Following the success of last year’s Vampire Jam, we realized how passionate our community is about creating Vampire: The Masquerade games. World of Darkness supports community creators in a variety of ways – starting from Dark Pack Agreement for the creation of fan content available for free, to Storytellers Vault where everyone can release – and monetize! – their own roleplaying supplements and books based on our lore. However, none of these methods allowed for the creation of video games – something that until now was only in the domain of official licensing. The rules of Vampire Jam allowed developers to make their games only in the duration of one month, without the chance to develop them further. Many of the 87 games submitted had great potential to become bigger and better with some more time involved, and we received numerous questions about the continuation of the Jam project.
With that in mind, we worked on what now becomes World of Darkness Unbound – a program allowing developers to make and monetize their games on itch.io. Currently, the program is open to all games based on Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition. You don’t have to be an experienced developer, or a game dev studio to join – we allow everyone in, from the creators of their first game to more experienced teams. If the game is monetized, you retain up to 67% of the monetization – depending on your own decision on the split with the platform, itch.io. Furthermore, we made sure that you are still able to sell assets (for example, in Unity Asset Store or on Itch), soundtracks and artbooks on your own – as long as they do not contain elements of World of Darkness IP, they’re yours to resell and monetize. Check out our Licensing Agreement for more information!
Unbound launches with a group of participants of Vampire Jam games who want to develop their games further:
- Praxis, 4x roleplaying game about assembling your own coterie and taking control of the city,
- The Chantry Trials, 3D puzzler in which you must prove you are worthy of joining the clan Tremere,
- The Game of Elders, strategic card game about surviving as an elder vampire,
- Descent, survival horror in which you discover a secret vampire lair,
- Prodigal, a classic point-and-click adventure game about Tremere and his sire,
- The Autumn People, first person shooter where you play as a charismatic Malkavian escaping Second Inquisition.
All other participants of Vampire Jam, or those who didn’t participate are welcome to join as well – the program is open starting from today!
Check more details on the dedicated Unbound page, browse all games in the Unbound Library on Itch, and join the program using this form.
