A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to play a tabletop role-playing game that I had never heard of before. Vaesen is a Nordic-inspired horror TTRPG published by Free League Publishing. It was explained to me as similar to Call of Cthulhu. I knew that this would be a system that I would like. While this was a one-shot, I’d be open to playing Vaesen again.

Vaesen uses six-sided dice for all dice rolls. A success on a roll is if there is a six on any roll. Anything less than six isn’t a success, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a failure. If there are multiple ones, that could indicate something bad could happen. At first, when this was explained to me, I was a little apprehensive. How often would I actually roll a six, and would I fail at everything I did? Oddly enough, my first roll in the game, I rolled four sixes. One of the players at my table didn’t roll a six until she switched her dice. Sometimes that’s how the dice are. Overall, I didn’t think this was a dealbreaker. Our GM did a good job at still giving us helpful information on a five, even if it wasn’t a total success.

Vaesen reminds me of Daggerheart in this way, where there are relationships that you can set up with the other players. On our sheets, these were filled in, and we could pick and choose which players these statements applied to. I think this was a cool component to the game because it helps build some of the ways our characters would roleplay off each other. One of mine was “You Annoy Me”. I picked one of the players at our table, and during the game, he pulled out an instrument to play, so I had my character act annoyed. I think the relationships aspect of the game helps make roleplay less forced, especially if players at the table don’t know each other.

The other thing I’ll add about Vaesen is how easy it is. If you’re looking for a game that’s less intensive on the rules, Vaesen could be a good option. Some TTRPGs can be complicated, and Vaesen wasn’t that way at all. Our GM explained the basics, and I felt our group got it right away. I’d foresee this as a game that’s easy to pick up if you wanted to be a GM and run a game for other players.

I loved learning how to play Vaesen. It’s a game I’d be open to trying again in the future.

CW: Suicide (I don’t describe it in detail). The game features a suicide in the opening act. I mention this in the plot in the second paragraph, but it won’t be mentioned again.

In replaying BioShock, I knew I wanted to replay both BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite. While I have replayed BioShock multiple times, I believe I have only played BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite once, so I don’t remember them as much. I think I tried to play BioShock 2 on a harder difficulty and then never finished it, but I could be wrong. I have since finished BioShock 2, and it wasn’t a bad sequel by any means. There was one change made to the game that didn’t make the game better.

BioShock 2 takes place in 1958, where Subject Delta, a Big Daddy, is escorting his Little Sister, Eleanor. Sophia Lamb shows up and forcibly takes Eleanor away from Delta, and before Delta can react, Sophia forces Delta to kill himself. Ten years later, Delta is resurrected under orders from Eleanor and Brigid Tenenbaum, who tell Delta that he needs to find Eleanor; otherwise, he will die due to his prior connection to her. Delta navigates throughout Rapture with the help of Augustus Sinclair to rescue Eleanor once and for all.

BioShock 2 is not a bad game. I think it has higher expectations because it came after BioShock. I like the story and how this game follows a Big Daddy versus another person in Rapture. This game goes into more of the connection between the Big Daddies and the Little Sisters and how their bond works, which I found interesting. I liked using the drill and found that I used it more than any other weapon in the game. It also helps that the game has drill fuel lying around each level. Sophia Lamb isn’t as compelling a villain as Andrew Ryan was, but she clearly poses a threat to Delta. Augustus Sinclair serves as a valuable guide. I actually feel for him because I felt his death didn’t have a lot of meaning. Overall, I think the story itself is entertaining.

