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In this episode, I talk to Aaron Lim, a game designer from Malaysia. His work includes sad village-building game An Altogether Different River, very sad journey game Itchaca on the Cards, and tragic mecha game Spectres of Brocken. He's also the organizer of Playtest Zero, a fortnightly RPG playtesting community that's been going on since 2021. 

Aaron Lim on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ehronlime.bsky.social

Aaron’s itch page: https://ehronlime.itch.io/

Show Notes:

Playtest Zero FAQ

My article about visiting Malaysia for the Asian Board Games Festival

Only Yesterday (1991)

Games Mentioned

Ithaca on the Cards: Second Expedition

Microscope

Big Grave Fashion Fantasy

Desperation

Zhenya’s Wonder Tales

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In this episode, I talk to Asa Donald is one-half of Backwards Tabletop, the publisher of the Backwards Universe of American horror games and Rust Never Sleeps, a solo mecha game. Their current project is Spine, a dark solo RPG about losing yourself in a book. 

Asa Donald on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/backwardsttrpg.bsky.social 

Spine (Digital): https://backwards-tabletop.itch.io/spine

Spine (Physical): https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/68ec499e9e0b692d084d6b6c

Show Notes:

Asa’s series on Bookplay and interviews with other designers: www.backwardstabletop.com 

Pale Fire by Nabokov

Games Mentioned

You Will Die In This Place

Normality

Wisher Theurgist Fatalist

Harvest

Wreck This Deck (and Wreck This Book)

Seven Part Pact

The Sun’s Ransom

Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast

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Today, I’m talking to Allen Varney, who runs the Bundle of Holding currently, which I think everyone listening to this had heard of. Before that, he worked as a freelance writer, editor, game designer for TSR, Steve Jackson Games, West End Games, FASA, and more. He was the lead designer for Paranoia XP, the 2004 edition of the game from Mongoose, and wrote a ton of articles for house magazines like Dragon. 

Bundle of Holding: https://bundleofholding.com  

Show Notes:

Space Gamer magazine

Warren Spector

Games Mentioned

 Steve Jackson's Man-to-Man Fantasy Combat (also Car Wars, Ogre, and more)

Toon

Paranoia

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan (Dracula Dossier, Darkening of Mirkwood, Eyes of the Stone Thief)

Primal Order

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Today, I’m talking to Josh Fox who was last on the podcast to talk about the second edition of his award-winning game, Lovecraftesque. We talked about Black Armada Games, the company he's been running for ten years with his partner, the game designer Becky Annison. This time, we’re talking about Ex Tenebris, a scifi gothic investigation game.

Crowdfunding link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackarmada/ex-tenebris

Show Notes:

Alien

⁠Black Armada Tales (AP of Ex Tenebris)⁠

Games Mentioned

Last Fleet

Flotsam

Dark Heresy

Brindlewood Bay

The Between

Bump in the Dark

External Containment Bureau

Stealing the Throne

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Today, I’m talking to Elizabeth Little. She’s a UK-based science teacher, artist, and game designer. She co-founded Shrike Studio in 2015 and released games such as Blight Seas Fleet, a dark fantasy naval skirmish game, for which she developed a whole range of 3D printable miniatures. This year, she released a demo of You Will Die In This Place, an RPG described as "a nihilistic dungeoncrawler about art, death and identity". It’s weird, meta, layered, and also very asymmetrical like a boardgame. We talk about its design and themes (everything is a labyrinth! relationships, games, mental illness!) and its crowdfunding campaign via GameFound's RPG Party later this year. 

Crowdfunding link: gamefound.com/en/projects/shrike-studio/you-will-die-in-this-place 

Itch.io link: https://liz-shrikestudio.itch.io/ 

Show Notes:

The Denial of Death by Ernst Becker

Myth of Sisyphus

Labyrinths by Jose Luis Borges

Deimos by Dragan Bibin (painting)

Toni R. Toivonen’s brass art 

Watching from a Distance by Warning (doom metal album)

Essay about the game by the Split/Party newsletter

Games Mentioned

Call of Cthulhu

Delta Green

World of Darkness

Zephyr: An Anarchist Game of Fleeting Identities

Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast

Paint the Town Red

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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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