#33in28 Week 3 Reviews

Hi all! This is the week three set of my #33in28 reviews! The final post will go up on Sunday of next week. This week I’m covering a lot of self-care and meta type games like Ego and soulQUEST, but don’t worry, there’s still time to get Lost in the Deep. Enjoy!

Hi all! This is the week three set of my #33in28 reviews! The final post will go up on Sunday of next week. This week I’m covering a lot of self-care and meta type games like Ego and soulQUEST, but don’t worry, there’s still time to get Lost in the Deep. Enjoy!


Continue reading “#33in28 Week 3 Reviews”

#33in28 Precious Little Animal Review

Hi all! This is my review for the third week of #33in28 where I focus on a single game. This week’s game is Alex Roberts’ Precious Little Animal! It seemed really cute and positive, which I think is something all of us could benefit from this week. Precious Little Animal is a journaling game where you tell positive things to an animal friend and is currently on Kickstarter!

Hi all! This is my review for the third week of #33in28 where I focus on a single game. This week’s game is Alex Roberts’ Precious Little Animal! It seemed really cute and positive, which I think is something all of us could benefit from this week. Precious Little Animal is a journaling game where you tell positive things to an animal friend and is currently on Kickstarter!

Continue reading “#33in28 Precious Little Animal Review”

#33in28 Week 2 Reviews

This is the second week’s installment of #33in28, my birthday celebration reviewing 33 solo games in 28 days! Today I’m featuring Bear, Morning Phase, Operation Cat Chat, and more! Check out these awesome games through my reviews and make sure to click through on their itchio links to find out more and buy your favorites! I want to point out with this post that every single one of these games could be priced far more and still be more than worth it, so *please consider tipping if you buy!*

Hi all! This is the second week’s installment of #33in28, my birthday celebration reviewing 33 solo games in 28 days! Today I’m featuring Bear, Morning Phase, Operation Cat Chat, and more! Check out these awesome games through my reviews and make sure to click through on their itchio links to find out more and buy your favorites! I want to point out with this post that every single one of these games could be priced far more and still be more than worth it, so *please consider tipping if you buy!*

Continue reading “#33in28 Week 2 Reviews”

A New Masculinity: The Men of Wolfenstein: The New Order

I want to talk about so many things in the realm of Wolfenstein and how it portrays masculine characters, but I want to talk first about the characters themselves. We’ve addressed how Wolfenstein: The New Order talks about masculinity through the main character William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, and how it functions in genre. Now I want to address some of the other characters that are in the game and how they are presented (I may not address all your faves, sorry).

This is part of a series on masculinity and the game Wolfenstein: A New Order. The series focuses exclusively on Wolfenstein: A New Order and the characters within it, though it does reference the backstories of characters that may not be revealed until later games in that series. Much of the specific details here were sourced in the Wolfenstein Wiki.

Content warning: Nazis, hate crimes, domestic abuse (parent-child, spousal), violence, homophobia, racism, ableism, eugenics, torture, suicide, animal cruelty

SPOILERS for Wolfenstein: The New Order and elements of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.


I want to talk about so many things in the realm of Wolfenstein and how it portrays masculine characters, but I want to talk first about the characters themselves. We’ve addressed how Wolfenstein: The New Order talks about masculinity through the main character William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, and how it functions in genre. Now I want to address some of the other characters that are in the game and how they are presented (I may not address all your faves, sorry). I also played the Wyatt timeline, one of the most vital decisions in the game, so I won’t address Fergus or his timeline much (playing thru again hasn’t been possible with my cognitive issues). I’ll likely address characters like Caroline, Frau Engel, and Anya in a separate article, because that’s a very different matter. 

Note: I may not discuss Sigrun, Frau Engel’s daughter, from The New Colossus in detail due to how her experiences are related to my own trauma, and since she is from a later game. We’ll see!

First up, we’ll address the Resistance. Note that I don’t think that these characters are without flaws, but I want to appreciate their good characteristics. 

Max Hass from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a large white man with a visible brain injury in suspenders and a thermal shirt, sitting on a bed. Image from user joumur on Steam.
Max Hass from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user joumur on Steam.

I want to talk about Max Hass with a desperation. Max is a pacifist, and was born with a brain injury and abandoned as a child. I love Max for a lot of reasons, but I will note that he experiences the stereotype of many mentally disabled folks in that he is physically minimally vulnerable, very strong, and speaks simplistically – only saying his name. This portrayal is obviously from a challenging perspective and can be harmful. However, the character is well-loved, heroic, shown to be mostly capable except for his own traumatic responses, and while he is shown to be childlike, he is distinctly masculine in his presentation. 

