More and more games are coming out than ever, and I’m so excited to be able to introduce you all to some incredible picks this week. We’ve got a game from #RPGSEA (Role Playing Games: South East Asia), Navathem’s End (funded via the Our Shores Kickstarter earlier this year), and a bunch of other incredible games to pick from. This week I also got to sit down with Kieron Gillen and Grant Howitt about the DIE RPG, and I pulled together a group of dino games! With all that, let me introduce you to…
Creator Spotlight: Sinta Posadas and Pam Punzalan
Sinta “Sin” Posadas and Pam Punzalan are game designers from the Philippines. Posadas’ game, Lutong Banwa, was awarded Best in Art for the Indie Groundbreaker Award in 2021. Punzalan has been nominated for the DJA Emerging Designer Award and won an Ennie as a team member of Asians Represent. Before Navathem’s End, the two worked together on My Big Fat Aswang Wedding, Across This Wasteland Sith You, and Public Utility Mech.
Both designers have specific goals in mind for their games, hoping to “embody themes of embody themes of defiance, home and the community, and intimacy.” Navathem’s End feels like a culmination of these ideals, where you work against an apocalypse that has been generations in the making. As the Gods of Navathem face down an end their hubris brought on, adventurers rally together and fight to save what’s left.
With incredible art and a familiar kitbash of concepts from Powered by the Apocalypse and Blades in the Dark, Navathem’s End has just enough mechanical crunch to feel like you’re building up a character without feeling overwhelmed by too many stats. With concise breakdowns of missions, beautiful maps, and a ton of lore to dig into, Navathem’s End is a time-twisting anti-apocalypse game, full of heart, heat, empathy, and danger.
New Releases: Memory Hunter, A Knife to Your Throat, Brave Zenith
A prequel game to the indie cyberpunk darling Balikbayan, Memory Hunter is the horrific and postmodern lead-up to the world that technology and imperialism destroyed.
A two player game of scene-building and LARPing, A Knife to Your Throat is an intimate and intense game about a pair of people who just can’t keep their blades off each other.
Described as “post-fantasy,” Brave Zenith is inspired by Brazilian summers and Japanese role-playing games. Adventurers explore the world of “pastpresent” and create colourful, often absurd conflicts for their characters.
Crowdfunding: DIE, The Dark, Regency
“DIE is a tabletop roleplaying game about fantasy versus reality, and poses the question of why we play games at all. The comic it’s based upon is occasionally jokingly described as ‘goth Jumanji’; DIE the RPG is designed from the ground up to let a group of players make their own personal version of the comic.”
“The Dark is a solo tabletop roleplaying game about being lost in a darkness that seeks to overtake you, and your desperate clinging to the memories of those you loved. You’ll play as the last remaining of a group of friends who set out for adventure in the wilderness in Scandinavia. All was well until the path was lost in the midst of a dense forest, one by one your friends were taken by an encroaching preternatural darkness.”
“In Regency, the Author and the Characters are creating a Novel together. As the Author sits and drafts their tale of romance and societal expectation, the Characters (controlled by the players) are as often collaborators as they are confounders to the Author’s vision. The game feels like a conversation between the writer and these characters who often stray from the plot.”
In Other News
- Mutants in the Next, the expansion book to Mutants in the Now, is currently crowdfunding.
- Jason Cordova writes about how the mystery mechanics work in Brindlewood Bay.
- The NYU Game Centre is currently seeking a Program Administrator to fill two major roles: as the Director of the NYU Game Centre Incubator and as the Industry Liaison for the NYU Game Centre.
- Marx Shepherd has released a second edition of a loud noise in a quiet place.
- Secrets of the Violent Sea has successfully crowdfunded; its campaign is ongoing through June 16.
- Dice Kapital is giving grants of £2500 to three tabletop role playing game projects.
- StartPlaying, the San Francisco-based tabletop role-playing platform, has raised $US6.5 ($9) million.
- The newest game from Bully Pulpit (which has previously published Fiasco, Star Crossed, Night Witches), Desperation, has successfully funded.
- CATAN Studio announced the Seafarers + Cities & Knights expansion for CATAN – 3D Edition; an October 1, 2022 release date for CATAN – Dawn of Humankind; and November 18-20 dates for the 2022 CATAN World Championship.
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.