This Should Be a Game! is a podcast about adaptive media and filtering 90% of your life experiences through tabletop role-playing games. Hosts satah and Jess invite fellow game designers & enthusiasts to analyse movies, then talk through creating a TTRPG that explores (or improves on) their themes. Join in the fun by creating TTRPGs and TTRPG supplements inspired by the conversations on the show, or just by the movies themselves!

Theme

Our latest double-feature is John Carpenter's Halloweenless Hallowe'en, aka some horror movies directed by John Carpenter that aren't Halloween:

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

The Thing (1982)

Submit something inspired by themes from either of these movies, the conversations we had about them, or maybe even one of Carpenter's other non-Myers horror flicks!

For Further Inspiration

Listen to the episodes coming out in the lead-up to the submission period, where we analyse the movies & do live game design inspired by them with guests like:

Plus, join the Discord to brainstorm & chat about your game ideas-- or, if you yearn for the forums, discuss in the TSBG thread on Papercult!

Rules

• Submissions open October 19th and close November 19th.
  • You can start working on the game any time, but it must be uploaded during the jam period.
  • (This is just to discourage submitting games that weren't made for the jam-- if you have some sort of exceptional circumstance that means uploading it earlier or a couple days later would be easier, reach out & we'll get it sorted.)
• Create a TTRPG or TTRPG supplement inspired in some way by either of these movies:
  • In the Mouth of Madness
    
  • The Thing
• Bonus points* for pulling on concepts developed in the episodes of This Should Be a Game!
  • All In the Mouth of Madness episodes (releasing throughout September, featuring Kendrick Smith and Briar Sovereign)
  • All The Thing episodes (releasing throughout October, featuring Alyssa and Seraphina Garcia Ramirez)
• Refrain from the use of LLMs or generative AI.
  • If you're not sure where to start with finding art to use, check out Public Domain Art Resources on Explorers Design.

* No points will be awarded at any point in this process ⭐