[this is generally a non-gamey post so you've been warned] Who is the real you? Is it that gorgeous girl, whose killer wings coax a "you have beautiful eyes" from strangers and sisters alike? Is it that softspoken thinker, ever mulling the meanings of art and connection over his matcha? Is it that person with the name tag, the one with your name that a customer calls when they need your help? Is…
When running "Combat as Sport" players and refs are mostly concerned with a "balanced game" where mastery over rules, procedures, execution and options results in victory. When running "Combat as War" the table is primarily concerned with the tactical infinity of conflict, using any and every imaginable advantage at their disposal to attain a win. In "Combat as Art" one is less concerned with…
OKOK so I want to get at least one post out every month and here's my hurried last-minute entry for May (been dealing with a lot lately, but I have a feeling June is gonna be a big month for me blogging so bear with me here~~) Firstly a preview of what I'm doing with an adaptation of the Carved from Bridlewood system that I fell in love with due to Public Access - It's heavily inspired by Mononoke…
This one is gonna be short because I'm once again being emotionally, physically, financially and temporally drained by teeth issues completely out of my control (the horrors persist but so do I) BUT I wanted to throw in my hat for Warren's lovely little Map Bandwagon with a megagame adjacent idea I've been mulling related to my continued addiction to Bungie's near-masterpiece Marathon : Noise Maps…
Looping forests. Creepy basements. Crawl spaces whose darkness can't be pierced by your flashlight. Wouldn't it be great to have a game that preys on your fear of the unknown? That evokes that which you most fear? This is the promise of Public Access and the results are... mixed... I don't think Public Access is a bad game necessarily, but it's only heightened my desire for a juicy collaborative…
I won't bury the lede here; Is Marathon good? Yes, absolutely, I legitimately adore this game, got my money's worth and see it in many ways as a triumph of experimental design and storytelling. Do I recommend buying/playing Marathon ? In its current state... probably not. For solo players, almost definitely not. This game isn't just hard to recommend, its play is surprisingly shallow and rough…
It's 8 p.m. on March 3rd 2026, a little over 24 hours from the conclusion of the Marathon Sever Slam - No not that Marathon , instead its new younger sibling; a live service extraction shooter with immaculate aesthetics but horrific always-online restrictions and pay-to-pay-more monetization.[*1] Given my own history with the Halo series and my many many hours in Destiny , I should've guessed that…
Two weeks ago I celebrated a pretty awesome one year milestone, and this summer I'll be hitting the big 3-0 ~ This all still feels surreal given there was a time it was looking like I wouldn't even make it to 20 (and that was if I was lucky). Getting told my days may be numbered at 9 definitely reframed how I look at the time I have (had?) left and the things that ate it up. It's a reason I have a…
Nova over on Playful Void has a lovely little series called " Make Dice Work For You " - It's an excellent primer on dice, maths and using probability curves that I think every budding designer should read. As a bit of a probability sicko myself, I thought I'd share some of the more... Unconventional curves I'm using in my Sims-like skirmish game Project Tears . So without further ado, let's…
The Sims is a series of games that despite its obvious "genre" (that of simulation) actually has a lot going on that defies neat categorization. While players have the opportunity to sculpt their Sims, shape their preferences, decorate their homes and give them simple commands, the titular dolls of your dollhouse still act (and act out) independently of what you might think is best. To be a player…
There's this pattern that happens every time I go to a new falafel place: They'll ask me how spicy I'd like the sauce, I'll say "medium spicy" then they'll look at my pasty boyish frame that weighs 120 lbs wet and give me the mild sauce. I know this because of the four sauces available they'll give me the exact one that the previous customer who asked for "mild" got, and then later give me a look…
Today Clayton of Explorers Design released an incredible article about an issue that's been living rent free in my brain and I finally have a word for: Dominant Mechanics - "...rules that cannot co-exist in a system without monopolizing play and overriding other rules." The type of mechanics whose simple presence pulls so much attention that one begins to attempt to "solve" the game through it at…
Twisted views. Dastardly schemes. Impeccable fashion. The kind of character you just love to hate ~ Villains are a central cog in any campaign. Whether they're plotting their next move in a deep OSR dungeon, advancing invisible clocks during a FitD downtime or just-so-happen to always be there to deliver a villainous monologue in your favorite story game, villains can be found everywhere. They're…
