I finally bought my first ttrpg book, and it is not D&D

a whole bunch of the demos I had lined up to play on Steam were removed after release/next fest

which I sorta get but also is wild to me as someone who grew up on Q3DM17, Tobruk and Silent Cartographer

my guys I am more likely to move on than buy your full-price game sight unseen

@gamesewer.com is coming back for 2026 and I'm hyped!

By The Meridiem Gleam by XCVG Magical Girl Gina and friends fight around the world as part of a special task force

Surprise! By The Meridiem Gleam has been updated, with a ton of small fixes and minor improvements (including an option to swap the minigame controls to something more sane)

xcvg.itch.io/daybreak

More detailed first impressions: blog.xcvgsystems.com/1348-ex-voto...

And then it throws me an insane difficulty spike when I still haven't figured out the combat...

Started playing 1348 Ex Voto, because let's be honest it's practically precision-targeted toward me. It is major eurojank, but so far more enjoyable than the quite brutal Steam reviews would suggest.

Identifying the Dice of the 1970s How can you recognize a polyhedral gaming die made in the 1970s? The video above gives my tips for collectors and researchers who want ...

an explainer, if you have no idea what I'm talking about here: these are a nod to the Creative Publications and Holmes dice used in the very, very early days of D&D playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2020/02/iden...

I'm pretty impressed with the Chessex "Nostalgia" set. It's obviously made of standard dice from their lineup- the colours are not close to their inspiration, and the d20 goes from 1-20- but it manages to include some nice nods to RPG dice history and it's only $5.

I'm kinda coming around to the idea of characters being the single most important part of a game for fan engagement and long-term mindshare

Been trying some demos and shorter games blog.xcvgsystems.com/trying-some-...

Not a full breakdown on why it didn't land for me, but a few thoughts on The Outer Worlds 2 blog.xcvgsystems.com/i-gave-up-on...

I gave up on The Outer Worlds 2. It just didn't click for me, even after eighteen hours and many second chances. Maybe I'll do a piece on this, maybe I won't.

Finished my piece on BG3 Act 3, in record time. Nothing groundbreaking, but a way of looking at it I haven't seen much before.

blog.xcvgsystems.com/act-3-nearly...

(apologies in advance for the hyperbolic clickbait title)

The Fallout series is really good but it dances on the edge of "too bleak, stopped caring" for me.

(also I still haven't fully forgiven it for basically pulling a Happy Ending Override for at least 1/2/NV and possibly the whole series)

Taking down more videos again blog.xcvgsystems.com/march-2026-v...

I want to like The Outer Worlds 2 but to be honest it's kinda been a slog so far. It's just not drawing me into the world or selling me on the characters, and those are at the top of the list of things that get me engaged with a game.

Okay, I'm sure she has a great story and it's not what I expect, but my first thought was "we have Karlach at home"

not perfect but I finally stopped procrastinating on the "2025" concepts

from left to right: Sakura, Gina, Lily, Delora

somehow when I wasn't looking both a KCD knockoff for chuds and a KCD knockoff for lesbians were announced out of seemingly nowhere

(should be pretty obvious which one I'm more interested in, 1348 Ex Voto, it looks a bit jank but it has Jennifer English in it)

Some thoughts on BG3 just after I finished it (adapted from a reddit post so a bit messy): blog.xcvgsystems.com/i-finally-fi...

I'm thinking one more post on it, more from a game design perspective, before I move on.

(I know I keep heaping praise on it, I'll stop soon, I promise. I have a blog post cooking that's... well, not critical exactly, but more analytical)

Finally finished Baldur's Gate 3. I know the ending was divisive, and has been reworked, but what I got was one of the best end runs and endings in any game I've ever played. I think the last one that hit me that hard was Halo 3.

What a masterpiece of a game.

probably going to take down a few more of my YouTube videos- I will announce before this happens just like last time

140 dice is somehow both more and less than I expected

so I might have accidentally roped myself into running a tabletop game in the near (ish) future

been watching a ton of d&d dungeon master content for some reason, I've played once and will probably never dm a game

"Baldur's Gate 3 was announced at Stadia Connect" is the "Halo was announced at Macworld" of our time

Once again, it is time for the end of year update

www.xcvgsystems.com/2025/12/end-...

tl;dr More games than expected, creative rut and possible burnout, a few projects laid to rest and lots of possibilities for 2026