Sticky Doodler ▶️ Unpub

Sometimes, play with psychopaths?

As a teacher, coach, good conversationalist... it's a true art form isn't it?

I find my mere presence at the table changes everything. The most subtle impact is on vibe because people mirror emotions and it's hard not to be enthusiastic about your game, especially after you probably pitched it to get playtesters to sit down at the table at all.

Isn't it the best game? It got our family through pandemic. I love that my kids can farm together and have that shared project. I think both of them gave up on dating when they discovered married life wasn't very exciting

I get where they're coming from, but there's a way to share their experience and warn of shady business practices without denigrating the product or your tastes.

Tip for self-publishers: don't screw over your FLGS. I hear this a lot from the stores we work with in the DMV: don't offer them one MSRP, then sell online for less. We saw why at a con, where customers price-checked against Amazon. FLGSs don't want to be lead gen for etailers

Personally, honesty is something I want from a FLGS. If I want someone to kiss my ass I can go to a genAI. Hurting your profits by questioning customer choices is literally anti-algorithm, or shall we say... human?

(That said, it's still not nice to yuck someone's yum, so I get what OP's saying)

Love love love how this engine can depict different ecosystems 💚

I tried making a game about Tangier Island, in Chesapeake Bay, which is sinking at a very rapid rate. I realized after several playtests that the ideal version of this game would involve a big box, kinetic sand, mini houses, water, and getting kicked out of the convention center

YouTube video by ConcernedApe Stardew Valley 10-year Anniversary Video (Retrospective & New Spouse Reveal)

Timeline palate cleanser 👅🧼🫧

This 10 year anniversary lookback on Stardew Valley brings back some beautiful memories for me, and also offers a few useful tips for game design / development. It's one of the games that inspired me to try design myself:

youtu.be/geiTg6Z7w3A

I'm informed that this is #pombon, the fire puppy 🐶 Pomeranian

These raccoons are coming for you, Unpub!
🦝🗑️🔥

Powergamers take on drama and kick its ass

Yayyy 🧦🧦🧦!!!
Those puppets look rad 😍

So are you telling me your table RESOLVED all the problems the puppeteers came in with?!?

This Pokémon day you've gotta follow @laomao.bsky.social for the best Pokédex of inkwash paintings. JUST LOOK AT THIS 😍

D&D is the anime-sized warhammer to our dollhouse tinker toys

Hey, sorry to sound like a tool (as we used to say), but: what hammers are hot right now?

"Fun" is a word locked onto games in a way that has no parallel in other media. A great book, play, or film can be engrossing, insightful, profound, etc., but none of those words are essential to describing the medium. Is the word "fun" definitionally inseparable from games?

Three games in heavy rotation with me right now all were tested at Unpub:
Hot Streak
Message from the Stars
Vanity Plates

Yes, I'm biased, but I also think they're great games. (And this reminds me I need to pick up Sanibel)

Damn I thought you were defining a TTRPG

Really cool and love the art!

Premise reminds me of the indie game "AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity" (2009)

Unpub Festival 2026 — Unpub: The Unpublished Games Network Unpub Festival 2026 will be held March 12-15, 2026 at the BWI Airport Marriott in Linthicum, MD. Unpub Festival is four days of tabletop game playtesting and Unpub’s flagship event. The first day a...

So join us next weekend in Baltimore to play -- and shape! -- games you'll find on shelves and crowdfunds in the future!

Unpub deets (it's 🆓!): www.unpub.org/upcoming-eve...

Elizabeth's designer diary: boardgamegeek.com/thread/36691...

Screenshot with highlight: "Within a week, I had made a new tile-based version, just in time to take it to Unpub." Link to article later in posts

When @unpub.org says you can "Play the games of tomorrow, today," they mean that quite literally. Check out this excerpt from @elizhargrave.bsky.social's design diary for #Sanibel:

Unpub Festival 2026 Game Gallery Access all the information you need while at an Unpub event.

I really love it if you gave it a try and gave me your feedback. I'll be running playtests of BeTween at Unpub in just two weeks:

📅 Sat, Mar 14
🕝 2:30-6:30
📍 BWI Airport Marriott

If you've ever been a child, I want your perspective!

5/⏹️

unpub.preview.softr.app/festival-202...

Composition paper with handwritten words: "Feedback Page. This is a game in progress. Your feedback matters. Likes, dislikes, what you would have done differently. What you want more of."

BeTween started with a fictional story, but after a year of iteration I realized its true subject matter had slipped through my fingers. Li'l Doodler was well into middle school, her tween years behind her. So I shelved the fiction and started grabbing memories before they faded.

4/▶️

Li'l Doodler working on art for BeTween

The image, as edited by Li'l Doodler, depicting sculpture of a scaly hand emerging from water (by a younger Li'l Doodler)

The idea of BeTween came to me while playing one of those games featuring some fantasy kingdom. I thought of how books and film can depict ordinary life in moving ways and wondered why we don't do that in games. So I chose the most mundane yet universal subject I could think of: childhood.

3/▶️

watercolor painted over a blurred photo, depicting two children, one apparently curled up on the ground, and the other sitting

your own memories and imagination.

Every player draws cards from a deck full of photos from Li'l Doodler's life, then plays one to inspire a story in response to scene prompts. The photos are real, the scenes are real, but the stories fiction -- and yet, they seem to draw out real emotion.

2/▶️

zine with the words "Summer Plans" written in pencil

I call BeTween a "biography game" because I want it to convey something of my daughter's spirit -- specifically, that summer before middle school when she refused to grow up.

But it's a game, not a documentary: I want you to experience the last summer of childhood in your own way, drawing on
1/▶️

One more for y'all

So many lovely, lovely games there from amazing and beautiful creators. That row of Miru is gorgeous.

Hundreds of hours of exquisite play, I am jealous of your customers