Sunken plains of mire and rust. Filthy skies and sticking dust. Would that one could be of good cheer, But nay the poison swamp draws near. (Old Elvish Rhyme) PART OF MERRY HEXMAS - ADJACENT HEXES North: The Inaccessible Ever Frost Northeast: Containment Site Sierra-Papa-Foxtrot Southeast: Castle Claus South: ??? Southwest: ??? Northwest: ??? HEX 0201 - THE POISON SWAMP The acrid stench of rot and…
Today I returned from PAX Unplugged with two systems sticking out in my mind among the priceless revelry , the exciting zine swapping , the enthralling games and the absurdly quality Red Bull™ tavern ; One was Twilight County , a cunningly simple little indie game about cowboys pushing their luck against lurking folk horrors. The other was Godzilla ... Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game (Or Godzilla…
This post, while relatively stand-alone, is the final part of a three part series called "The Glamour" - You can read the first titular part here , and its sequel here . Well shucks. I read The Isle (Luke "Fever Swamp" Gearing's minimalist "masterpiece"), knowing many people loved it, knowing I hadn't loved the demo of Wolves Upon the Coast , knowing this type of module isn't really even my style.…
This post, while relatively stand-alone, is the second part of a three part series called "The Glamour" - You can read the first titular part here , and the finale here . OR BUILDING A LEXICON FOR PRINCESS PLAY Two Men Contemplating the Moon - A Painting Caspar David Friedrich which'd help inspire the play Waiting for Godot - A play from which you can evoke a variety of emotions and…
This post, while relatively stand-alone, is the first part of a three part series called "The Glamour" - You can read the second part here , and the finale here . "There's a texture that links a lot of those ostensibly disparate games [in reference to 90s games like Cyberpunk and Vampire the Masquerade]... I worry the texture of current game design is 'overproduced'." Yesterday Paul " The Indie…
On the evening of Wednesday July 23rd 2025, unannounced yet clear as rolling thunder, NSFW games as well as games with queer and LGBTQ+ themes began to disappear. My day job's work-week involves being on my feet and with the public Thursday to Sunday, so the last thing I wanted to do that Wednesday was scrub my index and move all my content somewhere new. The rest is history . Some people (like…
I was explaining to my friend and local game designer Phandas Trove my goals with making Inheritors' somewhat unwieldy hex crawl more digestible on the player side; The player team would have access to a large map of the Hex Crawl, and then each player would get a zine with brief in-world descriptions of some of the POIs marked, as well as lists of gas stations, photo ops and plenty of room to…
The Bird Warren, aka Prismatic Warren , aka the Warren whose leader board I am seventh on (and climbing perhaps) is running yet another blog wagon - like a fool who's been living under a rock distracted by card games, insurance nonsense and ~4 hours a day of game work, I completely forgot to jump on it until now. So I'm gonna speed run this one with my birth name talking about early inspirations…
[[This is part of a series of light fiction I've been writing to both practice my prose and flesh out the world of Inheritors]] A faint warmth fills your body. Dimly, feeling returns to the tips of your fingers, your hand barely able to hover, your skin pulling like parched paper. Shallow breaths are harmonized with the hum of florescent lights and the rhythmic chirps of a heart monitor. A minty…
We're talking about violence, racial killings and rape - Which uhhh, very heavy needless to say. I'm not sure I handled it all with the greatest grace, so if you don't have the energy for that right now don't read this. There's a couple of discourses that occasionally make the rounds, and finally "hey so the whole killing orcs thing" has come back up again, this time in a much more interesting…
from godard's alphaville - just LOOK at that stark lighting Preface: I've always believed more art is better. Art is how we communicate. Art is how we reflect. Through art we find peace. In art we may find not just ourselves but each other. Games, their design, their layout, their writing, their adventures, all of that IS art. To say "we have enough systems" sounds the same to my ears as "we have…
With 65 minutes on the clock, I'm intending to keep up with my "minimum one blog a month" goal - And this time (as ever) getting a little personal ~ Lately I've been a bit quiet on the design front (not just due to smooching cute guys, a renewal of my Godzilla hyper-fixation and a recent addiction to Grand Archive ), mostly because I've been stuck in a rut of what I like to call "design paralysis"…