Max is flawed in his presentation in regards to ability, though he is definitely fitting a trope. But he’s portrayed as a masculine character in a youthful way, which is something we rarely see in war games. Childlike natures are often presented as juvenile, rather than something understandable that people respect and support, like when B.J. helps recover Max’s lost toys as part of an achievement and story thread. Max Hass is an example of a character that could have been done better, but to me his inclusion was valuable – it’s okay to be disabled, to perhaps be childlike, regardless of the reasons behind those things. You can still be loved, still be a boy at heart. These are things we often strip from disabled masculine people, so it mattered to me.

Next to Max, we don’t go so far to find Klaus Kreutz, who is the one who recovered Max from behind a dumpster after losing his own disabled child to the Nazis eugenics. He was originally a Nazi soldier, and after losing his son and his wife in a tragic encounter, grew to deeply hate the Nazis and their ideology. He turned against the Nazis and became a member of the Resistance, and while he encountered initial conflict with B.J., they eventually become colleagues that respect each other. This encounter is shown in The New Order, and is important because in many instances, we frame Nazis or fascists as not real men or even men who change sides as not real men because they’re disloyal or because Real Men don’t do violence, and this is a flawed and messed up concept. In the game, they don’t portray the situation as such, instead focusing on the Nazi atrocities and whether Klaus might harbor any Nazi beliefs. 

Klaus is shown as caring, and loving towards Max. He is without a doubt portrayed as a masculine character with a past of violence, but now he instead cares for Max as if he was his own child, and doesn’t question giving his life for the resistance. He embodies heroic qualities and paternal qualities we associate with adoptive fathers. Doing this to someone who left Nazi service and showing that people can change is a vital element of the storytelling in The New Order.

Wyatt from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a white man in fatigues in a black and white closeup. Image from user Joey Stick on Steam.
Wyatt from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user Joey Stick on Steam.

The flip of the coin is Probst Wyatt II, a dedicated and initially idealistic soldier who served alongside B.J. and in one timeline of the game, he is the character saved from the terrifying Deathshead, a villain who tortures the characters quite horrifically. Wyatt experiences post-traumatic stress disorder from the war and depression after the suicide of his mother. He is one of the few genuine portrayals of mental illness in a masculine character I’ve seen in AAA games where the illness is recognized and respected. Wyatt is given space to struggle through his illnesses and not forced to participate in further war, and granted space within the Resistance compound to recover and rest. 

I cannot describe how much Wyatt’s story impacted me. I am so very used to seeing symptoms of mental illness hidden in games, washed over or described as supernatural or unreal. They’re often shamed, or dismissed as unmanly or unmasculine and masculine people who struggle with mental illness are emasculated and lose their agency. They’re shamed if they take space to deal with or struggle with their trauma. How many moments ask you to “Man Up”? Doesn’t Wolfenstein itself use a frankly shitty difficulty level imagery with B.J. in baby clothes if you choose the easier difficulty? (Don’t think I’ve forgotten it, I think about it every day.) Wyatt’s struggle is vital and important, and the way the rest of the characters treat it is even more important for any type of character, but definitely a masculine one.

Note: From what I know, Wyatt copes with addiction in an attempt to help his illness in The New Colossus, but does recover after some challenges. I think this is also an important story, and hope to play through it someday.

J, one of my favorite characters, is one of the few Black characters featured in The New Order (aside from Bombate, who I adore) and is the survivor of a hate crime by United States white supremacists. He is a guitarist and initially, as mentioned in the previous article, finds conflict with B.J. because he tells B.J. that in the U.S., white people (and implicitly, I think, the military) were the Nazis. J is so important to the story that it disappoints me not all players might fully engage with his story and his scenes, since they aren’t mandatory, but he opens B.J.’s mind literally and figuratively by playing music and giving B.J. drugs that cause him to hallucinate, but also reflect on his thoughts about Black Americans and about the role of white U.S. citizens in the oppression of Black people. It’s a beautiful scene.

J from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a black man playing a guitar. Image from user eg0rikTM on Steam.
J from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user eg0rikTM on Steam.

J himself is portrayed in many ways like Jimi Hendrix, who he appears to be based on – natural hair, colorful clothing styled like 60s and 70s funk fashion (as much as can be managed in the war). He does not fit the white concept of masculinity, and that’s important. He could be seen by some to be flamboyant, but instead he is presented as expressing himself. He could have been presented as hyper masculine and robust in a racist stereotype, but instead he is thin, scarred, but still resilient. I could say a lot more about J, but I would want to hear more from Black players on his masculine portrayal, and on that of Bombate. 

Bombate is a Resistance fighter and I know that in The New Colossus he is portrayed somewhat as a womanizer, cheating on one character with another. However, in The New Order, he’s steadfast and tells stories of his experiences at the hands of the Nazis. Bombate traveled north from his home in Southwest Africa (Namibia) to face the Nazis head on, and after two years was put into a forced labor camp. He has been through immense trauma, but it never once is designed in The New Order for you to feel any disrespect for him for the way he processes that trauma or to see him as anything other than heroic. 

