itch.io

Games like these are why I spend a few minutes of each day on itch.io looking at the TTRPGs recently released: because every now and then, I come across such incredible nuggets as this one. Get that: the author of this game, in which you play as werewolves fighting against the minimum wage during the day and against big monsters at night, decided that it wasn't polished enough to get paid for it, so he released it for free... When I see the quality of its layout, the beauty of its illustrations imitating 1920s woodcuts, its twelve story ideas per page, its simple and elegant mechanics, its slick advice on game mastering, I can't tell myself anything else than this: this is an absolute *banger* and it's almost a shame not to give its author any money!!

Wow!!! Thank you so much, Kurt (and friends!), for putting my little game into the spotlight <3

After reading this game, I can say with confidence there's no need for another TTRPG inspired by Borges, ever: seldom have I seen a game that wears its inspiration on its sleeve the way this one does, clearly showing the love of its author for its subject.
This is mainly a writing game, full of self-righteous narrators, footnotes and, of course, forking narratives; a game in which everything is possible, except the mundane. I could see myself playing it for weeks on end, getting lost in its endless possibilities; in a way, I already did.

The link is in the description above! You can find it right there: https://nthdegree.itch.io/forking-paths-2-lost-in-dark-halls
Happy wandering!

WOW! Thank you so much for this honor <3
I can't wait to give it a listen!

A new game from Guillaume Jentey is always worth a look! Even more when it's about something as cool as playing the role of Sitters, who protect a forest from harmful outside influences, be they magical or human... It's really a pretty sweet game, which also has a complex, even strategic, mechanical part, and allows darker things to appear if we feel like it. And when the game is superbly illustrated and designed by Willy Cabourdin, there's no reason not to take a look...

Je suis particulièrement friand des jeux de société roll & write, notamment (mais pas que) ceux où on lance des dés, comme Kingdom Dice ou Wizard’s Tower qui nous avaient bien accompagnés pendant le confinement de 2020. Courtes pailles fonctionne sur le même principe mais en ajoutant une bonne dose de narration à l’ensemble, ce que je trouve tout simplement génial ! Le principe est toujours le même : on lance des dés, on les place pour résoudre des actions et ça nous permet de tataner des monstres… Mais, et c’est là le sel du jeu, les 3 combats que propose pour l’instant le jeu gagnent en complexité et permettent par exemple de dessiner l’équipement de nos personnages, de débloquer des actions, et puis bien sûr de colorier ces supers dessins une fois le combat terminé… Le sous-titre de Courtes pailles indique un volume 1 très prometteur : j’ai hâte de voir la suite !

Hey! This looks cool, but I can't see a downloadable file?

There's something very seductive about Troll Keepers, which evokes a Hilda-like atmosphere in just a few sentences, and suggests, without saying it too loudly, a reflection on authority and the overly strict rules to which we are bound. It's also a game that, in less than 2 pages, demonstrates the potential of a very clever system in which you have to align your character on an abscissa/ordinate intersection that offers 4 unenviable fates in the end. Truly a lesson in minimalism!

Si vous vous demandez ce que contient le jeu en détail et à quoi il ressemble, voici un feuilletage en profondeur !

I haven't been so enthusiastic about a role-playing game in a long time!
Hiria really hits all the right notes for me: an escapade through a fantastic city, a chase reminding me, among other things, of the (very good) board game Fugitive, characters who jump from one version of the city to another in the multiverse... The sum of all these ingredients results in a small but very successful game, which almost makes me want to jump into solo play, and that's saying something!

I did, yes!

Thanks for keeping up :)

Well then, I tried paying you again! Let me know when/if it comes through :)
If not, I hope we can sort this out some other way!

I've had the same problem! I got my money back eventually but I would like to buy the game somehow :)

Un grand MERCI pour ton message sur Facebook qui me remplit de bonheur <3

Waouh, merci pour ce commentaire qui me fait chaud au cœur !!
Je suis ravi que ça vous ait plu <3

Jack Harrison is one of those game designers of whom I'm rather jealous; because he's successful, of course, but also because his games are little jewels of game design, always brimming over with one shiny idea after another. In Koriko, everything is magically intertwined: the game's theme, a sort of variation on Kiki's Delivery Service, but also its mechanics, which combine tarot cards, dice stacking, a bingo system and so much more... Koriko takes up the principle now very common in solo games of prompts around which to embroider (with highly oriented questions) but with the elegance of prompts that can be used in many different situations and be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on the circumstances. For me, elegance really sums up Harrison's games, and Koriko is a perfect illustration of this, the kind that pushes me to do even better in my future creations!

