itch.io

I'm hosting the Cat Jam for Charity. The jam is open for all project types, existing and new. We're turning this into a bundle to raise funds for a local (to me) cat rescue.

https://itch.io/jam/charity-cat-jam

Something I'm very happy with on this jam is the "Badges" system. There are badge images on the page for different achievement-like goals that participants can add to their pages. They double as personal challenges for participants to shoot for and an easy DIY shorthand to let purchasers know what they're getting. Also they're very cute. For example:

Very cute!

Yeah, absolutely. Email me at admin@whimsymachinegames.com and I'll send you a code. Sorry for the delay.

For sure. Some retailers use "Bits and Mortar" for downloads, but I've honestly never understood how those work. Email me at admin (at) whimsymachinegames (dot) com and I'll send you a download code.

Absolutely! Trying out a new style or medium is definitely in the spirit of the jam.

Achievements are something I'm excited to bring into this jam and more jams moving forward. If you have any questions on existing Achievements or suggestions for new ones, post them here (or over in the TTRPG Collective discord server—we've got a thread going for this jam).  I'll also announce newly added Achievements here too, such as:

This was inspired by a question about using gen ai for coding help. The answer is no for a variety of reasons, but I want to provide alternatives to those little use cases folks have. In this case, while it would be (among other things) technically easier to just pop over to the chat machine to get a line of code, I would so much rather someone find out who teaches video game design at their local tech college and shoot them an email asking for some guidance. 

If your submission fits for both, feel free to submit to both! Otherwise, yeah, I'm super excited to see everything roll in.

Thanks so much for making this pack and making it available! It was the perfect fit for my solo ttrpg The Shadow of the Storyteller: https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/shadow-of-the-storyteller

Hi! Thank you so much for this comment, it really means a lot to me to get feedback like this. I would love to put a finished version of The Bleeding out into the world one day, but it is a challenging one for me to prioritize due to its scope. 

That said! If there's a certain area you'd like to see expanded on next, I'd be happy to hear it. That's very much the type of thing that drives my motivation. Thanks again!

Sure! Just added some more. If you get the chance to play, I'd love to see what you come up with and hear your feedback. As a game made for a jam, I know it's got plenty of room to grow.

I'm hosting a bundle for comics, art, writing, and ttrpgs to highlight the niche of itchio—that is, the non-video game content. I'd love to get submissions from five more folks to make it an even 50 so everyone gets an equal profit split. If you've got something you'd like to include, here's the form:

https://forms.gle/M1bvBq6R9B57gxf98

Oh wow, this is such a cool idea!

I'm seeing the Barbie movie tomorrow and I'm super excited. I have a few ideas in mind. I'm reflecting a lot on growing up with mostly only "boy toys" available to me, so I never really had Barbies. My sister did, but she had no interest in playing with them. They ended up casualties of ill-advised fireworks experiments. With a six month old son, I really hope to make his experience with play less aggressively gendered.

Or I might just make a guide for converting a doll house into a hex map for ttrpgs. We'll see!

I promise this isn't weird performance art! It looks like I accidentally set the file to be hidden when I added it before. This game has been renamed "We Love The Void" because "Existential Positivity" was always kind of a placeholder name.

A Monster Mage is actually a human who has learned magic from a great Monster Mentor. I can post the intro story to the setting, if that'd help! The players don't choose classes but can pick powers, trait bonuses, and/or companions from the seven main Monster Mentors. There's also an additional Monster Mentor and powers unlocked at the end of the scenario.

I personally feel that one GM to three player characters is a good ratio, but you could easily do more or less.

A winding tale of vengeance in the wild west! The Shadow Over Lostwood is system agnostic, adaptable for 5e or any other RPG with room for cowboys and crime. Each stop seamlessly connects to the next, though it'll take some invention from the GM if the players work out of order. Combat setups use suggested enemy types and counts; while no stat blocks means a little extra prep ahead of time, the encounter is not locked into any particular player level or difficulty. If you like your light in the darkness flavored as revenge in the desert, The Shadow Over Lostwood works as a one-shot or a chapter in a longer campaign.

Twelve Hundred Words is a collection of five 200-word RPGs, so each one will be a little different. Read altogether, you get the full autobio experience. For each individual game:

You Have Many Thoughts can be played solo or, I'd recommend, up to four players, either with a GM or GM-less. A session will be about an hour or so, depending on the type of roleplay/journaling you like. If you plan to play it for longer form games, you'll likely need to fill in some of the details left out due to its length.

