Yes, yes, I know we’re in June now, but I wanted to merge this newsletter across May and June because a lot of my May was spent building up to attending UK Games Expo, so I have lots of exciting things to share with you! After this, I should be back on my regularly scheduled tomfoolery.
So read on for the latest goings on, what I bought and got up to at UKGE, and for a big announcement!
The Latest Goings On
Glitter Hearts
Touch the Ocean, the mermaid Glitter Hearts campaign I was GMing on Girls Run These Worlds, just had its finale! We’ve had a wonderful month of mermaid (or should I say Mer-May!) fun and adventure, culminating in the gang saving the day, stopping the villain, and getting a few smooches in too!
Anya wrote this amazing poem in character to be performed at the college talent showcase. It really captures the journey her character Maya went on.
You can watch the whole campaign on youtube here!
UK Games Expo
One of the reasons I delayed releasing the newsletter for May was because I attended UK Games Expo at the start of June. For those who don’t know if it, it’s a huge 3 day long expo featuring boardgames, war-games, and of course, TTRPGS. I was helping out on the Soul Muppet stand most of the weekend, and then promptly spent most of my pay check on picking up some excellent TTRPGs.
I also took part in my first ever live panel show, and even more exciting, we played MY GAME Be Out Guest. It was organised by Girls Run These Worlds and the What Am I Rolling podcast, with the hilarious Fiona GMing and contending with our silliness. I really didn’t know what to expect and I was quite nervous, but it turns out playing your game in front of a live audience and having a great time doing it is very very very good for the ego. If you want to listen along, it is now available in podcast form on What Am I Rolling?
Games wot I got
This feels a little making everyone look at your holiday pics but I know you like seeing and learning about new games, so here are the ones I picked up, was gifted, and traded for at UKGE!
Also, I want to preface this list by saying that this is a large number of games. Please feel free to revel in the haul, but try not to feel left out if you can’t get as many - i specifically worked for two days of the con to be able to buy these books, and my normal games budget is usually much smaller - I love a good haul as much as the next person, but playing old games you love is just as much fun as buying new ones, so don’t feel you need to always be buy buy buying to keep up in a hobby space.
Ok, caveats about the capitalist push to continually spend stated, let’s look at some cool games!
A quick list:
Hieronymus by Laurie O’Connel (an art history hex crawling game)
To Honor and Obey by Laurie O’Connel (what happens to Guinevere while Arthur and the Knights are off gallivanting?)
Coffee & Chaos by Cobblepath Games (I backed the game found project and picked it up at UKGE - you basically run a coffee shop au for your TTRPG characters. It is sooooo cute!)
Upriver, Downriver by Ella Watts and Max Briar (I also backed this but only the pdf. What a fool I was! I had to correct it when I saw the gorgeous cover)
Cy-Borg Christian Sahlen, Johan Nor, Stockholm Kartell (grim cyberpunk future, heck yes!)
Kersplat by MacGuffin & Co (Sasha of Macguffin & Co gave me a copy so I could have a look and maybe do a review - so far it looks like makes for a great comedic comic party game!)
Zero Void by Macguffin & Co (similarly Sasha slipped this in my bag while I was gushing over Upriver Downriver. There is some cool hyper-stylised sci fi happening in this one)
Dead Air, Sleepy Sparrow games in association with Blackwell Games (make a rado station after a nuclear attack by scouring through the collaged info in this solo game)
Shadow of Mogg by Leyline Press (yeah this made me snort laugh when they described it, especially looking through all the terrible post brexit apocalyptic character options. Tag urself, I’m UCL Humanities Professor)
Orchidelerium by Luke Earl (Play as victorian orchid hunters)
The Breathing by Fistful of Crits (escape the Archive while you are still breathing)
Where the Wheat Grows Tall by Camilla Greer and Evelyn Moreau (don’t go into the long grass… i mean wheat)
Gutterpvnks by Christian Eichhorn (a supplement to go with Cy-Borg, it has loads of interesting tables, some location maps and so on - I’m really looking forwards to digging my teeth into this)
Have you played any of these games and supplements? What did you think?
Zine Swaps
I took some copies of my pocket adventure zine- Where is Mr Tibbles?- with me and traded with various friends and creators. This was my first time doing some zine trades and I loved getting out my little goody bag and swapping our art!
It felt quite illicit as I was keeping all my zines in a hard backed envelope to avoid squash-age, so most interactions included me bent over and scrabbling about like a little zine goblin. This feels very true to the spirit of zines to me, so I think I shall maintain this practice going forwards.
What is this a Dungeon for Ants by Molomoot (it’s so tiny! I love it!)
Unhaunt this House and The Night Market by Yanahn (I’m looking forwards to dropping the night market into my campaign and having it appear like the bathhouse in Spirited Away!)
Quarrel & Fabel and Smithy Sacrilege by Shaun F (some dinky systems with all you need on one side of card!)
Bookmarks for the DM’s Book Club and (soon to be coming) GM’s Book Club Podcast by Fiona
Big Announcement
And finally I have some exciting news to share!
Drumroll plz …..
I’m making physical copies of my games!
Over the last couple of months I have been working to get my games like Lost Post, and adventures like Tomb of the Slumbering Queen and Mycelium, into a print-ready format.
This is because I am going to be tabling at Dragonmeet in December!
And for those who can’t attend and get physical copies in person, I have also been talking with distributors about sending my zines all over the world.
I am also working on setting up my own online shop which I am hoping to open at the end of June! (you would not believe the amount of squarespace, wix, and go daddy adverts that have bombarded my eyeballs this month!)
I’ve had a few grapples with colour matching, not to mention I laid out some of my adventures for PDF, not planning to get them printed, so I got to redo all the layout. Lucky me. And don’t get me started on trying to print the A6 mini zine on my home printer! But, I’ve just received the copies of Lost Post (luckily they did not in fact get lost in the post) and they look great. My non-TTRPG friend said they looked ‘surprisingly professional’ so that seems like a good sign!
In all seriousness, it is so exciting to hold a physical copy of my game in my hands, and really see that I made something cool. I know everyone loves their own babies more than anyone else, and the same can (sometimes) be true for creators, but I am genuinely really chuffed and I think I’ve got some pretty darn cool stuff to share with you all.
I’ll be updating the itch.io and DriveThruRPG pages to note where you can get physical copies, and you can expect a very excited email when the shop officially opens!
Until next time!
I hope you’re getting to enjoy the lovely summer weather / are not completely sweltering in the heat!
If you want to keep up to date with my various goings on, you can follow me on the internet here: twitter, tiktok, tumblr, instagram, youtube
Always nice to see more people taking the jump from digital to physical releases., here's hoping I can get away from my own stand long enough to pay you a visit at yours during Dragonmeet!