BioShock 2 made changes, some of which I felt were improvements. The first is being able to toggle between all the Plasmids. In the first game, you have to manually click until you find the one you’re looking for, while in BioShock 2, I can bring them all up and find the one I’m looking for. Another change was hacking. In BioShock 2, there’s a specific gun that can fire a hacking bolt into a camera or a turret from afar. This is so slick. This way, I don’t have to approach a turret directly and take damage or risk going up to a security camera to commence a hack. Hacking is also easier in this game than in the first game. I didn’t mind how hacking worked in BioShock, so this was fine. The big change I felt was more of a nuisance was gathering ADAM. In BioShock, once you defeated a Big Daddy, you could either save or harvest the Little Sister right away. In BioShock 2, since you’re a Big Daddy, you can take the Little Sister, and she can lead you to corpses throughout Rapture with extra ADAM. Seems cool, right? Except once you start gathering ADAM from the corpses, more splicers come to attack. It feels like a lot of extra work. Resources and ammunition are already spent defeating the Big Daddy, so now you need to fend off attacks from splicers on top of that. Also, if you die while this happens, you can go back to the corpse, but you have to start over. It feels like a lot of extra work without a lot of benefit. I ended up giving up halfway through the game, where once I defeated the Big Daddy, I navigated towards the tunnel and gathered ADAM right away, and skipped the additional step to gather more. Oh, once you rescue or harvest all the Little Sisters, you have to fight the Big Sisters, who are an additional step in this process. This was a process that I felt was perfect in BioShock, but was made more tedious in BioShock 2 when it didn’t need to be.

If I compare BioShock 2 to BioShock, it almost feels unfair because I feel that BioShock is a perfect game. However, if you separate BioShock 2 and look at it on its own, it’s not bad. I already have BioShock Infinite installed, so I can’t wait to play it and finish my BioShock series replay.

A few weeks ago, I heard rumblings of a Hunter: The Reckoning video game. The game was accidentally leaked when gamers tried to access an update for Robocop: Rogue City. Instead, gamers were given access to a completely new game. Oops. The trailer for Hunter: The Reckoning Deathwish dropped on March 26th, and while this trailer doesn’t feature any gameplay, I think there’s a lot to look forward to. White Wolf and Paradox Interactive had their hands full with Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2, and their track record hasn’t been great. Is this game doomed? or is there potential for a fresh start?

Before getting into the game, let’s talk about Hunter. Hunter: The Reckoning is a TTRPG set in the same World of Darkness universe. Instead of playing vampires or werewolves, players take on the role of hunters, those who dedicate their lives to tracking and eliminating supernatural creatures. The mechanics of Hunter are similar to Vampire when it comes to skills and attributes, with, of course, a few differences in character creation. I have personally never played Hunter. I’m not opposed to it at all; I simply haven’t found a group to try this game out with. When I find World of Darkness games, they are almost always Vampire: The Masquerade, which makes sense. When this game trailer dropped, I was curious if White Wolf would see an increase in sales of Hunter: The Reckoning merchandise.

The game trailer doesn’t feature any gameplay; instead, it sets the stage for the tone of the game. The trailer opens with a police officer walking into a building. As he searches, he finds someone tied up. He radios in that there’s no one here, which is followed by the police officer’s fangs coming out. The game then flashes to a bulletin board with the police officer’s photo, along with the suspected vampire clan he belongs to. Hunters are shown with stakes going up to his office, presumably to take him out.

I have higher hopes for Hunter: The Reckoning Deathwish than I did for Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2. I won’t rehash everything about Bloodlines 2 since I wrote about this already. To summarize, Bloodlines 2 was in developmental hell and was named as a sequel, which didn’t help the game upon release. With Hunter, there’s more of a clean slate to start something new. I feel optimistic, or at least I’d like to feel optimistic that this game won’t be delayed for years. If it is, then I think it shows how Paradox and White Wolf learned nothing regarding Bloodlines 2, which would be a shame.

I have said this before, so I will say it again and probably three times after that. I’d like to see White Wolf putting out Hunter: The Reckoning live plays. If this game is based on the TTRPG, why not promote both simultaneously? If the game is good, it might lead to more people purchasing and learning the TTRPG. If you have live plays of Hunter and they help generate enough interest, more people might play the video game. It feels like a win-win to me. While I think it’s interesting to see the development of World of Darkness video games, I don’t think it should supersede the TTRPG.

