• The Tom Bloom Phenomenon and Sub-cultures Generally

    I. Dear Reader, For the first time ever (as far as I can tell anyway), there are 5 games in the top 10 of itch.io that are from the same creator. Tom Bloom is an artist probably best known for his comic, Kill 6 Billion Demons. He’s also one-half of Massif Press and co-creator of…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Hearts of Wulin & Melodrama

    I. Dear Reader, Apart from Urban Shadows 2e, I’m also playing Hearts of Wulin with some lovely folks. For those who don’t know, Hearts of Wulin is a game of wuxia melodrama. There are a lot of wuxia games out there that are focused on the gravity-defying wirework and the martial techniques (with their ornate…

    Thomas Manuel

  • RPG Reporting

    I. Dear Reader Over on Rascal, I wrote this big piece (around 3000 words) about the new wave of award-winning RPGs from Italy – games like Household, Fabula Ultima, and the Cowboy Bebop RPG. I pitched this article in my very first meeting on the 30th of September and have basically been reporting it since…

    Thomas Manuel

  • New Itch Games From August and September

    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…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Part-Time Rascal

    I. Dear Reader, This week, I officially joined the Rascal News team. I’ll be working with them part-time and writing about games for the site once a week or so. This newsletter has always been a personal space. It’s never been journalism (in the professional sense). At Rascal, I’ll be doing – well, I’m not…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Counting Debts in Urban Shadows

    I. Dear Reader, I’ve been playing Urban Shadows 2e recently. It’s an urban fantasy game from Magpie and the first edition is pretty well-loved. It’s probably not as universally admired as their superhero game Masks but it’s up there. It was one of those games that demonstrated that Magpie had a winning formula with PbtA…

    Thomas Manuel

  • What do you see when you look at a game?

    I. Dear Reader, What do you see when you look at a game? When we talk about visual art like a painting, we look it and we see line, colour, composition, pattern and so on. And we could talk about that stuff when we talk about games but then we’d be talking about a book’s…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Mini-letter

    I. Dear Reader, It’s been one of those weeks! So, a very short newsletter. I hope wherever you are, I hope you’re next week is better than mine. Yours briefly, Thomas II. Media of the Week III. Links of the Week From the archive: IV. Small Ads All links in the newsletter are completely based…

    Thomas Manuel

  • The Case Against System

    I. Dear Reader, No long post this week as my writing brain is all worded out. But lots of good links, please enjoy and have a nice week. Getting out of the way, Thomas II. Media of the Week III. Links of the Week News Others From the archive: IV. Small Ads All links in…

    Thomas Manuel

  • A Guy Made Of Bees

    I. Dear Reader, There’s a problem with my post from last week. And I think it has to do with the guy who has bees living inside of him from Heart. If you’re not aware of it already, let me quickly explain: Heart is a fantasy game where you crawl through a living dungeon and…

    Thomas Manuel