Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for June 7th, and the episode title is “The weekend after (by any means necessary)”.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #289]
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Diane Ramic won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.
Diane does not yet know. I need to get in touch, but this is not the first time we’ve had an illustrator win the Spotlight, and it might be interesting to revisit and overlap questions.
The Spotlight is only a little behind this month as I catch up after several days in the giant gaming convention, the UK Games Expo. 42,000 people attended.
Thank you, patrons; you didn’t pay for the UK Games Expo trip; I want to be clear about that. The promise is that patron money goes to commission art or articles. You can also vote for the July Spotlight, and the candidates are;
As usual, pop over to Patreon and take part in the poll.
There wasn’t a podcast last week because I was in Birmingham, so there’s two weeks’ worth of news, but as we’ll hear, the highlights are mainly from UKGE. Why? People saved their news for that big event.
It was hot and hectic. The new hall layout worked really well and created a large arena for tabletop game companies to fight for attention. The only curious thing was that we were told UKGE had lost access to Hall 1. They definitely had not, as that’s where people lined up to get their tickets. Perhaps things changed between then and now, or perhaps the people moving into Hall 1 were doing so even as the UK Games Expo packed up. It’s a small detail but a curious one.
The UK Games Expo was certainly stressful. As a blogger trying to cover it, I had early mornings and late nights, but it must have been harder for publishers. On Saturday night, Bez of Stuff by Bez announced she would quit.
In writing, on a chat group with over a thousand people in it, she said;
Tomorrow is my last day trading at UKGE for the foreseeable future.
I asked why, and there was no money and all the stress. A Facebook post says she’ll be quitting trading at conventions, and that is not the same as getting out of the tabletop hobby altogether.
Off the record, I spoke to other small publishers, and some struggled to make back their investment in UKGE. Most, though, were doing alright. Or, at least, that’s what they told me.
There are, of course, UK Games Expo Award Winners. The format was different this year. Ahead of the Expo, the Judges Awards winners had been announced, and The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game by Monte Cook Games won the best RPG with The One Ring™ – Moria™ – Through the Doors of Durin by Free League Publishing picking up the best RPG Expansion.
Potions of Azerland by Lucky Duck Games won the best American-style board game, and SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by CGE, the best Euro.
The full list is on the blog. The change came for the People’s Award. This year, the people could only vote for games that the Judges had picked and from fewer categories.
The three winners in the RPG section, which included Doomsong: Lord Have Mercy Upon Us by Caesar Ink, therefore went head to head for the grand RPG prize. That finally went to The One Ring™ – Moria™ – Through the Doors of Durin by Free League Publishing.
I couldn’t find anyone who loved the new format, but plenty of people understood that in the busy convention, it was pretty hard to get people to vote for anything at all and, so this new focused approach helped pick a winner.
What other strange things happened? Well, if you saw people staggering around in morph suits and helmets that might remind you of Luke Skywalker training on the lightsaber, then that was probably Tomy’s Human Controller interactive game. You got to control those human puppets with your smartphone and try to drive them around to complete your objectives.
I got to see the curtain come off the announcement stand for Para Bellum’s 10th faction for Conquest. The 10th faction is the Weaver Courts, fae-like warriors who have merged with plants and insects, making them both beautiful and dangerous at the same time.
I car shared down from Edinburgh and with people I had only met once before, that one time being the safety check you should do in public. It’s pleasing to find out that the driver for that six-hour mission ended up backing Trouble on the Tempus at the deluxe tie.
It’s pleasing because Geek Native had some exclusive pictures of the time-travelling board game to share ahead of the expo. You can see them on the blog. I think the concept is great as players rush around to try and fix their spacecraft, which is a challenge based on the demos I’ve seen and the secret weapon is that their spacecraft is also a time machine, so there’s always the chance to go back in time and re-do or stop a thing from happening.
I’m not sure any convention can make or break a crowdfunding campaign. I suspect, but cannot prove, that you need the internet to like the game first and be easy to find. I agree that if you can use the convention to create a buzz to lift up your marketing, then you’ll fly. What do you think?
