*An image of Darling Demon Eclipse, recolored and painted over to look like famous faggot games icon ‘Fag Girl.’*

Before reading this article, please consider joining the Faggot Games Salon Discord! It’s where many of these games were conceptualized, workshopped and discussed.

I made the people of the Faggot Games Movement a promise - that I would read and blog about every game released for the Faggot Games TTRPG Jam. I will now honor that promise. Without further ado, here they come!

there is no self, only you by Geostatonary

*The cover for TINTOY, or there is no self, there is only you.*

I was given an early preview of this game, and I was immediately enchanted by it. As someone obsessed with clinical mind control scenarios, the concept of a game that simulates the intake, upkeep and completion of such a program activated some of my most miserable perversions. TINTOY, by Geostatonary, is the sort of thing I’m here for, and clearly the result of a lot of dedication-slash-desire.

TINTOY, as described on its Itch page, is a game about the Captor and Subject, as the Captor slowly makes the Subject take a form more fitting to the Captor’s wants. What Geostatonary brings to this project, which I feel no one else could, is an obsessive attention to procedure and process. It is medical and clinical, but also hot and penetrating. This attention permeates play and safety alike, and the safety recommendations here are distinctly Faggot — Geostatonary wants the Subject and Captor to discuss what this will look like and how comfortable they are doing this together. I am very excited to play this game with the cruelest hypnodommes in my life, and the most pliable toys.

Don’t Kinkshame God!!! by SoftieTheHound, RunRabbitBounce & IFeelOdd

*Featured art for Don’t Kinkshame God!!!*

My wonderful friend IFeelOdd and their wonderful friends Softie & RunRabbitBounce have done it dark and nasty style. Don’t Kinkshame God!!! takes a deeply ritualistic but also casual and playful approach to intimacy, flirtation and sex. It feels to me like a conceptual expansion on ideas explored in Lumpley’s Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, a series of scenes that define a three-part relationship and a series of roles for players to take in that relationship. What Don’t does differently is in its expansiveness and orientation around numerical mechanics - it’s a numbers game, baby.

To highlight favorite parts — I love the little locales where you might frame your scenes, the way the game uses ominous phrases to highlight parts of play, and the fucked up little art that dots the text. My favorite guy in the entire book is on page 22 — there’s this silly little gourd that I fear will be stalking into my bedroom rather soon. Overall, I am fond of the diversity and specificity present in this game, and I’m excited to see more from this creative partnership. There is a roughness, earnestness and darkness here that tickles me.

The Spear of Healing by After Icarus

*The featured art for The Spear of Healing.*

There are a few things I am naturally drawn to in this game. First, the theming — the evil sorceress versus the naïve and unstoppable berserker, classic sword and sorcery fare. The pairing of this setting, which might be a bit rough and unbeautiful, with calls for rich metaphor and poetic imagery, allows pain to be a thing that is fetishized and romanticized. It’s a torture game, ‘type-2’, but it wants both parties to savor the salty taste of blood.

Second, I love that this game is a complete engine, a series of instructions that carry themselves. There is no need to refer back, to consider alternative options — it runs by procedure. That’s a thing that’s been consistent across these first three games, an emphasis on procedure. There is definitely something enticing about a strict set of rules, and the bratty struggle against it. At the end of the day (and in The Spear of Healing), the brat gets the belt, and brats love getting the belt. That’s what makes it good play!

LIVING BREEDING by Devours-The-World

*The featured art for LIVING, BREEDING.*

I will admit, I am a bit biased! LIVING, BREEDING is a game by one of my longest friends, and my fondness for her only grows with her delve into TTRPGs. If I recall correctly, this game’s creation and publishing was a result of a half-joke within my own circles about a game that you impregnate. This is a deeply earnest version of that half-joke, finding the half that is not a joke and leaning in toward it, breathing heavily, dripping between one’s legs. I fear that when (not if) I play this game, I will find that my friend has only greater power over me. Real pervert magic.

