Hi, Slug People!

I really appreciate you offering so many of your games to others for free (and with no AI either.) Thank you.

Fellow traveler, we meet again (or perhaps it is the first time?)

In the past (though perhaps your future,) I asked you to delve into Gunasekaran's bundle and find out how much of his creation is was fabricated by a machine, and how much crafted by soft human hands.

How goes this quest? What news have you brought us? I'm sure those lurking in the shadows await your answer as eagerly as I do.

Well met, fellow traveler.

I have a quest for you, that I am unwilling to perform myself (though perhaps I may yet find the strength later in these two coming weeks.) You must for forgive a tired old man his little selfish weaknesses.

Your quest, should you choose to accept it, is this: delve into Gunasekaran's bundle and bring us a verdict - how much of his creation is mere clunker slop, and how much true human artifice. 

I know the task is arduous, and reward non-existent, yet is not the gratitude of fellow man life's greatest gift?

Adjusting page numbers is definitely possible within the PDF format. I don't know if this is helpful (I make my PDFs by exporting from a Word/Writer documents, so for me it wouldn't be,) but here's a wikiHow article about it:

https://www.wikihow.com/Renumber-a-PDF-Document
(The article is, sadly, for using Adobe Acrobat Pro)

Strays

Overall Score: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♡ 9/10 A New Faevorite

(Disclaimer: I’m writing this review after having read the book. I have not at this moment run any games with it.)

Strays is one of the most outstanding RPG source-books of my last few months. Perhaps even the whole year-to-date. I expect anyone who picks up this book will find it hard to put down, after learning the basics. They are a decent introduction to the PbtA system, if you haven’t read about it before. But if you do know about it, skip to page 31 for the magic to begin.

World Building: ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ 10/10 Enchanting

Strays is strongest in its descriptions of the other worlds and their inhabitants. In a brilliant departure from the usual “Basically immortal humans bound by arcane rules” depictions of Fae presented in most modern media, kumada1 depicts them as bound by very few hard rules, but rather driven by unique motivations and customs.

Gloomfae love secrets, but they wouldn’t collect intelligence to become information brokers, nor would they use their extensive powers of stealth and illusion to assassinate people. Remnantfae have a rather unorthodox view of having guests and generally prefer to contemplate the vast stretches of past and future (while completely neglecting the minutia of the present,) which feels appropriate for beings virtually incapable of dying. Conversely the Bloomfae of The Court Of Leaves And Mockery live fast lives without fear of (unusually frequent) death, and will fight in Flowers Wars for, frankly, inane causes (or just for the love of the fight.)

Complementing the faerie courts is a wealth of other creatures and organizations (from the artificially created sentient Fetches and mercurial Goblins, to the reality defying Halfborn and the ghosts of houses. And, of course, the National Paranormal Security Task-force – US Government can’t let the Reds win the Faerie Gap¹, now can they?)

Even if you never see yourself running this specific game, I would still recommend giving the second half of the book a read, just for the inspiration.

Visual Presentation: ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ❀ ❀ ❀ 7/10 Has its moments

The design is quite solid, for an indie publication, but I do have 2 nitpicks.

The smaller one is that the book could use better separation between the Player and GM parts. The player facing part of the book (Basics, World At A Glance, Character Creation, Combat and Equipment chapters) is interrupted in the middle by a chapter on GMing. Conversely, the chapter on 1950s America could be moved from the rest of the material, as that is the world the PCs (who loved there for over a decade) are expected to be well familiar with. The worst offense here is that players are sent to pick their special moves and burdens into a full section on faerie courts. While I do understand the separation between player and character knowledge, I feel this is a disservice to the process of discovery of this wonderful world.

The other is the artwork. The full color photos of nature that precede each chapter (and especially each of the 7 season-themed realms) work well. On the other hand, the drawings seem unrelated to the text, and they work the better, the more they are abstract (the flowers are nice too, even if they don’t match the described realm most of the time.)

Oh, and the page numbers in the PDF are off by one.

Mechanics: X/X Outside my competence 

I have yet to run a game Power by the Apocalypse, so while I feel I have a good understanding of the theory, I don’t have the practical feel for it. With that in mind I do not feel it is my place to judge the exact mechanical twists this game adds to the basics.

