November 2024

Welcome to the Indie Tabletop Newsletter, hear from independent tabletop games designers about their current and upcoming projects. Take a look at the games we’ve already self-published and our upcoming Kickstarters, maybe even get yourself a free print n play game. Learn more about this newsletter here.

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Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition is LIVE on Kickstarter, and was fully funded in just 20 minutes! M.O.L.T. is a new narrative tabletop puzzle game series about the Elusiverse—a parallel world where lost things live out their days, and where every object has a story. Players take on the role of Ministry scouts, exploring this realm of forgotten treasures and misplaced memories. Lint Condition features four chapters of beautifully illustrated and heartwarming cooperative puzzle gameplay.

Hear what Meeple Mountain had to say about the game: “Ministry of Lost Things is a perfect entry point to PostCurious. The puzzles are characteristically excellent, the world is immediately inviting, and I can’t wait for more cases.”

If you want to learn a bit more about the game before you commit, we have a lot more reviews up on our page, and it even won a Golden Lock Award from Room Escape Artist! 🔒🎉 Don’t forget to back the Kickstarter before Nov 13 to get a 10% discount off the retail price and be one of the first people to receive the game when it ships!

Back Lint Condition on Kickstarter!

Whoosh! Soar into space with Roll and Write Revolution as we join Rae Gunn and Rescue Rocket, a duo known for saving all manner of extraterrestrial life on planets that are in danger of destruction from forces like black holes.

Rae Gunn and her trusty ship, Rescue Rocket, are known across the galaxy for their heroic missions. Why just last week they saved a planet of kittens who had run out of tasty snacks! The week before they helped an espresso-dependent planet construct orbiting greenhouses to grow coffee beans with three-times the caffeination! A month before that they helped a planet full of dinosaurs construct a meteor blocking shield! Quite the feats really.

In the dark depths of space a hero and her trusty robot powered rocket ship are preparing to save the residents of Planet X. Rae Gunn has been known as a force for good across the cosmos and now the call for help has gone out from Planet X. Can Rae and Rescue save the day?

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Planet X is melting, the magma is out of control and the residents need to escape. They would also really appreciate it if Rae Gunn could help them take some of their precious minerals with them as it is the source of wealth they would need to start their lives somewhere new. Rae and Rescue will also find tools to help them on their quest.

In order to save the residents of Planet X, Rae Gunn and Rescue Rocket will have to place residents into groups based on scoring criteria. Each turn, the player(s) decide if they will use the card for scoring categorization or if the card will fit in one of the previously identified categories for scoring. If they can’t place a card, that’s the end of the game. Paying close attention to each card and figuring out where it goes will lead the player to achieve their lofty goal of being the Savior of Planet X!

Kickstarter link

It’s November — and that means it’s time for games-on-cards! Yes, these are greetings cards which you send through the post, but they are also tiny games or puzzles! So instead of sending your friends and family the usual supermarket Christmas cards, why not send them a festive logic puzzle on a card?

This year’s new card is another Feline Crimes card. Four cats live at No.29: Chairman Meow, Sylvester, Tiddlywinks, and Professor Purrfect. Four baubles were knocked down from the tree. But which cat dislodged which colour of bauble, which shape of bauble, and in which order?

The front of the card features the four cats and the scene of the crime. On the back of the card are various clues which enable you to fill in the logic grid and solve the puzzle. The mystery should take about 5 minutes to solve, which means that it’s a fun and accessible card for all your friends and relatives.

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At £2 per card (less if you buy a big box of cards and stocking fillers) this is an excellent way to spread the magic of puzzles (and cats) this year! They are available from our very short Kickstarter which ends on 15 November, and then after that from our online Dissent Games shop. All the cards bought in the Kickstarter will be posted by 1 December, so UK buyers will be have lots of time to use them this year.

Back the Kickstarter now

Atikin Games turns 5 years old on November 28th! It’s a wonderful milestone to reach and so I’ve planned a sale to run across this website towards the end of the month to celebrate. The readers of this newsletter however get to celebrate sooner, use code: 5THBIRTHDAY at checkout for 10% off your order. It’s a wonderful time to start getting those gamer Christmas presents in, don’t you think?

For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m based in the UK but I ship worldwide, US orders have a transit time of 4-6 working days starting at £5.50 for smaller orders and for the UK free shipping is available for orders over £50, UK orders under £50 have a flat rate of £3. If you have any questions or would like a custom order please get in touch with me, I’m really quite friendly and helpful.

I’ve been making a new style of gamer Christmas decoration, meeple and D20s hanging within a beaded wreath, or at least I drew my inspiration from a wreath. I’ve been sharing photos across social media and so far, they seem popular.

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I hope the new Christmas ornaments are as big a hit as the iridescent resin ornaments have been in previous years.