Upon Thy Bardsong can be played with two to five or so players. I suppose you could sing to yourself, but the mechanics expect cooperative or competitive singing. I would, personally, keep a session under an hour because making up songs is hard.

Love, Foundational can be played with two to five and is probably more easily played solo than Upon Thy Bardsong, but not so much as You Have Many Thoughts. A session would be one to two hours; long term play would also need a little embellishment to support.

Deceiviest can be played two to five or so, though could be played solo with a randomizer instead of a GM. A session could be around an hour.

All A Game is about making games and can be played alone or with up to a group of people. Play could be brief if you're looking to go through the steps efficiently to make a game, or it could really just be a long conversation, especially if many people are involved.

Thanks! It's an analog game you play with some friends where you pretend you're aliens in charge of destroying the planet. It's free and short, so snag a copy and check it out!

Do you have the link? I'm not sure how to access it otherwise. Thanks!

Sweet! There's no rush on my end—just wanted to make sure I didn't miss the boat.

Did this bundle launch? I see that date range was supposed to be 5/23 to 6/6.

I'd be happy to have Cry for the Slaughter included.

I made and will submit a game using Sketchy Hedgehog's cover "Cry for the Slaughter." I ran out of steam on my idea using "We Were Stars," so I won't be submitting anything for that.

I really like these covers! I got sudden inspiration and made a game for Cry for the Slaughter. Just gotta clean it up and then I'll have it posted tomorrow.

edit: I'm so embarrassed, I got confused and thought Cry for the Slaughter was from your batch. I did mean it when I said I like this set though!

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/in-spacelove

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/statuesque

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/tumblr-feels-at-2am

Is the purpose of the jam to create a new subgenre for the game, like spaghettipunk in which everything is spaghetti? I wouldn't do spaghetti punk, but that was the first thing that came to mind. Are we allowed to use existing -punks, like solarpunk or the ones you've listed?

I started working on something for We Were Stars.

I have a few vague ideas for a handful of Yuri's and Sketchy Hedgehog's covers, but we'll see what time allows. I might just make a few covers and call it good. We'll see!

That's awesome! I actually ran a session of Dust Wardens by Nora Blake for Gauntlet Con in 2018 in an americana/midwest roadtrip setting with biker gang paranormal investigators/witches I called "The Lighthouse Keepers." It's excellent imagery.

Thanks for calling that out! I wanted to make it a free download so that players could easily snag it.

Thanks for the heads up! I added the character sheet as a separate file, so that it can be easily downloaded. It should be form-fillable.

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/statuesque

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/twelve-hundred-words

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/fight-item-run

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/clowderful

Oops, I guess I made a mistake in a previous update. Thanks for catching that!

As a crafting nerd, I'm also very excited about BLOOD WEAPONS. Oh, y'know what, I included a thing about Monstrosity in Beast Form and how they interact in the conflict example, but forgot to put something explicit in the Monstrosity section itself. Good catch!

Signature powers are a mechanic I am both very excited about and something I know still needs a lot of work. Later versions of The Bleeding will definitely have more comprehensive sections for each. In the meantime, I'm super interested in knowing which ones stick out to folks so far. Longer descriptions in the text, but here's a summary for reference.

• Bloodsmithy - crafting out of blood
• Calamity - natural and supernatural disasters
• Constellation - power of the stars and the night
• Cuisine - magical cooking, modern potionmaking
• Dreamwalking - real Nightmare on Elm Street business
• Forensics - vampiric superscience
• Illusion - as advertised
• Monstrosity - summoning and turning into monsters
• Necromancy - commune with and/or control the dead
• Passion - magically emotional empath
• Pastoralism - live off the land, be a shepherd of the flock
• Plague - pestilence and disease at your command
• Technology - science fiction superpowers
• Tessellation - casually dismiss the laws of geometry and physics

What are you most interested in trying out first? Which one are you most looking forward to seeing development on?

I'd love to hear about it if you do! It'd be fun to see those cat maps.

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/fight-item-run

Clowderful is a cute little community-building, map-drawing game in which you play as cats getting humans to warm up to you—or forcing them to move away.

https://whimsy-machine.itch.io/clowderful

My wife and I recently moved and became very involved in the well-being of our neighborhood cats—of which there are many. I offered ttrpg commissions for donations and one of them was to "write something about cats," so I made this game. It's free, and any money it does make goes right back into caring for kitties. Like this momma and her newborns that we're fostering for the next couple months.