I am curious to see how this pans out. I’d like to think that there was a lesson learned in Bloodlines 2 that won’t get repeated here. It’s still too early to say more than this, but I’ll remain hopeful that this game will be a good launching point for White Wolf and Paradox to promote Hunter: The Reckoning.

A few weeks back, I was scrolling through Bluesky, and a creator I follow had talked about Pumpkin Spice, a magical, cozy TTRPG published by Archeron Books. Several things drew me to Pumpkin Spice, so when I was notified that the BackerKit went live, I backed the main rulebook along with the Magical Adventures book. I probably won’t get my copy of Pumpkin Spice until sometime next year, but I have since joined the Archeron Books Discord to read what other players are saying about the game in the meantime. I wanted to share what drew me to Pumpkin Spice.

I think the first thing that drew me to the game was how cozy it is. While I gravitate towards horror in TTRPGs, I want to expand my scope outside of that. When I signed up for the email reminder of the campaign, I was sent the PDF of the Quickstart guide. I paged through it, and the concept is simple. The characters play as witches who establish a cafe and protect their Fount, which is the source of the characters’ magic. There are four types of witches, which would serve as the classes of the characters. For example, one type is the Green Witch, or a witch that taps into nature to cast their spells. I’d be curious if future rulebooks or expansions would offer more options. Although I think it would be easy to homebrew something, too, if a player has a specific concept for their character.

The second thing that drew me to this game is the art. It’s so cozy. I’d buy art prints of the witches included in this book. The art is done by Simz, and I think it makes the book what it is. I like how the witches are shown with different tattoos and symbols on their arms. Each witch has a unique look and style. I think it gives inspiration as to what a character could look like. With that said, I was reading a critique online that I found interesting. Many had pointed out that most of the art is feminine and there isn’t any art with masculine or androgynous witches. That critique is valid! I paged through the Quickstart guide again, and there aren’t any witches that are masculine-presenting. Witches can be of any gender! I’d like to see more diversity in the art once the books are finished.

I am excited to get my hands on Pumpkin Spice once it’s finished. I’ll have to settle for hanging out in the Discord until then.

One Vampire: The Masquerade podcast I love is The All Night Society. I don’t normally pay attention to the soundtrack on podcasts, but the music that plays during the intro to each episode is so good. It fits the game’s aesthetic. The All Night Society takes inspiration from the Chicago By Night rule book. I finished reading the rule book, and it was one of the most interesting TTRPG rulebooks I have read.

Chicago By Night is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a rulebook of Chicago, including all the kindred NPCs (non-playable characters), a map showing which clan has dominance in parts of Chicago, and various story beats for storytellers to use in their story. The main story beat is how the coterie will react to the Lasombra wanting to join the Camarilla. The Lasombra is a vampire clan that wields shadows and is also a social heavy clan. The coterie can either accept the Lasombra or decline their access to the city. Chicago By Night has a ton of resources. I loved all the kindred NPCs. I think what’s exhausting about being a storyteller or a dungeon master is the amount of planning. Chicago By Night eliminates much of that, as everything is already established. It’s also emphasized throughout that you could take this lore and adapt it to any city, not just Chicago. I wish White Wolf would publish more books like this because I think it builds interest in the game when you can read about different kindred politics in other major cities.

Chicago By Night was fascinating! I’m glad I took the time to read it. Vampire: The Masquerade is one of those systems I’d love to be a storyteller for.

Last weekend, I finished BioShock. Immediately after finishing BioShock, I installed BioShock 2, and I will play through BioShock Infinite after that. While this is going to be a review, it’s going to be difficult to write an unbiased review. BioShock is a game that got me into console gaming, as it was the first game I played on my Xbox 360 after only playing Halo 3 for months. It’s one of the few games I have replayed multiple times. I want to say this is at least my third or fourth time playing through BioShock. It’s been enough that I have lost count. I don’t really have anything new to say about BioShock; I think the game still holds up nineteen years later.

