Hi everyone! It’s me, Michael, with another update from TIN.
This month’s big news is that TIN received a last minute invitation to run a stall at MCM London Comic Con. It’s a huge event, right on our doorstep at the Excel Centre; and with Critical Role’s attendance, we’re hoping it will a draw a decent crowd of tabletop gamers (and the gaming-curious).
We’re dedicating most of this month’s newsletter to the amazing products we’re selling at TIN’s MCM stall. We’re going to have a bunch of great value offers, for customers who pick up a few of our games at once. If you’re interested in picking up physical copies of our creations, set your calendars for the 27th to 29th October. We look forward to seeing you there.
Meetups & Events
The next London Tabletop Industry Networking Meetup is this Thursday 5th October, at The Lamb in Bloomsbury from 7pm. We’ll have a few MCM attendees there to talk stall strategy, and maybe a couple of newcomers!
The following meetups are on Thursday 2nd November (probably a post MCM-debrief), and Thursday 7th December (probably a post-Dragonmeet debrief). They’ll be at The Lamb too.
After that, our usual first-Thursday-of-the-month schedule falls on Thursday 4th January. Not sure if anyone will be around then - January socials tend to be not well attended. We might cancel, or reschedule, or try and make an event of it… I’ll confirm closer the time.
Bundles, Crowdfunding, & Subscriptions
Friend of the network Marx Shepherd is currently managing the Kickstarter campaign for Afterwords: The Far Horizons Guide to Death. It’s a lovely, thoughtful, anthology of games and essays, from an incredible team of indie designers. This isn’t one you can afford to sleep on until retail - it really needs your help if it’s going to fund at all. Please give as generously as you are able.
MCM London Comic Con Highlights
Michael Duxbury (yours truly) will be at MCM selling a mix of fun little fantasy RPGs, and horrible little Dark Aesop games. Romantic fantasy LadyBeaste, and family-friendly hijinks generator Field Trip are examples of the former; violent survival horror game Crying Wolf, and labour exploitation simulator Golden Eggs are examples of the latter. I’ve also got a couple of copies of PolyTheist to give away, so stop by the stall earlier to grab them before they’re gone.
Tori Truslow will also be present at MCM with Tending: A Game of Devotion, a mixed media journalling game where you take the role of a devotee at a holy site. Over a span of seasons you'll carry out sacred work, seek the divine, and change everything in the process. The core rules were written for solo play, but the game also includes suggested approaches for group and epistolary play. With a bit of luck, Tori will also be bringing an activity book zine, containing minigames and prompts for creating fantasy dungeons and encounters.
Artiste extraordinaire Mikhail Malkin will be bringing copies of Ash Nocktem’s Travelling Companions, a selection of overhead battle maps, stickers, and hopefully a little adventure zine. Like me and Tori, Mikhail will be working the stall at MCM, so he’s also available for live sketches of your favourite player character, or anything else you can convince him to draw!
Eran Aviram is sending along a couple of solo RPGs. Caregiver is a single player storytelling game, of an exasperated healing spirit who tries to help a group of ungrateful heroes. Menagerie of the Void is about the keeper of an ancient menagerie, created by a long-gone society and still operating - you might remember our glowing review of this one from our July newsletter.
Our UK Games Expo partner Eleanor Hingley is sending us more copies of fantasy librarian solo game Ex Libris, and two-player dystopian correspondence game Talking Thunder. The former was our absolute best seller at UKGE, so I’m expecting it to be very popular again at MCM!
We’re delighted to also be stocking a few games by LunarShadow Designs’ Craig Duffy on our stall. Project Cassandra is a tabletop RPG of the Cold War, of secret government projects and the search for super-powered individuals on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Signal to Noise is an interstellar epistolary game for 2 players, played out one message at a time over email. Rock Hoppers is a solo journaling RPG set within the same expanding space opera setting as Signal to Noise.
Last but by no means least, our crack team of thieves stole a few games from Nick Bate and we’re looking to fence them. Stealing the Throne is a storytelling game of giant mecha heists - we’ll also be selling the Daring Thief Edition, Stealing the Throne’s solo-play adaptation. What’s so daring about SKY PIRATES? is a light tabletop RPG of aerial heists over the glittering ocean and jungle-filled isles of the Sunset Archipelago.