Wow, that’s something great to read. Thanks!
Who else is designing a Descended From The Queen game?
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I haven’t started development yet, but I have an idea bouncing around for a DftQ + BoB type game where the moves are all prompt questions based on the different roles, with wizard-school aesthetics.
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I recently released a Descended From The Queen game, about a haunting of an ambiguous nature: https://nickwedig.itch.io/urban-legend
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After more than 1,5 years I finally released my For the Queen Hack “LOST ISLAND”.
If you have any feedback, you´re more than welcome to get in touch with me!
@SamR and @Matthieu_b thank you for your support in the beginning of the project! 
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I’ve done that too: a BoB game about being on tour w the Grateful Dead back in the day. But I did a few things w the mechanics I like that I’ll use elsewhere.
Bethany, I think we played a sequence of “flotsam” a few years ago. That and one other game was the extent of my gauntlet involvement… but I’m thinking about jumping in again.
Cheers!
Davey
I’m working on a DftQ project in slo-slo mode. I wouldn’t be satisfied without adding just one special ingredient to the mix, and there it is: before drawing a card, the player choses between “reinforcing” (building relationships, setting exploration, rewinding the spring) or “advancing” (drama, action, releasing narrative forces). Then they read the corresponding prompt on the card.
Interesting. Does each card have two prompts, one for reinforcing and one for advancing? Or is it a matter of interpreting the prompt in different ways?
I often want to add in new mechanics into DfQ games, but there’s also a lot of elegance in its minimalist ruleset. So you need to find the right balance.
Thank you for your interest.
I like the light brainload, too. I never intended to work on a DftQ because like you I believe they’re like a certain protagonist of Jarmusch: “good at what they do”. But as I am doing it for someone, I might as well add something I feel DftQ games lack: some sort of structure - that we usually achieve by a combination of chance and X card. @Gulix already solved this with acts, so I needed to try some other innovation, on principle. So I went and fetched the old “consonants / vowels” chime from Le mot le plus long. Couldn’t find any simpler:
My vow of accessibility means the game must be playable with a french deck (32 cards). Therefore, each card will be read on one of two different tables.
Now, here’s at least 1 impossible task before breakfast: I try very hard for the cards themselves to convey the meaning of the prompts. I mean: after a game session, players should be able to guess what a given card could mean. So that they feel the location/event/character was waiting for them (face down) all along, and not in the printed list of prompts. I’m eating my hat on this I think, but I will have tried my best, at least.
Who would have thought I had so much to say about so simple a game? I’m aweful vain, but what can I do?
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It’s been a while since I’ve revisited it, but I was working on Time & Tempus where you play a crew who accompany a Chrono Captain through their adventures.
I try very hard for the cards themselves to convey the meaning of the prompts.
For this, are you reaching for established fortune telling / divination readings of the cards, as some do with Tarot?
In part, but mostly not. Tarot culture is not widespread, so I can’t suppose players are familiar with it.
The meaning of the suits inform my choice but it’s not fixed enough to be that useful. Also male figures are over represented.
So I try to make an ad hoc code efficient enough: simple to decode, conveying abstract information. Something like 78xxJQKA = item/place/xx/people/leader/collective/value
Ranks 9&10 I use for dramatic devices It makes sense in the context of french card games where 10 trumps K and 9&J (on top) of the trump suit trump all. So 9&10 are for “weakness” and “treason”.
So, I don’t really manage intuitivity but am confident I will get simplicity (but I’ll need to make a 52/54 cards version and rehash the code…)
Good points, especially about male figures being overrepresented with the Jack often depicted as a younger but still adult King.
I don’t know that you need to rehash the code though. Playing with stripped decks is pretty common across card games. I grew up on Euchre, which uses only 9 10 J Q K A, and promotes Jacks of trump color to the top-ranking spots each hand.
(Is it Belote you had in mind for the card ordering?)
Thank you.
Yes Belote and its “weaponized” version, Coinche, are with Tarot the 3 traditional french adut card games. Thank you and well done: I’m always happy when it gets multicultural!
True I don’t need to, and I may not, but getting rid of the “set aside all 23456 cards” step is one step ahead in my accessibility crusade. Also, adding more story elements is both interesting and trivially easy. Harder will be morphing my 4x8 card questions table into a 6x6=36 questions table in case a deck of cards is lacking but someone found a die in a drawer of the house they stay at for the hollydays.
Now I have to shut up and make this game 
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I’m taking advantage of a long week end to work on writing this DftQ game. (the first 2 pages are in french, then comes the english version)
I’d be glad to hear from you all what should work and what is lacking.
It’s beginning to take shape. Writing prompts is a tough redaction job, but using a foundational structure (2x2D in this case) really helps in making everything fall into place. Each card decants and settles nicely, given time.
One thing I need is a table tool or role to switch the tempo from electro/bop to blues/sacred music. Maybe a China Card to flip each time you do X?