Welcome home. This is Audio EXP, the weekly podcast from Geek Native. I am your host, Girdy, and today is Saturday, the 31st of October, 2026. Happy Halloween. This week, we mark the season by investigating the closure of a legendary video game studio whose roots rebuilt tabletop rules, examining EU packaging regulations choking independent game exports, launching our own live procedural dragon diorama on the site, and unearthing vampire roleplaying games left in the crypt.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #354]
[Also on Stitcher | Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Before we dive into the headlines, an update on our community feature. While we couldn’t connect directly with Bil Bas of Slithy Tove Games despite several attempts over the month, we published our October RPG Publisher Spotlight celebrating Slithy Tove Games and the maker behind the madness. The deep dive explores their catalogue of offbeat, tactile indie games, ensuring our patron-voted studio gets the recognition they earned. In particular, an excellent choice for Halloween is their Wonderland No More, a creepy Alice in Wonderland TTRPG.
We also launched a brand-new experimental project directly on Geek Native this week. You can now visit Wyrm Watch, a procedural diorama testing whether a slumbering dragon can guard its hoard. Built from our classic business card illustration, the live feature runs in real time: every two minutes, an automated rogue attempts a stealth roll against the sleeping wyrm’s passive perception. If they succeed, they swipe loot from the pile, but if they wake the beast, they face dragonfire. Pop by the site, watch the rolls play out live, and see how much treasure remains.
Our lead industry analysis looks at a studio closure that closes a thirty-year circle. Following news of BioWare shutting its doors, we examine how BioWare reshaped tabletop roleplaying rules from Baldur’s Gate to Malborn. From translating Advanced Dungeons & Dragons second edition initiative into real-time-with-pause mechanics to creating the Dragon Age engine that Green Ronin adapted into the Adventure Game Engine, BioWare’s digital systems continually cross-pollinated physical tabletop rules. With former studio veterans now developing standalone 5E settings like Malborn, that design heritage returns directly to the table.
In legal and distribution developments, physical stock trapped in warehouse limbo has finally broken free. A US bankruptcy court has formally cleared Paizo and Green Ronin inventory in the Diamond Comic Distributors liquidation. After protracted legal disputes over whether consignor inventory belonged to the publishers or secured creditors, the ruling allows both tabletop companies to reclaim control of their physical books, removing a cloud of financial uncertainty that has hung over their supply chains for over a year.
However, international shipping logistics face a fresh regulatory wall. Atlas Games has halted all direct-to-consumer sales to the European Union and Brazil as PPWR rules take effect. While customs hurdles shut down direct post to Brazil, the EU retreat stems from the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. The European framework forces foreign publishers to retain legal EU representatives, register across dozens of fragmented national recycling schemes, and navigate complex rules on packaging void ratios and shrink wrap. For mid-sized presses, the compliance overhead quickly wipes out retail margins on direct web parcels, pushing publishers back toward local distributor hubs.
Atlas, in this story, is our canary in the coal mine. Let’s see what happens next.
In boxed game revivals, Scratchpad Publishing is relaunching deluxe box sets for Dusk City Outlaws and Spectaculars. Designed by Rodney Thompson, both systems use self-contained boxed formats packed with modular character sheets, custom dice, and scenario decks that allow groups to run complete tabletop sessions with zero advance preparation.
Looking at local events, we analyse why moving Comic Con Scotland to Glasgow will not resolve its long-standing crowd control issues. While organisers are looking at more space at the Royal Highland Centre, square footage and venue capacity alone cannot fix queuing bottlenecks, autograph choke points, or ticketing overflows without structural changes to floor operations.
Over in seasonal pop culture, Bronwen highlighted Noel Fielding announcing a spooky autumn fashion collaboration with knitwear brand Wah-Wah, bringing his distinctive surrealist monster artwork to high-end woollen jumpers.
Because it is Halloween, we also published two gothic retrospectives exploring the undead:
- First, we explore great vampire novels still begging for tabletop RPG adaptations, examining why properties like Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula and George R.R. Martin’s historical riverboat horror Fevre Dream offer rich setting blueprints that tabletop publishers have overlooked.
- Second, we open the vault for Dust and Dice: the forgotten vampire RPGs left in the crypt, reviewing cult 1990s releases like Nightlife and Brian Lumley’s Necroscope that offered wild mechanical alternatives to the dominant World of Darkness.
Finally, we wrap up with three spooky digital bundles to expand your autumn library:
- Tournament survival fans can grab Goodman Games’ XCrawl RPG bundle at Fanatical, blending modern televised bloodsports with classic dungeon crawls.
- Ancient history meets cosmic dread in the Cohors Cthulhu bundle on Bundle of Holding, pitting Roman legionaries against Eldritch cults using the 2d20 engine.
- Psychological horror investigators can unearth Carcosan madness in the revived Yellow King RPG bundle on Bundle of Holding, gathering Robin D. Laws’ four-era reality-bending GUMSHOE system.
That is it for this week. Thanks for listening to Audio EXP. For all the links, the live dragon diorama, and our full Halloween horror coverage, head over to Geek Native. Until next week, stay geeky.
