This is a weird little game that starts of with a brilliant high concept and then promptly abandons you to try and make something of it as it drifts off into describing various rules and tables. Just another confused OSR inspired booklet then? Well there's something I feel is compelling about this game, enough to make me want to fill in the blanks.

There is a colonialism theme with an invading empire that has been killing the divine spirits of the country by having the spirits possess someone (accused criminals) and then executing the possessed humans, killing the spirit in the process. A kind of literal cultural genocide.

A crisis in the empire has resulted in the imperial soldiers being recalled and in the confusion your character is spared execution but is still possessed of the divine spirit. At liberty they now have the chance to reclaim their land before either the empire returns or the threat that defeats the empire becomes a threat to them and their society as well.

The imperial and spirit possession themes really resonated with me; evoking the Roman Empire as portrayed in the Sláine comic and Britannia TV show and the opening moments of Morrowind. There is the menace of a military power using cunning to cull the local divinities.

The recall reminds me of Britain under the Romans with the sudden departure of the Roman Legions who had re-shaped the country but left practically overnight due to circumstances that must have seemed obscure and far away.

The game is illustrated with photos of beautifully painted miniatures in dioramas. Each one features a strange character which presumably represents either the spirit fused characters or the monstrosities they might face.

I'm not clear whether this game is means to be played solo or as a group. Clearly a group of prisoners could have escaped together but the game doesn't really have any focus on group play but the scene setting section doesn't feel like it has enough structure to really spark interesting solo play.

Bury the Gods is intriguing and mysterious, it could have been a bit more explicit but it just manages to fall on the right side of being compelling.

Dukkborg is an alternative play frame for Mork Borg with a new character class, the Treasure Hunter, and several allusions to the world of Duck Tales (which I don't really get as I'm not familiar with the source material). The game was originally available on itch but has had a Kickstarter for a printed version.

Characters in Dukkborg are anthropomorphic animals (generally ducks but there is a random table than includes a free choice of your preferred animal).

What makes Dukkborg interesting to me is the focus on the adventuring group. The characters belong to “Clans” that can have randomly generated characteristics. This focus on familial relationships and issues of duty and honour is more interesting than the amorphous group of freebooters I've mostly encountered in Mork Borg games.

The Clans give a structure to game and sense of having something to come home to and therefore to cherish and defend which is not the the point of Mork Borg. I think there is something useful to adopt here even if ducks aren't your thing.

That Dungeon game with Dragons & stuff

The high concept of this small booklet is the idea of AD&D but played from memory and house rules. The focus is on facilitating the player's creativity within a consistent framework that provides the sense of the power

Creating characters is quite freeform there are three standard attributes: Attack, Defence and Body. The fourth you make up yourself to reflect your character's supernatural dimension.

Race and Class consist of a simple formula of: “It's like a species or profession but with a quirk or twist”. The best examples from the book are the Orkstar (Like an orc but also the lead singer of a hair metal band) and Sniper-Mage (Like a wizard but with guns).

The Leader is the player that creates the challenges within the game and defines the dungeon that is being explored. The Leader can be changed at any time so it's more an indicator of who is feeling inspired at any given moment. The Leader defines what challenges have been encountered in the dungeon and can use random tables for inspiration. The group has to agree with the Leader so the goal is more of a consensus game rather than having a rotational GM.

Monsters have a Danger rating that by default is 5 but the group get to choose their rating and how many of the monsters are encountered. The higher the rating the greater the rewards in Coin that the party receive. It's a basic push your luck mechanism.

Coins can be gambled to try to win a magical item which is similar to the character's supernatural ability mechanically but uses its own pool of points. Acquiring coins also allows you to level up so they seem to be the basic currency of the game.

The entire mechanics seem quite abstract and there isn't much in the way of world building so I wonder how groups are meant to keep a cohesive tone and whether too much responsibility is with the Leader to create a satisfying dungeon experience.

This feels a very different game to most OSR propositions with its variable authority an abstraction of the power curve for characters. I think it falls into the category of games that has to be played to be understood.

A leaflet comdey game about trying to pass yourself off as sailors on a ship journey when you in fact know very little about sailing and ships. The main threats are discovery and exposure as being a sham or a fraud so the tone is very light-hearted.

Mechancially I find it interesting, there is a common pool of dice and over the course of four problems or rounds each player narrates their character's approach to the problem and adds a stat which is rated from 0 to 2 to a number of dice they take from the pool. Each dice thrown that is 5 or higher (adding in the stat number) is a success and returns to the pool but each dice that doesn't meet this threshold is placed in front of the player to indicate suspicion that they may not be all they say they are.

If all the dice are removed from the pool there is a collective negative outcome where the characters are exposed and consequences are based on how suspicious you are deemed.

If all four problems are overcome the remaining pool dice are shared between the players and rolled with successes indicating how well the character has done out of the whole misadventure.

I think the mechanics could work for something less comic, anything that involves subterfuge in a social setting.

