explorers!🌈

- Luca

Welcome everyone! 🍣🍣
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 03, 2022 at 12:40:36 AM

Dear uramaki and onigiri of role, my name is Luca and I'm the communication manager (ok, I'm bragging 😅) of this amazing Kickstarter campaign, nice to meet you and welcome everyone! With this first update I give the floor to the author of Must Be a Dragon, Andrea Carbone. He has written a few words to introduce himself and talk about what he loves, and, mostly, to start to know each other better.

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Hello everyone, 

my name is Andrea, nice to meet you guys! I started as a child writing short stories, like most of you. I was fascinated by the possibility of generating stories from nothing. There was a long journey to the adulthood, made of hard reading novels, short stories and studies on a completely different field (science). Then I tried to give a shape to my dreams. I started hanging out in cinema journalism, forums and blogs, i wrote articles, reviews and insights that mainly concerned cinema and videogames (40secondi.com, Cinematik.it, isolaillyon.it).

 Role-Playing Games

After a lot of years of role-playing and board games nights, I came out with my first creation: a post apocalyptic role-playing game, Hawat, with the Acchiappasogni publishing house. In Hawat players have the opportunity to play anthropomorphic warriors in a hostile and near extinction world.

Then I made a campaign book for the Awaken role-playing game,  Awaken - The Black Dame, published in Italy by Isola Illyon Edizioni. Awaken genre is dark fantasy, the charachters are men with extraordinary powers that have to deal with political intrigues and mysterious horrors from the abyss. It was very stimulating to test yourself with the drafting of an adventure set in this world, giving life to the character of the Black Dame.

In search of the dragon

That project helped lay the foundations for the current collaboration with Sushi Role on Must Be a Dragon. The project originated a few years ago, when I decided to tell a story that had Dragons as protagonists, but was at the same time focused on the exploration and research of those legendary creature. I have always been fascinated by stories in which a person tests himself with an apparently insurmountable challenge, something that is greater than himself.

And what's more difficult and epic than going in search of a Dragon?

Once the foundation of the project was laid, the rest was the result of continuous comparisons with playtesters, refinements, modifications and implementations that made it what it is today: a complete, multifaceted, apparently simple and suitable game for a carefree evening, but which hides within it an uncommon depth, both on an emotional level (the search for the dragon will lead players to pose important moral dilemmas) and in terms of mechanics of game, since it is possible to create sagas, insert game variants and give life to very articulated stories.

The cinema at the base

If I had to say what influences brought me to this project, without any doubt  i will say that was the cinematic environment. It marked me a lot as a creator. Going back in Hawat (RPG), what I was aiming for was to generate action and fights that resembled movie scenes: players had to describe the scene, show what is happening in words, to get bonuses and not just roll the dice. I studied cinema on my own, starting as an omnivorous user of films, experimenting with writing screenplays (some of which are published on Cinematik.it) and making short films. The cinematographic narrative (but also and above all literary) responds to precise canons from which it is difficult to depart, especially regarding the path of the hero. You will find all this in Must be a Dragon, where you will narratively follow a path that will lead to dissecting the past and present of the explorer, giving rise to a story with a solid and effective narrative path, that goes back and forth in time.

Something about me

I do not want to bore you with details regarding my private life, but I will add something about myself for completeness. I live in Tuscany, in Pisa, where I work as a Pathologist, and in my free time practicing and instructor of Martial Arts (Hwa Rang Do). I am happily married to Irene and we have a little dog, Arya, companion of many adventures. As I write these lines, you should know that we are happily awaiting the arrival of the fourth member of the family. Who knows, maybe when you read, there will be four of us already.

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Thank you for your support, together we can make real this role-playing game!

- Andrea and Luca