Spring Villager

If you're in Australia or New Zealand, you can order all the Blades '68 crowdfund exclusives from the store below..!

So good.

“Minimise Exact Variable Tracking and Triggers” especially lands. That tension has stalled my solo TTRPG for nearly a year.

I love evocative subsystems. But every new tracker, trigger, or conditional adds weight. It’s a fine line between fun and accounting.

The cover of Blades in the Dark next to the cover of Blades '68

In celebration of the imminent Blades ‘68 campaign, I thought I’d talk a bit about its graphic design.

BUT FIRST let’s compare and contrast with the graphic design of Blades in the Dark, a landmark in the history of RPG layout.

Type nerdery ahoy 🧐

Whenever I hear devs or other creatives who do worldbuilding say they *have* to use ch*tGPT to help with their lore bibles because no human could possibly collate such a huge and complex world… I glare in historian

Tragic Magic, by Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick 7 track album

Incredible new album from Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore released today 🪉
If you like the Last Tea Shop playlist, you’ll love this
marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/album/tragic...

There was no answer.

Thank you 🙏
If you do run with students, I would love to hear how it goes

Yesterday I released a micro-RPG for the #48wordRPGjam: The Witch’s Circle.
A GM-less, conversational game for 2–6 players about shared memories, withheld truths, and an advancing threat. 🕯️

springvillager.itch.io/the-witchs-c...

The Witch's Circle by Spring Villager A folk game about knowing a Witch.

The Witch's Circle is a micro-RPG for 2-6 players, inspired by "For the Queen" and "My Life with Master", and created for the #48WordRPGJam

I tried to squeeze background, meaningful storytelling, and an endgame in under 48 words. Every word earned its place.

springvillager.itch.io/the-witchs-c...

That’s right, Blades ‘68 is coming very soon.

And while we’re here — this is the cover!

Last Tea Shop Expanded Edition by Spring Villager A solo game about running a tea shop on the border of the living and the dead.

A sincere thank you to everyone who has bought Last Tea Shop. Every purchase adds a community copy, and I've just refreshed the pool after the winter sale.

If you've been wanting to try the game but life's got in the way, plenty are available right now 🍵
springvillager.itch.io/last-tea-sho...

This is great!

Whelm! by Maggie French a storytelling micro-game

My first (hopefully not only!) entry for the 48-Word RPG Jam... Whelm! Very, very pleased with how it came out!

maggiefrench.itch.io/whelm

Download it for free on itch! (And go check out the other jam entries while you're at it!)

#gamejam #microrpg #ttrpg

The Eternal Garden by Spring Villager A micro-rpg about tending a garden of Universes.

I made a tiny solo journalling rpg for the #48WordRPGJam about tending the infinite garden at the end of Time. 🌱

A game takes about 10 minutes and sits somewhere between journal prompt and ritual.

springvillager.itch.io/the-eternal-...

Bobbin Threadbare at start of Loom

Water twister at sea

Elders gathered around the Loom, discussing a swan’s egg

Spirit crossing into another realm

Every time I think about Loom (1990) I wish someone would turn it into a ttrpg. Music as magic, weaving spells through melodies, a world built on loss and beauty. I’d play that in a heartbeat.

Soloists! Looking for a new home?! Join me in a NEW Discord community, The Soloist’s Guild ⚔️ ask questions, share your play-reports, let’s nerd out together!!! #solottrpgs discord.gg/xdmUEgzrz

Obsidian Templater daily journal prompts with moon phase Obsidian Templater daily journal prompts with moon phase - template_daily.js

Code here for anyone interested: gist.github.com/fogonwater/f...

Screenshot of Obsidian with custom code to calculate moon phase.

Screenshot of daily template applied to a new journal entry.

I just spent way too long setting up Obsidian templater to automatically calculate moon phases for journal entries... but it was super satisfying 🌙

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice in Chains.

Write Club

there's a local event where I live called "Write Club", which brings people together for "shared, sustained silence" so they can concentrate on writing. There might be some parallels.
www.writeclub.nz

I’ve been hanging out for “Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky” for years, based on a single illustration. Fingers crossed you get some time on it 🌅

StS is easily my most played game. It's got such a big possibility space and I still find the moment-to-moment choices interesting after all these years.
I played a little Darkest Dungeon. I enjoyed what I played, but it became too much of a grind and I drifted away.

Love the worlds that unfold:

Magic here was cultivated like a garden, grown to understand the universe. Now it's dying. The holy city has sold out to tourism. Rituals turned to commerce. Brittle light lost.

A theatre troupe performs the old stories in market squares. Crowds leave asking questions…

A Land Once Magic by Viditya Voleti, Elliot Davis A conversational post-fantasy worldbuilding game

I'm really taken with A Land Once Magic.

So much thought has gone into this. It is such a human work. Thank you @vidityavoleti.bsky.social

vidityavoleti.itch.io/a-land-once-...

The Zen of Python had a huge impact on how I write code. It's leaked into my thinking on games.

Which lines matter most to me has shifted over time. Lately it's these two:

If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.

Snails are slow. I too am slow.

I'm still working on Snail Herders, but it won't released during November. Thanks for your patience.

🐌 🐌 🐌

Yesterday my leg was healed enough to go on a short walk up Pororari River. Sheer limestone cliffs, tui song, giant nikau palms, ferns and lichen everywhere.

Last night it rained on the cabin and I dreamt of stone and moss

A tourist map of the city of Doskvol for Blades '68, featuring the 15 districts and key landmarks in each.

A zoomed-in section of the tourist map of Doskvol, for Blades '68.

Come visit Doskvol, the jewel of Akoros, in '68. Home of the original bluetime (first and best). Crime rates are better than before*

I really appreciated that review. Thank you 🙏