Justin Is Still Here

Also #ttrpg don't sleep on this year's Solo But Not Alone!
90 #soloRPG titles for $10, all which which helps @takethis.org provide mental health supports in our communities.

itch.io/b/3481/solo-...

There's a HUGE variety here, from crunchy dungeon crawls to moody journaling games and more!

SLING4RS by W.H. Arthur A revolver-punk TTRPG played using D4s

Happy Lunar New Year! 🐴
There is still some time left to get SLING4RS at PWYW on itchio! 🤠
aryl-ether.itch.io/sling4rs

Red Dead Redemption 2, Westworld, And The Hunt For The Final Easter Egg Like Westworld's Man in Black, this community is working to uncover what they believe is the last unsolved mystery hidden in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Got a absolute killer long read on @thisweekinvideogames.com for the weekend:

@sambarsanti.bsky.social dives deep into the communities convinced there's "one last mystery" left to solve in Red Dead Redemption 2, speaks to one of the main sleuths, and ties it all back to Ed Harris in Westworld.

triple j Hottest 100 2025: Inside Out & Outside In Breaking down the Hottest 100 from the middle, too.

For those who keep up with my writing, big news! Alongside my friend @sarahrosina.bsky.social, I’ve started my own newsletter project, The Pendulum, for my writing. Personal essays, interviews, articles, gaming news, whatever I want. Our first piece is live now!
pendulum.beehiiv.com/p/triple-j-h...

On the one hand, this deal landing one week after @tolariancommunitycollege.com hosted a $600,000 fundraiser for Trans Lifeline highlights a cavernous gulf between executives and MTG's community.

On the other hand, a stated goal of Universes Beyond is flooding the TCG with endless new customers.

I am starting a studio! We are small and scrappy and have no money. Why am I doing this? Because the only ones who can protect art are the ones who value it. Disney using AI? Yuck. Netflix buying WB? Also yuck. In 10 years what is even going to be left.

I’ve been off-grid from press stuff for a bit but I am once again reading my press emails and looking for all sorts of stuff to cover. I’m looking at TTRPGs news to cover again, full indie this time.

Consider following this project, consider tossing me a line if you’ve got something interesting!

triple j Hottest 100 2025: Inside Out & Outside In Breaking down the Hottest 100 from the middle, too.

For those who keep up with my writing, big news! Alongside my friend @sarahrosina.bsky.social, I’ve started my own newsletter project, The Pendulum, for my writing. Personal essays, interviews, articles, gaming news, whatever I want. Our first piece is live now!
pendulum.beehiiv.com/p/triple-j-h...

I don’t look at the titles i just queue up Hyperfixed and listen at work.

Completely jumpscared by @agoldman.bsky.social hearing that song on my long-time writing playlist. I should start reading the titles first.

triple j Hottest 100 2025: Inside Out & Outside In Breaking down the Hottest 100 from the middle, too.

In the midst of everything going on, my friend @radioairhyper.bsky.social and I have been migrating our work off of Medium and onto a website for us together. Our first essay is a piece on the listening experience of the 2025 triple j Hottest 100.
Read it here: pendulum.beehiiv.com/p/triple-j-h...

Accomplishment and joy to you this year as well, my brother. Thank you.

I still have plans for 2026. I have goals and intentions and things I plan to do! I just hope people stick with me and look at them, you know? I love creating, but I miss the community of seeing other creations and others seeing mine.
Still, cool stuff on the way, thanks for being here.

And that's... it. I feel unaccomplished in 2025. I feel like all my creative pursuits-- writing, game designing, podcasting-- are faltering in my attempts to do them. I worry I'm just not good enough to make it doing these things any more. At this age, I should have some kind of career instead...

Christmas at the Automat. A story about being alone for the holidays, and getting through.

And then, right at the end of the year, I managed to get out this essay, about my first true writing mentor, and his legacy, his impact on me, how art makes us more real, and how AI cannot replace us. If you read nothing else from me, read this, please. justin-joyce.medium.com/christmas-at...

Remembering My Father’s Tears Sad old words about relationships you can’t get back.

I wrote a piece memorializing the relationship I had with my father, who I don't speak to nor think about very often anymore. It was a hard piece to write, but I'm proud of it. Mostly so these thoughts can leave me.
justin-joyce.medium.com/remembering-...

After that.... It's been a very quiet year, an exhausting year. I've been working on stuff that isn't out, and struggling alot to actually... work on the things I really care about.
I've been churning my brain over what I even did, and I think it's just these two personal essays.