I feel that the thin layout here really benefits the book, as it manages to speak in voice-through-color, black the voice of the rules and blue the voice of the designer. There is a page left intentionally blank so that one can fuck it. I also deeply appreciate the optional rules for competitive dollmaking, and the way the game forces you to create a garden of thirsty little reflections of yourself. I am excited to see more from my friend.

TWENTY SOMETHING YEAR OLD FAGGOT by Sandy Pug Games

*The featured art for Twenty-Something Year Old Faggot.*

This is a unique one, because I have a physical copy of it. You can too, if you’re one of the four people willing to spend a mere $12.50 on a gloriously high-contrast zine. It’s lovely that SPG has put such a focus on physical media, as I think part of the Faggot Games movement has to be low-cost physical media that you can make in a crowded apartment. I say this because I haven’t emphasized this enough in my own work, and I’d love to. Nem also said some lovely things about my own work toward making this scene glow, which I deeply appreciate and hope to honor through further action.

The game! It’s a good one. I actually haven’t played or read Thousand Year Old Vampire, so I don’t know what elements of this game are Nemesis originals, but Twenty-Something Year Old Faggot introduces the premise of creating faggot-memories via prompts, then hands over a bunch of levers to start (including a 150-word ‘post’ option as a way to immortalize your memories) and then uses them to devastating effect in its rows of prompts. It’s clear to me that this is a deeply personal work, and a lot of what Nem writes here reflects my own experience as a young transgender woman. There is an acknowledgement that queer difficulty doesn’t just come from the top-down; The faggot machine often breaks at its intersections and joints.

The City I Love, it speaks to me by Jellyfishlines

*The cover for The City I Love, it speaks to me.*

As a dame with a distant but unstudied fondness for the film noire aesthetic, I find this game’s focus on the gruff detective guy very charming. From Deckard to Dubois, there’s a clear interest in shlubby detective fucks in this game, and the cities they pour their gritty affection & violence into. There’s some real gender happening in the two forces that pull on the detective here, Man & Dame, and how Man relates to distance while Dame relates to affection. To call back to the detectives I referenced earlier, one can very easily imagine Deckard’s encounter with the last replicant in Blade Runner as a Journey’s End, while Harry Dubois’ encounter with something special in the church as Lover’s Meeting.

Speaking of these chapter names — I like the flow of this one. Sort of like The Spear of Healing, this game The City I Love, it speaks to me is a game that appears interested in aiding in facilitation through its own machine-momentum, the turning of its gears and the flicking of its traffic lights. The simple success/failure engine here, amusingly labeled You a Gambling Man?, inevitably drives the game toward only a few outcomes. Love a tightly wound scheme — very film noir.

Para-Phoria by VespertineanTess

*The feature image for Para-Phoria, which shows a preview page.*

First and foremost, I want to commend Tess for the ambition on display here. What Tess is attempting to make is something akin to a small World of Darkness or Cyberpunk game in scale, and I think that’s very admirable. The worldbuilding here is robust and interesting, and the idea of each player character being two creatures at once is really fun. I also love the transition goals here, and I am on the edge of my seat waiting to see what the Emperor/Empress option is, as a bit of a power dynamic / ego trip pervert. The present art is really fun — I especially love the corporate rubber drones and the weird science lady groping one of their chins.

I am very excited broadly to see where this game goes. I feel like the spaces that I run in, this level of crunch and variety is not very common. I love the existing strains, and I’m excited to see those finished. I’m also hyped to see what GM options are included, as those are listed in the to-do list. I will also add, with nothing but love, that I feel this game worries a little too much about what cishet & non-kinky people will think — this is the parasite fetish game. Let loose and assume gay people are using your game as an excuse to fuck each other, is the opinion of this twenty-something year old faggot.