He is framed as masculine, and is not dismissed as a threat to the Nazis. Bombate is an immediate powerful ally for the player as B.J., respected and trusted. It is refreshing to see a character presented so simply as someone just and who did the right thing, even if they suffered, and not have the whole story be how they are now weak because of their trauma (but not presenting them as unrealistically powerful, either). Especially for masculine characters, I feel like this is underrepresented.

This video on Whiteness and Judaism in Wolfenstein does a much better job than I could discussing the subject.

The final Resistance character I want to address is Set Roth. Set is one of the only Jewish characters we interact with, aside from B.J., and the highest profile masculine Jewish character whose identity is relevant. While there are absolutely concerns about the portrayal of Judaism in Wolfenstein, I was happy to see a Jewish character at all since past games kind of blurred over that beyond the main character (whose identity wasn’t really addressed). As far as masculinity goes, Set is presented as an elderly man, but still virile, still brilliant, and would by many be stereotyped as a wise old man (never failing to lose that vibe of men-are-smarter-than-women). However, he works alongside Caroline as an equal, and never once places value on masculinity of himself or others over that of the mission or the women in the game. 

Set is unusual in that his gender and presentation is not so overt and this may be a case of how we tend to de-gender or minimalize the genders or presentation of people who aren’t the standard issue white person, but it also may be related to the fact that he is older and we desexualize and de-gender the elderly in a similar way we do some young children. However, as I have limited exposure to masculine Jewish culture, I could also be witnessing my own bias in action – and this is something I would love to hear more Jewish perspectives on. I am far from an expert, I’m just sharing what I experience and witness. 


And now, a note on the other side of the conflict. We won’t dwell long on them, for obvious reasons. Note that none of my allowances for the possibilities of characters having trauma or reasons for their actions means that I excuse their actions or that I think anything they do is okay. Just for clarity! There are absolutely more masculine characters in the Nazi side, but I don’t want to give too much attention to them – they are mostly hypermasculine, toxic, and cruel characters.

B.J. Blazkowicz from Max Hass from Wolfenstein: The New Order, a white man saying "Breathe in, count to four. Breathe out, count to four." Image from user joumur on Steam.
We’re not sharing pictures of Nazis here. Take a breath, let’s get through this together. Image from user joumur on Steam.

Hans “Bubi” Winkle is the 15+ years junior companion of Frau Engel. His presentation is harder to address, because at first you might think that he was effeminate as a way to mock the unmanliness of Nazis or frame them as subservient to women, making women the enemy. But this… did not play out for me in the end. Hans (I refer to him by his name, not what he’s called by Engel) is absolutely a villain. He is absolutely a masculine character, but frankly he’s not the kind of masculine United States citizens are used to. German masculinity, from what I’ve witnessed being there and knowing a number of Germans, is not the same as U.S. masculinity. Hans is still within the range of masculinity in his dress, many of his mannerisms, and even his toxic masculinity of killing for the woman he loves. Engel is his “everything,” and for that, he wells with cruelty and indulges her atrocious acts.

It is important not to forget the masculine characters who are not what we stereotype as masculine. It’s important to address toxicity and the cultural context of the characters we see in media, regardless of whether it sounds good. The relationship between Frau Engel and Hans is toxic, especially when you factor in her abusive nature to her own family, and Frau Engel’s own favoring of time-typical masculine behaviors and dress, and masculine people over feminine people in her life. You note in the game that Hans plays up his ditzy boytoy attitude when around Engel, but becomes more brutal and masculine when apart from her. Hans stays in his position of power by following her rule, which is his failing as a human as much as it is clearly a method of survival. He is the passionately loyal lover and companion – willing to do anything to maintain his status, especially since his past life as an unsuccessful prison guard would never be worth going back to in comparison. 

Wilhelm Strasse, a.k.a. Deathshead, the initial villain of the game, is a polar opposite of Hans. He’s immensely powerful, and while he does fall in the end thanks to B.J., he’s held up as the epitome of Nazi brilliance and cruelty. However, it becomes very obvious throughout play that his eugenics and white supremacy (and male supremacy, if his cadre is any indication) is flawed. The dog brains he puts in robots still maintain habits of regular dogs, his creations suffer in pain, and his pride is what leads to his fall. 

He is absolutely portrayed as a masculine character in the same way that other Nazi generals and authorities have been portrayed in propaganda, like the doctors who performed atrocities. Their maleness, their masculine nature, is supposed to be what makes them so brilliant, so dispassionate and willing to be cruel and cold in the pursuit of science. It is a vile concept, but it is clear in the game that the Resistance and those opposing the obviously villainous Nazis don’t buy it. He is a villain in part because of this perverted toxic ideal of pristine and perfect masculinity. Instead, the characters embrace the imperfect masculinity of characters like Max, J, and B.J.