I got to play some games that barely needed any marketing and which did not go to Kickstarter. I was lucky enough to get a shot on Ravensburger’s Horrified Dungeons & Dragons. It adds a d20 to the classic format oh, and teleports.
Your heroes have to keep people safe as two, three or four monsters menace a city and the surroundings, and one of those monsters is a dragon.
I also got to read through the alpha edition of Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age, which is the world’s second-oldest TTRPG, coming back to us in a new edition through the powerful Rebellion Unplugged.
There’s a sign-up form to get your free copy from the blog, but you’ll likely see a download that differs from my read, as Rebellion Unplugged will make changes to it based on feedback from the weekend. GenCon is probably when we’ll see the beta version.
In fact, I would say that there was more TTRPG news from UKGE 2025 than in previous years, and this pleases me.
At the press preview, I was able to have a quick chat with Beyond Cataclysm about Skies of Belief. That’s a new TTRPG set in a world without metal, where the rules-light A.N.G.E.L.S. system uses 2d8 on challenges, and characters spend much of their effort trying to negotiate between the unusual, different cultures and powers that have risen in the strange world.
Also launching at UKGE was a supernatural TTRPG from Wrenegade Studios. The free preview for Beyond the Veil is now out. You can get that through the blog, where I also have an interview with the publisher. They describe Beyond the Veil as a blend of The X-Files and The Haunting of Hill House.
https://www.geeknative.com/173439/gallows-corner-ttrpg-change-england-by-any-means-necessary/A game that also caught my eye was Gallows Corner. It’s from Three Sails Studios, who have just fulfilled their Kickstarted game called Mappa Mundi.
Mappa Mundi is about exploration. Gallows Corner is a points crawl, and so we see an overlap there.
Mappa Mundi is a pacifist game about learning about monsters. Gallows Corner is a brutal revolt in which you are English peasants determined to replace the country’s rulers by any means necessary. Hmm, quite different then!
The last bit of UK Games Expo news for this podcast is my speculation about the future of Frosthaven. I think the foreseeable future will be digital. There is a Steam game coming, and while you can buy Frosthaven Play Surface Books, I got no sense that there are urgent plans to expand the game. In fact, I would not be surprised at all if Isaac Childres does something very different next.
Speaking about computer games, Bronwen noted that Giant Skull and Wizards of the Coast are working on a solo computer game. Giant Skull is connected to games like God of War III and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and I suspect that gives us a clue as to what the gameplay might be like.
Lastly, before we get to the bundle outros – although there is some interesting news in those – the world now has the Nintendo Switch 2 as a console option.
I was sent some research that worked out the cost of the Switch 2 in different countries and cross-compared that to average salaries to calculate the working hours required to buy the console.
The Swiss do the best and can afford to buy a Switch 2 after just 13 hours of work. Compare that to the Phillippines and you’ll be shocked. There it’ll take 194 hours of average work to buy the handheld console.
Hardly seems right, does it?
The first three bundle deals are all at the Bundle of Holding and let’s start with the Pride Games offer for Pride Month. If you don’t yet have a copy of Thirsty Sword Lesbians, here is your chance. I’ve hidden a rainbow easter egg in that post.
There’s also the chance to get a host of Kevin Crawford’s Without Number and other games, with a Sine Nomine corebook deal.
Or, more traditionally, Ghostfire Games has a one-tier Grim Hollow for grimdark 5e gamers on offer.
The last deal is at Fanatical, the computer games and sometimes digital comic discounter owned by Fandom. Fandom are the people who bought, built and then sold D&D Beyond to Wizards of the Coast. I was always sure Fandom would and should use Fanatical to sell TTRPGs.
They kinda are now, as you can get a lot of Dune: Adventures in the Imperium on the cheap from them, and up to 95% off. However, you get the discount from Fanatical and then get the games from DriveThruRPG.
From a TTRPG marketplace perspective, it is interesting to see those two companies playing ball together like that.
On that note, I’m off to the sci-fi and horror fiction festival Cymera. You keep safe, and I’ll see you next week.
