Yes Indie'd Pod

Thomas M
  • 5.0 (20)
  • ARTS
  • UPDATED MONTHLY

Do I like game design? Yes, indie'd! A podcast of bitesize interviews with indie tabletop roleplaying game creators about their work and game design theory & practice. Releases every two weeks.

  1. 12/20/2025

    2025 in Rearview (w/ Quinns)

    As per annual tradition, I'm once again joined by Quinns from QQuest to talk about the year and forge our bond in the fire of podcasting. Show Notes: Fastaval, the larp festival in Denmark Last year's 2024 year in review Games Mentioned The Tribunal The Straights Are Not Okay Tacklebox Mythic Bastionland Gradient Descent God’s Teeth / Delta Green D&D Draw Steel Daggerheart Magnus Archives Old Gods of Appalachia The Silt Verses Old School Essentials / Dolmenwood Cain Pirate Borg Fabula Ultima The Between Masks of Nyarlathotep Eternal Lies Pirates of Drinax A Nocturne Apocalypse World: Burned Over You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    1h 21m

  2. 11/17/2025

    Games Need Communities (w/ Aaron Lim)

    You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! In this episode, I talk to Aaron Lim, a game designer from Malaysia. His work includes sad village-building game An Altogether Different River, very sad journey game Itchaca on the Cards, and tragic mecha game Spectres of Brocken. He's also the organizer of Playtest Zero, a fortnightly RPG playtesting community that's been going on since 2021.  Aaron Lim on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ehronlime.bsky.social Aaron’s itch page: https://ehronlime.itch.io/ Show Notes: Playtest Zero FAQ My article about visiting Malaysia for the Asian Board Games Festival Only Yesterday (1991) Games Mentioned Ithaca on the Cards: Second Expedition Microscope Big Grave Fashion Fantasy Desperation Zhenya’s Wonder Tales If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    1h 3m

  3. 10/31/2025

    Solo Bookplay (w/ Asa Donald)

    You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! In this episode, I talk to Asa Donald is one-half of Backwards Tabletop, the publisher of the Backwards Universe of American horror games and Rust Never Sleeps, a solo mecha game. Their current project is Spine, a dark solo RPG about losing yourself in a book.  Asa Donald on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/backwardsttrpg.bsky.social  Spine (Digital): https://backwards-tabletop.itch.io/spine Spine (Physical): https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/68ec499e9e0b692d084d6b6c Show Notes: Asa’s series on Bookplay and interviews with other designers: www.backwardstabletop.com  Pale Fire by Nabokov Games Mentioned You Will Die In This Place Normality Wisher Theurgist Fatalist Harvest Wreck This Deck (and Wreck This Book) Seven Part Pact The Sun’s Ransom Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    52 min

  4. 10/09/2025

    Reality Checking (w/ Allen Varney)

    You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! Today, I’m talking to Allen Varney, who runs the Bundle of Holding currently, which I think everyone listening to this had heard of. Before that, he worked as a freelance writer, editor, game designer for TSR, Steve Jackson Games, West End Games, FASA, and more. He was the lead designer for Paranoia XP, the 2004 edition of the game from Mongoose, and wrote a ton of articles for house magazines like Dragon.  Bundle of Holding: https://bundleofholding.com   Show Notes: Space Gamer magazine Warren Spector Games Mentioned  Steve Jackson's Man-to-Man Fantasy Combat (also Car Wars, Ogre, and more) Toon Paranoia Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan (Dracula Dossier, Darkening of Mirkwood, Eyes of the Stone Thief) Primal Order If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    50 min

  5. 09/16/2025

    Ex Tenebris (w/ Josh Fox)

    You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! Today, I’m talking to Josh Fox who was last on the podcast to talk about the second edition of his award-winning game, Lovecraftesque. We talked about Black Armada Games, the company he's been running for ten years with his partner, the game designer Becky Annison. This time, we’re talking about Ex Tenebris, a scifi gothic investigation game. Crowdfunding link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackarmada/ex-tenebris Show Notes: Alien ⁠Black Armada Tales (AP of Ex Tenebris)⁠ Games Mentioned Last Fleet Flotsam Dark Heresy Brindlewood Bay The Between Bump in the Dark External Containment Bureau Stealing the Throne If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    54 min