The Wolfenstein title card with B.J. swimming through water shirtless. Image from Moby Games database.
Image from Moby Games database.

That’s part two of this detailed series on how masculinity is designed in Wolfenstein: The New Order. Design includes how characters are written, how they interact, and how they are presented, beyond the mechanics or rules in the game. I hope to explore more of this topic in future installations of this series, and I appreciate your time as I pick apart my feelings on the game. Please consider supporting me occasionally or monthly on ko-fi.com/thoughty as I do more posts like this!

5 Years

Content warning: alcohol abuse, binge drinking, discussion of risk of violation of consent and assault, underage drinking, social pressure, childhood trauma, anxiety, PTSD, coping, domestic abuse, suicide mention, self harm mention

I have been drinking since I was twelve years old. Alcohol, that is – water and I go way back. I grew up in a drinking heavy culture with easy access to alcohol and the understanding that booze makes you fun, in spite of my own traumatic experiences as a child showing me that drunk adults were not fun. Nonetheless, I jammed to that song and by the time I was legal to drink, I was seasoned, and it tipped over rapidly into a binge drinking habit that nearly ruined my life.

Content warning: alcohol abuse, binge drinking, discussion of risk of violation of consent and assault, underage drinking, social pressure, childhood trauma, anxiety, PTSD, coping, domestic abuse, suicide mention, self harm mention

I have been drinking since I was twelve years old. Alcohol, that is – water and I go way back. I grew up in a drinking heavy culture with easy access to alcohol and the understanding that booze makes you fun, in spite of my own traumatic experiences as a child showing me that drunk adults were not fun. Nonetheless, I jammed to that song and by the time I was legal to drink, I was seasoned, and it tipped over rapidly into a binge drinking habit that nearly ruined my life.

I have not been drunk since December of 2015. Let’s talk about it.

Why Was I Drinking?

Johnny Lee Miller as Sherlock on Elementary sighing.
Let’s do this.

Over five years of moderation – what I chose instead of abstinence sobriety, knowing my own reaction to abstinence and how often I would still be exposed to alcohol living in Pittsburgh, working in games. And games are part of how it got so bad. Corporate had a huge part in it too, but conventions were the tipping point.

To be clear, I still drink alcohol. But I went from, at worst, a full bottle of liquor a binge (binging over 8 drinks a night, multiple nights a week) to now at most, two small glasses of Manischewitz or mixed drink every couple weeks or so. Sometimes, I’ve gone whole months without even tasting alcohol beyond Listerine. But for me, sobriety is about not being drunk, not abstinence. Learning to control my intake, my exposure, and learning to not get drunk.

Surprisingly, with that came the significant limitation of what I drink – mostly it’s for special occasions or to try something special. To me, with a family history of alcoholism, during this pandemic, this has been a massive achievement. I am proud of how far I’ve come.

Detective Bell and Watson from Elementary at an interrogation table as Bell says "Let's cut the crap."
Let me get to the root of things.

I got there because of three very specific things:

  • Coping with trauma surrounding alcohol by becoming one of the drunk people, including PTSD and anxiety
  • Environments seeping with alcohol and drunkenness in my social and professional life, including people buying excessive alcohol for me
  • People telling me that I, a person with low self esteem, was “more fun” and “better to be around” when drunk

…all of these things combined made me into a monster of a drinker. One corporate networking event, I was given so many free drinks that I enthusiastically drank to hide my anxiety that I passed out in a Subway bathroom, broke my phone, missed work, and had to call my spouse to rescue me while I couldn’t find my car keys. My first Gen Con, I willingly drank an extreme amount of alcohol the first night, aided by many of my peers and people far older than me purchasing me multiple drinks and encouraging me, even when I was obviously drunk.

The drinking made the people around me include me more, talk to me more, say nice things to me – and it dulled my deep, untreated anxiety and PTSD from being around drunk & drinking people – plus everyone else was drinking, and seemed to be drinking a lot at these events, and so many people were drunk or had behaviors that triggered my PTSD about drunk people that I thought I wasn’t the only one. After that night at Gen Con, I woke up without a hangover after getting mad sick all night, and everyone else was wrecked. I thought it was normal. I thought it was okay, and that most people were like this, just like they were in corporate, where I’d watched coworkers and bosses drag in hungover for years. It was not normal, nor was it okay.

What Changed?

Sherlock on Elementary talking to a perpetrator who pulls a drawer out at his desk to reveal a gun. Sherlock says, "It's come to that, has it?"
I considered any degree of self harm, or hoping that someone would finally end me.

After an abusive relationship where my partner encouraged me to drink because I was “more fun” and “not annoying,” where they abused me less when I was drinking, I got to the point where my last Dreamation, 2015, took me over the edge. I was manic, in the midst of a traumatic episode post-abusive-breakup, and I don’t remember most of it. I am sure there are still people I should apologize to, but it took me two years to apologize to one of the people I hurt the most out of shame and self-isolation. I was destroyed after that weekend.

