Year In Review
it is that time of year
2025-12-30
HELLO THERE how would you like a gaming year in review? Yes? Good, okay.
Contents
Playing Games
According to my notes, which can be relied upon to be marginally accurate, I played 42 games this year, which is one game every week of the year. Minus 10 weeks.
In previous years I have made a pointed effort to seek out games, and have spent time scrounging up oneshots, either hosting them myself or joining up with others both to try out new systems and settings and playing with new people, and also to just get a quick fix with a familiar system.
This year I didn’t do that so much. I had a couple of regular campaigns and I guess just felt really comfortable with that regularity and reliability.
Here are some highlights from the year.
Family Honey Heist
This spring I ran a game of Honey Heist for my brother and my Dad. Neither of them had ever played a tabletop roleplaying game before.
It was a hoot.
I especially enjoyed getting to see my dad have a good time playing a cute but chaotic panda bear. He has this self-story of “not having a creative bone in his body,” he is in fact a very creative fellow! I would like to play more with him and help him experience and internalize that fact.
Oneshots for my Friday Night group
This year I ran two oneshots for my Friday Night D&D group on the occasion whenever our DM needed a break.
I ran a one session of Troika! which they liked. (“Findlay’s Lamp Emporium” from the 2024 One Page Dungeon Contents, including a game of ROLL & DRAW SPIDERS as a contest against a demon.) And one session of Blades In The Dark, which they also liked.
I especially enjoyed getting to see our DM play a character at the table and have a good time.
End of Magic Girls
After a little over a year, our game of Girl By Moonlight ended. Season 1 of it did at least. This was a beautiful, beautiful experience. Loved the game, loved the players.
New Campaign For My Tuesday Night Group
I left Girl By Moonlight so I could start Blue Harbor Adventurers Guild (D&D) with some friends, new and old. This has been terribly fun. I have enjoyed homebrewing up a setting and watching my players interact with it.
Obojima Being Cute
Obojima is the cutest. It is a Ghibli inspired setting for D&D. I had a lot of fun playing this game with some new friends until our DM abruptly decided to end it.
Home Away From Home
This was such a special treat! While away from home for a couple months, found a small public library in a small nearby town that ran 1 or 2 games a week. Most multi-generational table I’ve ever played at. Players ranged from 14 to 60-something.
Lancer and Failure To Launch
I started a play by post game of Lancer. Was really excited about it initially but unfortunately the start of this game coincided with a major depressive episode, and it ended being over before it really had a chance to begin.
Making Games
I published two games to itch this year. Usually my games are tiny and/or low-to-medium effort, and mostly for the laughs. Bute there are a little bigger and a little more complete and a little less silly than what I usually do. I guess this was my year of Being Earnest.
Both of these games were also designed for print media first, making them proper zines I guess. This is also new for me because I usually just export to pdf without much thought of printing.
NO ONE EVER LEAVES is an experimental haunted house “succession solo” multiplayer deck of cards solo journaling game. I wrote it this spring during a weird time while I was visiting my baby brother after our grandmother died. I was and am a little obsessed with the idea of a haunted house. In a home that is unwelcoming, how do you find belonging or a place to be yourself? This game is bleak, your characters always “succumb to the house” whatever that means to you. I like this game and am proud of it. I’ve played it myself a lot more than I’ve played any of my other games.
https://dozens.itch.io/haunting
A Very Special Lyrmwithmas is a solo journaling game and activity book that I wrote this spring for my Friday Night gaming group for our annual D&D holiday. It’s about loss and tradition and community and grief. My boy grendel has been playing it with a cool twist: there is no actual dragon, but instead a mass delusion that leads to the villagers themselves causing the destruction, allowing growth and rebirth to blossom in its wake.
https://dozens.itch.io/lyrmwithmas
Finally, Shoes in the Dark, an old classic of mine, got an update this year. Somebody reached out and offered to do an Italian translation, so we collaborated on that and now we have Italian Shoes.
https://dozens.itch.io/shoes-in-the-dark/devlog/1087220/shoes-in-the-dark-italian-translation
I made about $30 on itch sales this year, which is cool considering almost everything I make either has free copies available or is donation based.
About a third of it was from new material published this year with minimal advertising or promotion.
About a third of it was from my annual “Spookerween!” Halloween bundle sale which I advertised just a little bit on mastodon.
And a little less than a third was from my back catalog.
Blogging and Other
I made 30 posts to this blog, which seems like a lot.
I spent a lot of time thinking and reading about investigative mysteries while working on a “Cryptid Capers” game that I haven’t finished.
As is tradition, I worked on my “Yule Goat Arson Bingo” game again this winter and again didn’t finish it. For like, the fourth year in a row. Maybe next year.
Goals for 2026
Keep my two current campaigns going: DMing Blue Harbor, and playing Dark Sun.
There are two games from the 1980s I would really like to play: Ghostbusters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Maybe I’ll whip up some oneshots and run them.
Get more into solo journaling. Read through my backlog of weird itch games. Make more weird itch games.
That’s all! Happy New Year! I love you! Bye!