The Ballad of Johnny 45-Dicks by Adam Seats

*The cover of The Ballad of Johnny 45-Dicks.*

Well, that’s a face I ain’t seen in the saloon in a long time! Take a seat, and I’ll tell ya all about a new digital pamphlet I’ve been readin’. Name’s The Ballad of Johnny 45-Dicks, an adventure created for Emiel Boven’s The Electrum Archive. It’s an intriguin’ little piece, with three adventure paths to play, all based ‘round Titan Port (and trust me, this ain’t the first time someone’s fucked in Titan Port) — one that involves Johnny 45-Dicks as a working man of sorts who fled a brothel, another that involves hunting Johnny 45-Dicks as a bounty, and a third that involves a bunch of folks gettin’ stuffed full of cowboy cum.

Ahuckgh. I think I had something stuck in my throat, and it wasn’t 45 loads of cowboy! These adventure paths are fun, and I like the very silly conceit that actually interacts properly with The Electrum Archive. These seem like fun paths to run or play in, and I like the additional post-path prompts. I’d love to see sex and sexuality suffused more deeply into The Electrum Archive in future projects by Adam and others, as I think it’s an inherently kinda hot setting with its emphasis on ink tats and fleshcrafting.

.AVI Maria by peaksykid

This game continues a trend present in a number of games in the Faggot Games TTRPG Jam, one that I have not yet remarked on — the destruction of the old self to make way for the new. That is the explicit motive of .AVI Maria, a solo journaling game where the player slowly transforms the human Maria to something far less human. I enjoy that this is the sole thing this game does, but the work takes an interest in making that process exciting and prompt-ful. The ‘protocols’, questions you might ask when turning your Maria’s traits from human to robot, are a great place to start, and then the game heaps on a d66 table of fun prompts for human and robot alike.

A favorite prompt — I love S (starting) trait 31, You think of yourself as generally vanilla about sex, which is notably not contradicted by another more kinky prompt in the D (delta) traits, but merely contradicted by the fact of its deletion. Peaksy was really smart here in avoiding the transformation attempting to contradict the starting state, and instead lets the transformation have its own flavor. D45, Coolant fluid and oil seep from parts of your body. D64, Your touch can transfer electric current. My inner robo-doll is shivering in delight.

SCREW ME HARDER: A Bodybuilding Game by Connor’s Art Room

The first and second page of *SCREW ME HARDER: A Bodybuilding Game*, as featured on the Itch page.

I pound my fork and knife on the table. “MORE ROBOT DOLL GAMES!” you hear, and my wish is swiftly granted. If you told me that this jam would result in an Exodia fuckpuppet game when I first made it, I would kiss you on the lips then and there. I am delighted by this game, in its clear men-loving-men homoeroticism, in its playful card-based robot creation, and in its wonderfully sexy endings. SCREW ME HARDER is another game deeply interested in a procedure that leads toward a few possible outcomes, which fits its focus on machinery.

I also love the clear instructions the game gives for making your bot from the cards provided, a fetish-making project that feels in line with games I discussed earlier in this blog. I would really love to see the bots, the “perfect men” of folks who have played this game, and I am now possessed with the thought of crossing this over with LIVING, BREEDING. These bots are very pretty-slash-weird-slash-hot-slash-playful — why not fuck ‘em?

For Steel You Are by Deric Bindel

As someone who adores NaissanceE, this game was truly tailor-made for me. Unlike the prior robot-fag-games, For Steel You Are is focused more on metal-on-metal sex, the way a machine is broken at the touch of other much greater machines. It simulates being a 3DS getting jailbroken by a $3500 gaming computer — you stand no chance, and can only bask in its glory. I think the perversion of this game mostly comes in that, in the sense that the megastructure will inevitably change, rewrite, destroy, crush you… and it will teach you to love. It will make you whole and different.

In terms of its structure, For Steel You Are is very focused on the crawl into, around, out of and through the megastructure. I’d be excited to see how runs of this game play out over three, four, five iterations — will you OVERLOAD at the end of any given Location, or sputter out before you even get there? I love how luck here sort of informs the robot’s ability to locate truth, or something like it, before being transformed by the megastructure to adore it eternal.