The main problem with the game is that there isn't enough space to do some proper hand-holding on setting up a successful game. The GM is meant to come up with four interesting problems that require teamwork to overcome. The group needs to decide the setting and how the situation has come about and also set the stakes on what a successful voyage might be. It's one of those “create interesting and engaging scenes until you find a satisfying resolution” situations.

I'm very tempted to give this a go and I'm also interested in skinning it different but I would have preferred a bit more structure for something that feels clearly pitched as a pick-up game.

This hardbacked scenario for Old-School Essentials presents the manor of a plane-hopping vampire who claims dominion over vampires and imposes a blood tithe on them. One of his “subjects” has failed to provide his tithe and the Blood King has arrived in the character's world to impose his will over his errant vassal.

The scenario is presented as an old-school mid-level run on a hostile stronghold but it feels like it would work better in a more planar-based game where the various intrigues and sub-plots can play out. Alternatively you can drop the conceit that the Blood King is here for a specific time (the Blood Moon) and have him arrive as a new faction into an existing situation, present until he chastises his wayward child and obtains what the feels he is owed.

Some of the NPCs presented are intriguing: the vampire refusing to pay the blood tithe has been cursed with moral feeling and therefore doesn't want to murder people. He's hiding in the castle plotting with the king's adopted daughter while an enchanted vampire look-a-like is tortured in his place.

A vampire hunter has become trapped within the manor and is unable to escape but is a wildcard threat to the occupants and a potential ally for the invaders. She has captured a vampire and is subsisting by drinking their captive's blood.

These are vivid portraits of desperate people but sadly more interesting than the Blood King himself.

The castle also has a hive mind fungus infection which is one idea too far for me, although the idea of using an infestation to your advantage would have appealed to several of the groups I've played with.

There is also a cosmic astronomy theme with minature worlds and a heart hidden inside a star. I found it interesting but I'm not quite sure it really fitted in with the rest of the blood, flesh and horror motifs.

I like the rich, electric illustrations by Justine Jones but in a couple of cases (like the Shadow Hounds) the art and the text don't agree. I think you can pick which you like but the art is definitely the richer and more evocative if a little bit more conventional.

The biggest issue I have with the scenario is that it is half-sandbox and half-frozen tableau waiting for the players to arrive and allow the plot to progress. The rebellion against the king isn't a ticking bomb but also doesn't feel like a slow-burning situation where the characters can make a decisive difference. Only the situation with the vampire hunter makes sense as a status quo that the appearance of the characters can majorly alter.

Overall I think this is a book to take ideas from but its more inspiration than play ready.

The Ends of the Earth is an excellent little hex crawl setting that advertises itself as a weird fantasy setting but compared to the more obtuse ends of the Troika world this is pretty clearly explained content and a compelling otherworld driven by its own strange logic.

The setting is literally at the edge of whichever world you locate it, a place where reality is thin and strange people dwell. The setting revolves around four demi-god style characters and the factions around them. The key locations relate to the history and machinations of the factions and the powerful entities behind them.

The only issue I'd raise with them is that one of the factions involves a violation of heaven and I initially read this as being something akin to the Christian heaven but I think it is actually something more akin to a plane of Paradise or the home realm of a powerful god. Just one piece of obfuscation in the whole setting I can live with although it would have been good to have had a bit of clarification about the intent on this.

A full description and narrative is given to help the GM to run the game while the players are likely to be encountering more enigmatic relics and bands of NPCs and trying to piece together what is going on. The legibility of the setting is hard to judge just by reading alone.

The actual hex map is divided into sub-sections that have their own detailed map and location descriptions. These obviously refer to the faction information but detail resident NPCs or locations present. A number and letter system makes it easy to find to look up references and follow references across the detailed and general map. Generally the content is well constructed and easy to reference, I didn't feel like I was ever losing track of ideas in the setting or getting mixed up between implied world building and more concrete concepts.

The writing is evocative without being elliptical, poetic at times but not obscure. I think what I really enjoyed about it was the richness to the way that everything layers within the setting. The people are pursuing agendas in places that relate to the history of the world and the influence of the demigods bleeds out into the context that the locations exist in. It feels like a miniature world, deep but not overwhelming.

I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to play this but it has set a new benchmark for me as to how hexcrawlers can work and should be written.

Wargod! is a collection of careers in the style of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for Troika!. Kreigsmesser was a similar idea but probably undershot the skill values compared to this collection. Maybe this collection has had more playtesting, maybe it is just lucky.

The standard stereotypes of the grimdark game are present and correct. The ratcatcher has a Small Vicious Dog as is required by the rules of the genre. However Warlock! remains my gold standard for trappings and plot hooks. A few potential hooks for what might have driven out of each career and into the life of an adventurer would have been welcome.

The backgrounds also don't really take the opportunity to create an implied background or a perspective on the world that these people live in. Troika! took it too far but this collection goes to far in the opposite direction there's less verve than the original game.