  6. 08/22/2025

    Art, Death, & RPGs (w/ Elizabeth Little)

    You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! Today, I’m talking to Elizabeth Little. She’s a UK-based science teacher, artist, and game designer. She co-founded Shrike Studio in 2015 and released games such as Blight Seas Fleet, a dark fantasy naval skirmish game, for which she developed a whole range of 3D printable miniatures. This year, she released a demo of You Will Die In This Place, an RPG described as "a nihilistic dungeoncrawler about art, death and identity". It’s weird, meta, layered, and also very asymmetrical like a boardgame. We talk about its design and themes (everything is a labyrinth! relationships, games, mental illness!) and its crowdfunding campaign via GameFound's RPG Party later this year.  Crowdfunding link: gamefound.com/en/projects/shrike-studio/you-will-die-in-this-place  Itch.io link: https://liz-shrikestudio.itch.io/  Show Notes: The Denial of Death by Ernst Becker Myth of Sisyphus Labyrinths by Jose Luis Borges Deimos by Dragan Bibin (painting) Toni R. Toivonen’s brass art  Watching from a Distance by Warning (doom metal album) Essay about the game by the Split/Party newsletter Games Mentioned Call of Cthulhu Delta Green World of Darkness Zephyr: An Anarchist Game of Fleeting Identities Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast Paint the Town Red If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    1h 17m

  7. 08/04/2025

    Girls of the Genziana Hotel (w/ Hendrik ten Napel)

    You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! In this episode, we talk to Hendrik ten Napel, a game designer from the Netherlands. He's self-published supplements for Brindlewood Bay, Bump in the Dark, and the Paragon system. His newsletter, Hendrik Biweekly, is a regular source of excellent game design thoughts. Today we're here to talk about his first crowdfunded game, The Girls of the Genziana Hotel, a gothic mystery PbtA game set in an isolated alpine hotel. You play chambermaids in the hotel trying to discover what happened to one of their own. The crowdfunding page of The Girls of the Genziana Hotel on Gamefound: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/hendriktennapel/the-girls-of-the-genziana-hotel Hendrik’s bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/napel.itch.io Hendrik’s itch page: https://napel.itch.io Show Notes: Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz Sally Rooney Games Mentioned Brindlewood Bay The Between Night Witches Exiles Crescent 2e If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    1h 1m

  8. 07/01/2025

    A Body of Work (w/ Emily Allen)

    You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠! In this episode, we talk to Emily Allen, the game designer behind Dying Stylishly Games. She's best known for her two now classic OSR adventures, the Gardens of Ynn and the ennie-award winning Stygian Library, which popularized the depth-crawl format. Both of which are now republished in new editions from Soul Muppet Publishing. She’s also designed Dungeon Bitches, a violent sapphic PbtA game about trauma and survival and the Yellow Curtain, a weird meta-storygame inspired by the King in Yellow. And then this year, we got Black Death Rising, an OSR-ish game of religious horror amidst the black plague where you can play vampires, werewolves, homunculi, changelings, ghouls, grotesques, ghosts, and waifs. And fight fascists, demons, and intelligent rats. Emily Allen’s blog: https://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/cavegirlpoems Games on drivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/8182/cavegirl-productions Emily’s Games: Wolf Pack & Winter Snow (2017) The Dolorous Stroke (2018) Gardens of Ynn (2018) Stygian Library (2018) Deep Morphean Transmissions (2019) Esoteric Enterprises (2019) Dead Girls in Sarkash Forest (2021) Dungeon Bitches (2021/2022) The Wounded, Hungry and Forgotten (2022) Black Death Walking (2022) The Yellow Curtain (2024) Black Lung (2024) Black Death Rising (2025) Show Notes: Book of Revelations Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Games Mentioned Stars without Number Beyond the Wall Miseries & Misfortunes Vampire the Masquerade/World of Darkness Lacuna by Jared Sorenson Mork Borg Empire (larp) If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

    1h 4m
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5
out of 5
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About

Do I like game design? Yes, indie'd! A podcast of bitesize interviews with indie tabletop roleplaying game creators about their work and game design theory & practice. Releases every two weeks.

Information

  • Creator
    Thomas M
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    177
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Thomas M
  • Show Website
    Yes Indie'd Pod

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