Bucket of Bolts
A downloadable game
My next project is live on Kickstarter now! It's called the Lost & Found Collection. Two of the games, Artefact and Bucket of Bolts, are reworked editions of existing games. The third, Counterpart, is a brand new experience. It's gonna be great!
Bucket of Bolts is a game of iconic spaceships and their infamous captains for one player.
She may not look like much kid, but she’s got it where it counts!
The Bebop. Serenity. The Millennium Falcon.
You can’t have a good space story without an iconic spaceship. Of course, more often than not, the heroes of the story aren’t flying some shiny new cruiser. Those are for the wealthy, the elites—not our lovable scoundrels. No, they fly the bucket of bolts—the outworn, patched-up junker held together with hope, prayers and duct tape.
These ships weren’t always hunks of junk though—they have long and storied histories, and might even have been respectable vessels at some point. We only ever see a slice of that story though, a single captain and their motley crew.
The eponymous 'bucket of bolts'
This game flips the perspective.
Bucket of Bolts is a hack of Artefact, my game from last year's ZineQuest. Instead of creating a magical item, this time you'll be telling the story of a single spaceship. You’ll create a brand new freighter, fresh off the manufacturing line, and explore its history through each of the people who captain it. Your ship will change as the decades pass - new names, new parts, fresh paint, fresh starts - until your story draws to a close.
You’ll choose your Captains, bringing them to life with names and details, and create stories of their time with your ship using prompts and tables. When you‘re ready to move on, you’ll choose a Fate for your ship. Maybe it’s traded away fairly, but more likely it’s stolen, captured or even wrecked. You might drift for a while as you wait for your next Captain, or the seat might still be warm when a new one takes over. Either way, the galaxy will change around you, and you’ll see it all from the view in the cockpit.
Like the original Artefact, it’s a great way to spend an hour or two; sketching, world-building and storytelling in your own company. It's also a fantastic way to generate really unique ships for tabletop games like Edge of the Empire, Traveller or Scum & Villainy, with rich backstories, fun details and tonnes of personality.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $14 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Community Copies
Support this game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copy
Claim a free copy of BUCKET OF BOLTS if you are marginalised/in need. Copies will be limited but I'll be adding more here as people donate.
Donate a Community Copy
For $20 you'll get a copy of BUCKET OF BOLTS and donate a copy of the game for others to claim.
Development log
- Bucket of Bolts – Now Complete!Mar 04, 2022
Comments
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Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity in providing community copies of your game. I’m a disabled pension who can’t afford much so these free gifts really help me out in playing games and keeping my mind active.
I really appreciate your hard work and kindness
This is an engaging game for fans of sci-fi/space opera and journalling game. Writing the story of a ship rather than a hero or a faction is an approach to storytelling I wouldn't have dreamt up myself, but it works well and results in stories no less poignant than those of blaster wielding captains or crafty space pirates.
It's also fun to weave references to plays of "Notorious" (by Jason Price) into your ship's story.
Thanks for the lovely review! Notorious is actually by my friend Jason, though I did the layout :)
Oh, duh, I knew that :D Edited my comment to correct that.
It seems the games have become intertwined in my head.
Been playing this regularly since it's kickstarter release. Will there be a game jam or third party license? There's a fun rules adaptation my friends and I have been playing with that I think the community might enjoy.
Yep! https://srd.mousehole.press/
Hello! I'm wondering if the wonderful soundtrack for this game can be used for streamed APs?
Yep!
broken images.
Hi, what's the ship generator tool? Is this a program? Does it run on Linux?
The zine itself looks pretty cool, so may get it anyway. It also looks like the soundtrack is now finished?
TIA
I'm running the most recent version of Zorin, which is Ubuntu based, and it runs for me without needing to mess with Wine or other compatibility layers :)
Thanks for replying! TY!
I wanted to purchase a physical copy of Bucket of Bolts, but they have been out of stock for a while. So I just made it into a 28 page zine myself :)
Niiiice! Love the little Metroid ship too :)
Hello! I wanted to ask if there is any guide to put together the 16 page Zine that comes with the PDF, I'm having a little trouble putting it together (I'm new to this craft 😅)
That one is only really for use if you have access to an A3 printer!
If you do, you can search for ‘beak zine’ for lots of nice videos and gifs 😉
Just finished my first playthrough in about an hour, a memorable experience !
The "Alouette" went from a high-end spaceship for a senator to a remnant of the past found by a teenager, that will become a great and known explorer. In between, an authoritarian empire (started by the first senator) conquered everything, was then eradicated by more advanced aliens that imposed their own vision of "peace" over the galaxy.