After that, I stopped drinking at all within a week. I tried to cut it out completely for a while, and then at the end of the year I was at a work event and got so trashed I had to be escorted home, got in a verbal fight with a coworker, and broke some items at home (not to mention the bruising from being sloppy). A coworker had said something triggering during the event and I just cruised down the hole, and after that, I realized abstinence and exposure needed some recalibration. My goal became to moderate, minimize, but also avoid environments where drinking was common, plus I made the goal don’t get drunk not don’t drink, and it helped.

I have had the edges of tipsy a few times, but I have even dumped out drinks to risk going further. I started promoting safer drinking spaces and sober spaces, like with the Soda Pop Social, at cons that I attended. I realized that my abusive relationship would have been shorter, my experience with assault may not have happened, and my childhood trauma may not have existed without drunkenness. I pursued therapy doggedly and I stopped attending a lot of events that bred the environment that triggered my bad behaviors, and stopped hanging out with people who did the same.

What Does This Have to Do With Games?

Johnny Lee Miller as Sherlock on Elementary speaking to Lucy Liu as Watson saying "As long as we're together, what does it matter?
We have to be more than together. We need to be committed to safety.

I’m talking about this in a gaming space because dear lordy, is it relevant.

Gaming spaces are flooded with alcohol, references to alcohol, and alcohol abuse, plus predators who take advantage of that. We have seen in the past years many people plied with alcohol, harmed, and then shamed for participating in a toxic and drenched culture of legacy game people, people with power and authority and charisma, and people who have been chosen as darlings of the industry using alcohol to do business, take advantage of people, and abuse the power that they have.

Drinking in moderation can be safe and fun, but when you apply power dynamics and people thinking it’s okay to do business (or pleasure) to an environment full of alcohol, surrounded by and surrounding alcohol, it is toxic and dangerous. The fact that the only drinks we really mention in games like D&D are alcohol is no coincidence to our alcohol focused culture. There was even a “get drunk and get interviewed to spill beans about the industry” interview series that was wildly popular on Kickstarter, and I spent months of anxiety disgusted and upset about it. Few people seemed to care, because hey, drinking’s just fun! Right?

The Fear

Sherlock and Watson from Elementary standing together as Sherlock says "What's it to you?" to someone offscreen.
It is so important to me that things don’t worsen, and instead get better.

And now, we are in the pandemic. We are isolated. We are all broke. When the tide turns, if it does, and we return to events like game days, conventions, private house cons, I feel like the risk will be amplified. Predators will be in full force, and we’ll all want to celebrate, and to celebrate is to drink, according to a lot of cultural baggage we have. We also have a huge influx of people who are designing and gaming who have never been to these events, who may not know how to be safe, or who may be vulnerable to people and structures of power.

I want to see us avoid the pitfalls that will happen. So, the people who may be at risk mostly have been told what to do: be careful, don’t trust strangers, don’t drink at conventions or events, etc. I want to talk to people who don’t think they’re at risk of predation, addiction, or moreso, promoting dangerous behaviors.

  • Don’t offer people alcohol first. Offer soda, juice, food, etc., and only have alcohol as the next option if they opt towards it.
  • Eat meals or snacks with booze. This makes people less likely to get smashed.
  • Go to other areas of the event than the bar or go to restaurants without alcohol.
  • Check in with people if they have been drinking and ensure they are safe to go home/to their rooms without risks, including by finding them someone they feel safe with to escort them if they don’t feel safe with you (if they hesitate, etc.).
  • Bring things other than booze to hotel rooms, or if you do bring something special, limit sharing to one small drink for each person, and don’t serve intoxicated people.
  • Don’t serve drinks to or buy drinks for people who are intoxicated visibly.
  • Avoid using phrases like “I need a drink” or “you look like you need a drink” or referencing partying/drinking to relax or have fun.

For people running conventions, you have some responsibilities.

  • Don’t centralize events near or around the bar, and host actively dry events.
  • Consider offering drink tickets for of-age attendees limiting drinks to 2 alcoholic beverages, pre-purchased through the con and processed through the hotel or event location.
  • Do room checks for room parties to ensure people are being safe, including shutting down parties that are too heavy.
  • Discourage bar socializing by making spaces elsewhere to socialize that have access to water, soda, juice, snacks, etc. (helpful: avoid harsh lighting in these areas if possible, but don’t make them dark – think welcoming).
  • Don’t have alcohol themed events.
  • Have food available in some fashion, whether it’s providing local menus, snack bars, food related events, or helping to arrange food outings for smaller cons.
  • Don’t recommend bars or host major events at bars for cons, game days, or house cons.
  • Encourage events that would normally include alcohol like dances but instead bar alcohol or intoxication from the event.
  • Encourage vetted buddy systems, roommate check-ins, checking less-used areas, and checking with people going to their rooms that they’re with someone safe or that they have a safe escort.
  • Encourage digital check-ins on Discords, Slacks, or other private spaces when guests reach their rooms for the night or reach different at-risk events.
  • Vet staff and special guests rigorously for safety. Post staff & special guest lists in advance of events and allow people to give feedback, if possible.
  • Have a safety coordinator for your event!

