Amabel Holland
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amabel.bsky.social
Amabel Holland
@amabel.bsky.social
5.3K followers 680 following 6.5K posts
She/her. "Widely considered one of today’s most innovative game designers." - The New Yorker

Board games: https://hollandspiele.com
video essays: youtube.com/@hollandspiele
Patreon: patreon.com/amabelholland
sidekicking: youtube.com/@SBPlaysGames
Posts Replies Media Videos
amabel.bsky.social
Samhain bought me a necklace for Christmas and it arrived yesterday. She said she saw it and saw me in it, a whole comprised of pieced-together objects, and I knew exactly what she meant. What a beautiful thing it is to be known. What a lovely surprise. 🥰
It's me! I'm wearing a necklace made of many colorful pieces of different shapes and sizes
February 5, 2026 at 1:36 PM
amabel.bsky.social
for a while I had a domme who bought me clothes to dress me up; whenever she did, it made me insanely horny. The same proved true when as a domme I made a sub buy me this dress I chose.

benefit of being a switch: I get new clothes either way lmao
It's me in a floral pattern dress with red, orange, and brown tones.
February 4, 2026 at 4:20 AM
amabel.bsky.social
quick! while she's distracted! say something nice
Amabel in gray sweater dress, looking to her right
February 2, 2026 at 9:15 PM
amabel.bsky.social
every once in a while, among the many, many game submissions, we get something that stunlocks me

what a thing of beauty
I created a game based on the board game Scrabble. It is a multiplayer game utilizing only the tiles without the board and tile holders.
February 2, 2026 at 11:46 AM
amabel.bsky.social
When the Rennes en Jeux festival told me I would be receiving a 2026 Lizzie Magie Award for my writing, games, and video work, they asked for a short statement, which was read aloud at a festival event.

This is what I wrote:
Physical games as a form have enormous potential to educate, to persuade, and to express. This belief has guided my work, and is I think at the heart of the Lizzie Magie Awards, so it is incredibly gratifying to have my work recognized in this way. I think if awards have any useful purpose, it is to encourage future works and radical developments within a form. This is particularly needed for board games, which despite its age is just struggling to come out of its infancy - to argue, to challenge, to upset, to touch our hearts. An award should say, "this is what we are capable of today - what will you do tomorrow?" I think by its very nature the Lizzie Magie Award is asking this essential question, and this makes me especially grateful for this recognition of my work. Thank you.
January 31, 2026 at 7:20 PM
amabel.bsky.social
my own personal, and recent, favorite -- from next month's Rayroads:
(4) Finally, subtract your Debt from this new total to arrive at your Score. The highest Score wins. As all players are now dead, they should forget this information immediately: do not write down your scores or log your plays in any way that leaves a record.
January 30, 2026 at 8:02 PM
amabel.bsky.social
the obligatory hospital selfie

gonna be sitting here for five hours (!) while someone gets an iron infusion

please distract me so I'm not doomscrolling the whole time -- questions, flirts, praise all are welcome
It's me! I'm wearing a FloMask and a red-orange floral pattern dress
January 29, 2026 at 3:18 PM
amabel.bsky.social
the BGG corrections my assistant @her.sara.snuffbait.online and I submitted for René Soriano's credits have gone through

there were only three listed when this research project began

there are several more I need to add new game pages for but it's a start
René Soriano BGG page, depicting 42 linked items as designer.
January 28, 2026 at 7:57 PM
amabel.bsky.social
Continuing my reread of The Eustace Diamonds, and among all her other faults, Lizzie Eustace is exactly the kind of person who approaches art not to enjoy it or experience it, but to construct a public persona of being cultured and interesting, and to memorize quotes she doesn't bother to understand
She began her reading, resolved that she would enjoy her poetry in spite of the narrow seat. She had often talked of "Queen Mab," and perhaps she thought she had read it. This, however, was in truth her first attempt at that work. "How wonderful is Death! Death and his brother, Sleep!" Then she half-closed the volume, and thought that she enjoyed the idea. Death,--and his brother Sleep! She did not know why they should be more wonderful than Action, or Life, or Thought;--but the words were of a nature which would enable her to remember them, and they would be good for quoting Though the passage about Ianthe's soul comes very early in the work, she was now quite familiar with the poem, and when, in after days, she spoke of it as a thing of beauty that she had made her own by long study, she actually did not know that she was lying. As she grew older, however, she quickly became wiser, and was aware that in learning one passage of a poem it is expedient to select one in the middle, or at the end. The world is so cruelly observant now-a-days, that even men and women who have not themselves read their "Queen Mab" will know from what part of the poem a morsel is extracted, and will not give you credit for a page beyond that from which your passage comes.
January 25, 2026 at 4:09 AM
amabel.bsky.social
HE IS STILL WATCHING AND COMMENTING ON THEM
comment from 5 minutes ago on "Vonnegut's Board Game": I collect board games
January 24, 2026 at 3:14 PM
amabel.bsky.social
ohhhhhhh