I love the Rest mechanic and the meditative state it brings. Props to you for the great audios, it really helps.
Is there a version that'll be single pages, like Artifact's "Main Book" pdf?
No plans to release alternate versions at the moment!
Any plans to make the ship generator run on MacOS?
Unfortunately the way that Apple requires you to sign apps these days makes a port quite challenging!
Thank you Jack for making this. Had an absolute blast running through a full story with my particular Bucket of Bolts.
Recorded my experience with your fantastic game for my live play podcast.
https://idegoanddice.libsyn.com/12bucket-of-bolts-part-1?_ga=2.214780638.8903313...
Oooh thanks so much for sharing, can’t wait to listen :)
Hey, I'm having some trouble with the ship generator. The main menu has no options anywhere. Am I just missing something?
Hello, is the bonus content included in the zine on your shop ?
Not the printed stuff no, but you get all the same digital content :)
Ran this with three friends, two of whom are not roleplaying types, in pure co-operative "What do we all think is coolest" format, and we had to stop after unexpectedly encountering tragedy at the end of the second captain's (the Charming Scoundrel) time with our Bucket. Amazing experience - it felt familiar from my time with Artefact, and simultaneously very different.
One question: There is only one type Ship (the mid-sized hauler), right? We were a bit confused at times about how some of the Captains - for instance, the Galactic Senator - might be involved with such a ship.
Hello! Glad you had a good time with the game :)
Yeah there’s no ‘mid-sized luxury yacht’ for those sky-hopping senators, because I couldn’t make them different enough from the basic ‘ship’. I explored a couple of ideas with smaller single-seat fighters and much larger capital ships, but ultimately neither worked with the bulk of the rest of the prompts. So it’s more about the size of the ship (medium, 5-20 crew members, etc) than the purpose (that changes with each Captain to some extent!)
I'm not very experienced with zines, so I couldn't quite rule out the possibility that I had just unfolded it incorrectly and other ships were on a different page! I'm interested to your thought on the prompts, as our group kept finding (much more than in Artefact) that significant numbers of the prompts didn't fit, make sense or apply. This didn't cause us undue difficulty (plenty of prompts via the extra content pages, and/or the use of extra creativity), but I mention it because you said similarly.
Amazing! I'd never played a solo game before, or anything in zine format, and this is exceeds my expectations. I started playing with my sons and they took to it immediately, and enjoyed writing all the awesome ideas without ever knowing how to play. I'm going to be getting Orbital and Artifact as well 😄
This has brought the biggest smile to my face! Absolutely in love with those drawings 😍😍😍
Thanks so much for sharing 😊
I played through this over the last week. Took 5 or 6 sessions. I loved it. I wrote a 5000+ word story of a ship. It took twists and turns I'd never have invented on my own. The story prompts were very inspiring (especially those in the Bonus Content). I loved writing a story from the perspective of an object within the space. I'm going to have to play Artefact soon!
So glad you had a good time with it 😊
Had a very good time with this. Here is some rambling I did about it.
https://stuartwrites.blogspot.com/2021/10/bucket-of-bolts-my-life-as-spaceship.h...
Thanks for taking the time to write that Stuart, it was lovely to read :)
really lovely blogpost
Thanks :)
Is the soundtrack available and I missed it? Can't find a link...
There's a link in the PDF, but as of this comment it's a dead end - updates on the Kickstarter say the soundtrack is coming later this year, and to try using the Artefact soundtrack for now. Gave that a shot, and it worked pretty well (although the track names don't go 1:1 with the Bucket time periods, so check the actual lengths of the tracks).
Thanks for the reply. Considering the short rest times in Bucket, the soundtrack isn't that big of a deal, but I'm playing a lot of sci fi RPGs lately and want it as a resource.
hey! yeah the link is placeholder right now, I needed it in place for the print version. soundtrack should follow later in the year :)
soundtrack is now available!
A simple solo experience that let's you effortlessly create a galaxy of space pirates, ruthless empires, and a spaceship that ties it all together. I wish I had played this before my first Scum & Villainy game, and I certainly will in the future.
Thanks! That’s so good to hear (and if you group is anything like mine, they’ll blow up their current ship sooner rather than later)
Hi! Could you provide a Print Friendly version of the Single Sheet?
I’m intending to provide all files in printable form after the next update! I hadn’t realised so many people had access to A3 printers.
It's mostly readability. The relatively dark background color makes it a bit hard to read. A white or lighter background is easier on the eyes.
It's everything I hoped it would be. Fantastic job.
Thanks so much :)