This all sounds like a lot of work, but welcome to the modern era of conventions: where we try to give a shit.

For those of you who struggle with alcohol or addiction, I am always here to be your dry buddy. In fact, when I attend cons or events in the future, I am hoping to connect with other people attending who will be dry buddies – people who attend events with you and jointly agree to skip the alcoholic drinks and leave if things get rowdy, and escort each other safely away from events.

We can never guarantee someone is safe alone, or fully safe with any other person, but we can make an effort to vet people before events by getting some references before allowing them to have any access to vulnerable people. I will always try to keep you safe, but I am not perfect. We have to work together, be honest, and stick to what we promise together as a community.

Sherlock's father saying "Shall we attack it together?" to Johnny Lee Miller as Sherlock on Elementary.
Yes.

I want to see a safer community someday, but I fear the pandemic will increase our risk including when it passes. Be safe and be thoughtful. If you feel you are at risk for alcohol abuse, avoid at-risk spaces if possible, and check in regularly with a buddy regardless of where you are. Find help now, and know that your way of getting help doesn’t have to be the same as everyone else’s, so long as it works for you. We can get through this, all of us who struggle.


#33in28 – Thousand Year Old Vampire

Thousand Year Old Vampire is a multi-award winning game by Tim Hutchings currently available on itchio and in print at DriveThruRPG. It uses journaling and dice mechanics to guide the player through a solo roleplaying game about the subject – a Thousand Year Old Vampire (TYOV). The game has been widely popular, but I have a lot of thoughts to share!

Thousand Year Old Vampire

By Tim Hutchings

The General Idea

Genre Tags: solo, lonely, dice, journaling, roleplaying game
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? Examples included
Length: Short or Long, Journaling (At your own pace)

Thousand Year Old Vampire is a multi-award winning game by Tim Hutchings currently available on itchio and in print at DriveThruRPG. It uses journaling and dice mechanics to guide the player through a solo roleplaying game about the subject – a Thousand Year Old Vampire (TYOV). The game has been widely popular, but I have a lot of thoughts to share! 

As someone who initially interviewed Tim about the game, I’ve been fascinated with it from the start. I love games about characters who have superpowers like immortality or who are living over centuries, and media like that in general. This game explores that full tilt, including some really challenging topics.

The text includes warnings that you will encounter:

“themes of death, selfishness, and predation. Your character may be injured, victimized, trapped, or killed. Your character will murder and victimize people of all sorts, possibly including children, animals, loved ones, marginalized people, or themselves. You might find yourself exploring themes of imperialism, colonialism, or oppression. Characters might engage in self-harm or drug abuse. Illness, debilitation, and body horror may come into play. Your character may have their memories altered, they will certainly forget important things. 

Some of this will emerge from the Prompts, some will emerge from the choices you make as a player.

This is a personal, challenging game for mature adults. Please play hard, but stay aware of yourself and your feelings. Some good thoughts about safety in solo games can be found in Appendix Three.”
– Thousand Year Old Vampire

I love Thousand Year Old Vampire. Right now, I can’t play it.

The book is one of the most beautiful artifacts I’ve ever owned. The hardcover has gold riddling the marbled cover, and the interior is packed with images and a stunning, original layout that draws attention to the nature of this book as a well-used immortal’s journal, complete with the impression of things tucked into pages, taped into place, or scribbled into the margins. I love every time I open it, finding new gorgeous, character-building bits and pieces I missed the first four or five times I looked through. It’s sturdy, and while you can write in the book as you play, it may take some bravery to embellish the pages with your own scribbles of isolation and loneliness.

The cover of Thousand Year Old Vampire with the title taped on and the styling being of an old hardcover journal with blue and white patterning and gold inlay.

The mechanics are simple, using a d10 and d6 to select and narrow prompts and affect resolution, and the narrative mechanics of Memories and Experiences – the former the bucket for the latter, where multiple short written Experiences make up an arc of a Memory, of which you only have five total at a time. When you gain new Experiences, you lose Memories if you don’t have a space for them.

This mechanic makes so much sense to me when you consider the sheer number of prompts included to put a character through years of triumph and trauma, love and regret, camaraderie and loneliness. Imagine the number of experiences – real moments of eternal living – that a vampire would have in their endless life, how they might imagine ways of ending waking loneliness and sleeping suffering without their loved ones, regretting their deeds, wishing they could do greater ones! It is something that could be played equally passionately and dispassionately, engaging in the powerful prompts with the keen eye of a monster who only has more lives to take or instead with the weary heart of someone who has lived too long and only has longer to live. The possibilities! They are as endless as the days your vampire will sleep through and as engaging as the nights they hunt through.

