I didn’t realize it as it was happening, or really until I sat down to write a post reflecting on 2024, but it turns out it was a year of a lot of firsts for me! No wonder I feel so wrung out!

I’m going to briefly mention one work first, which is that construction has begun on Kate and my first project as KB+BA Architecture. But I have a lot of complicated feelings about architecture right now and want to use this post to focus on some RPG firsts!

Word Wizards

I was shocked to see that according to itch.io, I published Word Wizards on May 26, 2024. I thought surely I published this in 2023, making 2024 a garbage year where I accomplished nothing creatively. But in fact, 2024 was the year where I published my very first roleplaying game! I will be telling my therapist about this miraculous discovery.

I want to give a big thank you to my friends Andy, Lex and Braden, since our informal “hey, what if we all met up once a week to encourage each other to work on our game design projects” was what made Word Wizards happen!

Since we’ve got a therapy sub-theme going on in this post, 2024 was a big success regarding my goal of becoming a game designer. In fact, I have fully accomplished this goal, because I have designed a game. Believe you me gentle reader, I want to move these goalposts so bad, but I’m not going to. (At least not while you are watching me!)

In 2025 I’m looking forward to another round of playtesting, revising and publishing finished versions of two projects I released as playtests/beta versions in 2024: Everything You Are Must Be Found and Every Knight’s Story Begins.

My First Con

Kate and I attended two RPG cons this year, something neither of us had done before! The first, making it my first con, was Go Play NW.

In addition to playing lots of games, Go Play’s format of organizing games via The Donut made it a great, low-pressure environment to run some games as well! I had a lot of fun running Mausritter and Electric Bastionland.

Go Play is a relatively small con, and it was a good way to ease myself into the con experience before attending Big Bad Con later in the year. Which I understand isn’t even that big by con standards?! Regardless, the games were lovely, and even more lovely were the between-game and late-night conversations and camaraderie of a whole bunch of people coming together to celebrate something they are extremely passionate about.

My First Time Tabling

Thanks to the Big Bad Con Small Press Showcase, Kate and I got a chance to table and sell our zines for the first time! Kate’s project FOLK was our flagship product (if you’re in Portland, you can probably snag a print copy at Board Bard Games, Dark Future, or Secret Room), but I had a blast hawking my wares as well, including a “shitpost game” I made at a Big Bad Con workshop and printed on the hotel printer. All the other folks selling games were so enthusiastic and supportive, and trading zines with everyone was a con highlight.

A Year of Play

In Rules of Play, Salen and Zimmerman propose “Play is free movement within a more rigid structure” (p. 304) as a definition of play, and it has really resonated with me. I find it useful to ask “what is the free movement?” and “what is the rigid structure?” These questions have been useful to me in thinking about formal games, but lately I am also intrigued by using this definition and these questions as a way to approach life more playfully.

One of the projects I want to work on in 2025 is investing significant time into working on our house. House projects have been overwhelming, and I’m curious if I can change my relationship with working on the house by approaching it through this lens of play. I’m calling it “playing house.” Hopefully I’ll have some updates on this project throughout the year!

Some Favorites of 2024

Not necessarily things that came out in 2024, just some things I loved in 2024! I feel like I’m forgetting a zillion things, but I gotta stop somewhere.

Wishing you a playful 2025!