BioShock opens with Jack, who survives a recent plane crash. As the sole survivor, he swims away from the wreckage and finds a pillar in the middle of the ocean connected to a set of stairs. Upon climbing up, he walks into a sphere that lowers him into the sea to a city called Rapture. Rapture was created by Andrew Ryan, a place he had hoped would be a utopia, free of government control. What Jack finds is nothing of the sort. He’s attacked by splicers, enemies that are addicted to a drug called ADAM, which changes someone’s genetic makeup. Jack can find Plasmids, which give him powers like shooting fire or electricity. He’s contacted by Atlas, who encourages him to find his family. Unfortunately, his family is seemingly killed by Andrew Ryan, so now Jack needs to confront Andrew Ryan and try to save Rapture to the best of his ability.

The most impressive part of BioShock is the graphics. For a game released in 2007, this game still feels modern. Rapture is still the gritty, underwater, dystopian city I was familiar with. Rapture has elements of the 1940s, and it feels like the city is trapped in time, which adds to the horror element of the game. I’m the first one to admit that I’m not a horror game person. You will not catch me playing Silent Hill any time soon. BioShock has elements of horror without having too many jump scares, which works for me. Sure, you can hear the splicers off in the distance, and they can sneak up on you, but I find that isn’t too much.

While I have played through the story several times, I find I like the familiarity. Andrew Ryan, as a villain, isn’t the most physically imposing, but he still is a villain nonetheless. He’s a billionaire type who went into this with good intentions, and then things turned south. I think it makes Andrew Ryan scarier in a way because he’s not unlike the billionaires we see in today’s society. The Big Daddies are still as formidable as ever. Big Daddies protect Little Sisters who carry ADAM, so to progress in the game, you need to take them out and harvest ADAM. You can either save the Little Sisters or kill them throughout this process. I’m too nice in video games, so I saved them rather than killing them. It also unlocks the better ending in the game. I played the game on Medium because I wanted a challenge, but also, I wanted this to be a relaxing experience. I don’t need to play every game on the toughest difficulty anymore. Frank Fontaine, he sucks. He’s arguably worse than Ryan, but he gets his comeuppance in the end.

While playing BioShock, I love all the details. The collectibles in the game are audio logs from several key characters. There are a few from Andrew Ryan, Dr. Tenenbaum, Fontaine, and even some audio recordings from minor characters. It makes collecting things in the game fun because you unlock so much more of the story when you do. I found myself combing through various rooms in each level, trying to find the next recording. With BioShock being a horror game, it helps to go through every safe, finding ammo, money, and other trinkets to help craft items such as different ammo. It hinders the game if you only try to play through the story because you will run out of items fast. I loved getting lost in the game and not focusing on the main objective simply because I wanted to collect what I could find.

BioShock is still the game I remembered it would be. It remains one of my favorite video games of all time, and that will never change.

When was the last time you read a magazine? I asked myself this same question, and I genuinely can’t remember. I used to read Seventeen and Teen Vogue when I was younger, and then transitioned to Cosmopolitan. I haven’t had a true magazine subscription in years. I was delighted when I discovered Cozy Companion, a cozy games and fiction magazine published by game studio Snowbright Studio. What drew me to Cozy Companion was getting more cozy game recommendations. It didn’t matter to me if those recommendations were video games, board games, or TTRPGs. I have since read two of their digital issues, and I can’t recommend the magazine enough.

Starting with gaming, there are different games being featured and interviews with game studios. In the October 2025 issue, I found out about Dredge, a sinister fishing game. I have since added it to my wishlist on Switch. It was interesting reading the interview with the developers to understand why they made the game and what drew them to the cozy horror genre. When reading this section, I saw some of the other recommendations, including the board game Mysterium, Call of Cthulhu, and Arkham Horror, which are all games I either own or have played extensively. In the November 2025 issue, there’s an exclusive interview with Archeron, who’s publishing Pumpkin Spice, a cozy RPG set at a coffee shop. I had this system on my radar as I had signed up to follow their campaign on BackerKit. Each issue of Cozy Companion I have read so far has been entertaining to read.

