Reviews

Reviews of books, games, software, and other things

Review - Signal to Noise RPG

April 14, 2024

A card-based epistolary game about fading communication and saying goodbye.
(25 minutes read)

Review - The Price of Coal RPG

January 25, 2024

A diceless, card-based story game about labour rights and the Battle of Blair Mountain.
(10 minutes read)

Review - Fedora Noir RPG

December 29, 2023

A diceless, card-based story game about a detective and his hat. Perfect noir feel.
(14 minutes read)

Metatopia 2023

November 13, 2023

Metatopia has run again as an in person event for the first time since the start of covid. This was smaller than before, fully masked and vaccinated, and absolutely excellent!
(24 minutes read)

Review - Notability & Goodnotes

January 4, 2023

Digital notepads are some of my favourite apps for the ‘noodling around’ stage of game design
(7 minutes read)

Review - The Between RPG

December 22, 2021

A deeply atmospheric game of people with dark secrets hunting monsters in Victorian London.
(6 minutes read)

Review - iA Writer

October 23, 2021

The choice of software for writing is as individual a choice as anyone is likely to make. I’ve shifted over time from one to another, and at the moment my preferred choice is iA Writer.
(6 minutes read)

Review - Jump the Shark RPG

September 14, 2021

Do you remember Happy Days, with Fonzie, Richie Cunningham and all their pals in a nostalgic situation comedy back in the 1970’s? It was fun, exciting and spawned a whole generation of people who knew how to say “Heyyyyy” while showing two thumbs up. But one day it jumped the shark.
(6 minutes read)

Review - One Page Howitt

August 9, 2021

During the last year of COVID I’ve had the great delight of enjoying some regular Sunday night games with friends from America. We’ve played a wide range of one-shot games and playtests. Today I’d like to focus on the one-shot games which we have played which were written by Grant Howitt - well known for Honey Heist, but actually the purveyor of a very wide range of fine one-page games. These are presented in the order in which I played them.
(6 minutes read)

Review - Affinity Publisher

April 29, 2020

Move over indesign, there is a new kid on the block and Affinity Publisher is better for indie game designers than you!
(5 minutes read)

Review: The Kraken Wakes

April 12, 2020

John Wyndham was a master of writing dystopia science fiction from the point of view of ordinary people. I think this is one of his finest, with elements which are directly applicable to our international response to climate change.
(4 minutes read)

Review: Love Letters of the Great War

February 1, 2020

In these days of instant messaging, WhatsApp and texts, the pleasure of writing and receiving letters is perhaps in danger of being forgotten.
(4 minutes read)