In this newsletter | Arcane Sword Press | Ham & Egg Publishing | Horse Shark Games | Stillfleet Studio |
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Horse Shark Games It’s Almost Over! The Great Goodman Games Sale! |
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All of Horse Shark Games, including Netcrawl RPG, are on sale, too!
This is also the last few days to pick up physical books from Horse Shark Games. Everything is 25% off, too. Just click visit us at https://horsesharkgames.com/store or hit the button to visit the online store.
Act fast – The sale ends April 30th, 2026! | | |
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| | Stillfleet StudioComing Soon: The First-Ever Grit System Game Jam |  | Stillfleet Studio is proud to announce that we are hosting our first-ever game jam across all of the Grit System games. The jam features simple, commercial-friendly third-party licenses for all games, an SRD, guest judges, and prizes for the judges’ top picks. (Judges and prizes to be announced soon.)
This is a fun, informal celebration of our having passed the 6+ game mark using the Grit System, which powers Stillfleet, Blister Critters, and Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying. If you like intuitive and easy-to-learn dice resolution, epic narrative powers, and highly hackable rules modules, check out the Grit System and consider submitting something to the jam. We’ll post more about designing adventure-friendly, story-forward TTRPGs using the system in future updates.
The jam runs all summer. More details soon. Have fun making games! | | |
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| | Arcane Sword PressMagazine Madness continues with Challenge Magazine from Game Designers’ Workshop! |  |  | As I power through the list of magazines I established at the beginning of the year, there are a few I am personally looking forward to checking out. Challenge was one of them, simply due to the fact that it is the continuation of one of my favorites – The Journal of the Traveller Aid Society (JTAS), a quarterly publication that would add new concepts to the core three Traveller books. However, Challenge is a departure from this, which makes sense since GDW was expanding its RPG offerings past Traveller. This also makes Challenge function like JTAS for their other games, focusing only on emerging rules for their other products that will get a formal release later. |  | And this is cool! Issue 25 is technically the first issue of Challenge, but it continues where JTAS left off at issue 24. In fact, issues 25-28 still have half of the magazine under the JTAS branding, with the same structure found, but reserved in the second half of each issue. They even include an official JTAS cover in the original digest-sized layout, but printing in the middle of the now US Letter-sized layout. This also means the whole magazine is laid out to this larger, more typical US magazine form factor, but I can’t help but think this makes the Traveller content different. Maybe it’s how it’s presented, or maybe the material isn’t as strong as other JTAS content. But this might also be because
1) GDW was preparing for Megatraveller, where they handed the reins to a 3rd party publisher so they could focus on other games like Twilight:2000 and their board game division 2) GDW was splitting creative work into Twilight: 2000, Traveller: 2300, and eventually Space 1889, so whatever was here seemed to be more of the remaining material written or planned before the change to Challenge 3) I have a bias and expect hard-hitting Traveller content to be presented to me in Digest format only.
It’s honestly probably all of the above, but I’m just not as compelled by what is here. This also marks a moment in Traveller where GDW has a third-party work on Traveller so the main team of in-house designers can focus on Twilight:2000 and Traveller: 2300 while having Digest Group Publishing focus on the Traveller rebrand into Megatraveller. |  | The final covers of JTAS in order from #25 to #29 | This split magazine format was gone by issue 29; oddly enough, the issue that celebrates the 10th anniversary of Traveller. From this point forward, we are getting a big dose of Twilight: 2000 and Traveller: 2300. If you’re not familiar, these games are inspired by something called “The Game“, a geo-political house game developed by the GDW staff, where it inspired the setting of both games.
This means Twilight: 2000; a game where the final nuclear war between NATO and the USSR happened and the players are abandoned soldiers in a wild-west style game but in ruined Poland. Traveller: 2300 takes place three hundred years later (After the “Twilight War”), where Humanity develops the means to interstellar travel. Both are interesting concepts and have their fans. The games also use GDW’s new house mechanics, a product of the mid-1980s Simulation crunch that plagued the hobby – a far departure from the slick 2D6 mechanics of Traveller.
