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Take your theater kid energy to the next level with a game where you play puppeteers playing puppets and outing their feelings as subtly or overtly as you wanna roll. Think of the mess you can make crafting your own hand puppet out of socks, paper bags, and trash... then think of that mess as a metaphor for creating your weird and flawed puppeteers. The whole setup is designed to smash conflicting personalities and petty agendas together into a hot mess!

I played this with my family that includes prudish adults and teenagers, so if that describes your group, carefully follow the instructions for adapting the game for kids. A few other tips for running this with less-experienced role-players:

• Use the optional rules for a showrunner, and give that role to your most experienced player
• Consider cutting the runtime down -- it's currently timed like Sesame Street, but for a more Bluey experience, try three 8-minute segments
• Consider drafting a very loose script that, like all dungeon maps, you'll abandon on contact, but at least it gives you a net

Easily one of the most engaging and innovative games of 2025 -- very worth playing. Here's my rogue's gallery of puppets.

Ding ding ding 🏆

Nah, I'm only HR adjacent, and the persona I imagined was probably in a high pressure but politically sheltered role. If I kept playing I'd keep going with the "why" question, because I think they're using naivete as the excuse for the rant.

Ranting is a brilliant topic though, because it comes from deep inside and, for me at least, takes multiples goes before I figure out the "why." Great game!

Well, that was fun! You can guess what I rolled:

"I want to wrap up with just one more point, and it comes from the heart. We say that we value each and every one of our employees, but that simply cannot be true. I mean, here I am, getting an award, out of the hundreds of executives who eligible, and that out of how many tens of thousands of employees? Look, each one of us is required to fire 10% of our team every year, and don't the surviving 90% of us know that it's for the best? If you find that shocking it's only because we say one thing and do another. But there's nothing wrong with the truth. The truth sets us free. Ten percent of us, to be exact (haha). So I say it's time we spoke the truth. There's nothing to be afraid of! Except my time limit -- sorry -- let me hand this back to you, Ruth..."

Well, that went viral pretty quickly didn't it? The sad thing is that it wasn't even unfairly edited, someone in the front table just posted the whole thing, someone else snipped out the ad-hoc rant, and next thing you know every industry rag, paid newsletter editor, and conflict entrepreneur had used it to advance their own story about the firm. In the hands of a more skilled crisis PR firm we could've made hay out of it. Come to think of it, they kind of did -- the way our stock price jumped just made losing my unvested shares a little more painful. I wish I could say there's some Jerry Maguire ending, that I'd gotten a job with one of those get-tough HR consultancies, but even the politicos who held me up as some kind of prophet never returned my calls. I can't even blame the wine, because I never drank any. Why did I say it? I guess I've got a lot of time on my hands now to figure that out.

There are journaling games that lean into the game, with familiar mechanics borrowed from role-playing games, and there are ones that lean into journaling, providing a light scaffold for introspection. For me, the most rarefied journaling games do both. I appreciate a game that lets me sneak up on the difficult issues that prevent me from head-on journaling. The River Spirit hits that bullseye for me.

As a fan of drawing games, I’m predisposed to like the River Spirit. It resembles The Quiet Year in using prompts from a deck of cards to draw a map of the world progressively. And like other games in the genre, unexpected patterns emerge that propel your story forward and events transpire to break expectations.

While you do build a world in the River Spirit, the map that emerges is more a projection of your character than a geography. (The rules don’t tell you who “you” are, but I took Paul Czege’s advice and occupied an “approximate self” – me, in an alternate universe.) Each location ties to something intimate about you: “where you had your last kiss,” for example. Likewise, you populate the place with people by dint of their relationship to you, not to the locale.

The resulting map, then, is a biography. So when the final chapter comes and the River washes most of it away, I felt it profoundly. Gone from my memory was my lover, but not the place where we last kissed. Gone was the wished-for heroine, but not her counterpart. The game describes these as “sacrifices” to the River Spirit. I experienced these moments as baptism – permission to let the past flow out of my life. I emerged from the game renewed.

And that’s where the game leaves you at the end, with the words, “Your journey is just beginning.” As a man who turned 50 this year, I choose to believe these words. I believe them because the River Spirit made me earn them.

I love games that take a sharp editorial perspective on the world, and The Show Must Go Wrong has that in spades (plus diamonds, hearts, and clubs). Whether you intend to play it during downtime backstage or just read it, this game gives unvarnished insight into the real workings of life behind stage -- in fact, I would call it a "must-read" for anyone contemplating a career in theater.

Mixing don't-make-the-Jenga-tower-fall mechanic of Dread with playing-card prompts as in The Quiet Year, this game provides a simple framework for reliving the trauma drama of running tech for an underfunded theater company. Theater kids should instantly recognize the realistic, modern-day setting (the designer is a literal pro!), but for the rest of us, the "Definitions" section is both informative and vividly real.

Within the 54 card prompts are a mix of every Murphy's Law scenario for a small theater, from cast drama ("Two actors have a fight and demand separate dressing rooms") to honest mistakes ("You triple-checked everything. It seemed flawless. But when you tried to fit the scenic piece into place, it didn’t fit") to raw hubris ("The jukebox wasn't supposed to make noise or light up originally, but sure let’s add it during tech"). Against all of this, your stress marker keeps ticking up until you can't take it any more and quit, leaving the rest of the team to deal with your less-competent understudy.

