🫨 We announced it in our September newsletter: Unpub Festival Badge sales and reserved tables will open on October 1st at 12pm ET!  More info:  https://www.unpub.org/upcoming-events/unpub-festival-2026

Once sentence. Six words. Three proper nouns, each one a plot twist.

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

I put down some thoughts about game design, what it’s good for, and what it isn’t good for in this zine! Plus, a short guide to help get you started making a game if you’ve never done that before: gregisonthego.itch.io/rulebooks-fo... ✂️ 🎲 ✊ 🔥

Update to this chart that I share a lot. Not breaking news: Game design teams are still OVERWHELMINGLY all men. About 7% of the top 500 games have a woman or non-binary person credited as a designer. A 🧵of related charts: (1/6) 🎲✂️

If you're following along with today's board game/TTRPG discourse, the "genuinely cool stuff brewing behind the scenes" quote posted here is the incredible variety of games in development right now that blur the boundaries of RPGs and board games. How about a thread of some of my favorites?

If you want to explore design territory that moves away from this focus on colonialist domination or capitalist productivity, start at the end: the game's outcome. What are players trying to accomplish and why? Do they really need to have the most, or is it reasonable to have enough?

this is about how some ttrpg designers see board game designers but is also, depressingly, about how many board game designers see board game designers it's changing, albeit slowly, and gosh I'm glad for that

Sometimes a rulebook read through is all you need to know a game is going to be special. High Tide packs so much puzzle into a delightful and compact package. It's every bit as good as you've heard.

So in October I’ll be launching my first ks! It’s a bundle of two spooky card games: Club Spooky and That’s the Spirit. I’ve talked about them before, but I wanted to finally do a proper introduction and talk about my goal for all this. 🧵1/6 www.kickstarter.com/projects/alw...

I just finished Amabel Holland's book "Cardboard Ghosts." Anyone interested in game design should read it. It's wonderful. The final chapter in particular nearly brought me to tears as validation of why the games I make and the games I'm inspired by are valid art. Moving and inspiring work.

This is such a supreme disappointment. 🎲✂️ Ultimate Guard, known for their popular game sleeves and deck boxes, are making a new line of Harry Potter themed products. Only through collective, direct action can we start to see change. Let them know of your discontent: [email protected]

Looking for tabletop gaming orgs that accept donations that benefit BIPOC in the industry. @rosegauntlet.bsky.social does the foundation take donations? @ttgda.bsky.social you have a grant program, right?

I'm sad to close out 2025 not being able to attend any Protospiel Online events, but if you can make this one, do it! @protospielo.bsky.social and @breakmygame.com continue to be the most inclusive and supportive online playtesting spaces and it's not even close.

As much as the last few weeks of board game and tabletop events have sucked (with sprinklings of wins scattered between), there's genuinely cool stuff brewing behind the scenes! I know it's hard to get excited when the news is terrible, but good things are happening as well! I promise!

Our official response:

You can now follow @blockcollectives.bsky.social! Join the discord and become an official Blocker!!

TTGDA statement about sensitivity around art depictions in games.

The media and content folks a publisher chooses to repeatedly hire or avoid often speaks volumes to their character and if they're a company you want to pitch to. Am I'm appalled by the racist content in @devirgames.bsky.social Ace of Spades? Of course. Am I surprised? I wish I was.

The vendors for the Indie Games Night Market have been selected and notified! Check out what's coming! www.newmillindustries.com/ignm

I'm sure CGE invested a lot to attend GenCon so they're trying to make the most of an avoidable mess, but it's genuinely bizarre to see them "posting through it" while they're on the receiving end of a pretty vocal boycott. All while doing zero moderation of their comments section? Yikes.

During Gen Con, I will have 250 of these zines with me. The goal is to inform normies about what’s going on with CGE and a call to action to join the blacklist. No buying, pitching, or covering CGE games until they give the community a proper apology and response on how they plan to make good. 🎲✂️

The leadership of the Tabletop Game Designers Association was disappointed to see the publisher CGE touting Codenames: Back to Hogwarts, a new Harry Potter-themed version of Codenames.

Over the last two days, the Bluesky account for Codenames has blocked 204 users. A substantial number of those accounts have Trans Pride flags in their user names. If you hadn't already made a call on where you stood with CGE, it's impossible to ignore the optics of how cowardly and gross this is.

I love my current Kate Bush profile banner. It's been with me pretty much the entire time I put an ounce of effort into my Online Presence™. But I passed this sign on the highway yesterday and I think this might be the new winner. What do we think? (PS: I wasn't the one driving!)

What a day. How about a timeline cleanse? According to the adoption paperwork from the shelter, my cat turned 20 today! He's almost definitely not that old but he's been in my life for 12 wild years. Happy Birthday, Baran!