Challenge maintained being an RPG-focused magazine, highlighting their other RPGS like Megatraveller, then later Traveller: The New Era, Space 1889, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, and Dark Conspiracy, but also eventually opened up to other publishers like Battletech, Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, d6 Star Wars RPG (West End games), and Cyberpunk 2020. And with these game changes and how the market was going, each adventure and supplement became more and more word,y as was the trend of the time. This leads to the adventures being more difficult to run at the table, with mechanics or important notes being buried within paragraphs of fluff – a trend that still seems to plague some publishers to this day. |  | The spirit of the 1990s is alive in the final issue | By issue 77, Challenge magazine ended its run, lasting into the mid 1990s, adapting along the way to include the latest and coolest games, along with its own. Game Designer Workshop closed on Leap Day, February 29th,1996. This magazine was a bit harder to track down, due to limited issues scanned online and not being able to purchase PDFs easily. I still have some issues coming in the mail as I write this, but I’m looking forward to kicking back on the porch and reading some editorials from one of my favorite publishers.
Next time– The General by Avalon Hill!
A Quick ArcaneCon update! Just a reminder: game submissions are OPEN! Each approved game you submit will grant you $10 off your entry fee, for up to $30 off online registration (not including fees!) when they go live on May 31st. There is already a fantastic selection of games, which you can check out here! Games must be submitted by May 30th to receive the discount, so make sure to get your games in!
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| | Ham & Egg PublishingOf A Harmonious Nature – Free PDF Preview! |
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Ahoy! First up, I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who has already supported my Dark Double Feature on BackerKit! THANK YOU!!!
We’re fully funded and have 24 days left. If you haven’t yet, I’d love it if you checked it out.
Here is a little more about the project:
Ham & Egg Publishing joins forces with prolific TTRPG writer Levi Combs to bring you a dark double feature designed for use with Shadowdark RPG. Two adventures. Two flavors of horror. One unforgettable campaign.
If Of a Harmonious Nature was written to be the best parts of an A24 film in the Hammer Horror style, then Nothing Left to Lose is SAW in H.H. Holmes’ Murder Castle. This is horror with range: slow dread and frenzied ritual on one side, desperate survival in absolute darkness on the other. | | |
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Some folks also requested a PDF preview of the project, and I was happy to oblige. Click the button below to check out a FREE 9-page PDF preview. It is definitely a work in progress, but it will give you a sense of what is in store for the full book. | | | Finally, this weekend I will be at Ecclesicon in Palmyra, New Jersey, Saturday, May 2nd, running Of A Harmonious Nature and hanging out. There are currently spots left in my game if you want to jump in. Click the button for more information. |
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Ecclesicon Palmyra, NJ – May 1st and 2nd |
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Ecclesicon is a two-day gaming convention founded by Wes Allen of DM Tales and hosted by the Central Baptist Church of Riverton-Palmyra
The convention is a fundraiser, splitting proceeds between Central Baptist Church’s roof-replacement loan and Booksmiles, a literacy advocacy non-profit based in South Jersey.
With plenty of games, some seminars, cool vendors, a charity auction, and a free pizza bash sponsored by the Philly Area Gaming Expo Saturday evening, Ecclesicon’s got something for everyone!
Come on out to roll some dice and do some good!. |
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GameFace Con Baltimore, MD – May 23rd & 24 |
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Baltimore’s Annual Tabletop Game Convention at Peabody Heights Brewery 12 pm – 8 pm both days.
Meet creators, shop, and play tabletop RPGs and board games |
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ModCon 2026 Northampton, MA – May 30th |
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Game submissions are open now, and badges are on sale for the first-ever ModCon.
It’s happening May 30th at the beautiful Smith College Conference Center in Northampton, MA. ModCon is a one-day convention dedicated to the modern-era genre of TTRPGs.
That includes games like…321 RPG • Call of Cthulhu • World of Darkness • Cyberpunk • Shadowrun • Marvel Super Heroes • Mutants & Masterminds • Delta Green • Savage Worlds • Burn 2d6 • Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland • WHPA and more!
It’s going to be a great day of gaming, dedicated to all kinds of settings in the 20th and 21st centuries, in worlds both like our own and very, very different. Sign up below, and we’ll see you there! |
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ArcaneCon Northampton, MA – October 16th & 17th |
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ArcaneCon is returning October 16th & 17th, 2026. Join us in a celebration of indie, old school, and old school-inspired RPGs, miniature games, board games, and more! ArcaneCon is Western Massachusetts’s premiere tabletop hobby convention! Game submissions will go live on March 1st! See more information at Tabletop Events. |
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Keep on emailing us at hello@analogunion.com to let us know what you’d like to see more of/less of and to share ideas. If you enjoy the Analog Union newsletter, please tell your friends to sign up at AnalogUnion.com. Until next time! —JHM |
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