Itch Games From June and July 2025

Thomas Manuel

I. Dear Reader

As the issues with itch still rage, here’s another edition of my regular round-up of new games on the site. If this is the first time you’re seeing one of these: many of these games came through this form but others I just stumbled across. I haven’t played or read them but each of them has something that made me sit up and pay attention.

  1. Playlist Dungeon: A one-page RPG about adventurers using music to play through “five song dungeons” playlists made by the GM. (Thoughtcrime Games, Free)
  2. Biobe: Drink the last non-lethal cup of water at the end of the world, while you decide if the contents of an unknown vial will be enough to save it. (Alex Teplitz, Free)
  3. The Model Minister: A one-shot scenario for Spire where you’re tasked with stopping a rogue Minister. (Sebastian Yūe)
  4. Whakawhitinga: A world-building game using the framework of Māori creation stories. Move through void and night to the world of light and life. (Riwhi Kenny)
  5. Drink My Sweat: A one-shot game about messy attraction and queer, feminine transgression, expressed through the ritualized violence of a fight club. It’s designed to play in one session. (Dora Rogers)
  6. A Lot of Zeroes: A solo game about mapping the Milky Way to find answers to the ultimate questions about life, physics and computation. (Half-A Press)
  7. Fire in the Spires: Sequel to A Torch in the Dark. A one-shot solo game where you play a crew of three rebels climbing a dungeon to overthrow false rulers. (Not Writing Games)
  8. The Urd-Tree Burns: A larp-y game of norse mythology for exactly five players where you argue for an hour about marriage and queer marginalization. (Sam Dunnewold, Free)
  9. Cuck Tent Game: A game about being stuck in a tent with two other people who should not be sharing a tent. One of you is a werewolf, one of you is a vampire, and one of you is human. (EG Bower)
  10. Depths of Reality: A psychological horror game about the crew of a submarine where you rip up your character sheets as the characters’ minds slowly shatter. (Devil Whale Games, Free)

And as a bonus, the latest issue of Wyrd Science, the RPG magazine, is out.

Yours, in our sixth year,

Thomas

II. Media of the Week

  • On DiceExploder, Sharang Biswas (Honey and Hot Wax) and Alex Roberts (For the Queen) are doing a mini-series about sex and romance in RPGs. I liked their first episode but I really liked their second episode, which talks about so much cool theory stuff from why we roll for some things and not others, why we use numbers in games, and more.

III. Links of the Week

Articles, Reviews

  • Late to the party but I loved this essay by Sidney Icarus about roleplaying games that expect you to disagree with the text in some way. They refer to it as “textual rebellion” and use the seminal (and unavailable) Dogs in the Vineyard as an example: “Any art that purports to be one thing, while expecting you to see it as another is walking a very fine line that will have at least some if not most of the audience reading it for what it appears to be on its face.”
    On Wargamer, Mollie Russell reviews the Cosmere RPG and finds its tightrope act a little underwhelming.
  • The design website, fontsinuse, looks at the design of some Dragon magazine covers and I just enjoyed the few examples they show. These covers were pretty cool.
  • Alderdoodle writes a useful post about 7 ways to find artists for your RPG.

Interviews

Misc

  • Sandy Pug Games is organizing a bundle of cool RPGs (like Zephyr and Breakfast Cult) on itch.io that funds disaster preparedness. It’s about helping communities prepare for natural and other disasters in the USA. Working directly with an org that says they multiple the effectiveness of every dollar by almost 20 times in terms of final impact.
  • Not RPGs but: I realize I’ve not shared anything about the ongoing Microsoft Xbox boycott organized by BDS on the newsletter and want to rectify that. I’ve been holding to the structured, targeted nature of the boycott and I encourage folks to do it in light of what we know Microsoft is doing in Palestine.

From the archive:

  • This video from Maitreyi Plays Games does a good job explaining the 8 types of fun based on what is called the MDA framework. It’s a great intro into a popular academic theory of what people want from games. (Issue 109, September 2022)

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.

  • Historical fantasy adventure toolkit! 101 detailed plot outlines grounded in the history and folklore of Renaissance England. Mystery, intrigue, and magic! Coming to Kickstarter.
  • Dragon Reactor is a mythopoetic mech tragedy game about war and what it means to have the power to change the world. Doom waits on the horizon. Crowdfunding now!
  • Vengeance California: A Pulpy One-Shot RPG is Funding on Kickstarter. It’s a no-prep game for Tarantino-style revenge fantasies. Offering physical and digital rewards + original artwork add-ons.

This newsletter is sponsored by the wonderful Bundle of Holding. Check out the latest bundles below:

  • Girl Genius, a gaslap fantasy webcomic of adventure and romance, collected across two bundles: here and here.
  • A bundle of everything for Ironsworn: fantasy, scifi, and pirates!

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!

Leave a comment