You can support this show on Patreon!
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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)
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
Jess Levine’s bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jessfrom.online
Show Notes:
A More Civilized Age’s actual play
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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:
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
Inscapes
Traverser (unreleased)
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
Games Mentioned
Ithaca in the Cards by Aaron Lim, crowdfunding on Kickstarter
Free from the Yoke (Legacy) by Mina McJanda
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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
Games Mentioned
CJ Linton’s Prince of Nothing Good (unreleased, work in progress)
Space Between Stars by Viditya Voleti
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
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)
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)
Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
You can support this show on Patreon!
On this episode, I’m joined by Meguey Baker. She's the designer of PsiRun and 1001 Nights, published under her label, Night Sky Games. She's also the co-designer of Apocalypse World, which started the fundamental Powered by the Apocalypse design movement. She wrote the influential Fair Games blog with Emily Care Boss for many years. She's a textile conservation specialist who works with museums, a quilter, a trained sex ed teacher, and a breast cancer survivor.
Meguey and Vincent Baker’s patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lumpley
Blog: https://lumpley.games
Itch store: https://lumpley.itch.io/
Show Notes:
Children’s Books
Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran and Barbara Cooney (read aloud)
Dragon Scales and Willow Leaves by Terry L Givens (read aloud)
A Hole Is To Dig by Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak (read aloud)
Once Upon A Pirate Ship by Mircea Vasiliu
Games
The Old, The Cold and the Bold by Whitney Delaglio / Little Wish Productions
If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter
Bonus episode, where guests from across the year chime in with games they've played that they loved and want to talk about.
Games mentioned:
Hannah Shaeffer recommends The Beast
Evan Rowland recommends Usagi Yojimbo
Quinns recommends World Wide Wrestling
Aaron King recommends Saga of the Icelanders
Max Lander recommends Blood Feud
Graham Walmsley recommends Lumberjills
Sidney Icarus recommends Bump in the Dark
jay dragon recommends Last Train to Bremen
Tom McGrenery recommends Wolves Upon the Coast
Mint recommends Bones Deep, Moth-light and Spectaculars
Aaron Voigt recommends Subway Runners
Huffa recommends here there be monsters and many other games
B Marsollier recommends Anamnesis
J Strautman recommends Rom Com Drama Bomb
MV Soumithri recommends Stonetop
Zoheb Mashiur recommends After the Mind, the World Again
Marsh Davies recommends No-tell Motel
Jim Rossignol recommends Agon
You can support this show on Patreon!
On this episode, I’m joined by Quinns from Quinns Quest as we look back on the last year together.
Show Notes:
Quinns mentioned Mythic Bastionland, Good Society, Public Access, The Siltverses, Blood Borg
Thomas mentioned Hearts of Wulin and its expansion, Numberless Secrets
Also: Draw Steel, Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast, Triangle Agency
Jubensha video on People Make Games
Street Fighter RPG from White Wolf
Stream where Matt Colville talks about sending Quinns’ Draw Steel
Cain and the week that was all Tom Bloom
Reach out at thomas by writing to notrueindian at outlook.com
On this episode, I talk to Marsh Davies and Jim Rossignol. Jim was the co-founder of videogaming website Rock Paper Shotgun, where he worked for many years. He's also the author of This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities. Now, he does things like write the Ludocrats with Kieron Gillen and develop indie games through his company, Big Robot. Marsh is a writer and illustrator who has written about video games at RPS and PCGamer and was former head of creative writing at Minecraft developer Mojang. He's also part of the Crate & Crowbar, a weekly PC gaming podcast, that has more than 400 episodes and we can all agree might be too many.
Their itch page: https://teethrpg.itch.io/
On this episode, I speak to Elliot Davis, an artist, podcaster and, game designer. He's one of the co-founders of Many Sided Media, a podcast production company behind shows like My First Dungeon, Bitcherton and Talk of the Table. His games include Rom Com Drama Bomb and solo timetravel game, Project Ecco.
He's currently crowdfunding his latest game, The Time We Have, a tragic game about two brothers, one of whom is slowly but inevitably turning into a zombie.
Show Notes:
03:09 - The Time We Have: brothers, using a door as immersion, and other design tweaks
18:00 - Becoming a full-time games person
37:40 - Infectious Enthusiasm: They Came To Play Ball by Adira Slattery
38:50 - Tyranny of Numbers
40:53 - RePlay
43:22 - All Advice is Advice For Myself
You can support this podcast on patreon!
On this episode, I talk to MV Soumithri and Zoheb Mashiur who are cast members of Desperate Attune, a Blades in the Dark actual play set in Uduasha, a Middle Eastern/South Asian inspired alternative to Duskwall. They've now released a free supplement called Sunmirror, which brings a re-imagined city of gods and magic to the table.