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.
Designers & Their Games
Crowd Funding Calendar
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Library Labyrinth is a co-operative tile-based game. It plays in about 30-45 minutes and is for 1 to 5 players. It was released in 2023 and is currently completely sold out. Hopefully we can reprint it!
Loose In The Library is a shorter, competitive card game. It’s much quicker at 10-15 minutes for a 2 player game and up to 25 minutes for a 3 or 4 player game. And it will have different chapters where you complete challenges set by the Senior Librarian or by the cursed Bookwyrm.
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We are also offering workshops for schools. You (the backer) get a thank you letter and a photo of the workshop, while a school somewhere gets a workshop. It’s going to be one of the pledges, as well as an add on.
Library Labyrinth is £32 on the KS, and Loose In The Library is £19. Please do take a look!
We’re so excited to launch our first ever crowdfunding campaign but also terrified in equal measure! It’s been an amazing journey so far and we have met so many brilliant people along the way. Without the support from the indie publishers & designers, #BoardGameProtoHype Instagram community and many content creators we would not be where we are. Now we’re ready for the next stage and hopefully see all of the hard work pay off and see Sakana Stack funded!
We have also kept ourselves busy on the con side of things, exhibiting at both Airecon North West and Norwich Games Con. Both events were fantastic and we had a great time getting our fish market stand out for demos of Sakana Stack.
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This also gave us the opportunity for more playtesting of the 2 player rules for Sakana Stack which we are delighted to say have gone really well and will be included in the Kickstarter version of the game! While we will be busy with the campaign in October, we have made the time to exhibit at Handycon towards the end of April which we’re really excited about!
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It’s a push your luck exploration game where you make three trips to a planet’s surface trying to make the most impressive discoveries while not losing too many crew that you care about! Follow along now!
Each turn the player will roll dice and hope to score as many as possible to attach and link of the various body parts their Igor has scavenged. Where are these from again? I guess it doesn’t matter. The important bit is making sure your monster has it all together before you throw the switch and send 10,000 volts jolting through it to bring it back to the land of the living!
Your machinations have not gone unnoticed by those nosey neighbors. In fact, they’re lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks. You’d better hurry up and get your project moving.
The past few months have been relatively quiet on the Unfringed side but with the launch of Moving Wild by Oink Games, a re-implementation of Zuuli, I’ve tried to make the most of its international launch and was lucky enough to tag on a trip to Gencon to our summer holiday in the US.
Gencon is North Americas largest tabletop gaming event and wow, do they know how to put on an event! It feels like the whole of downtown Indiana is taken over by board game fans, including gaming tables set up in the NFL football stadium. It was only a dash 2 trip but it was a pleasure to be able to meet more of the Oink Games team and to demo Moving Wild to new fans at the event. Moving Wild even won a “Staff award” from BoardGameQuest!
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It’s still a bit surreal to know that a game I created which started its life as a hobby project during lockdown has now gone international and I’m very grateful to all of the fans old and new that have supported and helped make it as much of a success as it is.
From the Unfringed side of things it’s been lovely to see the reviews still trickle in and see that Mika’s really got their claws into some people. We’ve even seen some people finish the 100 page pad already!
I’m off to Essen in October so I hope to write about this in the next newsletter. Enjoy Autumn everyone and catch you next time.
I have suffered failures, setbacks, disappointments, and I more than suspect that much of the same is in store for my future. It’s just a part of the game. Somehow though, despite being plagued with bouts of doubt and despair, I managed to go the distance.
The past few months have had me busy getting reviewers to take a look at the game and get their feedback out to the wider public. I am pleased to say that reviewer feedback has been very positive, and I will share some comments below.
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Testimonials
“It is hard to say in very simple terms exactly what kind of game Black Metro is, because it incorporates different elements that combine to make the whole experience something with its own flavour, and greater than a simply rehashed sum of the parts. There is worker placement, area control, resource management and a few other things besides, which sounds like a recipe for a multi-layered headache, but actually everything comes together in a really solid and satisfying way.” – Nicholas O’Neill
“This is a deep, thinky game with straightforward rules and a fine-tuned gameplay that flows intrinsically.” – Ty Napier
“It’s an awesome blend of worker placement and area control which really makes you consider more where to place your units.” – Dizz (BoardGameFanatic)
Going forward, I will be aiming to attend Handycon as well as Shake Battle & Roll events, to get the game out there into more people’s hands and therefore onto more tables being played. I will be keeping my eye out for other gaming events as well. I will also push for sales through various online game groups and such.
I am also finalising development of a Tabletopia version for Black Metro that should hopefully be live by the time you read this, and I will link to it below. Feel free to try the game out online and see if it is for you.
I have poured every fibre of my creativity and logical prowess into the Black Metro project, and I hope it shows. Getting to this point has been a real milestone moment for me. A dream come true. Thank you for reading.
Supervolcano (pictured) is a euro-style PNP for 2-6 players (solo hopefully coming soon). Just print out a few pieces of A4 paper, grab a dice and a few pencil crayons and you’re ready to play!