Tariffs are coming for DriveThruRPG - and your RPG books And that book isn't even a mimic.

Then of course, there's my last article at Destructoid, covering the change in prices to Drive-Thru RPG and lightly touching on the possible impacts that Trump's tariffs were having then, but also on the functional monopoly Roll20 has in the publishing space.
www.destructoid.com/tariffs-are-...

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel: February 2025 banlist – what to know No one mourns the bug-type!

--break down the banlist, card by card, and what was so important about this. My next few banlist articles were rejected, but I loved doing this so much, I really need to find an excuse to write more about this game. This banlist article is outdated, but such fun.
www.destructoid.com/yu-gi-oh-mas...

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel: February 2025 banlist – what to know No one mourns the bug-type!

I am incredibly proud of this one, even though it's such a normal little rundown. Destructoid had NO ONE who wanted to cover my favorite card game, YuGiOh!, so I really tried to. There was a big ban list that hit Master Duel last February, and I loved getting to-- www.destructoid.com/yu-gi-oh-mas...

Tabletop charity bundle supporting mental health returns for fifth year. Never by yourself.

Similarly, I wrote about last year's Solo But Not Alone charity bundle, which is a bundle I always always always look forward to. Incredible games, wonderful cause.
This year's bundle is live and still put together by @catlinggun.bsky.social, so go check it!
www.destructoid.com/tabletop-cha...

Zine Quest 2025 is upon us – here’s what to look for Kickstarter season is here.

My favorite thing is getting to talk about TTRPGs besides the big names, always indie. So I was very happy to get to write this piece about last year's Zinequest and some of the projects I was really excited about!
www.destructoid.com/zine-quest-2...

In the first months of the year, I was still working freelance as a tabletop reporter for Destructoid, before being let go amid plural editorial shake-ups. Still glad I got to work there, here's a few of the pieces I put out during the back-half of my contract:

The greatest comic that you can’t read The 600-session Masks campaign that has its own tag on Archive of Our Own.

First, and probably most notable, I got the absolute joy and opportunity to write a piece for @rascal.news about the Young Heroes of Halcyon, a long-running west march-style Masks Campaign that still fills my weeks. Such a pleasture to work with the Rascal team! www.rascal.news/the-greatest...

I do this later and later every year because I'm exhausted and busy. BUT--
I like to make a little thread running through the stuff I did in the last year. 2025 was... a slower year. But I did still do some stuff I'm proud of, so here's the thread.

DASH OUT

Solo games as beautiful, solo games are fun, you can have so many of them for $10 and help Take This provide mental health supports!!

Paper Stars Paper Stars: Cover

I’d recommend @battidanni.bsky.social for exactly what you’re looking for. I know she’s done art for a few games like Magitech Space Western, and I’ve been working with her on the comic Paper Stars for a while. Great action art and range.
paperstars.webcomic.ws/comics/1/#co...

Okay. I need a boost here.

Looking for artists.

We're talking about some potential comic book style art and/or concept art for the #iHunt film. We're privately funding development, so budget isn't Hollywood.

I want queer and/or nonwhite artists. I want cool styles.

Links? Tags? Self-promo?

ICE agents are, simply put, fucking clowns. According to The Atlantic, they receive 47 days of training — in honor of Trump, the 47th president, naturally. Many of them, also, can barely read or write, apparently. The ones I spent the weekend following around didn’t even have proper uniforms, with some wearing sneakers. In Minnesota. In January. These dipshits are also wearing camo in the snow. They clearly do not have any training when it comes to their own weapons either. Multiple times over the last few days, I watched officers fire pepper spray balls at the feet of protestors barely a few inches away from them. These weapons are basically paintball guns full of concentrated pepper spray. So when they hit a target, they explode into the air. Which meant ICE agents regularly ended up poisoning themselves with their own weapons. I also watched two agents ask each other if a canister they were about to fire at the crowd was tear gas or a stun grenade. (It ended up being a stun grenade that then ignited the tear gas they had already shot at us, which started a fire in the street that a protestor had to help them put out.)

ICE agents are, simply put, fucking clowns. Some observations from four days on the ground in Minneapolis.
www.garbageday.email/p/we-re-all-...

We are SO close to making our first thousand!
Why not drop $10 on a big delicious bundle full of a huge variety of solo games, and help us raise money so @takethis.org can continue to provide mental health supports? WHY NOT?