Besides gaming, there’s more that each issue has to offer. There’s a section on crafting, either with crochet, and one issue featured how to make a felt dice tray. I have a lot of admiration for those who are crafty because it can’t be me. The crafts don’t interest me, but I think they would probably interest other people. There are also short stories, recipes, and interviews with the artists who design the cover of each magazine. There’s something here for everyone, even if you are a casual gamer.

I haven’t signed up for a regular subscription yet, as I have been buying some of the back issues as digital copies. Each subscription allows you a choice of either digital or print. Once I get caught up on their back issues, I see no reason why I wouldn’t subscribe to Cozy Companion.

I came across an article in which Paradox, the company aiding in the release of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2, reported lower profits due to Bloodlines 2 not performing well. I finished Bloodlines 2, and I don’t feel at all surprised by this admission. It’s unfortunate, considering Bloodlines 2 had a lot of potential to bring new players into White Wolf and the other World of Darkness TTRPG games. There will be additional DLC released later in the year focusing on Benny and Ysabella. Once that happens, I think Bloodlines 2 will be left alone. This made me think about White Wolf as a company and what I’d love to see for the franchise’s future.

I’d love to see more marketing of these games, specifically Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Hunter: The Reckoning. It feels like these games aren’t being marketed well, or that there aren’t many live plays where groups are actively playing them. To play devil’s advocate, it might be that I don’t know these live plays exist, and these games could be played more often than I’m made aware of. If so, help a girl out. Feel free to drop any live play recommendations for these games in the comments below. In scrolling through the World of Darkness YouTube channel, there are a few live plays for these games, but they are far and few in between. I’d love to see World of Darkness promoting and boosting smaller creators who livestream these games, as I think it’s a win-win for everyone. White Wolf can promote channels playing their games, and small creators get more viewers from other gamers, like me, who want to watch these games being played. I feel that there isn’t enough of that right now, which is a shame. It’s a big missed opportunity as Vampire: The Masquerade is arguably the more popular game, but it also has more content, which helps people buy more TTRPG books.

Speaking of promotion, I’d like to see more TTRPG books that highlight a specific city. I’m reading Chicago By Night now, and I find the book fascinating! I have been to Chicago several times, so it’s been fun to see specific areas of the city being highlighted and which vampire clan has control. I think it helps build up more lore for the games if there were more books dedicated to highlighting various cities around the globe.

The other thing that I notice is how much is invested into “Month of Darkness”. “Month of Darkness” is when World of Darkness has various prompts throughout the month in honor of Halloween and the spookier season. This creates a lot of buzz and excitement for the franchise. Once October is over, though, it seems like nothing happens. I went to the World of Darkness YouTube channel, and since October of last year, there have only been eight videos uploaded, the most recent one uploaded a month ago. Without being repetitive, it would be great to see something happening on the channel in the other months.

Now that Bloodlines 2 has been released and the financials are public, I’d like to see more live plays and advertising from White Wolf and World of Darkness for both Werewolf and Hunter. If they don’t invest in these games, why should I?

I bought Vagrant Song at Gen Con in 2023. I was drawn to the game originally because of the art, which reminds me of the game Cuphead. I liked how this game is cooperative, and that there are several different scenarios to play. I get the most value out of board games that offer a ton of replayability. Vagrant Song is a game I occasionally bring to my family’s board game days. We succeeded in playing two different scenarios, “When You Dig My Grave” and “Suffocation Station”. Eventually, I’d love to say that I played every single scenario in the base game.

