Everyone loves an informal end-of-year awards ceremony. This year, everyone’s doing it! I’ll join the bandwagon!
Best Single-location Module
Gold: Cyro-Siq (review here) is a tiny module, that hits so far above its’ weight you couldn’t believe. You’re trapped in a space-ship, and one of you is an assassin hired to murder the others. Will you find out who’s after you first?
Silver: Owe My Soul to the Company Store (review here) is a tour-de-force socio-political module, up there with modules like Witchburner for their depth and focus. If you’re interested in the interaction between exploited workers, unions, and corporations, this is a winner.
Bronze: Brackish (review here) is an investigation in a doomed spaceship with a dangerous force ready to destroy you. It’s inspired by videogames like Return of the Obra-Dinn, and does it better than anything out there.
Best Multi-location Module
Gold: Arkos (review here) is a vibrant, sparkling, overwhelming mess of a city and a module, and an absolute masterpiece of god-politics and music.
Silver: Isle of Hex (review here) is an odd cultish town full of fascinating characters and interesting interactions, feeling like you’re exploring an island where Wes Anderson shot the Wicker Man.
Bronze: Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek (review here) is a wildly illustrated and darkly humourous sandbox packed with interactivity and fun.
Best Roleplaying Game
Gold: Spine (review here) is absolutely the most unique, and the most emotionally affecting game I’ve played in a long time. It’s a solo horror journalling game, and you should check it out.
Silver: The Field Guide Handbooks (review here) are a series of unique games that you carry with you, and play in real time, potentially over a year. They each immerse you in a different aspect of your environment, and they’re absolutely fascinating roleplay.
Bronze: Chain X Link (review here) is the best revolutionary game I’ve read, with an incredibly compelling multi-layered take on dungeon-crawling, and a fascinating structure inspired by John Harper and Tim Denee’s work.
Best Podcast Episode
Gold: The Story of Over/Under on Between Two Cairns was a candid and eye-opening interview and interrogation into what will be remembered as the most significant gaming event of the year.
Silver: The First 30 Minutes on Dice Exploder was full of surprise insights for a series on Actual Play that I (arrogantly) didn’t expect to find much to learn from.
Bronze: Talking To Your Unconscious on Yes Indie’s Pod was a fascinating interrogation into how some people engage with solo games.
Best Videogame
Gold: Blue Prince is just an absolutely compelling, rogue-lite puzzle game unlike anything, with a story that you’ll be begging to uncover more of.
Silver: Balatro ended up being the game my partner and I played the most of together this year, and unendingly challenging puzzle, although stymied at times by the too-random randomness.
Bronze: Hades 2 was just so much fun, with so many challenges, and so many highs. I just wish the end-game was a little less prone to requesting you pursue extremely specific challenges, as it started to grow old, although it took a lot of playthroughs.
Best Book
Gold: The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong is a lovely story of wizard romance in a basic fantasy world, filled with cosy feelings and deep history.
Silver: Little Thieves by Margaret Owen is an excellent con-girl story with fascinating world-building, small gods and political marriage and is the first in a series I look forward to digging into.
Bronze: A Rare Find by Joanna Lowell is a queer romance featuring a woman archaeologist set in regency England. Do I need to sell it any further?
My year in numbers
- Released Guilders!
- Released a sequel to Curse of Mizzling Grove, Sharky! It was an honorable mention in the Cairnies, and got a The Best from Bryce!
- Published 50 Bathtub Reviews
- Published 20 reviews of Zungeons
- Published 5 I Read reviews
- Published 30 reviews for Critique Navidad, my holiday season review bonanza (and special guest reviewer Sam Dunnewold published 1!)
- Published 123 posts in total on Playful Void
- The Zungeon Jam featured 81 dungeon zines (thank you everyone who participated)!
- My top five non-review posts were:
- I was nominated for an Ennie!
What’s happening next year?
Well, my life will get a lot harder next year, outside of the hobby, but I have a few goals for next year:
- Playtest, find an artist for and finalise Lightfingers for publication
- Playtest, find an artist for and finalise the Great Egg Hunt for publication
- Edit, lay out, playtest, find an artist for and finalise the Cat Vats of Gatraxas for publication
- Finish editing and laying out The Ratcatchers for publication
To those ends, I’ll be creating a small server where I’ll share these modules as they’re ready for playtesting, and then collecting feedback for those tests. Thank you to those who’ve already volunteered!
And, most of all, thank you to all of you who’ve voted for me in the Ennies, in the Bloggies this year and the last, and who’ve engaged with and read my reviews and other posts. I really appreciate all of your support!
Idle Cartulary
Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.
Playful Void 
Leave a comment