When I first started this…I guess you could call it a project, I did it for weird reasons. I had been struggling with my other writing projects, hitting brick wall after brick wall, forcing my fingers to type out trite and uninteresting sentences that advanced boring stories with empty souls, to the point where sitting down to write was becoming an act of self-harm. My brain began its spiraling semi-regularly, and it began to adversely affect my relationships with my friends, family, and myself.

Duke Markus von Himmelman, son of Lady Margret De’Mechaump and Lord Phredrick von Himmelman, Baron of Lower East Spannerton, Duke of Topside, and a Welcome Lord in the court of Prince Reinheart himself, was furious. He stormed about his office like a madman, pulling his watch out of his vest pocket and clicking it open every few steps. When the clockwork timepiece provided nothing less than further frustration, he would stuff it back into his vest, turn sharply on his heel, and begin stomping in a different direction across the large carpet.

I wanted to end this project with a discussion of this game, because for all the myriad of games I have mentioned in this journey of ours, Wanderhome differs in perhaps some of the most significant and profound ways from all the others.

Based on the Belonging Outside Belonging system (also called “No dice, no masters”) from the Dream Askew and Dream Apart games, Wanderhome is, quote: “a pastoral fantasy role-playing game about traveling animal-folk, the world they inhabit, and the way the seasons change. It is a game filled with grassy fields, mossy shrines, herds of chubby bumblebees, opossums in sundresses, salamanders with suspenders, starry night skies, and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine.”

In Nowhere Kingdom, the players take the role of a council of advisors and gentry charged with suggesting policies and proposals to the ruling Demons of the Kingdom. Thankfully, these demons are not evil; just mildly cruel, mostly bored, and they only get to rule the Kingdom for a year — their price for overthrowing the previous tyrant.

As the game progresses, random problems land on the council-table and the council-members must all come up with proposals to solve them. The demons then vote for who created the most funny, chaotic, and unpredictable policy. Whomever wins gets a token, and then the council-members must answer one of a list of questions to help develop how this enacted policy helps, hinders, pleases, or displeases the town, council, demons, and citizenry.

Noumenon is an RPG…and frankly, that’s almost all I’m prepared to say categorically about it.

Noumenon is a system designed to facilitate an exploration of a surreal dream. Characters wake up as the insect-like Sarcophagi trapped within the Silhouette Rouge, and they barely have time to look around before they are approached by a well-dressed three-eyed elephant-headed being who guides them to a sweeping staircase with only thirty-three steps that reaches all the way up and out of a hundred-story-high cavern.

Loman John stared into the darkness. He could hear the steamer-ship — could always hear the steamer-ship — before its dim lights came into view. The fog was low in the evenings, and even the strongest lanterns could not pierce the mist for more than a kilometer at most; but the hissing grind of the engines were unmistakable, and it carried even in the Cliffside fog.

The layfolk called it fog, but Loman John knew more names. Every dockworker did. There were fogs that were light and pleasant, like butterflies kissing your skin. There was damp and heavy fog, the kind that made your socks wet. There were the mists that covered the air like smoke, and you couldn’t see three feet in front of your face. There were more besides, and each had their own name to the Dockworkers of Cliffside.

Do Not Read This Journal is a horror journaling RPG, but I hesitate to call it a Solo experience. Certainly, the process of journaling in the game is akin to other Solo RPGs, along with its cards and oracles. The significant difference is, once you have finished your journaling — your “turn,” as it were — you tuck the rules into the first page of the journal and pass it on to someone else. Ideally a friend, of course; someone who is interested in these kinds of games and delights at the idea of a non-solo journaling experience.

Hero Quest is the best game ever made.

The best thing about Hero Quest is the gold. Every quest grants your characters gold that can be used to acquire cracking equipment that improves your character’s chances at surviving their next quest.

Okay, but is Hero Quest really an RPG? Perhaps, perhaps not. If it is, it certainly leans heavily into the strategy-board game side of RPGs, similar to the RPG-like Gloomhaven or Betrayal at House on the Hill. At the same time, Hero Quest did do something that was prevalent in early RPG games; your character sticks around after every quest.

I feel like the name Demon Crawl — Gothic does a good job of explaining the tone and style of the game, so I will instead focus on its inspirations. As a table-top strategy RPG, it was inspired in part by action games like Diablo and Doom.

If those sound like strange inspirations for an RPG, I understand the instinct. As I’ve explained before, being inspired by computer games is not exactly uncommon among RPGs, but the kind of inspiration that Demon Crawl has taken from Diablo and Doom is not exclusively their tone or setting. Instead, they’ve taken inspiration from the action-based nature of the games themselves.

“Never!” Yolanda Allingdale hitched up her dress and began to run. Not the expected trot of a petulant child, or the flurry of lace that marked any good girl’s proper retreat to their room; but a bracing stride of a run that carried her out of the room and halfway up the mansion’s stairs before her mother could raise a single protest.

It was difficult to run like that in such thick and tightly fitted clothing, but Yolanda had practice. She ran everywhere she could, from the mansion to the orchard and from the orchard to the pond. She loved running, and not just because it was precisely the sort of thing the Governess disapproved of, but also because it was freeing, liberating. It felt natural, like she had been born to run from tree to tree, climbing and swinging in the branches.