Hi Baden,

Yyes, it will. Once the game is text-complete - which should be fairly soon, now - I’m going to sit down and make a roadmap for getting the actual book produced. Once I know roughly how long that’s going to take me I’ll be emailing everybody who pre-ordered the physical version with some information about that, and I’ll post an update here to let people know to look out for that email too.

Thanks! -Chris

Thank you! The next two regions should be along this week

It is, yes. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. Writing will be completed by the end of next week and I’ll have more information about getting the book Actually Finished once that’s done.

Obviously if you’ve ordered the physical edition and would prefer a refund at this point I completely understand. Drop an email to chris@loottheroom.uk and I’ll sort that out for you. Otherwise, it will be in your hands as soon as physically possible.

Yes, it’s UK sales tax.

Yep! Sorry for the radio silence here. I’ve actually got a big update coming in the next couple of weeks, as well as some details about finally getting the physical copies sorted. Thanks for your patience.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks! Glad you liked it

Today’s playthrough is Long Haul 1983 by SPC. You can check out my journal of the game here

Hey!

It’s 5 years since The Wretched first came out and to celebrate I’m playing through a bunch of W&A games on Loot The Room. This one came highly recommended and I really enjoyed it. You can check out the playthrough here - it’s text only, but I hope you like it!

As part of my month-long celebration of the 5th anniversary of Wretched & Alone, I’ve just posted a full playthrough of The Sealed Library over on Loot The Room. You can read it here.

You can read my playthrough of The Sealed Library here.

I always loved seeing people’s tweeted games! I think the forced brevity of the format really adds something to it all.

April marks the 5th anniversary of The Wretched. To celebrate that, and in anticipation of my new Wretched & Alone game that’s launching later this month, I’m turning my blog into a celebration of all things W&A for the next few weeks.

I’ll be posting play-throughs of a bunch of Wretched & Alone games, talking about what I liked about them, and exploring some of the ways I’m updating the system in this new evolution of Wretched & Alone. I’ll obviously be playing many of my favourite games, but I’m also going to try and hit some games that are new to me in the process.

The first post is live now and is, of course, The Wretched. I’ll be posting links to each post in the discussion forums here when they go live, and if you’ve got any play-throughs of your own you’d like to share I encourage you to do that!

The first episode of the CALPINI actual play is now live on YouTube

No, but it’s literally on sale for half price right now.

Yes, the epub will be added to the downloads here once it’s ready! The PDF will have proper linking as soon as I can make that happen, too.

Will do!

You can email me at chris@loottheroom.uk

That’s good to know!

It won’t be a zip file, it will be a single PDF/epub containing everything in a usable sequence. I expect it will be later this week.

Yep, I always fully expect that the vast majority of sales will come in the first day or two! The FOMO of the rising price is a useful marketing tactic but I think I may have to set the initial price slightly higher next year. We’ll see what happens.

Thanks!

Absolutely in love with this game. It’s completely stolen my afternoon from me.

You’re the third person I know who’s started Anna Karenina in the past week. There must be something in the air! Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the few books that makes me feel actively stupid. I’ve tried to read it multiple times and I’ve never had the faintest idea what’s going on or why anything is significant.

How Are The Mighty Fallen sounds great and is definitely going on my reading list for next year.

I think I’ve only known you do this end of year zine since last year but it already feels like something that I always look forward to. Last year’s also inspired me to start keeping a physical reading journal and to start book blogging, too, so thanks for that. I’ve had one of my most fulfilling years of reading in a very long time this year and I think that’s in large part because of this zine.

Glad you found it! There are details about how to get it in the Day 7 devlog as well but I’m realising now that people who buy in later probably won’t see that, so I’ll add some clarification to the main page when it’s not 1am. Thanks for pointing this out.

I have no plans to release community copies of this game.

Oh I see the confusion, and it’s probably caused by the way the column has been squashed. Those rows are for results between 9-13 and results between 14-16. They don’t have individual rows for each number; those ranges use the same encounter as a way to modify the encounter frequencies. It’s the same for 17-18; there’s not a blank row after 18, you use the same encounter as if you’d rolled 17.

Hey Tomas,

Just had a quick look at it and it seems to be fine to me. Which rows are missing in your copy? It should look like this:

The numbering has been squashed on the left column (you can see that 1d20 has been cut off and reads 1d2) but all the rows are there.

I’m so excited to see where this goes, thanks for sharing it!

By request, I’ve uploaded a printer friendly version of the map. This was something I completely overlooked so thanks for asking for it! If anybody spots anything else that they think should be here but isn’t please let me know and I’ll see what I can do about it.

