Damsels & Dice in 2025

Hello all, and welcome back! I’ve been gone from the internet entirely for a while, thanks to the exciting combination of exams, work and some fun health issues. But I’m back now, and better than ever! So here’s an update, to let you know everything new happening with this newsletter, my games, and the Damsels & Dice “brand” as a whole.

Newsletter Update

First up: you may have noticed this email looks slightly different than normal. After seeing some discussion from other creators, I’ve moved the hosting platform for the newsletter! We’re now based on Beehiiv instead of Substack, though I’ll still be reading other people’s newsletters posted over there. This shouldn’t change much, but I thought I’d let you know.

'til it kills us

‘til it kills us is one of my biggest projects, both published and in-progress, and is one very close to my heart! Thus, it’s not surprising it’ll be seeing a lot of love this year. I’ve got a pipe dream of releasing some sort of storyteller toolbox book, with pre-made characters, locations & plot hooks. But for now, we’re keeping the goals realistic, with a new update! It’ll be reformatted, with new art, and some rewrites that lean more into the dark part of dark fantasy.

Also this year, those of you who filled out my playtesting interest form will finally be hearing back! I’ll be starting later this month, reaching out to those interested in playing with their own groups first, while I work on setting up my personal group.

And, finally, though it’s not something created by me. There’s another place you can get more ‘til it kills us content online in the near future…

Other Ongoing Projects

As well as ‘til it kills us, two of my other published games will hopefully be getting a revamp this year! One is, of course, Duets From Other Worlds — I love the two-player lyric game format, so that collection will definitely see some expansion.

The other update is going to be to The Monster Must Be Fed. Though I love this game as a concept, and I loved writing it, I have to admit I had to rush it to get it published before Halloween. So this year I will be doing my best to flesh out the parts that had to be skimmed over, update all the text to fit my current skill level, and add even more choices for the player to explore!

New Games for the New Year

I’ve got (perhaps ambitiously) a total of five games planned for this year! This section serves as a little rapid-fire summary of what I can tell you about each one.

Unnamed Witch Multiplayer

Through its heavy focus on coven dynamics and verbal spell-casting, this game is all about the power of sisterhood and the power of words! It’ll also feature some twists on classic tropes, a variety of terrible curses to befall your characters, and hopefully some fun folklore creatures too. I took a lot of inspiration from classic fantasy witches from this one, as well as the novel The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow. (Check it out!)

Unnamed Witch Solo Game

… Can you tell I went through a bit of a witch phase last year? Anyway, this is one of the two solo games I’ve got planned for this year! It’s all about the fairytale witch concept, the strange old woman who lives in the woods and gives quests to travelers. It’ll be a very episodic journalling game, detailing your attempts to help everyone who visits you with your limited magical abilities. Lots of fun themes about being an outcast here!

This is a Game about Romance

The Hallmark movie-inspired game I was supposed to write for Christmas of 2024, This is a Game about Romance is planned to be a horror game for two players. I have no idea of the mechanics of this one particularly, but it’s definitely GM-less and definitely has a PVP vibe to it. One player is the protagonist of a romance movie, and the other is the “Love Interest”, complete with all the stalkery, Stepford Wives-y tendencies those characters can sometimes have. It’s gonna be a lot of fun to playtest I think!

Electric Stars

This is the least concrete idea on my list, but I wanted to try my hand at a serial journalling game, and I fell in love with the name! It’s tentatively about a group of androids, trying to adapt & survive in a world long after humans have died. There’s a very strong image in my head of a city surrounded by a dome with fake stars, because the sky outside was once too polluted to actually see them anymore.

Roll for Souls

… is a game about a road trip through hell! This one will obviously, as the name suggests, be a game for dice goblins — lots of dice pools & dice rolls to keep them entertained. It’s also going to be a bit more lighthearted, focused on found family & road trip vibes, despite being a game about dead people! Think of The Good Place as inspiration here.

Smaller Update

I’m also hoping to work on something a little more traditionally tabletop this year: a murder mystery box, complete with roles for each player, props, puzzles and secrets. And, of course, an eccentric detective! This one will probably come quite late in the year, though, as I’ve got to figure out how to write and format everything first.

Beyond that, though, it’s all non-game stuff! For one, you can now find me on Bluesky as well as Tumblr for updates. I can’t guarantee I’ll say anything interesting to start with, though, as I have no idea how the platform works!

And then finally, my Ko-Fi! Not only do I have one where you can donate, which I think is already news to a lot of people, but I’m planning on updating to have subscriptions! That’ll mostly just be another way to support me, but I’ve got some cool ideas for rewards planned. Everything from bonus updates during my quiet periods to extra discounts on games and the chance to get your own personal acknowledgement. I think it’ll be a lot of fun, and hopefully help keep my food bill paid next year 🤞

Thanks for Reading!

No Tangential Thoughts this time, as this newsletter is already a pretty big one, which means we’re at the ending! You’ve made it all the way to the end of my rather rambling update, and for that I thank you. Though I always encourage you to check out my games, or any of things I reference in these posts, just reading is already a great help to me!

If you want to help out a little more, consider sharing this newsletter, clicking on any of the links included in it, or subscribing if you haven’t already.