The Last Six — Curiosities from the Back Room
Every archive has a back room, and every back room has a shelf that nobody has ever quite catalogued. That shelf holds the things that came in with no label: a box that rattled, a parcel postmarked from a town that isn’t on the map. This cycle the Keeper cleared it. Six oddities remained, and none of them would agree to be shelved with anything else.
There’s a desk calendar that’s secretly a dungeon, and a posse of cowboys holding off visitors from the stars. A ghost train runs on a timetable kept by the dead. There’s a farm for adventurers who have finally put down the sword, and a pit fight whose real contest is between the gamblers in the stands. The last of them is a game about how games get made, which the Keeper suspects knows rather too much.
What they share, beyond refusing to fit anywhere, is size. These are small boxes and small presses, games made by a friend down the road or sold through a print-on-demand shop, and each one does a great deal with very little. Several of them are, at heart, a single clever decision dressed in a good costume: this card or that one, cheat or play fair, one more roll or none.
A few older neighbours have been fetched from the main stacks to keep them company, including a designer who builds whole worlds from a handful of cards and a map you draw yourself. With these six shelved, the back room stands empty for the first time anyone can remember. The Keeper has swept it, and is trying not to wonder what will turn up there next.
Exhibit Catalogue, earliest first:
- 2021 Quest Calendar - Monthly Recap - January — a whole month to learn the rules, pick a druid and fight some rats.
- Twisted Fate: Cowboys vs. Aliens - Review — cowards take double damage, and the best card was cut from the box.
- Initial Thoughts on Vagrantsong (WARNING! Incoming Rambling Thoughts!) — you win by giving the ghosts their humanity back, not by banishing them.
- Cozy Oaks - a cozy farming game for these stressful times — the better you get at a skill, the more of your day it takes up.
- A Conversation with Jason Glover: Iron Helm! Game Design! Solo Gaming! And More! — why a designer left traditional publishing for The Game Crafter.
- Revisiting Iron Helm: This or that and press your luck — aging adventurers who are too wise to Leroy Jenkins into a fight.
- Bloodsport Gambler - bet, cheat, and press yer luck (preview look) — bribe the guards with your time, or lose the whole stake.
- File 13 - the cold hard truth about board game development and publishing, by Tom Wham — a 1983 board game where your design can end up in the wastebasket.
- Fantasy Map Maker - Improved Edition - Cozy Map Making Roll and Write — roll two dice, then draw the coastline they give you.
- Wastelandia: Solo and Co-Op Boss Battler (Review) — teenagers with pogo sticks and a 98% survival rate that won’t last.
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– The Keeper
Has emptied the back room at last, and keeps finding reasons to walk past it in case something has moved back in.