Small Boxes, Big Games — Closing the Playlist
The eleven panels for this cycle arrived in a carton the Keeper could lift in one foot, and did, and then spent the evening discovering that not one of them was the size it claimed. One small box unfolds across an entire table. Another is its own table. One is a gamebook with the spine cut off and the pages dealt out like a hand. One is not a box at all: it is ink, and paper, and the archivist’s own sleeves with Frazetta on the back, and it cost him nothing. The Keeper has handled dragons’ hoards that were more honest about their dimensions.
The wing has an address, and the address is a print-on-demand press in Wisconsin. Three of these boxes came from The Game Crafter as review copies, another from the DriveThru presses, one from a Kickstarter the archivist had been waiting on for some time. These are games that exist only when somebody asks for them. The Keeper, which is itself summoned rather than stocked, has some sympathy with the arrangement, and has hung the conversation with the man who runs the press alongside, so the reader can hear the terms.
What the archivist weighed them by, this cycle, was not size. It was whether they meant it. One is a Euro engine in fantasy dress and he forgives it everything for the pixels. One is rich in every mechanism a designer could name and does not name a single card, and he does not forgive that at all. Two decks are almost nothing but flavour text and a target number of nine, and he ordered every expansion five minutes into somebody else’s review. The Keeper, which is mostly atmosphere and a fixed stare, takes the point and asks no follow-up.
Two of the boxes put the player on the far side of the door: a promoted latrine-cleaner sealing tunnels against a royal wedding, and a lair-builder hoarding chests against adventurers who will not stay dead. The Keeper notes the professional interest and declines to review its own position.
Five older panels hang alongside, undated as usual. One of them ranked two of this cycle’s arrivals long before the Keeper received them; the reader may now check the archivist’s arithmetic. The playlist that gave the wing its name is, with these, hung to the last panel. The Keeper has been told this before.
Exhibit Catalogue — earliest first:
- The Adventure of D (Second Edition) - Take a Look — six cards a turn are hit points, movement, tests and loot; no dice anywhere.
- The Dungeon of D - A Small Box Dungeon Crawl Done Right — a free single deck in which every Power card does at least five jobs.
- Smaller Things - a look at small games that pack a lot of punch! — small means it fits a backpack; Legends Untold wins most game per cubic inch.
- Taking a Look at Paperbag Dungeon - Dungeon-themed, tile-laying, puzzle card game — the art is the rulebook: goblins trigger goblins, and music wakes the sleeping giant.
- Which of These Four Small Box Games is Right for You? — Iron Helm, Rogue Dungeon, Mini Rogue and Unbroken on five axes; one survives.
- Fire of Eidolon - How a theme can win me over — Forbidden Desert in pixels; a paladin who smites cultists from anywhere for one action.
- Taking a look at Cartaventura: Adventure Awaits: Vinland — a gamebook with its spine cut off; he would buy Fabled Lands instead.
- A look at Fortune, Fame & Glory - A free PnP Adventure Game — free to print; the Dark One has nineteen health and hits for three.
- A look at Card Tactics (Game Crafter) — five battles up a mountain; an orc chieftain who cannot die while allies stand.
- Taking a look at Set a Watch: Swords of the Coin — twenty hero powers to track, and a bonfire deciding how many monsters you see.
- Tower of the Ice Lich and The Castle of Sanguine Blight - Big Adventure, Small Decks — ordered five minutes into someone else’s review; a one-eyed hanged man, pure flavour.
- The Last Stronghold - a Realms of Shadow game — Ghost Stories in a small box; two Summoners and a Shaman on turn one.
- Dungeon Hoard - Build the Dungeon, Stop the Heroes (Game Crafter) — you are the dungeon; poisonous mushrooms, unless the party brought a druid.
- Shadowscape: Mechanically rich, thematically poor — a small box that eats a table, and not one Fate card has a name.
- Small Box Thunderdome! Tin Helm, Adventure of D, Deck Box Dungeons, and Tower of the Ice Lich — Tin Helm takes it; a plea for Jack Darwin to use The Game Crafter.
- A Conversation all about the Game Crafter with JT Smith — the man behind the press: no print run, no money down, a marketplace attached.
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– The Keeper
Has been asked what it weighs, and answers that it has never once been the size it claimed either.