① “Faerie Gap” is actually not mentioned in the book, but with the Cold War kicking into high gear, its likely to be one of the motivations.

It looks like I got caught in a trap of my own making.

While I have read 100 pages of strays, I really like what I'm reading and want to continue. But I also want to have 2 reviews out in 6 hours' time. I guess I'll have to skim the rest of the sections for now, so I have some knowledge of them, and do an update of the review after the solstice.

Oh, huh. I guess it's a house rule our GM came up with for our campaign (or pulled from some obscure 3rd party rulebook.)

The document is interesting, but I have a few nitpicks:

• It's true that clubs (and to some extent maces) can be wielded with 2 hands, but those are different (bigger) clubs. I don't think Versatile fits. 
• I, admittedly, don't know what a "pistol-club" is (16th century pistols were, honestly, clubs in their own right,) but a pistol should have the "Close" keyword (being able to be shot in melee without disadvantage,) as historically fighting in close quarters was the pistol's whole point. 
• Cestus if flavorful, but is basically a gauntlet mode of leather. As such one would expect it to be "Defensive" (your version) instead of "Finesse" (how does one punch with dexterity, exactly?) or at least provide the customary "expend reaction for +1 AC" feature of gauntlets.

I give it 4/5 stars. Hits more than it misses.

I'm rating based on having played a while ago (2024, is my best guess,) I forgot to do it then, so maybe my issue is already fixed

This is a very nice visual novel-esque game about a female Syrian doctor refugee trying to move (escape) to Europe. I really enjoyed the narrative and the voiced epilogues were a nice touch.

My one problem is that there is (was?) no way to skip part of the game I've already seen before. The story is awesome the first time around, but by the 20th, I was sick of the same old stuff (ever increasing as Nour got further in her quest) so I had to abandon the game before reaching the best ending (I got to Europe, but IIRC she needs to go to Germany)

With the above in mind I'm giving it 4/5 stars. It is, certainly, a journey.

I've run this Adventure for 2 groups now, and, as a fairly green GM, I have to say I prefer it strongly to Ypsylon. The Characters are tighter and the pressure is more concrete. 

5/5 stars, would transport eldritch horrors again.

Hi, kumada1, thank you for organizing the Review Something TTRPG Bundle. 

While I have certainly reviewed a few games in the past (unfortunately I used Itch's own Rate this game functionality most of the time, I should probably fix that,) I feel like this calls for some dedicated effort (and I need to make this effort public, so there's some accountability.) With that in mind here are the rules:

• There are 16 days left until the Summer Solstice, so I will review 16 entries before midnight on 21.06.2026 GMT
  • This also happens to be half of them, which I find satisfying.
• Every Sunday midnight, the appropriate amount of entries must be reviewed. In other words:
  • 2 reviews at 2026/06/07T00:00:00 UTC+0
  • 9 reviews at 2026/06/14T00:00:00 UTC+0
  • 16 reviews at 2026/06/21T00:00:00 UTC+0
• I will start with this one, but the next 15 will be picked randomly.
• Each review must:
  • Be at least 100 words long
    • While 100 words is nothing, it does mean that "Eh, it's arright" doesn't count as a review.
  • Be posted as a comment to the entry's page
  • Be the result of reading either the entire entry, or no less than 100 pages.
    • I know this is impossible to verify
  • Include a rating between 0 and 10, or a disclaimer that I don't feel qualified to rate the entry.
    • Generally this should be matched by me giving the game the appropriate star rating.

Feel free to call me out, if you see me slacking.

I actually already saw the HTML version (it opens fine in FF) and, anyway, I it opens just fine in Edge. Thank you for the advice, however.

Huh. Maybe Something is wrong with my Firefox. I might try uninstalling and reinstalling tomorrow. Thanks.

You might want to mention m-b-o-s-i-a-s-m.pdf is foldable-zine-formatted (is "zineshaped" a word?) and m-b-o-s-i-a-s-m book.pdf is sequential-page-formatted ("bookshaped"?) otherwise it's hard to tell what the difference is.

Hi, Velvet!

I just wanted to tell you your PDF doesn't display right in Firefox (although that seems like it's more a problem on their end.)

