Unfortunately, you’re a nobody. Sure, you aced all your classes and you have a great eye. But it’s hard to make it into Art Forum magazine. Instead, you’ve found contract work in replicating famous paintings and selling them online, which is actually legal as long as you specify it’s a reproduction. The pay hasn’t been great…until you receive your latest commission.

Cover by Alex Eckman-Lawn, logo and graphic design for the cover by Matthias Bonnici. Interior layout and graphic design by Ruby Lavin.

Not all of these themes will be covered in this crowdfunding campaign (though hints of them might pop up, especially in the video), the game does have the following:

• Divorce
• Manipulative romantic or friendly relationships
• Being involved in a crime
• Paranormal horror
• Alcohol and drug use
• Crab mentality
• Professional jealousy
• Lateral violence
• Gore
• Self mutilation
• Body horror
• Sex (bondage related, demon-fucking)
• Obsessive thoughts towards your character and other forms of parasocial relationships
• Bugs

This game is not for children and is for an audience that is 18 or older.

Forgery is a story of a down-on-her-luck art forger named Tempest, who receives a new commission to recreate a painting that they discover is cursed over time. It is a solo tabletop roleplaying game where the player (you) will be coloring in a paint-by-numbers image. The colors that you choose determine the outcome to the story. 

The game comes in a ~125-150 page book that has 26 chapters that you will go through in a choose-your-own-path style of play. As you choose from the options provided, you will fill in noted parts of the picture with colors of your choice.

If you feel conflicted over some of the options provided, you may roll 1D6 to determine which option you go with.

For example:

Take the image that you are coloring. As you paint, what are you reminded of?

• On a 1-2: Blistering your egg yolk during brunch, reminding you of an episode of Dr. Pimple Popper.
  Color in the spaces labeled 1 with warm colors (red, orange, yellow)
• On a 3-4: The texture of the toast you grated between your teeth at brunch. It was burnt and overpriced.
  Color in the spaces labeled 1 with cool colors (blue, purple, green)
• On a 5-6: Your sister lecturing you about getting a "real job" again. At least she paid for brunch.
  Color in the spaces labeled 1 with neutral colors (black, white, gray, brown, beige)

At the end, you'll have an artifact from the game that you had a hand in creating.

Throughout the game, you will also be asked to fill in prompts in-character as Tempest. There are sections for journaling, allowing you to inject a bit of how you think Tempest would think, feel or react. 

Calibration tools for solo play are also included in the book, giving players space to debrief with themselves and others, as well as processing gameplay before reentering back to their  regular daily lives.

Banana will also be painting 26 paintings, each serving as a chapter header for the book. 5 of the original paintings will be on sale as a tier.

Here, you can download a sample of the game (still in layout). This sample is missing the final paintings, illustrations and a few updated mechanics. It also only shows a few select chapters from the book. It does not show the entirety of the story.

Though this is a horror game, it does have a lot of sarcastic, dark comedy elements to it. 

Some media touchstones include:

• Videodrome (movie, 1983)
• Ghost (movie, 1990)
• Devil’s Advocate (movie, 1997)
• Slither (movie, 2006)
• The Untamed (movie, 2016)
• Search Party (television series, 2016)
• Channel Zero (television series, 2016)
• Ingrid Goes West (movie, 2017)
• Not Okay (movie, 2022)
• Archive 81 (television series, 2022)

Currently, Digital Artist is available worldwide. Art School Grad is available to Canadian backers. All tiers are available to all US backers. 

If there is interest in the future for Artist in Residence, Conceptual Artist and Master Forger in Canada, I will make that available to our Canadian backers.

Here are some examples of what the tiers will look like (note that all of these images are just examples and are not indicative of what the finals will look like), starting with...

Along with the digital and physical copies of the game, the Artist in Residence will also receive a notebook and a blank canvas with a hidden message.

Along with the items above, the Conceptual Artist will also receive custom Forgery dice (2D6) made by the genius Indrani Ganguly! 

Along with the items above, the Master Forger will also receive 1 painting of their choice of 13 paintings (out of the 26). The remainder of the paintings will go to an art show to come.

Here are the first 14 finished paintings - only 12 more to go!

All stretch goals are digital and will be shared with backers when funded.

The digital art gallery invitation will have a 2D6 table that is paired with Indrani's dice that you can use in the game. 

Due to the risks in shipping, I've decided to limit shipping physical copies of the items to the US and Canada. However, I'm hoping that after this print run, I'll be able to open it up to other countries as well.

Shipping for Art School Grad is currently fixed. However, we are still working out the shipping for Artist in Residence, Conceptual Artist and Master Forger.

The game is done, playtested and laid out! The only areas that need to be finished are:

• The 26 paintings (I currently have 14 finished, so only 12 left to go!) that serve as chapter headers.
• Any additional graphic design for the digital version.
• Laying the game out for print.

From there, the last things that are unknowns are:

• Wait time from the printers.
• Shipping the copies.

To mitigate these risks, I'll be:

• Working with BackerKit to ensure smooth fulfillment.
• Limiting stretch goals to digital items only. This will not only eliminate risks with physical production, it will also work towards having fewer shipping concerns.

Want to support us on social media? You can find Game and a Curry on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also check out our other games on our website.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gameandacurry

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gameandacurry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gameandacurry/

Website: https://www.gameandacurry.com/