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In this episode, we talk to Hendrik ten Napel, a game designer from the Netherlands. He's self-published supplements for Brindlewood Bay, Bump in the Dark, and the Paragon system. His newsletter, Hendrik Biweekly, is a regular source of excellent game design thoughts. Today we're here to talk about his first crowdfunded game, The Girls of the Genziana Hotel, a gothic mystery PbtA game set in an isolated alpine hotel. You play chambermaids in the hotel trying to discover what happened to one of their own.

The crowdfunding page of The Girls of the Genziana Hotel on Gamefound: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/hendriktennapel/the-girls-of-the-genziana-hotel

Hendrik’s bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/napel.itch.io

Hendrik’s itch page: https://napel.itch.io

Show Notes:

Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Sally Rooney

Games Mentioned

Brindlewood Bay

The Between

Night Witches

Exiles

Crescent 2e

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In this episode, we talk to Emily Allen, the game designer behind Dying Stylishly Games. She's best known for her two now classic OSR adventures, the Gardens of Ynn and the ennie-award winning Stygian Library, which popularized the depth-crawl format. Both of which are now republished in new editions from Soul Muppet Publishing. She’s also designed Dungeon Bitches, a violent sapphic PbtA game about trauma and survival and the Yellow Curtain, a weird meta-storygame inspired by the King in Yellow. And then this year, we got Black Death Rising, an OSR-ish game of religious horror amidst the black plague where you can play vampires, werewolves, homunculi, changelings, ghouls, grotesques, ghosts, and waifs. And fight fascists, demons, and intelligent rats.

Emily Allen’s blog: https://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/cavegirlpoems

Games on drivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/8182/cavegirl-productions

Emily’s Games:

Wolf Pack & Winter Snow (2017)

The Dolorous Stroke (2018)

Gardens of Ynn (2018)

Stygian Library (2018)

Deep Morphean Transmissions (2019)

Esoteric Enterprises (2019)

Dead Girls in Sarkash Forest (2021)

Dungeon Bitches (2021/2022)

The Wounded, Hungry and Forgotten (2022)

Black Death Walking (2022)

The Yellow Curtain (2024)

Black Lung (2024)

Black Death Rising (2025)

Show Notes:

Book of Revelations

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Games Mentioned

Stars without Number

Beyond the Wall

Miseries & Misfortunes

Vampire the Masquerade/World of Darkness

Lacuna by Jared Sorenson

Mork Borg

Empire (larp)

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In this episode, we talk to Luke Jordan aka Wildwood Games, a queer non-binary game designer, writer, editor, performer, and professional GM. Their own games often combine a poetic sensibility, spooky themes, high emotion, and light mechanics. They've contributed to games like Girl by Moonlight published by Evil Hat and Koriko and The Slow Knife by Mouse House Press. Today, we're talking about two of their games that were crowdfunded in a double-barrel campaign with Possum Creek Games in late 2023. Grand Guignol, a second version of their game of queer gothic horror, and Harvest, a brand new folk horror set on some unnamed British isle. 

Harvest / Grand Guignol on Backerkit: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/jay-dragon/grand-guignol-harvest 

Wild Wood Games on itch: https://gamesfromthewildwood.itch.io/harvest  

Luke Jordan on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wildwoodsgames.bsky.social 

Show Notes:

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Dracula

Jekyll and Hyde

Frankenstein

Penny Dreadful

The Wickerman 

The Apostle (2018)

Blood on Satan’s Claw

Witchfinder General

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched (documentary)

Midsommar

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

Games Mentioned

Apocalypse World

Dream Askew/Dream Apart

Wanderhome

Stonetop (with annotated actual play)

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Spoilers for Andor S2 from 04:30 to 10:30

Spoilers for Rogue One all through the episode

In this episode, I speak to Jess Levine. She is a teacher, organizer, writer and game designer.  She publishes RPGs under the label, Jumpgate Games. Her work includes I Have the High Ground—a game of "banter, posturing, and capes"—and her satirical military scifi game PLANET FIST. Today we'll be talking about going rogue 2e, an award-winning game of war, rebellion, and sacrifice.

Galactic & Going Rogue’s crowdfunding campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/galacticgoingrogue/galactic-and-going-rogue-two-ttrpgs-of-war-among-the-stars?ref=97zzps

Jess Levine’s bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jessfrom.online 

Show Notes:

A More Civilized Age’s actual play

Guide to the BDS Boycott

AA Voigt’s video about Going Rogue

Gramsci?

Roleplay Public Radio actual play

Games Mentioned

hook, line & cyb3r by wicked glitch games

A Quiet Year by Avery Alder

Dream Askew/Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum

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In this episode, I speak to Navaar Seik-Jackson who is a game designer, writer, and the host of the Secret Nerd and other podcasts. Navaar makes action drama games — his The Last of Us inspired survival game, The Corrupted, is published by Plus One Exp through their Zine Club programme. You can listen to a lovingly produced actual play of the game called The Ties That Bind run by Navaar on the Secret Nerd podcast. He's currently working on Soothwardens, a diceless monster-hunting game of warriors eternally bound together.

