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In this episode, I talk to Tim Denee, a Wellington-based graphic designer, illustrator, and game designer. His graphic design work has been recognised by the Best Awards, Tokyo Design Week and the International Society of Typographic Designers. He's also the co-author of We Are Here: An Atlas of Aotearoa, which was shortlisted for the Ockham NZ Book Awards.

Through Old Dog Games, he's published free RPG products like a hack of Band of Blades for playing in the Warhammer old world and last year, a hack for Twilight 2000 to play Andor. And recently, he's partnered with Evil Hat to release Deathmatch Island, a battle royale adaptation of Agon, and crowdfunding now, Blades '68, an expansion for the seminal Blades in the Dark.

Tim’s personal website: https://timdenee.com/

Old Dog Games: https://www.olddog.games/

Blades ‘68 crowdfunding: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/c7788a1e-2f1c-4525-bc66-2a99b84ebae9/landing

Show Notes:

Austin Powers

Mad Men (TV Show)

Games Mentioned

Deathloop

Dishonored

Mythic Bastionland

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Music: "eastern" provided by mobygratis.

As per annual tradition, I'm once again joined by Quinns from QQuest to talk about the year and forge our bond in the fire of podcasting.

Show Notes:

Fastaval, the larp festival in Denmark

Last year's 2024 year in review

Games Mentioned

The Tribunal

The Straights Are Not Okay

Tacklebox

Mythic Bastionland

Gradient Descent

God’s Teeth / Delta Green

D&D

Draw Steel

Daggerheart

Magnus Archives

Old Gods of Appalachia

The Silt Verses

Old School Essentials / Dolmenwood

Cain

Pirate Borg

Fabula Ultima

The Between

Masks of Nyarlathotep

Eternal Lies

Pirates of Drinax

A Nocturne

Apocalypse World: Burned Over

You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠!

If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠!

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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You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠!

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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