Seething by Rookery Games

I am, first, flattered by the fact that this game includes my own A Stranger’s Just A Friend (Ashcan) as a point of reference. Similar to that game which is inspired by The Mountain Goats’ To The Headless Horseman, Seething reminds me of a song, perhaps only superficially — Jimmi Hendrix’s (Bob Dylan’s) All Along The Watchtower, with its fool and drowning sense of inevitability. Seething is a game with a literal thread that runs across many pieces of its art, which runs and wanes along the layout, and seems to shape everything along a single vertical line, until the thread suddenly and inevitably snaps at the end.

I adore the conceit here, and the focus on the literal titular Seething as mostly auxillary to the internal sexual pressure, the human Seething between yourself and the fool. The love and intimacy here is a cynical sort, granted to one another in fleeting moments outside of constant bickering and hatred. I love a hatefuck, and I presume you do too.

Helm and Shield by Sasha Reneau

The circular nature of these two games was instantly exciting to me, the way one game leads into another. This is only made more exciting by the physical embodiment of both stories’ slow and insidious corruption, the use of a pencil, a stack of cards and an egg. Watching Sasha concoct this really unique resolution mechanic and connected it to a really excellent pair of games. Sasha has generally been an innovator in games, and I’m excited to see them continue their work in faggot games.

I want to highlight the language used here, and how the events are described on the page. It is not just that the Parasite conquers the Squire - it is that you “submit yourself, naked and shivering, to the parasite, and die at its leisure.” Extremely fucking hot. If it weren’t for the smell of raw eggs, I imagine this game would lead to some very weird sex… unless you’re into the smell of raw eggs, that is.

SCIENTROPHICATION by Nicolas Ambrose of The Horned Sphinx

*The featured image for SCIENTROPHICATION.*

It’s difficult to look at this game entirely objectively, as it is a hack of my own game, Biotrophication. I’ll start by exploring it as such. I think SCIENTROPHICATION is very reflective of my own recent philosophy around games using this two-character, act/scene engine. I’ve done some of it myself in my recent projects, and I think SCIENTROPHICATION hits it from angles that I’ve thus far missed. The use of tokens as a way of giving and taking control? Genius. I also think the prompts and scenes here are really solid, the circular flow of play has similar appeal to TINTOY, and the flexibility of tone here is lovely.

As its own thing, I think this game really lands in fulfilling a certain fantasy of the mad scientist and the willing/unwilling subject. I really can’t imagine a better game for this specific perversion than this. I see some little areas where this game could be expanded, and I’m excited to see those built on — I’d especially love to see more kinds of CHANGING VARIABLES beyond the manipulation of parts.

CHURCH FOR WILD DOGS TRAPPED IN THE BODIES OF HUMAN GIRLS by eat grass fool

*The feature image for CHURCH FOR WILD DOGS TRAPPED IN THE BODIES OF HUMAN GIRLS.*

I’m glad we got a lyric game ass lyric game in this jam. CHURCH hits a lot of beats I adore — dominant and submissive dynamics, dog girls, painful and strained social dynamics, and monsters on the edge of things. CHURCH doesn’t have mechanics, it doesn’t have a resolution system, and it doesn’t have playbooks. You are dogs, and you serve the priestess. One day, she might be a goddess. You can only follow the rules. I’m unsure if this is a game you can play, except if you run into the wilderness with a bunch of other trans women and start eating wild carrots from the earth.

This game is a great example of the outer edges of what one could consider a faggot game. It doesn’t contain any explicit mention of sex, but it is deeply interested in intimacy and bodies, in the roles we play for each other. It’s really fucking good, and I hope you give it a read.

SPLASH ELLA CINDER by Decadenza

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this project also cites one of my -Trophication format games, that being A Stranger’s Just A Friend, as a major inspiration. I really feel that Decadenza captured a lot of what I was trying to do there in this game, in creating tension between two characters, in scenes specific to them, in a place specific to them, through the slow depreciation of a physical object. I think where SPLASH ELLA CINDER excels past my own work is in its efficacy and simplicity. It is remarkably tight, and keeps everything you need to know to a matter of 12 pages.