buddy, for someone whose politics align with the people working for the annihilation of trans rights, you sure did spend a lot of time watching a trans lady's video essays
Channel page for the account, describing him as a "Male Christian Constitutional Conservative right winger republican that Collects Games..."
January 24, 2026 at 3:13 PM
amabel.bsky.social
a tale in two parts
Comments from jeffreyscarbroughboardgame2822 - on Gravity is Free (2 hours ago): Good work have a blessed day - on Gravity is Free (2 hours ago): I have the star wars board games in this video - on Skittle (1 hour ago): You can send me the games for free ill take them off your hands [laughing/crying emoji] Comment on another video, 1 hour ago: I came for an essay about gaming not lgbtq thoughts on gaming My response: Well, then you're probably on the wrong channel, chum! I'm not sure how a transgender lesbian's thoughts on gaming would not by definition be "lgbtq thoughts about gaming".
January 24, 2026 at 3:11 PM
amabel.bsky.social
shout out to my incredible voice cast @flintstonerocky.bsky.social @sbmakesstuff.bsky.social @errant-signal.com @travisdhill.bsky.social @danthurot.bsky.social @rantasmo.bsky.social @nopunincluded.com @kittenarcader.bsky.social
A good cast is worth repeating! Eddy Goldfarb: Rocky Flintstone, Howard Wexler: Samhain Bones, Sid Sackson: Chris Franklin, Wald Amberstone: Travis D. Hill, Ned Strongin: Dan Thurot, Phil Orbanes: Jamie Maurer, L.P. Gise: Efka Bladukas, John Sarlacc: Kitten Arcader.
January 23, 2026 at 6:59 PM
amabel.bsky.social
Got email this morning upset about the off-center & faded/rubbed die faces for cross4. When I told him it was on purpose he said he wouldn't buy any games with wood dice from us again. I said "okie dokie, thanks for telling me I guess" & he said I was "flippant" & he was trying to be helpful. 1/3
I sincerely wasn't trying to be flippant. Sorry if it came across that way. The game's production was carefully planned to capture the "feel" of coming across an older crossword dice game from the seventies fifty years later, and the production issues/fading that come with it. I understand if that's not your cup of tea. I knew there were people who would not enjoy that choice when I made it. That doesn't change that it does what I intended it to do. So in that sense, while the feedback is well-intentioned and therefore appreciated, it is not necessarily of use. I do not see it as a problem to be solved or improved.
January 22, 2026 at 1:28 PM
amabel.bsky.social
I honestly have no idea how to troubleshoot this -- can anyone help @hollandspiele.bsky.social out?
I have a problem. My laptop is down to 27 percent. It's plugged in. Other things are working on the power strip. The cord doesn't have any breaks or twists. I changed to a different plug in case it was the plug. Nothing changed. Any help would be appreciated.
January 18, 2026 at 3:27 PM
amabel.bsky.social
there's a degree to which it smacks of misogyny, except that (1) there are lots of women in the book who kinda rock, and (2) nothing Trollope has said about Lizzie compares with this incredibly brutal murder of Lord Fawn
"Ten thousand pounds! You don't keep them in the house;--do you?" "I have an iron case up-stairs for them;--ever so heavy." "And did Sir Florian give you the iron case." Lizzie hesitated for a moment. "Yes," said she. "That is,--no. But he ordered it to be made; and then it came,--after he was--dead." "He knew their value, then?" "Oh, dear, yes. Though he never named any sum. He told me, however, that they were very--very valuable." Lord Fawn did not immediately recognise the falseness of every word that the woman said to him, because he was slow and could not think and hear at the same time.
January 18, 2026 at 3:13 PM
amabel.bsky.social
re-reading The Eustace Diamonds and its main character, Lizzie Eustace, is a scheming liar & selfish manipulator who frequently feigns ignorance BUT is also deeply stupid, and the narrator is constantly breaking in with "I'm sorry, but she sucks so bad"
"Is Lord Fawn in the Cabinet?" asked Miss Macnulty, who in such matters was not altogether ignorant. "Of course he is," said Lizzie, with an angry gesture. It may seem unjust to accuse her of being stupidly unacquainted with circumstances, and a liar at the same time; but she was both.
January 18, 2026 at 3:13 PM
amabel.bsky.social
it really hurt to cut the highlighted joke out but I do feel like I made the right call
At this point, Parker Brothers and Kenner were both part of the blended General Mills corporate family. [This meant any license either company had was free use for the other. "What are you doing, Step-Kenner?"]
January 15, 2026 at 10:01 PM
amabel.bsky.social
"She had planned the new flower-garden,--though Lady Fawn thought that she had done that herself" is such an epic diss for 1871