If you like gothic fantasy and Troika (or the Advanced Fighting Fantasy family of games) then it is worth having a copy of this for future reference but digital is probably going to be fine.

The high-level pitch was irresistible, Starfare is Into the Odd in Space. The first read through this pamphlet game though was a little off-putting: a universe infused with cosmic, psychic power but a society broken into interstellar dark ages. Still no magic but also no spaceships.

I initially thought that this is might be an Odd-infused Starfinder. It kind of describes itself as superheroes in space which is not a genre mashup I really thought needs to exist but maybe is a clear-eyed view of transhuman sci-fi or something akin to the Trinity or Mutant Chronicles games. It certainly doesn't feel similar to the Marvel Cosmic heroes genre.

Characters are still defined by their gear and weird tech that they discover though. Your superhuman powers are more like the Arcana of Into the Odd but being powered by a pool of points (called Kinetic Pips). Each character generates a special condition that allows them to reset the pool of points which is a great idea but the rules only provide six of them so for all but the smallest groups you're going to have to deal with repetition or create some more of your own.

There's a nice little method for creating a character's background where you can pick from a table where you roll a minimum and maximum value and pick from any column in the table between those values. It is somewhere between Into the Odd's packages and Electric Bastionland's Failed Careers. I think this is something I would like to see in more of the Marked by the Odd games.

The GM is called the Pilot here and they get an additional book on creating space dungeons which is procedural but also has some flavourful prompts. The idea of exploring ships and stations in a dying space culture actually got me back into the idea of the game. It's the same thing that I liked about Death in Space but the rules here are a lot lighter.

Starfare is a bit hit and miss for me, I think it has some great mechanic and setting ideas but I might be too conversative but I think I would prefer a mix of psionics and “technology as magic” rather than the slightly inconsistent mix of healing, psionics and weird powers it has currently. I think it's a great place to start hacking from and I'd be happy to play a game of if but I'm not inspired to try and organise a game myself.

This small booklet game and scenario is pretty revolting. It belongs to the subgenre of gross out weird fantasy where the characters aren't just in a sewer, the point of the game is the sewer itself. In Lords of Bile Keep the titular lords have filled the Bile Lands with pus, pestilence, slime and sludge but recently the infection of the land has stopped and the Bile Keep is no longer polluting the land around it.

The artwork is the Mork Borg patented collage of public domain art and distorted ambient backgrounds. It's well executed but also at this point a little bland.

Unusually this is not a hex or point crawl but more of a narrative game with a fixed set of scenes to be traversed to uncover the mystery of what has happened to the Lords. Six character backgrounds are provided and a very simple resolution mechanic (flip a coin, heads win, a suitable birth omen provides advantage). The scenes make up the narrative flow of the game so I presume that characters are meant to survive through the scenario but how that fits in with OSR sensibilities I'm not sure.

The main narrative builds through to an interesting choice at the end as long as the characters are sufficiently invested in the existing power structures but the character archetypes don't seem to create that investment and in fact it seems that some of the backgrounds seem antithetical to the lords and it is unclear why they would continue on to the second half of the adventure.

I don't really enjoy the gross out putrescence and wouldn't go out of my way to either play or run a game in this vein. I like the Arthurian vibe of the game and would probably adapt it but I'm not sure I would want to play it straight. An interesting inspiration but not to my gaming or aesthetical taste.

Vampire Cruise is a zine scenario based around a disastrous cruise holiday organised by vampires.

The cruise ship is built around the reclaimed carcass of a ship lost in mysterious circumstances. The captain now entertains the passengers while trying to drink away their guilt at the loss of the ship that has become the “Sea Star”. The vampires think they have created a floating prison for prey that they will feed on during the cruise and have had their victims pay for the privilege. What they don't realise is that the Life Society (a parody of Scientology) is secretly intent on performing a ritual that will have disastrous unintended consequences for the entire ship.

There are little subsystems for cruise activities such as ping pong tournaments, tables for onboard entertainment. Random generators are provided for crew, vampires and passengers and purloined cargo. It feels very aligned with systems like Electric Bastionland which mix fantasy and modern tropes in a rules-light way.

The scenario is surprisingly short compared to the sandbox situations that are common in zines. In a few days a risen god will kill any remaining occupants of the ship whether they be cruisers or vampires. The whole trip is fated to end in disaster. I think one weaknesses is that this ticking clock isn't particularly well communicated, this adds to a feeling of misadventure rather than urgency. Maybe this is the desired outcome, it isn't clear.

In my experience it would be rare to understand the ship, the factions and the threat in less than two game days when you have multiple factions and locations to explore (some of which are off-limits to passengers).

As a collection of notes on the idea of vampires organising a leisure cruise it's a great read. As a playable sandbox it's an odd fish as there is comparatively little space to explore and form relationships with the factions. Be prepared to use this a springboard for your own ideas if the premise floats your, ahem, boat.