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BBG Digest - January 15th, 2023

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BBG Digest - January 15th, 2023

New Projects & Old Campaigns

Blinking Birch Games
Jan 15, 2023
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BBG Digest - January 15th, 2023

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Happy new year! I hope you’re entering 2023 rejuvenated and inspired.

There’s a lot going on, so let’s dive in!

New Project Announcement!

A few weeks ago, I announced a yet-to-be-named collaborative project with Max Alexander and Victor Winter.

Max is a writer. Victor is an artist. The two of them will exchange pieces back and forth, and after they’re done I’ll design a TTRPG based on their work!

Twitter avatar for @GoblinMixtape
Sam Leigh @GoblinMixtape
I'm partnering with @ylimetothemax and @viaphonized to create a TTRPG! Max (a writer) and Victor (an artist) are sending pieces back and forth. When they're finished, I'll be designing a TTRPG based on their work. Here's the beginning! Poem is by Max and art is by Victor.
Image
Image
2:41 PM ∙ Dec 22, 2022
43Likes9Retweets

This project was inspired by The Forethought Initiative, which is co-sponsored by Possible World Games and the Afterthought Committee. It’s a fantastic initiative that you should definitely check out!

The best part of this: Max & Victor are my very close friends. Their creative energy is hugely inspiring to me. I cannot wait to see what they come up with!

A screenshot from discord with messages sent by Goblin Mixtape. The messages read "I've finally prepared myself to read this", "AHHHHH", "UHHHH", "bro....", "bro", "goddamn", and finally "okay uhuh mhm ok oko k"
A screenshot from our project discord server

Anamnesis Jam

The Anamnesis Jam is going strong! The jam runs until the end of the month and already has 14 submissions, which is incredible.

cover art from 14 games
Just look at this lineup!!

A couple of these entries are by first-time designers, which fills my heart. I’ve seen other designers talk about their #AnamnesisJam games and I can’t wait to see what else is submitted. I’ll have a lot of games to play this February!

I’m also slowly picking away at my own entry for the jam. It’s far from finished, so I may end up submitting a preview rather than the completed game. I’m excited about the concept, though…hopefully I’ll have more info in the next update!

Editing, Editing, Editing

Wow, have I done a lot of editing work over the past couple of months!

In early November, I finished editing ghostbox by Marx Shepherd, an epistolary game about writing letters that will never reach their destination. This game is wonderfully heartfelt and thought-provoking - I had a great time working on it!

The cover of ghostbox. The picture is mostly in black and white except for the title, which goes down the left side of the picture, and the postbox in the center. The postbox is nestled into the base of a tree.

My other editing project was Skyrealms by Iko, which is still in progress. Skyrealms is both a setting for TTRPGs (complete with a bestiary) as well as a coloring book! Iko’s writing is creative and compelling, and I’m delighted to be part of the team.

Twitter avatar for @thelostbay
IKO - Lost Bay Studio Store is Liiiiive @thelostbay
🧵 I'm reading the latest editing notes of Skyrealms by @GoblinMixtape editor of the book and the approval rate of the revisions has been 100% so far She's so good at this and her suggestions are lifting up the book. Lemme preview share a tiny bit of it A thread about Conebeings
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6:15 PM ∙ Nov 27, 2022
40Likes7Retweets

Cloud Empress

Watt is getting ready to crowdfund Cloud Empress, a fantasy setting for Mothership that is heavily inspired by Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I’m happy to say that they asked me to write a pamphlet adventure!

The cover art for the rulebook of Cloud Empress. The title is in large letters at the top, and below is a drawing of someone playing a wind instrument.

I won’t say much about my adventure before the Kickstarter launch, but know that I went down a rabbit hole of research. Cloud Empress launches on Kickstarter on Jan 17th, and you can sign up here to be notified when it’s live.

Non-Corpo TTRPGs

In response to the D&D OGL 1.1 fiasco, I wrote a Twitter thread of a bunch of games that aren’t owned by corporations. It has TTRPGs of all types, and most are by designers from marginalized groups. If you’re looking for more games to check out, give it a read!

Twitter avatar for @GoblinMixtape
Sam Leigh @GoblinMixtape
Here's a 🧵 of TTRPGs that aren't owned by corporations, apropos of nothing
9:34 PM ∙ Jan 14, 2023
1,201Likes461Retweets

Indie TTRPG Videos

Here are the notable videos I’ve made since the last newsletter update. All of these videos are on TikTok, but they’ll also eventually be uploaded to YouTube.

  1. The Stygian Library by Emmy “Cavegirl” Allen - A dungeon crawl through an infinite, dangerous library.

  2. Raccoon Sky Pirates by Chris Sellers - Play as raccoons piloting a ramshackle airship to steal trash from suburban houses.

  3. World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin - A game designed for ending TTRPG campaigns. Much more on this below!

World Ending Game

Last week, my game group played World Ending Game to wrap up a 2-year campaign of Blades in the Dark. I cannot put into words how incredible this experience was.

World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin is a TTRPG designed to play as the final session of a campaign. It’s a collection of 20 minigames you can pick and choose from depending on what you and your characters need. Some of these minigames include Reverse Heist (put something back where it belongs), The Kiss (a conversation that ends in a kiss), and Anime Music Video (collaboratively create an AMV).

This was the most cathartic session of a TTRPG I’ve ever played. While we didn’t follow every rule in the book, World Ending Game gave us the perfect framework to find closure. We played for about 6 hours and I’m pretty sure I was crying half the time. I cannot recommend this game more highly.

The cover of World Ending Game. It shows a dark sky with a comet streaking down the center of the image. World Ending Game is in large white letter, and the comet passes through them.

I’ll skip the rest of my Playing/Watching/Listening section for this update, since it’s already getting quite long! Here’s one last piece to wrap-up…

Newsletter Ring

The logo for the Newsletter Ring, which is a red circle with "Newsletter Ring" written inside, and an envelope in the center of the circle.

Iko recently started an initiative know as the Newsletter Ring, which is designed to create mutual support for TTRPG newsletter publishers. I think it’s a great idea, so for this update I’d like to recommend The Indie RPG Newsletter by Thomas Manuel.

The Indie RPG Newsletter is the very first TTRPG newsletter I subscribed to. Thomas not only provides his own musings about games and the industry, but also shares links to interesting articles, videos, and resources. I definitely suggest checking it out!

The Indie RPG Newsletter
#127: What You Give For Free
I. Dear Reader On his newsletter, Sean McCoy talks about why he thinks “adventures beat systems”. What he means is that if you’re trying to be a successful publishing business, systems are “loss leaders”. You publish them so you can attract players. You make your money through adventures. He doesn’t mention it but it’s 100% advice directed at a certain t…
Read more
8 months ago · 8 likes · Thomas Manuel

That’s all for now! Thank you, as always, for all of your support.

If my timeline goes as expected, I should have some exciting news in the next update…

~ Sam Leigh

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BBG Digest - January 15th, 2023

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BBG Digest - January 15th, 2023

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Franklander
Writes Franklander
Jan 25Liked by Blinking Birch Games

great read, thanks for your excellent twitter thread on non-corpo rpg's

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Tinsely
Jan 15Liked by Blinking Birch Games

This is truly excellent, I'm excited to see what's next!

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