I’ve been hard at work all of October getting more of my products up on this website, including button badges, bookmarks, dice rose hair slides, more dice bags and meeple jewellery. On top of this I’ve brought down the price of my tote bags as I can make them faster now that I have a heat press. Making small improvements here and there has been making a big difference.

Malus Hortus is progressing nicely, with the rulebook updated and new story text ready for review, I’ll soon be getting a new prototype ready for a new round of blind play testing with the fun and challenging changes to the game, wish me luck!

Atikin Games new arrivals

We’ve been putting the final touches to our Kickstarter campaign for Supervolcano, which we hope to launch during winter ’24! The game is a light-medium weight Print & Play for ages 12+. There’s a solo variant as well as competitive and co-op game modes included in the base pledge.

In the game, you play one of a number of thermal power companies, contracted by the government to tackle the Supervolcano threat. Each player plays simultaneously to establish power plants and harvest super heated steam from deep inside the volcano.

Players must balance the challenges of building their operation and local populations, whilst keeping the magma chamber pressure under control. Fail to meet your quota and the resulting eruptions and quakes will see those precious populations disappear!

In other news, our PNP dog-pirate adventure ‘Tails of the Sea’ is now available in our online shop, ready to make in time for Christmas, as well as our other physical and PNP titles.

Supervolcano Kickstarter pre-launch page

Howdy troopers, October has been a mostly quiet month for me. I have however been able to attend a couple of conventions – Tringcon and Handycon – to raise more awareness for project Black Metro. In addition, I have had the opportunity to meet other cool designers and play some of their games in the process also. I have a few more events lined up for November such as Merrycon and Warfare so will see what will transpire with those.

My ebay shop is now launched where I will be accepting online orders of Black Metro for those who are interested. Of course, there are multiple online platforms available to try the game out first such as Tabletop Simulator, Tabletop Playground and Tabletopia. Thanks for reading!

Ebay shop

Over here! Behind the mountain of game boxes to your right! And walk carefully we wouldn’t want to start an avalanche, would we?

Can you believe it? It’s been a year since we launched the Kickstarter campaign for Perilous Pond. It’s gone by so quickly. At times it has been hectic, deciding exact colour for the meeples, giving feedback for dice, And at other times we were just trying to wait as quickly as possibly. There were lots of small issues to handle, the biggest one was getting the dice just right, ensuring that the symbols are clear and colours can be seen even in bad light.

In the end we got the game shipped to our backers on time, thanks to a hectic weekend of packing boxes back in September. Ok I’m done here in the store room, let’s have a glass of lemonade on the patio. Oh will you take a couple of those blankets? It’s a bit nippy despite the sunshine. All in all we’re very happy with the Kickstarter, and the backers have been so nice and supportive! That helped alot!

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What we’re gonna do now? We might need to take some time to relax after an intense year, but we’re really looking forward to bringing the game to conventions and getting it into stores. Getting it into stores is tricky for a small independent publisher but we do our best! In the meantime the game is available in our webshop.

So that’s something we’re looking forward to, but we also have some new game ideas brewing. We’re going to see if they have merit and develop some prototypes to test.

Future theme? Well after Samurai and Frogs…maybe something chocolate? Or something completely different!

The Frozen Maze Games webshop

We’ve been working hard on our upcoming TTRPG ‘Why We Fight’ for the last few months, testing the game extensively and building it out in preparation for when we launch. During these tests, we’ve tried out a larger, more creation-driven version of the game! Rather than travel through pre-set scenarios, players create dynamic Situations together, building on pre-set prompts and determining specifics through rolls.

Following five steps, players can create a unique Situation all of their own! This ended up being a significant game changer, resulting in a longer but more satisfying game, with only the final missions being pre-set. We found this makes your adventure far more about the journey than the conclusion, and has huge potential for ‘peaceful’ or ‘diplomatic’ resolutions to the Situations you face. We feel that this version is ultimately closer to what we want the game to be, and is much more ‘Solarpunk’ in its actions and attitude (Not sure what Solarpunk is? We wrote a blog post just for you: www.sdrgames.studio/blogs/why-we-fight-development-blog/solarpunk-the-counterculture-to-dystopia).

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Despite these new developments bringing Why We Fight closer to our vision for the game, we’ve had a lot of feedback from players, distributors, and stockists about the ‘entry level’ ease of access, and how the zero-prep appeal of Why We Fight in its existing state is a very positive thing. Yet, as we create a larger, more complex game we recognise that this entry point is lost. So, rather than constrain ourselves to our quick-start game, or lose it in favour of its larger potential, we’ve decided to do both!

‘Why We Fight’ the base game, and ‘Why We Fight: Direct Action’. By creating these two versions, we can cater to both audiences; providing an expansive campaign game, and still having an entry level quick-play book! We can’t wait to share more on both versions as the game develops.

When one project becomes two!

Check out the Indie Tabletop Festive Shop and support indie designers this Holiday Season.

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