I want to play this game so badly! It’s so well-written and executed, and the mechanics make so much sense for this immortal being who lives through hundreds of years of life and loss. But, as someone who struggles with memory loss, and during this time of isolation that has been very hard on me, I elected not to play it – right now. Thousand Year Old Vampire will remain on my to-play list until I get the courage to delve into its stunning pages and pen my own story of immortality, but if you want to dive in right now, don’t miss out! 

Thousand Year Old Vampire is a lonely journaling vampire game by Tim Hutchings currently available on itchio and in print at DriveThruRPG. It is one of my favorite games I’m reviewing this month and I hope you’ll check it out soon!

#33in28 Week 1 Reviews

This week I have a bundle of reviews for you, my readers! As part of #33in28 for my 33rd birthday I’m reviewing 33 solo games in February, which has 28 days. Each week I’ll post a single review on Monday, then a collection of six reviews on the following Sunday. The remaining three reviews will be peppered in on the big review days or as solo posts! As these are Let’s check out what today has to offer…

This week I have a bundle of reviews for you, my readers! As part of #33in28 for my 33rd birthday I’m reviewing 33 solo games in February, which has 28 days. Each week I’ll post a single review on Monday, then a collection of six reviews on the following Sunday. The remaining three reviews will be peppered in on the big review days or as solo posts! As these are Let’s check out what today has to offer…
*Edited 2/9/2021 to correct a name and fix some formatting.

Continue reading “#33in28 Week 1 Reviews”

#33in28 Review: A Greeblin’s Journey

This is the first in my #33in28 reviews series for the month of February celebrating my birthday (I’m 33 on the 4th). I’ll do one individual review on Monday of each week, then a collection of the rest of the reviews that week on the following Sunday. Not all reviews will be the same length, but I’ll try to be thoughtful as always. I’m mixing in a few reviews of games I’m familiar with or that I just want to play, because I can (and as example reviews). Luckily I have good taste!

*This game is currently being funded through itch sales, so what I reviewed is not the final product, just what is available prior to the creator hitting their sales goal. Full disclosure: I will be editing the text and I have drawn art to be used for it, but this is the first time I’ve read the text myself.

A Greeblin’s Journey

The General Idea

Genre Tags: multiplayer (3+ players & facilitator), fantasy, tarot cards, heists, coins
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? Some examples in text
Length: Short (One-shot)

The Review

Today I’m reviewing A Greeblin’s Journey by Thomas Novosel! A Greeblin’s Journey is a solo fantasy adventure game in zine format funding through itchio. I have played it with Thomas’s help before (handwriting for me, primarily, for a playtest) and I’m excited to check it out again! 

The zine itself is well written and clearly laid out with a cute and fun cover piece by Thomas. I think the guidance at the start of the zine about themes you’ll encounter is really great, and is a good guideline for how to inform players about content so they can consent and play actively. Really a good starter. 

“A player should before they play take note of what they are comfortable with for themes, as the game’s story is meant to edge the line of victory through luck and will, and what it is like to need to move. The feelings associated with your bones requiring a change of space and life after an entire life of sitting comfortably alone.” – A Greeblin’s Journey, Thomas Novosel

This in particular really resonated with me, as someone who has been in one place for a long time, and who wants to go from one place to another. The elegance of this section’s explanation of the game to come is very true to my experience of play.

A drawing of a Greeblin sitting on a pillow, looking wrinkly and wearing a pierced ear. Art by Beau Jágr Sheldon.
A Greeblin I drew for A Greeblin’s Journey.

Another section that I really like is the description of Greeblins, which can be any kind of thing really, and this part in particular:

“While every Greeblin is different, and there is no core definition of what or who a Greeblin is, there is a feeling. Anyone can look at a Greeblin and sense that they are a Greeblin. Whether it be the way they communicate with others, or the way they look up at the natural world around them, or the curiosity they have with the constructions of civilization.” – A Greeblin’s Journey, Thomas Novosel

As the game states, a Greeblin doesn’t have a name. As someone who only recently acquired their name, I feel very Greeblin-like a lot of the time. This feels really queer in the design, though I honestly don’t know if Thomas intended it that way. Playing the game and coming to the end of the Greeblin’s story felt very reflective of many journeys, but as a queer person, I saw my own journey in it while experiencing a fantastical adventure, which is a great achievement of design.

Speaking of design, the game uses simple two die rolls and narrative prompts (which the game encourages you to replace if there is trouble with content) and then you journal your response to the prompt. I would call A Greeblin’s Journey a being game very much, because while you detail what you do, it’s about being a Greeblin and experiencing their journey. Each Chronicle of the story adds up to a goal of 21 to reach the end of your story, just like in Blackjack (card game). This allows you to time play effectively, but also paces the story well, and gives a chance of failure that is truly bittersweet considering my previous paragraph. It may take a second read to fully understand the mechanic since it’s not our standard fare, but the game does recommend one anyway to clearly understand the rules and play guidelines.