In the game, you play one of a number of companies contracted by the government to extract heat from a Supervolcano, aiming to reduce the increasing lava chamber pressure and save the country/world from impending doom…but, this doesn’t come cheap! To do this effectively, you must manage your finances, take on debt or organically grow and choose where to drill, what assets to develop and at what risk.
The local towns and cities provide a market for a heat network you will build from your thermal powerplant. But with mounting costs, will you aim to grow local populations with cheap energy for long term growth, or as a monopoly, build finance fast and grow your operation?
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All this sits against the backdrop of increasing output targets as the Supervolcano pressure builds and damage to your network increases. You must choose how to approach this dilemma, which experts to bring in and how to reduce risk to achieve your objectives by game end! You can sign up to our newsletter on our website to keep up to date.
We’ve also been working on Murder at Marlborough Manor, a Murder Mystery themed tactical card game, which we’ll elaborate on further in future.
As it’s approaching Halloween, we’re giving away a free two player PNP card game ‘Ghoats’ from our web store…I bet you can’t guess what it’s about! Rescue Billy the Kid from the grasp of the haunted Bleakbleat Forest before it’s too late…did I mention you’re a psychic goat with mystic powers? Lightweight and great for kids, or goat enthusiasts…
Since that’s winding down (or at least my part in it is) its back to other things. We’ve finally gotten some templates back from LongPack games so we can finish up the graphic design bits for the penultimate SSO expansion Travellers which I’m really looking forward to getting out there. I’m hoping the launch will now be Oct/Nov. Following that I think I’ve got the production nailed down for Boarders and Black Flags so hopefully that should be launching soon.
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On other fronts, Pukeapocalypse is finally in production from Exalted Funeral and should be out more or less by the time this newsletter comes out, and The Fundamentals of Tabletop Miniatures Game Design from CRC press should be out or soon to come out. October looks like it’s going to be a busy month!
It probably goes without saying that eventually this design will find its way onto tote bags, backpacks, cushions, coasters and just about anything else I can plaster it across. For now, the Dice Goblin is only available on the dice bags, which should be available with the other fabric dice bags on my website and Etsy next week.
I hope everyone is enjoying spooky month so far! I’ve started to imagine how wonderful it would be if Malus Hortus became a new Halloween gaming night staple in people homes, wouldn’t that be magical?
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As much as I do love the spookiest time of the year I do have to plan ahead for Christmas and I’m planning to add some more Gaming themed Christmas tree decorations to my product catalogue, stay tuned!
I’m currently on holiday for a couple of weeks, as much as I ever really am on holiday, I still fulfil orders, do a bit of admin here and there, oh, yes and get this newsletter out so that you lovely lot can read it! Following my little bit of R & R I’ll be scheduling one full evening per week of Malus Hortus play testing, rulebook and other writing proofreads and art reviews for the game, utilising a trusted few people who are lucky enough to see the entire process and give their input, helping to make the game as wonderful as it can be.
Starting in November I’ll be sending out feedback forms to previous play testers for them to rate and give feedback on the new story text going into the game. Importantly this step will only be carried out by those who have played the game in the past and would enjoy giving their input, if you fit these criteria please get in touch as I’d love to add more names to the pool of interested parties.
I have wanted to revisit my big deck builder, Diamonds for Water, for a couple if years, but life and work have made that impossible. The class has given me the motivation (and deadlines!) to make some really critical improvements. I’ve redesigned the board, created a rules-light tutorial game, and have created a spreadsheet of cards – something I didn’t have before.
The new board is square. It implements a spinner or a rondel (at the moment it could be either) for conflict and mediation. Initially, the water countdown marker was going to increase conflict, but now it increases the price of water as it becomes more scarce – a thematic improvement. Starting character cards will have simpler abilities and the starter decks will be less individualized than my original concept.
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The changes implement something along the lines of a legacy game, but without the need to rip cards. I’m toying with removable stickers, but cards are easy to produce, so I may just replace a Level 0 card with a Level 1 card, and etc., as players progress.
In early design I was using other games I liked as too much of a crutch for ideas. Now, instead of a health track, players have a stress track. After all, they are playing professionals from oppositional organizations in the battle over water and trying to get along can be stressful! The more stress, the more conflict, and eventually they’ll reach a point where they just need to take a break. Again, I’m really happy with how much more thematic it feels.
The final change is giving me a little more trouble and I may be overthinking it. I currently have 3 card types: Resources which mostly give food (one form of currency); Expertise which larger provide energy (a second form of currency) and some special effects like drawing extra cards; and Support which had been largely healing, what I’m now calling stress relief (this can be like a good yoga class or an office manager). I have been trying to get clever with more of an economics theme – Futures, Stocks, Capital, Jobs – but it feels a little forced, so the three original types may win out.
More changes are coming. I’ll let you know what’s next. Please follow me on TikTok, where I’m most active. I will be starting some giveaways for new followers there soon!
