Hello, hello! I am popping in to share that I’ve updated the rules for Pinching Tarts to clarify a few, key aspects of gameplay. I ran a few sessions of Pinching Tarts at Game Hole Con XI in Madison, Wisconsin, and based on the sizes of the groups and their feedback, I’ve made a few […]

Guard Cards is a pay-what-you-want game aid compatible with Pinching Tarts, a Wonderland-themed PocketQuest 2024 game designed by Monica Valentinelli. The cards can either be printed out and used as half-sheets or folded in half to create cards. Guard Cards is a digital download. The game accessory is not playable on its own without a […]

Hellion City Heists design essay written by Richard Lackinger So, I finally did it. I made a game! After thinking about it for many years, scribbling notes, compiling composition books, and virtually scrapbooking inspirational images, I decided to cast all of that aside and make something new and completely different. You might ask, “Why would […]

Though “heists” may not be FlamesRising.com’s usual horrific fare, I think you’ll agree that it’s challenging and downright scary to not only create a game for the first time-but offer it for sale as well. Thanks to Kage at DriveThruRPG.com, I got my hands on a list of PocketQuest 2024 titles from first-time game designers*. […]

Being a wage slave at a retailer forces me to think a great deal about Black Friday, the holiest of Capitalism’s holy days. Since I’m trapped into pondering it non-stop, I thought I’d pass along the blessings to you all. I’d like to believe, however, that you’ll actually find these shopping guidelines more useful than a 600 count of pink bed sheets (no offense to those of you needed said pink bed sheets). I going to revisit some games I’ve reviewed over the past year (and some I didn’t) for the sole purpose of finding the best of the best. The holidays are afoot, so some of you will have free time over the next month to game. It’s also Winter, the best season for gaming (inmyhumbleopinion).

Being that you’re reading this on a horror-themed site, I’ll try to focus a bit on the Black Evil Darkness that is Black Friday rather than the post-Thanksgiving hooha.

Orbit is an older game, 2003, but we picked up a copy on the bring-and-buy table at Gencon UK so I thought I might as well review it. Some shops seem to still have copies for sale and you can, apparently, still get copies from the creator.

What the game is, or at least what it tries to be, is a sort of ‘Heavy Metal’ (the film) in game form, intermingled with some psychobilly retro-fifties styling. The book is soft back, reasonably well printed and weighs in at 258 pages all told. I had high expectations for this game as I sensed a kindred spirit to ’45: Psychobilly Retropocalypse but these expectations weren’t particularly fulfilled.

Jennifer tells us about her work on a variety of projects, including RPGs, comic books and more!