Vagrant Song is one of those games where you have to relearn how to play the game if it’s been a few years since you last played. When we last played, we took pictures of our characters to save our game and items. These pictures were dated from November 2023. It’s wild to me that it was almost three years ago. It makes sense since we rotate out the games we play. It took about an hour to re-read the rules and set up the scenario. In the first scenario, “When You Dig My Grave”, we had to put the haint, the terminology Vagrant Song uses to describe a ghost, to rest. Each scenario includes a series of rituals, and if you complete the ritual, you can unlock various power-ups after the scenario concludes. In one such ritual, we unlocked a vial of poison that my character has on their character card. It’s neat to be able to take items into future scenarios in the game. Once we finished the scenario, we realized we played the game wrong. We had all our characters take a turn, then the haint would take their turn. Instead, the haint should have had a turn after each of the characters. Oops. If I type this out in this blog post, maybe we will remember to play the game correctly in the future.

In the second scenario, “Suffocation Station,” the goal was not to free the haints, but to complete all the rituals or the events on the board. I liked this a lot. It made the game different since our strategy had to change. Most of the scenarios in the game include giving humanity to the haints, so they can be put to rest instead of wandering the train, which is why this scenario was unique. After completing this scenario, we packed up, took pictures of our characters, and saved the game.

Vagrant Song remains one of my favorite board games in my collection. I like how there is still so much of the game that we haven’t discovered yet. This has become one of our favorite games we play, and hopefully, we will get to the point where we have played every single scenario in the scenario book.

Last month, Animal Crossing: New Horizons released its new update. The main addition was adding the hotel, which sits on the ocean alongside the pier. With the hotel, players can now decorate hotel rooms and see different villagers visiting their island. The update has invigorated my love for Animal Crossing, as I have been playing the game every chance I can. I have gone through a recent slump where I went eight months (the game reminded me of this) without playing. With the update, I have been playing Animal Crossing regularly, and I feel motivated to go back and accomplish things that I was missing.

Starting with the hotel, I like being able to decorate the rooms. I find the task itself to be relaxing. When beginning to decorate a room, you can choose two different themes. From there, each room has various furniture items, flooring, and wallpaper, so you can choose how you want the room to look. I find that I do this every time I log into the game. The more rooms that are decorated, the more items are unlocked in the hotel’s souvenir shop. One of my favorite items I unlocked is a cat plushie that sits in my LEGO-themed room. I’m not sure how many more items I could unlock, but it’s been fun to see what else is included in the update. Another task that’s kept me busy is crafting items. Outside the hotel is a box where you can craft items to put into the box that are shipped off the island. It’s an easy way to get more currency to spend at the hotel.

Speaking of the update, another feature I like is the multi-craft feature. Before the update, you could only craft one item at a time. Now, you can craft multiple of the same item. For example, I’m trying to complete my fish encyclopedia, so having fish bait on hand can help attract the fish I need. Before, I could craft one fish bait, but now I can craft seven at once as long as I have the materials needed. Another way that I’m using the multi-craft feature is to craft flimsy tools, so I can break them to earn more Nook Miles I was missing. The last thing I will say about this is the ability to use items from your home storage. This is so slick! I don’t have to carry everything in my pockets anymore. As long as it’s in my home’s inventory, I can pull it to craft with it. Crafting has been made so much better thanks to this update.

The final thing I have done is create a guide to everything I still need to unlock in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I have a table of all the fish, sea creatures, and bugs I need to catch, along with the Nook Miles I haven’t unlocked yet. I have highlighted certain creatures that are available this time of year and what time I need to play to unlock them. This has been super helpful! Since I created the guide, I have caught at least two fish and two insects I was missing. My husband asked me if I could change the date and time on my Switch to the times of year I need, and I could, but that’s cheating! I want to unlock this fair and square.

The new update has made Animal Crossing: New Horizons fresh again! I’m glad that this update was made for both Switch and Switch 2. I don’t think I would have upgraded to the Switch 2 solely because of this update had it not been made available on the Switch. I’m not sure how long I will keep playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but I know this update will keep me busy for the next month at least.