Things I Liked Last Month: July 2024

Things I Liked Last Month: July 2024

01 August 2024

Welcome to another issue of Things I Liked Last Month! It’s a short one this month because I spent a week away from my computer dog sitting and then it crashed and I’ve had to replace some parts.

Citation Needed

Watch it on YouTube (in the correct damn order!) here.

I've been on a huge indie game show kick these last couple months, recommending Game Changer, Jet Lag: the Game and Duelist's Mansion to name a few. I thought it was time to revisit the first indie game show I ever saw, which probably kick-started my interest in game design to some small degree, Citation Needed.

Created by YouTuber Tom Scott and the rest of the Technical Difficulties team, Citation Needed is a classic QI-style quiz panel show where the panellists are presented with a Wikipedia article and get points by correctly guessing facts about the subject.

Tom does a great job guiding the players through each topic, he's an amazingly skilled host and emcee.

After finishing that, I went on to watch Two of These People Are Lying, which takes the Wikipedia panel show format of Citation Needed and adds a social deduction element. Each player puts the name of a Wikipedia article into a hat and Tom randomly pulls one, then the players have to convince Tom that they know what the article is about. The cast is great and frankly I've never seen another game like it. Trivia and bluffing is such a weird (but seemingly perfect) combination of genres.

Godkiller: Last Hope

Watch it on YouTube here.

Transplanar RPG’s first in-studio series sees Connie Chang and Sea Thomas play Godkiller, Chang’s 2-player RPG about, well, killing gods. 

This was the first 2-person Actual Play series I've ever seen, and I immediately fell in love with the concept, and this specific execution of it is perfect. From the set design, to the costumes, to the giant miniatures of the Gods that tower over protagonist Litany, Godkiller: Last Hope is intimate, exciting and immensely queer in all the ways I love. These guys really knocked it out of the park.

Chang’s game, Godkiller, also seems amazing. I definitely need to give it a read sometime, and pick up the full version when it releases.

The Getaway

Watch it on Nebula here.

From the team behind Jet Lag: the Game, the Getaway is a Nebula exclusive travel show with a social deduction twist. 

Starring Steven Bridges, Georgia Dow, Foreign Man in a Foreign Land, Dan Toomey (Morning Brew), Mathew Krol (Extra Credits and Extra History), and Patch Lacey (TierZoo), as well as voice over talent from Abigail Thorn (Philosophy Tube), the Getaway is a traitor game with a twist: everyone is the traitor.

Each day, the players perform a mission to earn money for the Loyal Loot and then vote 1 player out, all the money they fail to win goes into the Snitch Stash, and is won by the Snitch if they make it to the final 2. In the case of this game, that means that all the money successfully won for the Loyal Loot is actually thrown away, and if the players could just figure out they're all Snitches, then they can work together to throw every game and win as much as possible. But even if you're suspicious that you're not the only Snitch, is it really worth the risk of coming out?

This show is hilarious, it's so funny to watch the whole cast throw every game and even better watching the reactions of the eliminated players as they learn that they've been duped. Definitely go check it out!

Links

• On Dropout’s Adventuring Academy, Brennan Lee Mulligan interviews Dropout CEO and Game Changer host Sam Reich. Hearing Sam talk about his love of making and running games resonated so deeply to me, go check it out!

• At the Lone Toad: Croaker's Favourite Solo Actual Plays.

• On a similar note, Skeleton Code Machine asks What Is a Solo TTRPG? Then follows up with a 6-part series about Making Your Own Solo RPG.

• Over at Explorer's Design, Clayton pitches The 1 HP Dragon. I really vibe with this as a design for combats as puzzles that still keeps to the open-endedness of TTRPGs.

• Quinns Quest reviews Mothership in This Sci-Fi RPG Changes Everything.

• MCDM announced the name for their upcoming RPG: Draw Steel!

• Therapist and The Getaway competitor Georgia Dow analyses her own performance on the show. I’m sure this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for her and she goes into some really interesting psychology behind being a traitor in a traitor game.

Thanks for reading this dispatch of Jackalope Mail! Let me know your favourite things from last month in the comments!