Roleplaying games have a reputation for attracting "theater kids," but there's precious few games about running a theater -- The Show Must Go Wrong finally fills that void!

Thank you so much for trying this game out, Elliot! Pencil, pen, marker, crayon -- all are valid!

Anyway, as Flight of the Conchords once discussed:
Jermaine: Brett's wife is unable to have kids cuz ... she's imaginary.
Brett: Yeah and the kids take after her in that sense.

Danke! Thank you for sharing these lovely drawings - I hope you also enjoyed the story you created along the way.

Absolutely worth it -- so easy to use, totally professional results. If you're a zine creator, buy this with no regrets; it will save you hours of time!

Appreciate the support as always, Logan!

Thanks! I hope it adds a little focus or peace or serenity to someone's day

Thank you, I hope you enjoy some peace and mindfulness!

Wow! Thank you. I'm blushing. This was quite difficult, to be honest with you. I really appreciate your kind words.

Thank you! I hope it helps someone in need of a way to grieve safely.

There are some really fun, maybe even cracked, combos here. Very fun!

There are some really fun, maybe even cracked, combos here. Very fun!

I like the pass-around-the-campfire mechanic that matches the setting perfectly. I wish there were a few more than d4 prompts, but I'm greedy that way!

I really like the mundane normalcy of this game fragment, where the most extreme thing you can do is "savor" the coming together of two "marvels."

I really like the mundane normalcy of this game fragment, where the most extreme thing you can do is "savor" the coming together of two "marvels."

Love the concept and vibes. The specifics  may not work in every setting, but it's MOSAIC-Strict nonetheless.

I love that this is a legit game that you can play with the card itself. Very clever and sounds like real, dexterity-game fun!

Make some zines, man, make some zines 🚬

Brilliant game, such a smart way to rethink Minesweeper. Minor UX issues on mobile, and right-clicking is a pain as noted in other comments -- but THIS. IS. SO. SMART!

Brilliant! I've never been able to do one of these things successfully; maybe a zine format will finally work for me 🤞

Yeah I dunno, the tolls on the Turnpike really add up.

Dude, I started playing this game and now I think I'm engaged to the Jersey Devil, he's kind of hot but he lives up north and I'm forever Camden so I don't know what to do pls help

To whom it may concern,

I had thought this game was a shitpost
A category that's easy to fit most
stories with no heart
or games with bad art
But actually, this game's really sweet and worth playing.

No cap,
Your Sticky Doodler

The player guide doubles as a character story generator for your next favorite YA novella

Why thank you.

Please don't get hurt by a futboler

Thanks! Yeah, I made it a standard bookmark size. You know, so you can send it to your local, um, bookmark printer?

Love that new avatar!

Great concept, perfectly executed, the Win XP interface is chef's kiss perfect.

"As a reminder" slays me

What a lovely way to get distance from your own perspective and mindset. This game offers space to embody one of the voices you probably have rolling around in your head, maybe understand it better, maybe come to peace with it, maybe put some distance between it and you. Maybe it's a way to learn to be kinder to yourself, too. Thanks, Beth and Angel, for this little gift of a game!

As far as I'm concerned, this is the definitive "Human Made" icon. Evocative and easily recognizable. Thank you HINOKODO!

Thank you for this contemplative lyric game. I really like generating a prompt by counting something in the environment - what a great way to embody your play.

You did it. You captured the essence of Dadding.

Hits all the key shitpost criteria, this is a level 40 Immortal game

Wow! Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it! We're now shopping the idea around with publishers, wish us luck 🤞

This is a beautifully crafted game that portrays an overlooked aspect of American history. Our game group purchased a physical copy and appreciated an evening exploring difficult social relationships within an increasingly oppressive environment. Our table are not expert role players or improv actors, so we were clumsy and got lost several times as to how to advance or end scenes, but we all agreed it was a worthwhile experience regardless of our skill.

Absolutely a must-have for any enjoyer of indie TTRPGs and scholars of labor movements (our group includes a labor economist) or American history.

Wanderhome brims with deep joy, the kind that can hold wonder and awe and even grief. Every playbook is an invitation to experience a different kind of journey, some who seem to dance in light and others trudging out of darkness. In this world, violence and heroism are flip sides of the same coin, and neither are welcome or even allowed.

Playing Wanderhome requires a table who commit to being kind and sharing, which doesn't mean being gentle or boring. Without a GM, every player can and must add challenges to the world. Wielding that responsibility requires deep trust that your fellow players can catch what you throw. Despite its cozy aesthetics, the game requires you to put forth serious emotional effort.

I've played this with friends, and I've played it as a bedtime routine with my kids, and I've played it as I dreamed myself to sleep. It's not hyperbole to say that this game changed my life.

True works of art move you. The amazing feat of Here We Used to Fly is it somehow moves you with an intense feeling of nostalgia for a fictional experience you just made up. Like a funhouse mirror you'll find in its pages, this game holds up a reflection of your own feelings of childhood and growing up but, through the game mechanics, lets those feelings come back to you as if shared by a good friend.

This is a game to fall in love with.