Tag Archives: PAX

Articles, Indie Frontiers

When The Walls Fall Review – Fallen Cities and Falling Dice

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The ancient city was originally founded as a place of study; a great library was its first building, and it remained ever its heart. However, the city grew to form the core of an unspeakable ritual, powered by harnessing a long forgotten god. Eventually, its distant neighbors could not tolerate the ideas it was spreading, and they attacked. That was when the walls fell, leaving a ruined city with a defaced statue at its heart… and broken roads, spreading corruption, and fanatics of that forgotten god bleeding out of it into the countryside…

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: No-Tell Motel Pt. 1

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Every night at the Stellar Motel is a menagerie of the human condition. From my place behind the desk and some plexiglass, I watch elites and lowlives rub elbows, get into fights, and fall into each other’s beds. Last night was different: one of our guests was murdered, and no one seems much interested in finding out who did it or why.

As part of my job as the overnight clerk of the ‘No-Tell Motel‘ I’m supposed to help maintain the privacy of the guests, but I’m also supposed to keep an eye on them. The cops aren’t going to bother much with this, but now we’ve only got fifteen regulars left, and I’m sure it had to be one of them that did the killing. I’m going to have to watch them all like a hawk, because I’ve only got one chance to get this right.

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Articles, Editorial

A Brief PAX Unplugged 2024 Retrospective

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I haven’t been able to attend every PAX Unplugged, but I was there at the start and as the convention circuit has grown back I’ve actually managed to chain a few of them together. In addition to noting as many familiar faces and games as I could manage for a middle-of-the-night article, I wanted to write about some of my own experiences now that the 2024 iteration is over to highlight a few things. Also, Aaron has been doing five-year retrospectives about Crowdfunding Carnival for a while now, so why not do a seven-year con one of my own?

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Articles, The Independents

Clever Girl Review – Wretched & Together With A Raptor

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You probably know the story – a theme park where things go horribly awry, but instead of an accident on a ride or something there are real dinosaurs on the loose and they’re eating everyone. There is a solitary survivor, holed up in the park’s control center, trying to figure out how they’re going to survive and get off of the island. There is also, however, a raptor leading a pack of their fellows in trying to get to the human to avenge themselves upon their former tormenter. The human has chosen to live; can they? The raptor has chosen to embark on a crusade of vengeance; will it destroy them? This is Clever Girl, two-games-in-one by Matthew Gravelyn!

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Articles, The Independents

The Facility – A Breathless Choose Your Own Mad Science Adventure

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You awaken, cold and in the dark. Fumbling around by low blue lights in a coffin shaped pod. You pull yourself out of the box, and in the dark see the faces of others. You are all wearing loose fitting white clothing and laceless shoes. Hospital patients? You peer into the dark, seeing little but hearing the sound of dripping, running water and distant machinery. You gather what you can, knowing that something is hunting you. It will be here soon.

Wait.

Can you remember who you are?

Welcome to The Facility by Galen Pejeau!

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Articles, The Independents

World Ending Game – Saying Goodbye With Style

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“Think about screenplays and films, or the final episode of a television show that you know will not be renewed. Think about saying goodbye to friends who are moving away. Think about the last day of summer vacation. Think about funerals. Think about the restaurant that closed all those years ago, and the noodles they used to serve. Think about the best birthday party you ever had. Think about putting off the last chapter of a book until tomorrow. Think about grief, and relief. Think about the end of a world. Think about the feeling of emerging from a movie theater into a dark parking lot, under the stars.” Longtime readers might recall I’ve written about saying goodbye to characters before, but that was largely in a ‘how to remember and treasure them’ way. The reasoning behind that article is, however, the same one that drew me to check out the subject of this one: the attachment to characters that we’ve created and a desire for closure as we leave them, and the snapshot of their lives that we played out, behind. This is a look at World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin.

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A Glimpse Into The Vault, Articles

A Glimpse Into The Unplugged Vault: Self Careless

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It’s your day off! Obviously you should be spending some time on Care for yourself, but then there are all these Chores to do that you won’t otherwise be able to take care of until who knows when. There are only so many hours of the day, so you’re going to have to plan things out – don’t do too many Chores so you actually get some rest, don’t spend so much time on self Care so that the Chores just pile up. Coffee will help! Now if only that darn cat would stop knocking over all the cups. This is Self Careless, the life balance game for 1-2 players from Jason Anarchy Games and Cassandra Calin!

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