NOVA was first released back on October 25, 2021. It had an “interesting” history, to put it lightly.
It was my first game that I released after I had written the LUMEN system, though LIGHT was the proto-game upon which that system, and NOVA, was built upon. It was a lot of things.
It was my attempt at taking my new system for a spin, sticking pretty close to its intended design.
It was my attempt to salvage an incredibly stressful situation I had experienced earlier that year.
It was an attempt to make a sci-fantasy setting of my own.
I was really happy with the initial release. How could I not be? It was nominated for two ENNIEs: Best Rules and Best Layout. The game looked great, ran great. Everything’s great, right?
Fast forward a couple years, and I had made a few attempts at creating expansions and supplements for NOVA, but none of them ever manifested. A part of it that kept dragging things down was that the game didn’t feel right. If I was going to be making more things for it, I needed a foundation that I felt sure of. One that I could build on with a sense of surety that it would carry me forward for a long time. And NOVA just wasn’t there.
So I made the decision to do a second edition of the game, or a sequel (I wasn’t really sure what to call it, and still remain unsure). At this point, I couldn’t even tell you when that decision was made. It feels like I’ve been talking about NOVA 2 for forever. I’ve got docs from back in 2022 for something called NOVA New Dawn, which was a sort of big rules update. I’ve got a doc called “Early Pitch” in an old NOVA 2 folder. I commissioned Lone Archivist to make a NOVA 2 logo in late 2025. All that to say that this concept has been brewing in my head for a long time.
Too long.
There’s momentum to game design, and it is easy to lose it. Once it’s gone it is very difficult for me to get it back. I fear that NOVA 2’s momentum has long passed me. Despite announcing the Kickstarter earlier this year, and getting over 500 people to follow it, I just don’t know how I’m going to click that “launch” button.
The momentum isn’t the only thing. I’m also just not really interested in the Sparks (the main characters of NOVA) anymore. To make an analogy, they are kind of like the space marines of the Warhammer 40k franchise, the face of the game that shows up, kicks ass, never loses. Kinda boring when you think about it.
I’ve always been interested in everyone else in the NOVA setting so much more. The weird lunar cultists wielding magic in one hand, a cybernetic blade in the other. The alien Corvus and their machinations in their nests deep in the dusk. More recently, the Shards, the more “regular” people who go out into the Dusk.
And, of course, the void.
Which makes making a game like NOVA 2 very difficult. These factions are relegated to enemy statblocks for the Sparks to mow through. Your time as a player is spent thinking “how quickly can I kill these things” while you run around in your robot.
Time travel back 4 years ago, and I was working on a game called VOID. It was supposed to be the spiritual successor of LIGHT. Moving the game away from being so close to Destiny’s setting, and learning some lessons from the recently released NOVA.
I started looking through old docs of it this morning, and my brain just started lighting up. I had already been thinking about tinkering with LIGHT in light (ha!) of the Destiny news (RIP). But I still was hesitant because of the whole just mimicking Destiny thing.
Hey, here is what Spencer was doing 4 years ago:
VOID has hints of NOVA setting stuff in it before I knew any of it.
It’s a smash up of NOVA and LIGHT, developed by me 6 years into this thing, rather than so early on.
I’d always wanted NOVA to be weirder. Throw more fantasy into my sci-fi. To go back to Destiny, the stuff I always liked the most was related to the Hive. Their occult vibes, magic, rituals. They felt so different in a shiny sci-fi setting. I love the Hive.
But it was hard to make NOVA weird without that weirdness being on the sidelines (see above about the Sparks being the space marines).
What could VOID be? It could be my chance to take the NOVA setting into the weird that I want it to. It could be my chance to break free of the Sparks. It could be my chance to have more fun with the lore.
What is it practically? Oh that’s way too early to answer. I think it will really feel like a mix of LIGHT and NOVA. That means it will have some of those looter shooter vibes, but with cool powers coming from the void and sol (or what the sunshards are actually made of (you didn’t think they were actually pieces of the sun did you??)).
What does this mean for NOVA 2? That I’m not sure yet. NOVA 2 is written, for the most part. It is a massive rules update with that goal of creating the solid foundation to build on. It really would be a shame to not release it.
But how? Do I still run a Kickstarter? For what? That’s a lot of effort for something I’m not in love with.
I could release the google doc, but that feels awful.
Maybe I’ll put together a pretty simple layout of it with the new rules and just release it on the game’s itch page. I genuinely don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what NOVA 2’s future is. All I know is it’s gone dim. And in that darkness there is the void, which has been calling to me for 4 years now.
-Spencer
Love the updates, always an interesting read regardless of releases or changes.
I wonder, it sounds like the world is the love here - less so space Marine scenario.
Do you go even bigger? Perhaps not a rules update for sparks - but rather a fully fledged setting book that would highlight the space marine aspects of Sparks as much as it would The culty ritual aspects you dig from other inspirations.
I'm personally not a sci-fi guy, but fantasy weird culty magic sci-fi is the exception!
40K is just endless doom (in the 41st millennium, there is only war after all) no matter what you do lol a slightly happier, sci fantasy fusion of destiny-inspired tech levels and sci-fi battles, fighting for the future of Obron (or bringing it's end).
Total armchair comment (what do I know lol) disregard if this is a terrible idea lol
Your situation is similar to the great music composers of centuries ago. They were funded by royals or the church to create, yet oftentimes became stuck while composing a piece, not happy where it was going. The ones funding wanted finished product asap, yet the composer wasn’t happy to deliver something he didn’t feel was ready. Some of them learned how to stall and/or creatively placate their “customers” while they wrestled with various solutions, until they felt they had got the piece just right…and in many cases it’s those pieces we still enjoy today. Hundreds of years later. … We know you’ll figure it out and, eventually, it’ll be fantastic and worth the wait!