Author | Lightnews

Brooks Barber

@rollplusfun.bsky.social

770 followers 310 following 1.8K posts

Tabletop game designer - mostly historical but not always.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Apr 28

It's here! Check it out, and let me know what you think!

Hollandspiele @hollandspiele.bsky.social · Apr 28

Sykes-Picot, a trick-taking game about the secret treaty to partition the Ottoman Empire, is now available.

Sykes-Picot

Game Design: Brooks BarberArt: Amabel HollandHex Number: 88Duration: 60 minutesPlayers: 2Solitaire Suitability: LowTheme: WWIMSRP: $35.00 During the First World War, the British and French made a secr...

hollandspiele.com

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 18h

A really great read. I'd argue that what we're witnessing in the United States right now is a concentrated effort to reshape the national mythos to serve cruel and dangerous ends. This is what makes it feel so much like 1930s Germany.

Abby @arobertswrites.com · May 13

My essay on nationalist myth making in Middle-earth is still free to read on Speculative Insight! #LateNightWrite

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 2d

Go back this folks!!! A fun bundle from an indie creator doing interesting things. Only needs a little more help! 🎲✂️

#boardgames

Connor Wake | Always Awake Games 🔜 PaxWest @connor.alwaysawake.games · 22d

Its alive!

Checkout Club Spooky & That's the Spirit on KS now!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/alw...

Club Spooky & That's the Spirit

Assemble the coolest group of ghouls in Club Spooky and find the culprit of your accidental death in That's the Spirit

www.kickstarter.com

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 6d

Yes! I love this perspective. Bringing art into games, treating them as meaning-making machines and not only funtertainment. Thanks for reading!

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 6d

I wrote a thing. Check it out.

Armchair Dragoons @armchairdragoons.bsky.social · 6d

Games As Art Forms https://armchairdragoons.com/games-art-forms/

armchairdragoons.com

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 6d

I’m glad you published this. We need more games about religion and we definitely need more thoughtful critique of them.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 6d

I’m very pleased to see this one begin to come together. It was the first design I ever brought to playtesting, and it’s had quite a journey! Threed has a unique ambiguous trick taking system with a spatial puzzle that tickles the right parts of the brain. I’ve got a soft spot for it. Check it out!

The Seahorse & The Hummingbird @thinkdeepplaylight.bsky.social · 6d

Behold! This ain't yer granny's sliding-puzzle trick-taking game. What was once known as Triptych (the Cardboard Edison Award Finalist by @rollplusfun.bsky.social) is now:
•:| THREED |:•

#boardgames 🎲✂️

The word THREED in 3D lettering with a color gradient and a soft gel type of texture.

A rendering of poker-sized playing cards forming three-panel geometric images.

A rendering of poker-sized playing cards for the game Threed. A 4 and a 9 of suits indicated by 3D geometry.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 11d

You might look at the board game Empire’s End. The game itself is kind of meh, but it tries this a bit in a mass markety way (it’s built on the No Thanks mechanisms). A more thorough and historical approach would be infinitely more interesting.

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 20d

Okay I just looked this up and it sounds wild.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 21d

Uh oh! Dino! By Sabrina Culyba, the designer of Diatoms!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/lud...

Uh Oh, Dino! - Cute & Chaotic Co-op for 2-4 Players

Shifting board, adorable dinos, and a drawbag of danger ☄️&🦖 Meteors & Meat-Eaters expansion ✨Limited 2025 Holiday Shipping Available!

www.kickstarter.com

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · 21d

Chilled with my gnomey at the pumpkin fest this weekend.

A small gnome statue, with an acorn hat and a small wooden staff

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Oct 3

All the prototypes! Or as many as possible. Your write up of fruit and chalice of poison was great!

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Oct 3

Well you just lost a customer then!

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 30

As soon as I found out this game existed, I went to pre-order it. I’m fascinated by the history of urban “development” and NBS has accomplished something important and fascinating here. Can’t wait to get this one to a table soon.

