Hey everyone, hope you're having a super day! We just wanted to share some small updates to the STARCROSS ARENA pdfs and some exciting news!

STARCROSS ARENA is just over two years old, we published in May 2022 as part of Caltrop Jam 2 and it was our first ever attempt at game design. Now in 2024 we've gotten a lot of practice, created new games and supplements and have been revisiting our old projects. We're incredibly proud of STARCROSS but we are aware that the game itself has a few issues as we have reflected on our history as game designers who have published more polished projects, we wanted to return to our first game to fix some of those problems and give you all a much better product!

As of today there are new PDFs available for download with a very small update that was a long time coming: we have removed the placeholder art that was found on the INTRODUCTION page and background on the cover of the Core Rulebook and the background art for both the SMOG FROGS and JOCKSTARS Playbooks. We were not comfortable keeping the generated art that we had used for the initial product and have, for years, had a firm stance against AI art. Unfortunately it was a misjudgement on our part as generative AI art was new and the ethical and moral problems that came with it hadn't been fully explored at the time. Nevertheless, there is no excuse for using it and we're sincerely sorry for keeping that art in these books for so long. We hope the new placeholder art is a solve for the interim while we work on the next update: STARCROSS 2.0!

Now with two years of game design under our belt we recognize that while STARCROSS ARENA is fun on the surface, we can elevate it even more. Not just with adding more, original art but also retooling the game mechanics and book layout to make learning and playing the game easier and more fun! We are currently hard at work chopping and screwing the current game into something that will play even smoother with more options for players and we're working on a new squad too! We are incredibly excited to get a new version of the game in your hands that looks good, feels good and plays great.

This update will take a little time and we hope you bear with us. We initially made STARCROSS ARENA on a time crunch for a Jam Entry and so parts of it were slapped together in a very short time frame. Now that we aren't constrained to a time limit we are trying to take our time with 2.0 so that you get a polished, finished product that we're proud of and that we (and future third party developers) can build on in the future. Just know we are ENERGIZED after a lovely time at Gen Con to get back into this game and elevate it as much as we can.

So that's it for this devlog! Before we sign off we just wanted to say thanks so much for downloading this game and supporting us. And if you have tried the game at all, if you've read the Rulebooks or the Playbooks and have questions or comments on what you'd like to see, what could be made clearer and ideas you'd like to see implemented in STARCROSS 2.0 please let us know either in the comments or email us! 

Thanks and Happy Gaming
Knighthouse Co.
Andrew + Gerald