The mechanics include an Impetus die, determining what prompted the Greeblin to journal today, and the Topic die, which determines what they are writing about. There is also the Substitution, which allows you to swap a number you roll for a 1 to allow you to control the pacing of the game (a really smart mechanic, imo), and the Freebies, which are 2 free Impetus, allowing you to replace an Impetus roll with a different Impetus and set the score for it at 0. 

A drawing of a lanky, spotted Greeblin coming out of a cave and doing just fine. Art by Beau Jágr Sheldon.
I love this Greeblin I drew for the text. So lanky!

I won’t spoil the prompts, but they’re quite evocative and inspire a lot of introspection about how the Greeblin interacts with the world, how you as the Greeblin feel about those things, and what matters to you on the journey. I admit that in my playthrough for the playtest I was blessed with Thomas’s dulcet tones reading aloud as he inscribed my responses to the prompts, but I still feel reading through it today that this is a truly fun, and very thoughtful, game for a solo player. Reading the prompts and responses aloud to yourself is genuinely enjoyable, and Thomas’s writing is flavorful and weird.

I created a Greeblin to demonstrate how flavorful it is, using only options (bolded) in the book. Here are how the prompts came out:

My Greeblin…
has tattoos that move in the breeze,
prizes their magic spoon, as its reflection shows what they desire,
is coming from the tall forest with no stars or moons,
and is going to the pink salt ocean and its salt towers.

Like, yes. This is my jam entirely. If Thomas hadn’t been designing this completely separate of me (I’ll edit in the future, but I had no input on design or writing aside from proofreading if he asked), I’d swear he put some of this in here just for my tastes. Tattoos that move in the breeze? I imagine my Greeblin with a pretty mermaid on their arm, though they’ve never seen the sea, who reaches out for passing dandelion puffs. I imagine a forest so bright that it blinds any stars or moons and the only reprieve is the shade, but the trees are so large there are many shadows to lurk in. The spoon shows them a real ocean, with stars overhead and dark skies making the sea look like blood. That ocean – it remains to be revealed, but the Greeblin has many imaginings of what it holds. They intend to lick the salt towers, as would be expected. Who wouldn’t?

The Greeblin’s Journey is a solo game zine by Thomas Novosel currently funding on itchio. It is an exploratory experience with simple mechanics that feels much deeper than skin and simply is good fun and storytelling. Check it out today to create your Greeblin and help them take their journey!

Monthly Ko-Fi Live!

Monthly support is live on Thoughty’s Ko-Fi!

There are some adjustments to the support tiers for the new format, hope you like the change! All backers also will have their names put on the Thoughty site for recognition so long as they are active backers.

$4/one coffee = recognition in a monthly post (please include your name for credit!)

$8/two coffees = recognition in a monthly post WITH a link to your site added to Thoughty (please include your name and site for credit!)

$12/three coffees = recognition in a monthly post WITH a link to your site added to Thoughty AND every other month you can suggest games or article topics for Thoughty’s queue (please include your name, site, and first game or topic choice for credit)

…more gets all of the above & my thanks!

Note: I reserve the right to refuse any specific game/topic or to deny linking to offensive content, but you will always have the opportunity to offer an alternative.

Please join me at the new support site on Ko-fi.com/thoughty! I will keep both the Patreon and the ko-fi active until the end of March, then, I will deactivate the Patreon.

Thank you for your support, always!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

The Man and The Stag on itchio!

A game for two players where they tell stories and play out scenes about the unusual The Man who stays in their cabin in the woods and alone… except for The Stag from the copse who wants to influence the world of man with magic. Whether this connection leads to a revelation or condemnation does truly depend on the cards. Crowdfund ends March 15, 2021!

I am releasing The Man and The Stag as a crowdfunding project as part of #Zinequest3!


A black and white stag with a man between their antlers.
Logo art by Beau, click for the itchio page!

My goal is $1000 by March 15, 2021 and with the following goals, I’ll provide more content! There’s also a number of rewards on the itch page to help me reach my goal!

  • $250 – Art by Thomas A. Novosel, fleshing out the interior sketches!
  • $500 – Art by John W. Sheldon for the cover!
  • $750 – A recorded playthrough with Thomas A. Novosel!
  • $1000 – A Print-on-Demand code will be made available to those who have purchased to get an at-cost copy of the zine!
  • and if we reach $1200, John will do another art piece for us!

I have added a number of rewards that I think suit the project, including one-on-one games and portrait illustrations, but also community copies!

Campaign ends March 15, 2021 at end of day Eastern time!

Continue reading “The Man and The Stag on itchio!”