it's a real shame Anthony Trollope is so often overlooked today because his prose is so alive and catty
from THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS: Lucy Morris certainly was a treasure,--a treasure though no heroine. She was a sweetly social, genial little human being whose presence in the house was ever felt to be like sunshine. She was never forward, but never bashful. She was always open to familiar intercourse without ever putting herself forward. There was no man or woman with whom she would not so talk as to make the man or woman feel that the conversation was remarkably pleasant,--and she could do the same with any child. She was an active, mindful, bright, energetic little thing to whom no work ever came amiss. She had catalogued the library,--which had been collected by the late Lord Fawn with peculiar reference to the Christian theology of the third and fourth centuries. She had planned the new flower-garden,--though Lady Fawn thought that she had done that herself.
January 12, 2026 at 11:53 PM
amabel.bsky.social
I understand messiness & ambiguity & instability is in many ways working against the form but sometimes working against it is the point

I do get it. Often I wanna play a normal game or watch a normal movie and would hate this kind of friction.
"It is the job of a designer to create a system of rules and incentives where following the incentives leads to an enjoyable/meaningful/… experience for the players." That's certainly one opinion. With many of my games I don't really care whether or not it's enjoyable, though I do aim for some degree of meaningful. The rulebook opens with "Financial markets aren't real, and the economic 'laws' which govern their behavior only exist to establish, and maintain, oppressive hierarchies. With the previous game, people wondered why the game became unstable if everyone acted solely in their own self-interest. But that is how it works in the real world, and how it has always worked. These systems are prone to abuse - are built to be abused - and almost always result in catastrophic collapses. The consequences of those collapses are never felt by the people who cause them. In fact, they are often rewarded due to government bailouts which seek to restore the fiction of economic equilibrium - the fiction that the economy is some kind of living, breathing thing instead of a game of pretend." There are different kinds of rules that bind us when we play a game. There are the hard-coded rules of the game, and the soft rules of the table - the ways in which we as human beings choose to play pretend. This thing was built to break if you want to break it, and pure self-interest - optimal moves and degenerate strategies - will do that. I say this as plainly as I think I am able on that first page. What you choose to do with it is up to you. "they are no longer purely playing the game, but are instead required to balance two opposing goals" That is, of course, "playing" the game. Often my work asks you to navigate this sort of contradiction, and are built with these sorts of tensions. It's certainly not for everyone, and I understand if it's not for you. I could have had bankruptcy prevent a win, as was the case in the first game. You can even choose, as a group, to play it that way…
January 9, 2026 at 12:50 PM
amabel.bsky.social
this is why I stopped making train games
For-Ex II: She Made Another One: Counter to degenerate contract strategy @Tlalox So does that mean that the game is "solved" kinda like tic-tac-toe? If you are the first player your optimal move is to do a 10 USD contract and either win if no one follows you or tie if they do? @amabel I think it means if someone does it the first time you can smile, and if they keep doing it every time you stop playing with them
January 8, 2026 at 9:49 PM
amabel.bsky.social
@robynbennis.bsky.social continues to be simultaneously my most favorite and least favorite YouTube commentator
"I can confirm that 'fluid bonded' isn't a thing. I asked everyone at the grocery store and all I got was thrown out."
January 6, 2026 at 2:08 PM
amabel.bsky.social
this isn't even the whole voice cast for the next video, it's just the folks who are in this little two minute section
Black-and-white title card of white text against a burlap background. It reads "Dramatis Personae: Sid Sackson... Chris Franklin; Howard Wexler... Samhain Bones; Wald Amberstone... Travis D. Hill; ?????... Dan Thurot. Disclaimer: This is a dramatization of events recounted in a publicly-available source. That account in and of itself may or may not be accurate. I am providing information in the service of education and being a gossipy bitch."
January 3, 2026 at 3:10 PM
amabel.bsky.social
was reading an interview a website did with @danthurot.bsky.social last year and was surprised to find myself mentioned & was delighted by how I was described
Quotations from the website Taking Shelf Space. Like the work of Amabel Holland for instance. Now at this point it would be a little strange to say that Amabel Holland is an outsider because she has published something like 60 games. I don’t know how many. It’s a lot! But the entire way that she has structured her publishing model, the types of games she’s creating, the mechanical ethos that she’s using … All of those things are positioning her as somebody who is critiquing games through the mechanisms of play as much as she is somebody who is very much entrenched in. She has published these things for years. She’s an established voice. People know who she is. And yet she’s still an outsider. So she’s somebody whose work I’m very interested in investigating and promoting not only because people might not have heard about her but because the games themselves are essential text because they’re the outsider’s voice coming in and offering a correction to kind of the assumed wisdom that’s going on inside the hobby.
January 2, 2026 at 12:20 PM
amabel.bsky.social
Samhain has been showing me "30 Rock", and explaining the various contemporary pop culture references I don't understand

but last night this punchline absolutely took me the fuck out, and she looked over at me, utterly bewildered, and I got to explain the career of a mid-century TV ventriloquist
December 31, 2025 at 3:43 PM