A board game laying on a wooden coffee table, slightly askew. The cover shows a dilapidated build on in the South Bronx. In the bottom left corner is written “FALSAS PROMESAS” and in the bottom right “BROKEN PROMISES.” Across the middle of the cover is the title Cross Bronx Expressway. Cross and Expressway are in reserved black and white lettering and the word Bronx is in yellow, blue, and red graffiti style text.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 29

I’ve never bought the “they didn’t know any better” argument. There were anti slavery conversations in Ancient Greece. People like to assume we’re more enlightened because we’re modern/postmodern/whatever, but these moral questions were asked and answered long ago.

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 29

Oh no! That’s the worst. I haven’t had this particular nightmare happen to me yet, but I’ve come close. My laptop is running on empty.

I’ve definitely lost notes and ideas though and had to reconsider things. That fresh perspective is always helpful.

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 26

I'm focusing in on Painkillers at the moment, my "feel bad game of the year" candidate about the beginning of the opioid crisis in the United States. I got some great feedback from @joedewhurst.bsky.social and @nbsp1618.bsky.social and others, which has been very helpful motivation! Thanks y'all!

Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 26

Been on a bit of a game design hiatus the past 2-3 months. Life got big and needed tending. Slowly working my way back into things now, and it feels...rusty. But also a bit like getting back on a bicycle. I still love it though. 🎲✂️

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 26

Just found a review for Sykes-Picot in @senetmagazine.bsky.social! That was unexpected! Thanks to @meeplelady.bsky.social for the review.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 26

I also think this is the right way to go. If the chart is big enough, no one will memorize it. And my philosophy is usually, "if people are playing this enough to memorize these kinds of things, that's a great problem to have." At that point could release updated alternates for variability, etc.

Reposted by Brooks Barber

Hollandspiele @hollandspiele.bsky.social · Sep 18

New game day! cross4! Buy it or else. We have not determined what 'else' is yet, but you should buy it to be safe.

cross4

Game Design: Amabel HollandHex Number: 90Duration: 30 minutesPlayers: 1-4MSRP: $25.00 Amabel Holland's throwback to the classic crossword dice games of the twentieth century, cross4 is the first of th...

hollandspiele.com

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 18

A few things:

Nate has an interesting thing going on here. A unique format and approach to be sure.

Can confirm Pyrotechnics is good - check it out when you get the chance!

A lil' nugget at the end about Sykes-Picot and the possibility of serving your conscience through this game. Give a listen!

TheLordChiefRockaNumberOne @natewarren.bsky.social · Sep 17

Episode 100 features:

• Review of the brisk and charming Fireworks 2p card game from @thinkdeepplaylight.bsky.social

• Interview with @liberludorum.com about two wild #indie #ttrpgs from @sandroad.moe: Burnout Reaper and Digital Angel

Hear it all with link in comments 👇

Photo of components from the two-player card game, Fireworks. Rules and reference booklets at top, fireworks cards in middle, ringed by piles of cardboard Spark tokens in primary colors.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 17

I feel this too. Why would people want to hear my perspective? It’s nothing special.

Reposted by Brooks Barber

Harry Turtledove @hntdove.bsky.social · Sep 16

Trans people are people. What they do with their very own bodies ain't nobody's business but their own. Trans rights are human rights.

Full stop.

Helen 🏳️‍⚧️✊🏻💕 @mimmymum.bsky.social · Sep 15

“Anti-trans harassment and violence is all the rage. Trans people are afraid to leave the country, let alone leave their houses. The right-wing ecosystem has gladly spent years creating these conditions, while Democrats have by turns avoided saying anything about them at all” 😞

👉🏻 archive.ph/ewBhT

THE CUT

They Want the Shooter to Be Trans
By Lex McMenamin, a writer and editor at Teen Vogue.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 15

Games are meant to be played! And they deserve to show off the results of all that play. We owe it to them.

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Brooks Barber @rollplusfun.bsky.social · Sep 13

This is an appropriate reaction to Kirk’s assassination and legacy. He was not a paragon of civil discourse but a mouthpiece for white Christian nationalism, and all the awful bigotry that entails. He did not deserve to be murdered. Nor does he deserve to be treated like a martyr of American ideals