The story so far
since 1993: First experiments with rule variations in common role playing games
1994: Wrote a combat system that was inspired by two main factors: personal medieval sword-fighting show training and the computer fighting game “One Must Fall”. The former inspired the combat manoeuvres, while the latter spawned the time-based initiative system in its first form. This system featured “connect points” where the hit landed and “combo points”, which were the only ticks allowed to change your current movement into something else. And yes, this was too bulky for a fluent playing experience.
24.02.1995: First draft of “Mystika – Die Dunklen Jahre” goes into private playtest
19.08.1995: First rulebook printed. On a Star LC 10. Because it was still maintained on an Amiga computer.
23.08.1995: The Birthday: First private demonstration session
25.08.1995: First public demonstration session at Volkshochschule Essen
1996: After our Midgard game master Peter Gerwinski introduced me to his text processor “Edit and EmTeX/LaTeX, I started migrating the rulebook.
1997: First presentable LaTeX Version of “Mystika – Die Dunklen Jahre”. I was quiet proud of those 40 Pages.
1998: Figured out how to create PDFs from DVI files, enabling me to share the rulebook via bulletin board systems.
1998: Mystika 2: removed the time based initiative system and replaced it with a more common turn based initiative. The Shadow World gained more detail, with increased impact on and interaction with the mortal world. To maintain consistency in magic, I created a “magic toolbox” for spell-building and used it to overhaul the magic system.
1999: Began an apprenticeship as media designer. Learned about proper Layout.
2000: After working with database-driven documents in QuarkXPress during my apprenticeship, I began experimenting with managing weapon tables, skill descriptions, and spell descriptions in data tables and feeding them into the LaTeX documents.
2001: Proficiscor: added a science fiction background to the game and integrated the dark fantasy world into its setting.
2002: Keeping it spoiler-free: mainly due to naming issues in the sci-fi portion of the game, the historical timeline of Proficiscor was retconned.
2003: Mystika 3 released. The magic toolbox was rewritten as a free-form magic system and made available to player characters. From then on, characters could choose between premade spells or raw magic. Mystika 3 also introduced the iconic papyrus background in the screen PDFs — one of many LaTeX tweaks that found their way into the rulebook, most aiming to replicate the optimal type areas for rulebooks I learned during my apprenticeship.
2003: A decision with dire consequences was made: With Mystika 3, a streamlined version of the time based initiative system was introduced back into the core rules as an alternative to “normal” initiative.
2004: As I had to learn it at university, more and more learning theory rinsed into the rulebook. University also brought proficiency with computational linguistic programming in Perl, which further enhanced the data automations used for the rulebook.
2010: The Year of switching: From EmTex to MikTex, From UltraEdit to SublimeText, from dvi rendering to PDFLaTex, from Perl to Java.
2011: First ideas for the postapocalyptic steampunk setting Amber City: were scribbled.
2012: Mystika IV: released. The rules were further separated from the modules. The Shadow World, one of the core concepts, was moved into the core rules. To reflect this, the tagline changed from “Die Dunklen Jahre” (“The Dark Ages”) to “Hinter Den Schatten” (“beyond the shadows”), which remains to this day. “The Dark Ages” became one a game setting module.
2013: Due to the workload of my day job, Mystika began to lay dormant
2018: For NaNoWriMo, I intended to write a story based on the Amber City setting. Instead, I ended up expanding large parts of the setting as my NaNoWriMo project
2019: Thinking about events in the Amber City storyline, I considered how steampunk and cyberpunk elements could be integrated into the existing rules. Gradually, I found myself drawn back into core rule development. Most elements were already represented by existing rules, but ideas for streamlining rules and eliminating attributes began to grow.
Late 2019 Sidequest started to portrait characters from Amber City and Proficiscor with live action photos as done in The Dark Ages. Started looking for photoraphers and prepared several cooperations.
2021: Complete rewrite of Tests and Resistances. The rules essentially remained the same but were presented more clearly.
Early 2022: The decision was made to make english the primary language for Mystika to reach some very active communities.
2022: LaTeX Refactoring. Many hacks I used in older rulebooks are not needed anymore. Instead, nowadays many packages do the heavy lifting for you. The only hacking still required is using packages compatible to each other, or hacking workarounds to make them compatible to each other. And of course loading them in the exactly right irder. Oh, what a shiny new world.
Late 2022: After thinking through many approaches, finally found a way to get rid of the attributes.
Late 2023: While producing the audio drama ”"Die Preacher Chroniken – Kapitel II: Assindia In Dubiis“, I had tasted blood and started planning an audio drama set in the world of Amber City.
January 2024: The decision was made to publicly announce the resumption of Mystika development once a decent milestone was reached.
2024: Core rules overhauled and translated to english.
September 2024: A new logo design by long-term artist Kristina, along with a website overhaul and the creation or reactivation of social media accounts — time to go public once again.
October 2024: First own booth at Spiel'24 to finally make the public announcement … and thus press the “TO/GA” button on further development.
And here we are now.