Gravity Falls and Fantasy Bar Crawls...
In which we stop, look around and realise we've run out of road...
The period after a new issue is released is a strange one. You expect some kind of blissful moment of profound catharsis and then remember there’s just the small matter of getting around a thousand copies out to people whilst trying to convince another thousand or so to part with their hard earned cash and buy one.
At the same time, coming off the back of tens of thousands of words written and edited in a furious burst of activity, I always want to push on whilst the machinery’s working and smash straight into a new issue. The result, so far, has usually been much like that of Wile E. Coyote rocketing off the side of a cliff. The legs spin in mid air for a few desperate, hopeful, moments before reality reasserts itself and you brutally crash back down to earth.
Will this time be different? We’ll see, but for now I’m going to try and keep things on an even keel, focus on the business of shifting this issue and rather than rush into a big new project do some smaller interviews with interesting people to post online instead. Which does mean if you’ve got stuff to promote and fancy having a chat, do get in touch.
Right, as part of this alleged self care routine and it being a holiday here in Belgium today (thank you Mary) we’re off to hit up the pétanque pits and try out our fancy new acid house Obut boules. So i’ll leave you to the rest of this week’s newsletter which is packed with some great stuff to check out that should keep you busy till next week…
Till then,
John x
A PARTY OF ADVENTURERS WALK INTO A BAR…
We were asked the other day what our three favourite features were that we’d published over the first few issues, and honestly it was just incredibly hard to pick. It’s been a genuine privilege to work with our writers and I’m hugely proud to have put their work into people’s hands.
In the end I stumped for three quite different ones, Rob Wieland’s interview with April Kit-Walsh about Thirsty Sword Lesbians (which incidentally saw us cited for the first time on Wikipedia), Dan Thurot’s look at politics in board games, and taking a very different swerve Walton Wood’s feature on W.F. Smith’s ENNIE Award winning module, Barkeep on the Borderlands.
The latter of which I just realised was the only one not online, so I thought it would only be right to put it up here for everyone to read and enjoy this booze fuelled demolition of ‘pro-keep propaganda’. Enjoy!
JUDE’S WORLD
We’ve featured Manchester based games designer Yvris Burke’s work a couple of times in Wyrd Science, and with good reason. Sidestepping RPG conventions her games take us into strange uncharted worlds, such as those populated by those anatomical wonders bumble bees or crazed reality TV show producing llamas (yes, really).
With Jude’s World though Burke invites us to step into a much more mysterious, alien and potentially fraught dimension, the diary of a 12 year old girl. And not just any 12 year old girl either but one who has “just found out their parents, Mika and Jamie, are getting a dreaded divorce and they are NOT inclined to take it lightly.”
A solo tarot driven journalling game, Jude’s World sees you first create the story of your family, before rolling up your sleeves and navigating Traps and Twists as you set about the serious business of tricking your foolish adults back into loving each other again.
Look, at heart I’m a wretched old school fantasy fan who loves nothing more than pretending to crawl through some filth covered dungeon. But honestly, nothing delights me more than seeing this medium I love spin off in ways that my brain is just not wired to expect and game’s like this, inspired by shows like Clarissa Explains it All and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, definitely hit that target.
Straight off the bat think of around half a dozen friends who would never look once at an RPG, let alone anything featuring wizards and goblins, that I’d love to buy a copy of this for, which is in itself a wonderful thing. So for that alone, bravo, and do check it out now on Kickstarter.
WYRD SCIENCE x ŁUKASZ KOWALCZUK T-SHIRTS
We’ve mentioned we have an amazing new issue out, right? Well just a friendly reminder that it’s not just a new magazine we’ve released this month but also this epic t-shirt from Łukasz Kowalczuk.
It’s limited to just 100 pieces, and about half have gone already, so if you fancy getting your paws on it head over to our site now. And, speaking of limited, a quick stock check also reveals that we’re also down to literally the last few (2 in the case of Large) Johan Nohr tees, so you have been warned!
Finally a collection of things, both interesting and inspiring, gaming related and not, found down the back of the internet’s sofa…
Exeunt Press takes a look at what NASA’s workload assessment tool can tell us about a game’s complexity.
As a kid I spent most my summers in an uncle’s caravan in Cornwall, sleeping on the sofa and being allowed to stay up late, pumping 50p coins into the black & white TV set to watch Hammer Horror films. Great days.
Misty eyed reverie aside, we once woke up to find the sloped field next to us was now the site of a magnificent crop circle. Being already fascinated with the wyrd you can imagine the effect this had on my ten year old brain, so I’m always happy to see them return to our landscape, especially when they look as good as this.If Walton’s piece on W.F. Smith’s Barkeep on the Borderlands caught your eye there’s been a Barkeep Jam taking place over at Itch the past few weeks and whilst that has finished you can now check out all the entries.
It’s long been know that the mighty bluestone sarsens of Stonehenge were quarried and transported from Wales but new analysis reveals that the monument’s central altar made an even greater journey, with the six tonne rock travelling all the way from the far north of Scotland.
I’d planned on dialling down the amount we link to Explorer’s Design but then Clayton went and wrote a post about corporate baddies in cyberpunk games, the very week that Disney went out of their way to show that when characterising business behemoths you can never, ever, be too cartoonishly evil…
Christian at Geekerati attempts to rehabilitate the murder hobo in response to a recent post by Robin Laws…
“Haraka baraka!” is an Arabic expression which translates as ‘movement is a blessing’ and is now also the title of an excellent looking book by Lebanese designer Samar Maakaroun which brings together Arabic street culture, skateboarding, graphic design, calligraphy and more. All profits from it go towards the charity Skatepal's work in Palestine and beyond.
James Wallis, Greg Stolze & Ross Payton are back with a new series of their Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast and first up against the wall is Rowan, Rook & Decard’s Heart - The City Beneath.
Whether it’s boardgames, wargames or RPGs, we read a lot of rulebooks here at Wyrd Science, and it’s astonishingly, vanishingly rare that we don’t experience at least one total WTAF moment per read.
Clearly we’re not the only ones. If you like to really get into the weeds (and if your job in some way involves writing these things I suggest you should) then this epic level essay, ‘Every Board Game Rulebook is Awful’ by Dean Ray Johnson should go to the top of your reading pile. It’s massive, very technical but well worth checking out.The Lego Lost at Sea project has always fascinated me, so it was good to see it back in the news as for the first time a shark has turned up in a fisherman’s haul.
I’ve already mentioned how my at the time sensible decision to not back the ARCS kickstarter is starting to feel like a bum deal, but the recent glut of positive responses to the game, especially post GenCon, really is kicking that feeling into overdrive.
Anyway if you fancy joining me in this brutal FOMO, why not check out some of the new reviews of what is looking like a definite 2024 GOTY contender over at Player Elimination, Punchboard, The Glyph & Grok, and on BGG.Finally, a couple of years ago one of my best friends wrote a pretty great book about the rise and fall of glam metal, just before that though he published a zine of photos of battle jackets, those heavily patched denim cutoff wonders, he’d taken at various metal gigs. It’s been out of print for a while now but he just found a few whilst sorting stuff out, so if you fancy owning a lovely little metal curio check it out…
Should we do a Wyrd Science denim patch? hmmm….
Congratulations on the new issue. I'm reading an article a night to slowly savour the delicious RPGness. Love the idea for some smaller interviews. You should check out Castle Grief who has just been knocking it out of the park with OSR and solo games recently.
Love the new issue! This magazine is the absolute best.