Gen Con is over and there should be hordes of tired gamers today dragging themselves into work and the real world. The ENNIE winners were announced, and some of the winners are adjacent to this review:
Moonlight on Roseville Beach won a Judges Spotlight Award, as did Void 1680 AM and Faecraft (both are books I'm looking to bring into stock soon).
Claw Atlas won Silver for best cartography.
Trophy won Silver for best game.
Frontier Scum won Silver for best layout and design.
Barkeep on the Borderlands won Gold for best supplement, and Into the Cess and Citadel nabbed Silver.
The Wildsea RPG won Silver for best writing, and
Fabula Ultima won Silver for product of the year.
Now that Gen Con is over we can all take a deep breath and look forward to what the rest of the year will bring us. For now, though, let's see what was released in the past week, shall we?
I've mentioned Forgotten Ballad, the Zelda-inspired rpg that was just recently Kickstarted. The pdf is now out, and there's a Forgotten Jam over on itch currently taking submissions.
Bug Dish is an rpg now available on itch where you play bug chefs that travel the world taking place in culinary competitions. It's a cute premise that is currently available in the "Amuse Bouche" preview version.
Stoneburner was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter, and Tales of the Burned Stones is a free prequel to that game that is billed as a "solo-friendly dark-fantasy role-playing game of journeying and dungeon delving. In this game inspired by Diablo, The Witcher, and The Warded Man".
Worlds Without Number is an excellent game that I wish got more love; The Champion is a partial class written for WWN that presents a combat-oriented class that relies on trickery and guile rather than brute force.
The Black Sword Hack is one of the most recent excellent products from the Merry Mushmen (I only wish they would get back in touch with me so I can restock!), and Saroneus Games has just released a free, hand-drawn character sheet for the game.
I'm in love with the name of this next product: Picaroon Prawn-riders of the Dead Plateau, by Melfy, is described as "Anti-canon fish-in-the-desert fantasy".
Flooded Mushrooms is a new, low-level adventure for Mausritter, designed to be printed front and back on a single piece of paper.
JamesTHook has released Big Goblin Energy, a game where everyone plays goblins, based upon Jared Sinclair's What's so Cool About Outer Space.
Inspired by the Alien franchise and games like Mothership and Dread, This Ship is no Mother is a card-based horror game set in the vastness of space.
Kavlov's Sanctuary was an adventure for Mork Borg that successfully funded on Kickstarter during the spring, and the author is currently raising funds for an OSE version of the adventure.
Elven Tower has released Dungeon Vault #36, with this issue of the zine focused on the new Shadowdark rpg.
The Whispering Demon, an adventure for OSE by Angry Golem Games, comes with VTT-enabled maps, which is a nice added bonus.
I'm not sure how many folks are still working on the Dungeon23 challenge; Martin Ackerfors just released their attempt. Clocking in at an impressive 70 pages, it's a stream of consciousness, system-neutral, pay-what-you-want product. Getting as far as they did is certainly an accomplishment to be proud of.
Luka Rejec has just released Ultraviolet Grasslands 2e as a pdf. I've got it in stock in print, and it's every bit as gorgeous as the first edition.
I've released Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 24 on this website and Drivethrurpg. It's the end of the second year of releases, and features the lair of a solitary ettin, a hideout inhabited by wanted and desperate bandits, and a playable, fey-themed dwarf class. You can also subscribe to get twelve issues of the zine in the mail, or as a pdf. The next issue of PHM will introduce an alternate version of psionics that can be added to old school game. It eschews points you need to keep track of, and instead uses a roll-under system with the option to "burn" ability points to power abilities.