Absurdist Productions ➡️ 🎆 PAX UNPLUGGED 🎇

The official PAX app. For some reason they haven't posted it anywhere else yet.

Now I need to hunt down and watch this fever dream.

Portion of the Expo Hall map for PAX Unplugged 2025 depicting the lower corner of the expo hall with booth 4305 circled. Depicting the location of the Absurdist Productions booth at the convention.

In one week, we Absurdists will start our annual road trip to Philly for PAX Unplugged. If you are attending the Con you will be able to find us in Booth 4305, sort of tucked away in the lower corner of the Convention hall. #paxunplugged

SkasdiCon Welcome to SkasdiCon, a showcase of Indigenous influence on pop culture.While there’s no word quite like “Skasdi” in English, it conveys pride, impressiveness, awesomeness, fierceness and feistiness.

We are attending a small, local Indigenous convention called SkasdiCon this weekend. And then in just a few weeks, we will be at PAXU. Gonna be a very busy and fun November.

skasdicon.com

Yeah, tracking the quantitative data of scores and actions taken is important but that only tells you if mechanics work. The qualitative data of player experience is what tells you if the game is fun and engaging.

All feedback is worth listening to, but not all feedback is actionable. However, while a player's suggestion on how to fix a problem might not work, they are likely correct that an issue exists. It's up to the designer to parse out what's causing the issue the players are experiencing.

Happy Halloween to all who celebrate, and a happy birthday week to our own @willmthompson.bsky.social. Watch out for ghouls, ghosts, and the occasional flying egg.

Two players playing Mirror Agents from Absurdist Productions.

Getting our playtest on with Mirror Agents at LexiCon in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Love the sort of wood cut art style on there. Also been getting more into 18-card games lately, so curious how this one plays. Will they have it at PAXU this year? Or is it officially only release on Black Friday?

We are now following you.

Yes, please do.

A render of the game Mirror Agents setup. Two-player screens hide the player boards, and a main board sits in the middle with Intel tokens on spots, Guard Meeples, and Mission Cards.

We will be at PAX Unplugged in a few weeks, and we are looking for any reviewers who plan to be at the Con and would like to take a look at Mirror Agents. If you are a reviewer and interested, please contact us, and we can set up some demo time.

Illustration of The Courier for the game Mirror Agents. Image shows a person on a motorcycle with a box strapped to the back bumper.

Revealing The Courier art for Mirror Agents today. This asset helps you move Intel around the board. Love the sense of movement here as they look over their shoulder and their jacket blows in the wind. We also love the nondescript box strapped to the back of the bike.

When John Carter came out, I was excited to watch it because I loved the books as a kid. Afterwards, several people I knew complained that the story stole so many ideas from other movies. (Though the movie had plenty of its own issues).

It's also interesting to see people interact with old fiction, find it cliché, and not realize that those stories are where the tropes originated. What was once fresh can feel stale to those who have already been overexposed to things they inspired.

Those who read the classics long ago forget how dense they really are. And the reality is, most modern readers aren't used to that type of prose anymore. Introducing them to the genre with books that are more accessible makes a ton of sense.

Winter Rabbit – Absurdist Productions Winter Rabbit is a semi-cooperative, hidden worker placement game set in the world of Cherokee animal stories. Winter Rabbit is available for pre-order now.

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day! We want to acknowledge all those who work to keep Indigenous cultures alive and growing.

In honor of this day, Winter Rabbit is on sale today only. This truly Indigenous board game incorporates authentic art, design, stories, and cultural concepts. #indigenousart

A photo of 10 meeples, 5 each in orange and grey. The shapes are as follows. A mini meeple with a fedora. A, large meeple with a peak cap. B, large meeple with a boxy helmet with a center ridge. C, large meepl with a flat cap. D, large meepl with a round helment.

Forgotten Labyrinth, one of our local game stores, does 3d printing. And they were kind enough to print us a bunch of test meeples for Mirror Agent Prototypes as we are working deciding on the final design for the Guard Tokens. Which one is your favorite (mini agent meeple for scale).

Illustration of The Decoy from Mirror Agents. The image depicts a woman in a white evening gown, holding a cigarette in a long cigarette holder. She is sitting on a bar stool talking to two men in suits who are shown from the back.

Showing off a new piece of Mirror Agents art. This time, we have The Decoy. We have a strong Marlene Dietrich vibe going.

That looks delicious.

Also a shout-out to Sarah Shipp of shippboardgames.blogspot.com
Whose articles and book are a great resource.

Thematic Considerations in Game Design David discusses a recent game design workshop he facilitated and thematic design for tabletop games in general.

David conducted a workshop on Thematic Game Design at a local board game. We decided he should type up his notes into a blog post to share as well.

www.absurdistproductions.com/thematic-con...

Illustration of The Saboteur for Mirror Agents. The image depicts a person wearing a trench coat and a fedora walking away from and silhouetted by the light of a fiery explosion.

A new illustration for Mirror Agents. I give you The Saboteur. Really love the way the lighting was done on this one, and if you can see a little grin on their face.

For anyone looking to pick up the books, they are available on our website www.absurdistproductions.com

A photo of the solo RPG books, "Transformation" and "Seven Murders Til Midnight" from Absurdist Productions, being held up in front of a shelf of games.

Thanks to #solosept, we have sold enough of our books this month that we've had to place a new print order. Thank you to everyone who has purchased one of them. We hope you enjoy them. We love to read the stories players come up with.

Photo of a full art Prototype of Mirror Agents. Showing a main board displaying a map of connected locations players move their guard tokens to. On either side are screens that hide player boards where each player secretly moves their Agent meeple along the same map. Face down decks of Asset cards are beside each player board, and piles of Intel tokens are beside the main board.

Did some testing with our first full art prototype of Mirror Agents this weekend. Graphic design needs some fine tuning, but it's looking and playing great.

We are currently in talks with several human artists for upcoming projects. We've made a statement about AI before, but want to reaffirm that we are dedicated to not using AI in any capacity. We believe in supporting artists because each of them brings something unique of themselves to our projects.

Both of us here at Absurdist have backgrounds in educational games, so love seeing more things like this getting talked about. Because of their ability to engage and motivate, well designed games can be amazing teaching tools.

It's definitely a vestige of the early days of the format that just sort of lingers on. Most games have come up with plenty of alternatives for Dungeon Master. But Campaign somehow continues. I've seen Season for games that are more episodic, and White Wolf uses Chronicle.

Which really only defines a very specific sort of adventure. Which even most D&D games don't really fit these days.