Ennies 2026

Thomas Manuel

I. Spotlight

The nominees for the 2026 Ennies have been announced and it’s another interesting line-up, with the big news being the addition of a separate solo games category. It’s nice to see a new category and  I imagine that we’ll now see more and more. The streaming content category, for example, will probably be reworked at some point.

I’m always interested in seeing the Judge’s Spotlight winners because this is, in many ways, the real acknowledgement of their labour spent over the year. While I have no idea if there are any restrictions (no conflict of interest, etc), it always feels like a unique list and insight into the tastes of the people who picked the nominees. The idiosyncratic nature of the jury is why there’s always a mix of self-published itch.io releases alongside releases from studios alongside runaway crowdfunding titles. It does end up looking a bit apples and oranges but I think I prefer that to a predictable parade of obvious choices.

(Shorter newsletter this week as I’m travelling but I’ll catch you for a longer issue next time!)

II. Media of the Week

  • Nothing this week

III. Links of the Week

  • Rowan Rook & Decard attended PyrKon, a convention in Poland, and was full of praise for it as an event: “The people we meet in Poland give us life and a renewed determination to be as cool as they are. Man, we’d love to have a con like this in the UK.”
  • The official Ghost Dog RPG may not be a good game but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun talking about it: “Can we just take a minute to really process this? A year after Jim Jarmusch’s postmodern samurai mob movie came out, a small Canadian publisher released D&D but for people who wanted to imagine being Forest Whitaker with a katana.”
  • On GeekNative, a review of the new campaign for the The One Ring RPG, Hands of the White Wizard and an argument for letting your players change Middle Earth completely.
  • Building on the OSR terms of “combat as sport” and “combat as war”, Fail Forward introduces “combat as art” to talk about games where the aesthetics or narratives of violence are more important than the challenge.
  • There’s a bundle on DriveThru raising funds for the recovery of designer Rae Nedjadi after catastrophic illness.

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.

  • Virtual Battle Mat: the simplest VTT online. Drop a map, place tokens, play. Voice and video built in. No rules engine, any system. Feels like a real table. vbm.games
  • The Cyberrats are back for one final ride — and this time they’ve got mechs. Generations ago, aliens conquered earth.  Get your revenge, and back Cyberrats in Space on Kickstarter now.

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

  • Colostle, the award-winning solo RPG about a world in a giant castle, with expansions.
  • A bundle of some Palladium titles like Ninjas and Superspies, After the Bomb, and Mystic China.

Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. If you’d like to support this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you’d like to know more about my work, check out the coolest RPG website in the world Rascal News or listen to me talking to other people on the Yes Indie’d Podcast.

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