I. Dear Reader
Welcome to another itch.io round up. If this is the first post like this that you’re seeing: every two months I highlight around ten new games. Most of these games are small in scope and I usually have not played or even read them. I’m often just picking them based on whats caught my idiosyncratic eye. I hear about most of these games through this form.
- Earth Mother, Sky Father: A two-player game based on Maori creation myth exploring the relationship between the two deities, people, and the world. (takataapui)
- Blackacre: A noir game based on Fate with British gangsters and occult magic. It features beautiful black and white line art and a unique-sounding world. (Symberzite)
- Wacky Race RPG: A narrative party-game where you adlib as sportcasters and play out wacky Contestants trying to outdo each other. (DeReel)
- Dwellers Under the High Grave: An Ironsworn setting inspired by the folklore and history of Ukraine. (Mendercap)
- Band-Aids & Bullet Holes: A card-based game of debts, vendettas, and revenge among a society of professional assassins. Basically, John Wick. (S Dunnewold)
- One Last Dollar: A hack of Trophy where you play desperate people doing jobs in a weird, wild Great Depression. (Mynar Lenahan)
- The Song of Eastlake: A really interesting group project where every hex is a multiversal reworking of the same prompt. I love that each location has the same monsters by name but each time, they’ve been completely reimagined.
- Hirelings: You play a hireling climbing a tall tower on behalf of a hero. You also build a tower out of cards and answer prompts. (Armiger Games)
- With the Cult of Crimson Revelers: A light-hearted OSR adventure of debauchery and drugs with art by Mun Kao and Dwiz. (Directsun Games)
- Abode 2e: A gothic game of family and lineage where you build out a family tree and tell a story of inevitable doom. You know, ruin has come to our family, that kind of stuff. (Crackerjackalope)
That’s all for this week!
Thomas
II. Media of the Week
- Over on Yes Indie’d, I talk to ara winter who’s been spending the last three or four years playing old RPGs every week. Games from the unknown Bifrost to favourites like Traveller, Earthdawn or Rifts to older editions like Shadowrun 2e. It’s an interesting conversation where I try to figure out how to approach older games and what it’s like to play them nowadays.
- Magpie Games did a Q&A about their upcoming Fallen London RPG.
- You too can support the newsletter on patreon!
- If you’ve released a new game on itch.io this month, let me know through this form so I can potentially include it in the end of the month round-up.
III. Links of the Week
- Everest Pipkin writes lyrically about the power of dreaming and the un-played game: “I played Polaris for three nights straight on my bedroom floor, narrating a burning, desperate story of star-doomed love between knights at the end of days… And then I proceeded to not play– or read– Polaris again for 14 years.”
- Chris Lowry reviews Deathmatch Island for Wyrd Science, calling it “a genre-defining narrative experience”.
- Sarah Carapace talks about the connection system and designing mechanics to show the power of relationships in her game, Violet Core.
- Jeeyon Shim writes a fantastic explainer teasing apart the difference between accessibility, availability, and approachability, which will help us all talk about our experiences games more clearly. It’s also written with a lot of sensitivity and nuance. Recommended.
- Kayla Dice of Rat Wave Game House has a beautiful essay about transphobia, wrestling and her new game: “Someone asked me once what I thought the difference was between Kayla Fizz and the “real” me; I think the difference is that ironically enough I’ve been punched in the face more.”
Misc
- Very miscellaneous but there was a thread on reddit where people share their versions of Lord Scurlock from Doskvol.
- Space Biff reviews Kurt Vonnegut’s so-far-unpublished boardgame, General Headquarters.
- Last week, the University of Helsinki organized a conference on Warhammer. The talks sound pretty interesting and there are videos up if you want to watch.
From the archive:
- Mindstorm blog had a nice post about “ladder tables” so the table can have a kind of memory. (Issue 55, August 2021)
- Vincent Baker wrote a really good essay about the idea that fundamentally all RPGs are the same, comparing it to the idea that RPGs are actually completely unique to any other kind of media. (Issue 55, August 2021)
IV. Small Ads
All links in the newsletter are completely based on my own interest. But to help support my work, this section contains sponsored links and advertisements. If you’d like your products to appear here, read the submission form.
- Check out 90 Seconds to Midnight, releasing for Mothership Month in November on Backerkit alongside a dozen or so other brilliant creators’ projects. Your support is appreciated!
- Worldbuilding prompts grounded in historical inspiration. A flexible framework that adapts to your interests. One year of focused creativity. The Worldbuilder’s Almanac is live on Kickstarter!
This newsletter is sponsored by the the wonderful Bundle of Holding.
- Beam Saber, the mecha game based on Blades in the Dark with all new supplements
- Kenneth Hite has been explaining Lovecraft to people for decades and this bundle collects some of the highlights
- 7 years of Raging Swan’s random tables, all collected into the Dread Thingonomicon
Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. If you’d like to support this newsletter, share it with a friend or buy one of my games from my itch store. If you’d like to say something to me, you can reply to this email or click below!
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