Ben Rosenbloom's Boring Machine

In light of upcoming ZineQuest '24, I thought it would be fun to dig through some of my more zine-like treasures. So up today is Mouth Brood , from Amanda Lee Franck and Games Omnivorous. I splurged for the physical copy of this little module for reasons I don't quite remember, although it probably has to do with the Annihilation -esque vibe it gives off, and the delightful illustration of fungi on the cover. Technically outside of my goal of going through my crowdfunding pile, but it's too cool to pass up. Let's delve!

Time for a little more archival work! Today I'll be reading through Winter Harvest ! It's been awfully cold this past week, and I've been thinking about wintertime, and this is another game from some of my earlier kickstarter purchases. This is one I do  remember reading through - but I don't remember any content! The blurb puts me in mind of what I think of as a spate of cozy games, coinciding with and following Wanderhome's emergence onto the scene (even though I think Wanderhome doesn't neatly fit "cozy", or is doing something different with coziness). But that's a different game for a different time! Let's get feasting.

Perhaps you, like I, have backed a tabletop RPG or other product on any of the variety of crowdfunding websites. Or maybe you've bought one of the intimidatingly large bundles of games for a good cause. It's possible you've heard a cool game featured on an actual play podcast or stream or video series, and wanted to pick it up. And of course, you try to follow the trends and check out interesting new releases. Well, I don't know about you - but if you are  in such a position, having bought many more games than you've read (and read many more games than you've played), you might find yourself considering, like I have, what to do with such a vast treasure. Richard Kelly has provided me with one possible answer - save the world. Or at least, a library. Heroic Archivist is a game in which you accrue points by reading through your backlog of games, and potentially earn more points by rating and reviewing. These points can then be spent in a little dice battle again...

Several months ago, I watched Art, Agency, Alienation , a lengthy video essay with a lofty goal to tackle some persistent questions about games. Without ballooning into my own 3 hour long video, I thought to myself "you know, I like reading ttrpgs! I like writing about them! I think I have something interesting to say about game design!" Thus this blog. I got several drafts deep, exploring a handful of directions, but ultimately I'd seen a lot of the thoughts I'd had about Art, Agency, Alienation  enunciated very clearly and also much more succinctly than I'm capable of. The thing that I haven't seen yet is people talking about Root (: The RPG). This started as a review - "semi-motivated" by the comments Huntsman makes in their video essay, but mostly just because I'm genuinely interested in what makes a PbtA game tick.

Wow! A new blog, in the year 2024! It must appear at least as ridiculous to you as it seems to me. But with the ongoing collapse of social media, I thought it would be nice to have a place to "post", and I'm hoping to do some more longform posting, of a kind that seems out of place even on Cohost . If you've found this blog, you probably already know that I publish games at benkrosenbloom.itch.io , but if you've somehow stumbled across this, welcome! Most of my blogging I anticipate to be about tabletop games or adjacent to games - reviews, after-action reports, design thoughts, etc - but I've been reading books again, and I can imagine being sufficiently moved by a book to write something about it here.