Navaar’s itch page: https://navaarsnp.itch.io/

The Secret Nerd podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/secret-nerd-podcast/id1576080929 

Show Notes:

Rowan Zeoli talks about The Corrupted on Polygon

Transplanar, actual play show

Bloodhounds, TV Show

Castlevania and Castlevania Nocturne

Games Mentioned

Godkiller by Connie Chung

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In this episode, I speak to Paul Czege, a game designer with a deep catalogue that is hard to pin down. An article on RPG.net from 2009 reads "Paul himself defies any sort of easy classification" . It continues, "Depending on your viewpoint, Paul is either one of the most prolific of the Gaming Outpost/Forge designers or one of the least. Also, depending on you how look at it, his best contribution lies in a single game (the still popular My Life With Master) or in the thought and effort he has put into the hobby of role playing and the practice of game design." Apart from LWM for which he won the Diana Jones Award in 2004, he also designed the melancholic minotaur game, The Clay That Woke. Recently, he's been writing about solo journalling games, publishing two zines, The Ink That Bleeds and Inscapes about how to play them, as well as some actual games including the Balsam Lake Unmurders, about catching a necromancer in Minnesota who keeps bringing people back to life, which is crowdfunding on Kickstarter.

Paul Czege’s itch page: https://paulczege.itch.io/ 

The Balsam Lake Unmurders on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/252728880/the-balsam-lake-unmurders 

Show Notes:

Mosaic Strict

The interview on the Indie Game Reading Club

Carl Jung, The Red Book

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

M John Harrison’s Viriconium

Games Mentioned

Earthdawn

The Clay That Woke

The Ink That Bleeds

Inscapes

Traverser (unreleased)

Earth Mother, Sky Father

A Viricorne Guide

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In this episode, I’m talking to Viditya Voleti, a game designer and interactive artist. He's a visiting instructor at the Pratt Institute in NYC. He's freelanced for Paizo, Possum Creek Games, Evil Hat, and RRD. His own tabletop designs include vampire cowboy game, Bloodbeam Badlands, GMless optimistic scifi game, Space Between Stars (forthcoming from Possible Worlds Games), and A Land Once Magic, a post fantasy worldbuilding game currently crowdfunding on Backerkit.

Viditya’s itch page: https://vidityavoleti.itch.io A Land Once Magic on Backerkit: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/moreblueberries/a-land-once-magic?ref=yesindied 

Show Notes:

Action Button Reviews Tokimeki Memorial (6 hour video essay)

Kekkai Sensen // Blood Blockade Battlefront (anime)

The original post coining the term Fruitful Void by Vincent Baker

++ Here’s a good Levi Kornelsen article about whether D&D has one

Ludonarrative Dissonance

Games Mentioned

Ithaca in the Cards by Aaron Lim, crowdfunding on Kickstarter 

Free from the Yoke (Legacy) by Mina McJanda

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In this episode, I’m talking to Gabriel Robinson, a writer and game designer. He's the lead writer on the Silt Verses, an RPG published by the Gauntlet press adapted from the hit audio series. He's contributed to a number of other Gauntlet publications like Trophy, Brindlewood Bay, and more. Through his own imprint Glowing Roots press, he's published Token, a two-player tragic fantasy game, and Candlelight, a GM-less game of lost spirits revisiting their final moments. His games often have a folk horror aesthetic, dark and mysterious but usually stopping shy of macabre.

Gabriel’s website: https://glowingroots.carrd.co/

Gabriel’s bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/glowingroots.bsky.social 

Show Notes:

The Silt Verses, horror-fantasy podcast

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

Games Mentioned

Silt Verses RPG

The Wassailing of Claus Manor

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In this episode, I’m joined by Caro Asercion, who is an interdisciplinary artist, game designer, and theatre person. They do a lot of work in theatre as a dramaturg and producer of various kinds. In games, they're best known for im sorry did you say street magic, a game of cities and their secrets, based on the classic world building game, Microscope. They've also co-designed supplemental material for Beam Saber with Rufus Roswell, coining the mantra, "bangers only", which was all about how much a precise and skillful use of language gives to game design. Last year, they released Last Train To Bremen, a 4 player game of doomed musicians trying to outrun a deal they made with the devil.

Caro’s itch.io page: https://seaexcursion.itch.io/ 

Show Notes:

Chase Carter’s review of Last Train to Bremen

Article about all the Rascals playing the game

Cheap Bots Done Quick

Games Mentioned

CJ Linton’s Prince of Nothing Good (unreleased, work in progress)

Space Between Stars by Viditya Voleti

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On this episode, I’m joined by Levi Kornelsen, previously known as Amagi Games. He is a Canadian designer who's been part of the scene for a long time. He's designed a bunch of games like the Schema framework and the recent Saints of the Empty Throne but is probably best known for his RPG theory, such as the essential Manyfold Glossary. He's a big open source advocate and most of his work is distributed for free under a creative commons license. Everything he writes on his itch page is worth reading for designers looking for language and tools to diagnose or just better understand what it is exactly they're doing.

Blog: https://levikornelsen.wordpress.com/

Itch store: https://levikornelsen.itch.io/

Show Notes:

Praxic Compendium (by Levi Kornelsen)

Manyfold by (Levi Kornelsen)

Rec.games.frp.advocacy

rpg.net

The Phoenix Guards by Steven Brust (novel)

Traitor’s Blade by Sebastien de Castell (novel)

Games Mentioned

(Too many to list them all)

Saints of the Empty Throne

Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple

 The Whispering Vault

League and Fathom

Castle Falkenstein

Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast

Under Hollow Hills

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