Avec plaisir ! :)

If you want an inside look of the game, the wonderful Sam Leigh's got you!

I've finally had time to read it and what a gem of a one-pager! I love the premise of the game and its mechanics where you have to maintain a careful balance between magic power and not crumbling into a useless bag of flesh is very clever. Well done!

It works! Thanks for the quick fix.

The PDF is mostly unreadable on my computer, it looks something like this :(

@iamabee there they are, go for it ;)

Hey! Your game seems neat but it seems to be missing a downloadable file :)

I might put up a bunch soon! Watch this space by the end of the month :)

Si vous voulez découvrir à quoi ressemble une partie en solo de Cités abîmées, Cendrones vient de commencer un actual play sur sa chaîne YouTube  !

Genius idea: take a yearbook and make it the basis for a role-playing game imagining the hidden relationships between the people in it. Even more brilliant idea: to use a yearbook from 1927, with dated references and full of things that we would think are ready for role-playing, like the gifts that students give each other, an article imagining them in 30 years, memberships to clubs that sound like numbers... Tower Tree Stories is, because of all these elements, fascinatingly playful!

This one is so experimental there's no download link ;)

En effet, itch n'est pas pratique pour ça !
Envoie-moi un mail à come POINT martin AT mailfence POINT com et on en discute :)

Commençons par poser le fait que ce jeu est beau, avec une maquette simple mais visuellement très efficace, au-delà de mes maigres capacités et dont je suis donc foncièrement jaloux. Mais le dernier jeu de Milouch est aussi une très chouette proposition poétique autour de la figure du hobo, en nous proposant d’incarner des personnages en errance perpétuelle (une grande partie du jeu tourne autour de la manipulation d’une carte des États-Unis) qui se croisent et mélangent leurs vies et leurs souvenirs… Un beau jeu qui n’a d’autre but que de raconter des histoires glissant sur les rails, le tout dans un enrobage queer et cour des miracles : une grande réussite !

Eh, I don't kinkshame! Thanks :)

I came in for a funny game but what I found was something surprisingly flexible, with a lot of agency given to the players to create any kind of setting and atmosphere they desire, with as little or as much action as they like… Very well done!

I'm terrible at these kinds of games, but this is such an awesome concept!

Mais, au-delà du thème du jeu, en tant que jeu Un Lieu paisible est justement un objet extrêmement réussi : réalisé et illustré de bout en bout par son autrice, le tout est très joli mais aussi très malin dans son game design, proposant une version très narrative de ses règles avant de dérouler des variantes (avec MJ, avec hasard…) tout en expliquant leur intérêt, de donner des exemples d’ambiance et de personnages qu’on pourrait utiliser, sans oublier de toucher un mot sur les thèmes du jeu… Bref, en 30 petites pages Un Lieu paisible fait bien mieux que beaucoup de gros jeux en prouvant à quel point il s’agit d’un jeu réfléchi dans ses moindres détails, ce qui en fait une grande réussite !

J’aime beaucoup ce concept d’histoire-puzzle forgé par l’auteur, qui correspond à une façon de raconter une histoire en jeu de rôle finalement assez peu répandue alors que ses potentialités sont énormes : une partie comme un tableau pointilliste que l’on complèterait au fur et à mesure, où les éléments sont toujours les mêmes mais jamais dans le même ordre, reconfigurant à chaque fois ce qu’on se raconte. Je sais pas vous, mais moi ça me laisse rêveur…

Look, the premise of this single player game is totally stupid, since you explore deserted and strange offices in search of toilets where you can finally empty your bladder. But, as it happens sometimes in games that are both fun and well done, B&B still presents some really interesting exploration mechanics, a kind of cross between a blind solitaire and a maze exploration, all this with the luxury of offering 4 different ends. And I like it when people get serious about stupid things, so I applaud it!

This is a very modest but very successful zine! In a few pages, the concept of a reality show is deployed, in which players will both embody clusters of candidates and jury members throwing more or less ridiculous contests at them, all with a good dose of randomness to know what will be played and how it will happen, and just enough light mechanics to make a whole season of the reality show in question, until only one candidate comes out of it with the honors! This is the kind of content I like to see on itch: accessible, measured in its proposition and doing the job very well!