I've stopped buying from publishers who continue to profit off the Harry Potter IP. As a designer, I've also stopped pitching to those publishers. I don't want my games in a studio portfolio next to games that fund anti-trans legislation. CGE is now on my no buy/no pitch list. Very disappointing.

At this point, it's no secret that @dropout.tv is the funniest and most thoughtfully crafted streaming subscription out there. But if you've been sleeping on Gastronauts, you're missing one of the low key best shows on the platform.

"If you’re not happy, you can leave. If you want more control over the company, it’s like, last I checked, I’m the tycoon. I think I’m wearing the hat – that’s my plan. So, if you wanted to run your own company, you should go do that." This is Dan's response to "Working for and with you sucks."

Very late to the party, but I really enjoyed this interview with @ericdittmore.bsky.social on pivoting a competitive design into an unranked or victorless game. Definitely resonated with a lot of the thoughts and approaches here.

When I'm working on a game that isn't firing yet, I don't try to solve problems with "conventional wisdom" approaches anymore. I look for opportunities to make the game indistinguishably mine. This gives me a more compelling result every time. Know what your game design fingerprint is. 🎲✂️

I just got out of another wonderful playtest of #SpellWeek! There's so much I want to talk about, but for now I'll just reveal this fun little booklet that acts as your storyteller, game timer, onboarding, and upkeep tracker. It's just a ton of fun!

Currently learning the hard way that if you ask your primary care physician questions about your health during an annual check up, you'll be responsible for additional fees. Asking about your health is "out of scope" of preventative care. Our healthcare system is a failure.

Dropping this in your timeline because you deserve to hear what might be the greatest Madonna cover of all time. youtu.be/OrGRmONOPws?...

Had a great time chatting with Clint about the lessons board game designers are learning from TTRPGs, victorless and unranked games, my design process, and how I incorporate all of the above into my own work. Thanks again for having me on!

I've been super busy with some personal things so I had to take a step back from working on games. But today I sat in on the first playtest of #SpellWeek since Unpub and y'all. Wild stuff is happening! Not ready to share anything yet, but it just keeps getting better and better!

Tapping the sign again because apparently some folks insist on ruining my friends' weekend. It's so easy to just be kind to people who are trying to help you.

Any podcast or interview hosts interested in chatting with me about any/all of the following? 🌊 my newest game High Tide 🔧 releasing for an indie game market 🌟 design philosophy Let’s connect!! 🎲✂️

I'm currently working on a board game design right now that effectively plays like a solo game but it requires two human players. Think GM and player vs multiplayer solitaire. Curious if any games with a similar player relationship exist outside of TTRPGs. 🎲✂️

Hi! It's me, once again posting your annual reminder that there's no better time than right now to sign the best dexterity game I've played in years. Congrats, Jay!

Until they both start getting the recognition they deserve, my answer to this will continue to be @thejaybell.bsky.social and @xoe.gay

There's multiple layers of "thematically problematic" going on here. But if Ananda needed this theme (it didn't), it feels like a textbook case for a victorless end condition. Designers! Get comfortable asking yourself "Does this game need a winner?" boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogp...

competitive games without victory conditions, or games where winning is not zero sum - it's a breathtaking approach to the problems of the form, and will I think be recognized as a milestone in their maturation

If one were to report an account to the @boardgamegeek.com moderation team for targeting trans and queer designers in the last month with 1 star reviews, who would be the person to talk to?

No spoilers, but my feelings about Blue Prince are getting more complicated post credits. As the number of puzzles left to solve diminishes, it becomes more and more common to have completely useless runs for reasons outside of your control. It feels like the game is fighting you for no reason.

Fans of Outer Wilds, Myst, Gone Home, Castles of the Mad King Ludwig, and Slay the Spire need to stop what they're doing and play Blue Prince right now. Yes. I meant every single one of those games. It's much better if you discover why on your own. store.steampowered.com/app/1569580/...

Surprise! New headshots just dropped! Thank you so much KP for your amazing work!

We are preparing the Midnight Market, a boutique-style virtual market that lasts for only 3 nights (72 hours). The Midnight Market will offer a small, limited selection of games that can't found elsewhere. If interested, you can submit your game here: forms.gle/vRioTDYWRWt4...

Attention LGBTQIA+ board game industry folks! I am creating a GeekList for LGBTQIA+ Publishers, Designers, Artists, and more. If you fall into one or more of these please consider filling out this form by 4/27/25 (for yourself, no outing anyone please). Thank you! 🥰 forms.gle/iaH5Z9giYyDi...

Hey Game Designers! My team is recruiting 3 new associate designers to the Netrunner design team. If you are interested in working with me and this amazing org on one of the best games of all time, then apply! Happy to answer any questions about the role here! 🎲✂️ nullsignal.games/blog/april-2...