Here's what it looks like in Edge (which, I think, uses the Adobe engine(?))
https://imgur.com/R6pcAY2

And here is what it looks like in Firefox (I don't know how they decode them, but I guess not the compatible way:)
https://imgur.com/0I9e2CK

Looking forward to reading your game (I may, or may not be able to pitch playing it to others, but I will definitely read it myself)

Ooh, crafty!

Ok, what is that? why are the letters FT a pencil?

Why is it a scanned? Surely you have a digital version of a game you wrote yourself?

I know you are joking. But is there actually a way to tell if a PDF has a malicious (or let's just start with "any") scripts inside?

The files appeared (and can be downloaded, opened, read - all the things.)

The page does print this scary message, however:

WARNING: This Page Has Been Quarantined

Our system has flagged this page for additional review due to potential suspicious behavior from the page owner.

You might want to talk to them again...

Hi, StoicheinCat.

This game (2 games?) is listed as "released" , but is in fact "unavailable". Is this a temporary matter? Or a more permanent disagreement? (Is it with Rue (ilananight)?)

Hi, missed your reply that time. But I did, almost by accident, stumble upon this year's bundle. Success! 

(I have subscribed to updates from @peachgardengames so I definitely don't miss it next year.)

Hi, Cassi!

Got a few of your games in a bundle, and I want to personally thank you for putting files in archives. So many creators will dump two dozen different files on their Download page (some, though not most, might also be versions of each other in different layouts or optimized for screen/paper.) But you made that extra step of logic and thought about how players will consume your content. 

Again, Thank you.

A1s.

Hi, Diceberg.

I appreciate the hustle, but maybe don't submit unfinished projects to charity jams?

Hi, Fajerbol!

This looks really good (Krowka Nuklearnik is so cool. Shouldn't it be Krowka Jądrowa, BTW?) I know this isn't a real game (so the primary enjoyment is images) but I still feel like I'm missing out on the jokes.Are there any plans to create an English version?

P.S. "POPIÓŁ I ZAMIEĆ, KOLOROWANKA" is listed as a PDF, but is a picture (PNG) like the others.

Hi. 

I understand that things that happen in the fiction do not influence the rolls (which is hard to do without a GM¹,) but shouldn't earlier events be easier to do? Or did I miss a mechanic? It feels bizarre that our band of (former) holy warriors would have as much trouble dealing with a Thriving Hamlet, Preparing for the harvest (because they don't even know how much things are about to change,) as they do a band of AncientUndead Lordsworns from a forgotten age, who want to Sacrifice the party to their old god, in the vain hope that it can take the recently vacated godspace.

(I was thinking, perhaps the earlier (Unaware and Panicked) events would let you re-roll one or two 1s, and the later events (Omen-Filled and Apocalyptic) would force you to re-roll a couple 4s? But I don't want to modify a game I haven't even run in "vanilla mode" yet.)

_____
(1) You can, of course, ask players to weigh in on this, but I remember this being pretty awkward in a game of Follow - "I don't think that scene went well enough, so I'm a gonna fuck up our chances at the game's quest, YOLO!" Not a fan.

This game updated 2 days ago, but there is no corresponding announcement. I know that it was "Going Knowhere Character Progression" that was updated, and not the rules, but what exactly got changed? It's not really worth comparing the files line by line just to satisfy my curiosity... but I am curious and you already know, why not help a fellow human out? 😉

I'm told this game got an update today (depending on where you live,) what are the changes?

I liked this module.I think it works best as a hub, either for adventures set on the local station, or just to avoid vagrancy charges on one and sleep in a soft bed, with a meal that didn't come from a reheated box (this should probably relive a point of stress, or something.) One should probably roll up some 'generic' guests to stay at the hotel too, ones that don't have an interesting backstory,so that it doesn't feel empty (it wouldn't really make sense for anyone, except Kelm and Joseph to be there, if the PCs come back next week. And at any rate it's odd the hotel is only 1/3 occupied.)

The specific mystery described in the module needs additional work (this is likely intentional, so it is easier to integrate into a campaign.) It would be nice in anyone except Maple had a connection to anyone else, but of course, that isn't hard to invent during session prep, and the hooks are solid.

A personal nitpick: the module uses all the 'DnD dice' (except d12 and d20,) while, as a Mothership1E purist, I was hoping for d10s and d5s. This is unlikely to be a material problem for anyone, though, as anyone who gets into GMing is nearly guaranteed to own a set (likely multiple) of these dice. 

