Lasers & Feelings
A downloadable game
Lasers & Feelings is a quick-play roleplaying game, based on the songs of The Doubleclicks.
You are the crew of the interstellar scout ship Raptor. Your mission is to explore uncharted regions of space, deal with aliens both friendly and deadly, and defend the Consortium worlds against space dangers. Captain Darcy has been overcome by the strange psychic entity known as Something Else, leaving you to fend for yourselves while he recovers in a medical pod.
What happens next? Play to find out!
Number of players: 3-6
Age of players: 10+
Length: 2-4 hours per game session
Page Count: 1
Release Date: 2013
Download
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Development log
- Lasers & Feelings: Updated LicenseMar 08, 2021
Comments
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Hi! I recently started a free indie ttrpg club in my Discord server. This last month, we were able to interview the creator of the game we played. I'm planning to feature Lasers & Feelings this coming month and would love to interview you! Would you be interested in joining for a text interview at some point in May? If so, what's the best way to follow up?
Thanks! And thanks for the game!
I recently played this game at a convention. Had a fantastic time! The rules were simple and quick to learn. Loved the scenario options for the adventures. Liked how it could be completed in a few hours or if the GM and group chooses you could play longer. For our game, the solution to our problem was to blow up a planet. 10/10 will play again!
Glad you liked it!
I'm a high school teacher outside of Boston who finally got to teach an (analog) game design class this year. On day 2 of the story games unit, I just did my best to GM four versions of the Raptor at the same time...and students were into it!
Next class, they're all going to be hacking this into 2 stat RPGs of their own. My examples:
A Grey's Anatomy RPG using Hots and Guts
A Love Island RPG using Wits and T*** / Talks and C****, depending on gender ;)
Thanks for the inspiration and the resource -- it's still great!
glad you and your students are enjoying it!
There is something to be said about a game that's still being hacked ten years after its release. I am guilty of it too, of course. Made a Thing as a homage to another game I love deeply, if you want to check it out it's here!
This was one of the games played at a little local TTRPG event at my city, I didn't get to play it because the table got full fast but it looked SO FUN I just HAD to try it for myself!!! Thanks so much!!!
Hope you enjoy it!
Absolutely love this little game! So, of course I’ve made my own clock-punk hack of it called Clocks and Punks ⚙️🤘 Check it out:
https://ik4r1.itch.io/clocks-and-punks
Yet another hack for this gem of a game! This time with werewolves, inspired by a Werewolves song by King Dude. Enjoy When the Werewolves Have Their Way:
https://dan-john-crowler.itch.io/when-the-werewolves-have-their-way
Cheers from Poland John!
We just did an actual play on our channel of Lasers & Feelings and we had a blast
I just wrote a breakdown of the different sections of this game (and tried to extrapolate broader design patterns). You can check out the article on my substack.
Everyone's favorite little hackable game. So simple that anyone can shape it into whatever they want it to be.
A little gem of ttrpg design. I had my own fun with a little Studio Ghibli hack, Porco & Marco.
I can see that both keywords "prepared" and "expert" are in bold in the document, yet they are not defined in the rules. Are we to assume that it is the GM who makes the decision whether a player is "prepared" or an "expert" for the situation? Thanks for the confirmation.
The group can make the call together. Usually, "expert" means that your character's Style or Role applies to the situation.
Dear John many thanks for the quick reply. That is a really good idea to integrate the Style or Role into defining Expert or Prepared. Thanks for the clarification. There is a lot more depth in this document than it appears...
Thanks for updating the license. I had a blast designing a TMNT-inspired hack.
One of my favorite games with a million variants of it. Surprised no one has hosted a jam of it.
Hey,
If I understand license for L&F (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) correctly, it would be illegal to release commercially game, that is based upon Lasers & Feelings, right?
I updated the license to allow for commercial games. See this devlog post here:
https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings/devlog/229726/lasers-feelings-updated...
Lasers & Feelings is the best way I've found to encourage reticent but curious players to be enticed into the world of RPGs! Excited about the possibilities of the CC update and hope it can expose more people as the gateway to Tabletop. Thanks John Harper, much respect.
My tabletop design class used your game as an example of great experimental rpgs! It was really fun DMing, and I used your game as a heavy inspiration for mine. Thank you so much for designing something so great!
Very cool! Thanks for letting me know. :)
I've played this a while ago (our GM did no prep whatsoever) and really enjoyed the simplicity of the rules and the fun little details strewn throughout the document. The graphic design is also awesome. Thanks so much for making this (and for inspiring a bazillion hacks)!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I run a program for teens playing tabletop games, and this has been the one I've spent (ironically) the most time prepping for, and the teens have had a fantastic time so far.