• Answering & Not Answering

    I. Spotlight Apologies for spotlighting myself but: over at Rascal News, I’ve launched a new podcast called the Rascal Reading Club. It’s a book club podcast in two parts. The first section is where I read a book (the first episode about the Wardens’ Operations Manual for Mothership) and the second part is where I…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Reaction Rolls & Reviews

    I. Spotlight Carouse Carouse is a group newsletter that started last year and I’m not sure I’ve ever linked to it before. It’s great! The latest issue has an end of year awards style post, curated links, and a wacky review of Reincarnated As The Unloveable Villainess?!, a solo game by artist and designer Wym…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Cold Starts & Campaigns

    I. Spotlight A couple of links that are interesting to put next to each other: II. Media of the Week III. Links of the Week IV. What am I playing? We played the first session of Gradient Descent via Psi*Run. Gradient Descent is a mini-megadungeon by Luke Gearing for Mothership. It’s an achievement of form…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Recaps & Refreshes

    I. Spotlight It’s a new year and so welcome to the new format for the newsletter! Like I said in my previous post, I’m taking the pressure of having a whole post every week ready to go and focusing on curation. The main change is this new section at the top, which I’m calling the…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Goodbye 2025!

    I. Dear Reader, We skipped last week (unplanned) and we’re going to skip next week (planned) so this is officially the last newsletter for 2025 and since it’s the end of the year, let’s talk about my plans for 2026. While I’ve been a journalist off and on since 2015, I’ve never actually done it…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Endies 2025

    I. Dear Reader, People are posting about their favourite games of the year (regardless of when they were released) using the term Endies 2025. I did this last year but Endies does have a certain ring (maybe a worse ring) than Games of the Year so let’s try it out. Here’s what I got: One-Shot…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Holiday Mode

    I. Dear Reader, I wrapped up two games this week: The Defy the Gods game that has been going on since July. It ended really triumphantly, appropriately bombastic and dramatic and fun — everyone got what they wanted out of it for their characters and the story. I also wrapped a four session run of…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Subjectivity

    I. Dear Reader, One of the things I figured out this year is that writing about games is a celebration of subjectivity, of personal experience. There’s been a long semi-academic debate about how to review games (going back at least to Robin Laws’ essay The Hidden Art) and I think I let it trick me…

    Thomas Manuel

  • List of Lists

    I. Dear Reader, I don’t know if it’s just me but even though it’s mid-November, I’m already in end-of-year mode. My two regular tables seem to reflect that as well. One went on hiatus till the new year. The other is still going but we’re hitting what will probably the last session of our god-killing…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Media Week

    I. Dear Reader, It’s a media-heavy issue this time as I catch up on weeks of people releasing stuff to watch and listen to. There’s actually so much media that I’ve decided to save some reading links for next week. I hope you’re all doing well and thanks for reading! Unreasonably confident that next week…

    Thomas Manuel