Absolutely! I’ll sort that out this week.

Thanks for getting in early!

Day 1

Welcome to December, and this year’s advent calendar adventure!

I ran my first advent calendar adventure back in 2021, after having a stray thought that it might be fun to release an adventure in pieces every day throughout December. It was so much fun to work on, and the reception was so positive, that I decided to do it again the next year. It’s now become a bit of a tradition for me (if you can call it a tradition when you’re only in the fourth year of doing something) and I look forward to it all year long.

If you’ve been here before, hello! I really do appreciate you coming back for more, and for trusting me enough to buy something incomplete on day 1, sight unseen. I hope you enjoy the journey we’re about to go on.

If this is your first time doing this with me, it’s a pleasure to have you on board. After three years of doing this I’ve (hopefully) figured out how to run it smoothly, and I also have a pretty good idea what sort of things people ask as we get rolling on the month. I’ve compiled something of an FAQ for this thing below, so keep reading and I’ll explain how this is going to work and what to expect over the next three-and-a-bit weeks.

Thanks again for picking this up on day 1. I hope you enjoy The Witch of Drithwyn Weald.

-Chris

FAQ

What is this?

The Witch of Drithwyn Weald is a hex crawl for the fantasy adventure game of your choice. It’s written with A Dungeon Game in mind, but converting from ADG to other systems is trivially easy. The adventure text will have very little emphasis on mechanisms and statistics and much more focus on cool stuff to put into your game.

Can you explain the release structure a little more?

I’m releasing this in pieces, one a day every day up until Christmas. Every morning I’ll post an update with a new piece of the adventure for you to read. At a minimum, you’ll receive the text for one hex every day. Because of the nature of hex keys and the way I write, some are longer than others. Where the hex keys are smaller you’re also likely to receive extra stuff with them - whether that’s tables of adventure hooks and rumours, encounter tables, pieces of flash fiction, or music to listen to while you read (or play, or whatever). Every day will be a new treat for you.

What’s the deal with the pricing?

The price structure is something I did in the first year running this advent calendar and it’s become a feature of the project. The price starts low and rises as more content is added. Whenever you buy in, you always get all of the content and won’t ever have to pay more than the price on the day you purchased the adventure. When you purchase it you get immediate access to all extant sections, and you’ll start receiving the daily updates.

How are updates added/distributed?

I upload new files every morning, which will appear in the downloads section of the product page. I also release a devlog every day, which will land in your inbox along with a download link for the new files.

Won’t I end up with a lot of files?

Yes, you will. And that can be a little unmanageable. It’s fun to read the individual pieces every day but it doesn’t make for a very usable book at the end of things. When we’re all done - probably towards the end of December, when I’ve had a little break and had a chance to look over the book again - I’ll release a consolidated version that contains everything in one file.

What file formats do you release these in?

PDF and epub.

Will there be cool art?

Very unlikely. The focus here is on the words. I’m a writer, not an illustrator, and this is produced with a budget of exactly £0. Last year I tried my hand at illustrating the book and it turned out okay. At the time of writing this FAQ I’ve written all of The Witch of Drithwyn Weald but haven’t been able to produce any art. If I get the chance to make some during the course of the month and I think it’s good then I’ll release it, but currently there are no plans for artwork.

Will there be a print version?

I always had plans to print Reivdene and never managed to make it happen. Now that there are going to be four of these things I may look at anthologising them together, but I have no firm timeline for when that will happen. If and when it does, I’ll make sure that everyone who bought the digital versions receives some sort of discount on the physical book as a thank you for supporting them early on.

We probably all know by now that I really enjoy making teaser trailers for projects, so of course I’ve made one for this as well! Check it out below, and if you’re on Bluesky and feel like helping me spread the word I’ve posted it hereand would appreciate a signal boost!

I realise I’m a year late replying to this and I’m sorry about that! Unfortunately I suffered a massive HDD failure at the start of this year and lost everything so I wasn’t able to collate these into one file. This year’s calendar will definitely get that treatment when it’s done, though.

I’m really happy to hear that! Thanks for coming back for more, I appreciate it a lot.

They have been in the past but unfortunately I’m not in a financial position to be able to provide community copies at this moment.

Really glad you’re enjoying it! I can definitely sort out an epub version of this. I’ll try and get it up by the end of the week.

Unfortunately I had a massive HDD failure last year and lost a ton of work, including BLACKOUT. I no longer have access to the files for that adventure.

I’ve begun writing an Appendix N for this game. The first entry is here.