• Designer Ellie Dix has released more than a dozen small or downloadable games through her publishing brand The Dark Imp.
In late November 2022, she tweeted that she had assembled the final hundred copies of Cracker Games: The Imp Box, a compact package that contains components for six games:
— In IMPressive, you’re trying to collect sets of imps by choosing from a line-up of available cards with ascending costs.
— In IMPetuous, speed is of the essence. Flip cards, spot matches, and gain points.
No actual crackers are included
— In IMPatient, you are subtly trying to influence the outcome of an imp race.
— In IMPrudent, you need cubes and you need cards, but each turn you have to prioritize.
— In IMPassive, your aim is to manipulate the value of imps while ending up with the highest scoring cards.
Dix has also released a game package with the accurately descriptive name
Six Greetings Card Games, with the game board being on the front of the card, the rules on the reverse side, and components to cut out on the card’s back half.
• Designer Benny Sperling has taken a similar path to Dix, releasing more than a dozen games via Roll and Write Revolution, with the most recent of these titles being Flamingo, which he Kickstarted in November 2022:
Over a variable number of rounds, players choose 1-3 actions based on the dice drawn. Dice are used to gain a flamingo, gain an egg, and improve skills in nesting, feeding, and flocking. Players have 35 actions for the whole game. In order to win, they must most carefully use their dice to achieve their goals in those five areas.
While the dice are random, players can control their use and develop a better plan each turn. Further, if two dice of the same color are drawn from the bag, they may be treated as any color.
As you might guess from the publisher name, Sperling specializes in roll-and-write designs, making games available in print-and-play format.
• Joe Hout‘s Snowpeople from Twin City Games is another print-and-play design on the Kickstarter circuit (link), with the design having previously been released in 2020 as Paleontologists. Here’s what you’re doing:
Whoever has excavated the largest and diverse set of objects to decorate their snowperson by the end of the game will be declared Best in Snow!
• Yet another such design on Kickstarter (link) is Dungeon Pages, which is regrettably not about a group of young people who work in a dungeon, running errands for adventurers and answering their questions about room service.
No, instead this game from Jason Greeno, Jason Tagmire, and PNP Arcade is “a solo tactical, roll-and-write game of dungeon delving and monster battling. Gather gold and potions to help you overcome increasingly difficult dungeons, traps and threats. Advance your character by gaining experience, new weapons and powerful relics.”
If Netflix ever has a series called “Dungeon Pages”, I’d bet on it being more like my idea…