P.S.one of the tags is #No AI, but of course a prominent character in the story is ,in fact, an AI. Ironic (but not incorrect.)

If you sell a game for $0.14 you are unlikely to get even half of it for your own (I think PP, being the assholes that they usually are, will actually charge you more as a fixed fee per transaction than you are making.)

If you want to be nice and sell your stuff for 95% off, you should consider putting it in a bundle.

Text based games are not obsolete - the combination of low costs¹ and broad possibilities² make it a perennial tool in the indie developers' toolbox.

AI has really taken a bite out of Interactive Fiction³, but I recommend you look at past winners of XYZZY awards for inspiration into what is possible with text alone (my favorite is Counterfeit Monkey- a game about fighting tyranny with wordplay.) If you want to see something more mainstream (and profitable) Choice of Games makes a brisk trade in what are basically Visual Novels without the visual part. 

And then you have things like Warsim (another commercial title,) which make use of textual menus (and ASCII illustrations⁴,) to run a strategy game (or RPG) without all that much actual literary text. 

Dwarf Fortress, and Berlin-compliant⁵ rogue-likes are not so much text-based as ASCII-based, but the same benefits apply - the only thing you need to add a new monster to the game are the stats, and the mechanics it will use. Graphics wise, just pick a unique letter/color combination and it's in the game, no sprites/rag-dolls necessary.

P.S. finally, like redonihunter said above, you can browse this very site's thousands of text-based games for inspiration.

________________
(1) Text games don't need complicated art assets - illustrations and background music is as high as you ever need to go, and most of them don't even have that. The engines for text-based games are also orders of magnitude easier to both program and use.
(2) The player can use their imagination to visualize, well, anything you can imagine.
(3) A big draw of IF was that you could command the game in what looked a lot like natural language.
(4) Many of them procedurally generated for a minuscule fraction of the dev-time it would take to get 3d procedural pictures to look even passable.
(5) A copy of the 2008 Berlin Interpretation, hosted on roguebasin

I think you'll find that they can. Ideas become obsolete all the time (except in the very basic sense of still being valuable to historians, both professional and amateur.) You don't hear much about phlogiston theory these days, nor ptolemaic astonomy. You also don't hear much about the finer points of shoeing a horse, or (for a more professional example) positioning data on your hard disk to be read in the lowest average amount of spins. Divine right of kings is all but forgotten in western countries, even ones that have kings. (Fascism, admittedly, seems to be making a comeback, but that is the exception that proves the rule - these ideas are not supposed to become relevant again.)

There is already a shitty way to get all reviews/ratings from Itch. I will not explain how (so I don't get banned by angry devs,) but I will hint that https://itch.io/feed?filter=ratings is a feed of all ratings, and doesn't require you to be logged it. Have fun.

P.S. Anyone who can scrape reviews with the hint was going to figure this out anyway.

P.P.S. Guys, either restrict reviews to be "friends only" (or even "author only") or make a normal API - this is silly.

Same. Not everything in SBNA4 was solid gold, but generally it was pretty good. I was excited, when I thought they we coming out with a new one this year. I guess they aren't, and this time it's just a list of things to check out?

Hi. My tablet complains that this game was built for an old version of Android. Any chance of a recompile?

Hi,

Which language is primary (original and/or native to the author?) I can do both and want to try the best version of the game.

Looking forward to it!

Much obliged.
The TLS certificate for the inklestudios site expired (unlike the one for their primary site,) but the parser seems to function (I only clicked a couple of times, so this isn't 100% for sure.) I will play this when I get home.
Thanks again.

I think we all knew those links wouldn't lead anywhere before we clicked, but we did. They didn't.

Any chance you would upload the decade old project here?

Hi, hechlok, solskaia and especially Fajerbol.

I recently came across some of your stuff and most of it is free, but I feel like you at least deserve a fiver (I've given money for worse stuff, honestly.) If you are ever in Riga, hit me up, I'd love to buy you some coffee and show any of you guys around. (please pass the offer along to the other 2.)

Very funny. Putting a game (not) worth $420 in a bundle, and pretending to give a massive discount.

I mean, that kind of fits with this specific joke, I'll admit...