GameFace Con
Visit me this Saturday at Baltimore’s annual tabletop game convention:
GameFace Con
📅 Sat May 23 - Sun May 24 (I’m only there Sat)
🕛 12-8pm
🍻 Peabody Heights Brewery
Origins Game Fair
In March The Bonsai Diary was named a Finalist for the Origins Award Roleplaying Game of the Year. Other nominees include Daggerheart, Starfinder 2E, and the Warhammer TTRPG, so it was a “Shucks, I’m just glad to be here” kind of moment. So I’ll be tabling in Columbus, Ohio, with the good people of the Bodhana Group, who generously split their space with me.
Origins Game Fair
📅 Thu Jun 18-Sat Jun 20
🕙 10am-6pm
🍻 Booth 1502, Exhibit Hall
ColorJam!
I’m excited to share that Lunarpunk Games has licensed ColorJam! This is the coloring-book game by Joe Kell and myself that you first saw as “Puzzle By Number.” Sign up on Lunarpunk’s website to get news about its release. Artist Erin Laue has been drawing outrageously good coloring pages – I can’t wait for you to try it!
New tiny games
I dropped two li’l games since I last emailed you in November:
🎠 Worry-Go-Round (print-and-play cards) – a 1+ player short story telling game about the joys and heartache of childhood
🪰 She Loves Me Gnat (zine) – a journaling + dexterity game about fate and being that one-in-a-million
Worry-Go-Round is one of those things that sat on my back burner because I know it has more potential than I can realize myself. Right now it’s a moving “short story game,” but with a little effort it could be a whole system for creating powerful vignettes by mixing and matching personality traits, relationship hooks, and setting elements. Read more about its backstory.
Games in development
These aren’t published, but I’d love to send you a test copy if you are willing to provide feedback. Reach out if you’re interested!
Dumpster Heist, a co-design with Phil Gross, lets you play 3-7 raccoons in a trenchcoat using approachable party game mechanics. Think: Apples-to-Apples with a plot. Is it a role playing game? Is it a party game? It’s definitely a Raccoon Party Game. We’re actively pitching this one to publishers 🤞.
BeTween: Summer and Everything After puts you in the muddy shoes of a kid wringing every drop out of summer before middle school begins. Imagine Inside-Out as a story game. It is, in fact, a biography of my daughter: sweet, nostalgic, heartfelt. I hope to offer limited copies of this one at the Indie Night Market at PAX Unplugged in December.
Finally, just a few weeks ago I started designing a new journaling game, BeTween: Home and Hellmaze. You’re a pre-teen plunged into the confusing world of junior high. Luckily, your Players Handbook gives you everything you need to make sense of your experience. Your best friend? A halfling. Those mean girls? Goblin tribe. The exam? A cleverly-designed pit trap!
That’s all for this time.
Wishing you joy, peace, and insight,
Gene Koo
StickerDoodle Games