As its own work, ELLA CINDER is exploring some really quintessential and beloved sapphic sci-fi themes that the girlies will simply eat up. The dynamic between the upper-cruster and the peasant, each on opposite sides of a conflict, is immediately appealing and naturally fills in any gaps itself. The promise of so many different outcomes of these characters and the space to explore that makes me want to play this game badly.

DOWN the RABBIT HOLE by Aaron, Xiao and Miles

*The feature image for Down the Rabbit Hole.*

I’m coming at this game with the assumption that it was made in good faith, from someone who is subverting a cultural context that they are deeply aware of. The idea of a gay club that is being used as a hunting ground for a god who is both the patron deity of queerness and trying to feed on the hearts of mortals is immediately very compelling, both as a space for some really hot Hawkmoth-astride evil and to explore metaphors around the ways queer people violate each other. I was immediately drawn by the art and aesthetic of this game as well, wet and drippy and weird.

This game does something interesting with PBTA, which I haven’t seen very often — its moves have multiple different picks on a 10+ and 7-9, with moves interacting with this structure in different ways. While I think this could be laid out slightly more elegantly (bullet points might make it a tad more legible, at least for me) I really adore this and think there’s potential to get super fucky with it.

Let Me Be Your Thrall by Milkboy Games.

This game intrigued me because I originally chafed around how it introduced itself — it started by saying what it is and what it’s not, and establishing that the love between its Vampire and Thrall is not abusive and not unrequited. I worried that this would be too restrictive, that this was an early and unnecessary caveat. However, on reading through the book I realized how intentional this is. This is a game about bloody, beautiful queer dom/sub love, and uses vampirism as a metaphor for that. I am extremely happy to say that all of my initial reservations were quashed within a few pages, as I encountered the Vampire and Human questions. The Human is directly asked - What do you want the vampire to do to you? This is vampire-as-dommy-sex-object, and I’m so here for it.

I’m also very fond of the base system here, which gives the Vampire and Human a deck of cards, then has them play values and suites against each other / adding them together to determine the scene they’re playing and the vibe they’re bringing to it. I think it’s worth mentioning that if this sounds like your type of game system, Let me Be Your "Jam" Jam is currently active. The designer of this game created an SRD for the game as well. Get in there and make something slutty!

A Game of Mecha-Hedonics by Lex Kim Bobrow

*The cover for A Game of Mecha-Hedonics.*

Dude, fuuuuuck yes. I was really excited to read the game by creator of TittyRPG Jam Lex Kim Bobrow of Titanomachy, and I was not disappointed with this one. The description in this game, of being born into this world as the mech-monster or as the pilot within it, invokes so much about the body and the creeping nature of being, whether that mean tearing your way through the digital underside of the universe like Gergiev of Wham City Comedy’s The Cry of Mann (it reminded me enough of that to link it here) or being born to die in a stupid war.

…and then the game dumps you into the Play section, and you understand Lex’s prestige here. This is not going to be a game with a bunch of fancy weapon tables and range-bands, no! This is a game about getting close to another person and trying to hold and grapple and drop and pin and bite and tear and eat and kill them… and kiss them, and probably fuck. This is a game where you fuck. Really big fan of this one, and I am hoping to play it soon.

MEATGRINDER SICKLOVE by D.S. Quiet

I like that this game suggests that all heroes should use ‘it/its’ in this game. There is a deep interest here in demeaning heroes, as understanding them primarily as things that deal immeasurable violence and then become someone else’s thing… or their nightmare. I like the fact that the heroes are immortal, so when they lose they become TOYS or BEASTS, losing control of themselves and their armies. The emphasis on battlefield rape here is especially interesting to me, and how it is both perverted and fraught.

The mechanics here are fun as well. This game fits into the ‘adding new rules to chess’ category of TTRPGs, which I do not say as an insult in any way — I love that this game is played via repeat games of blackjack, with winners and losers indicated by those games. I also love how the game instantly leaps back into character at the wrap of each game to deal with the consequences, as I imagine it keeps things moving quite well.

Spill Your Fluids by Infinite Citadel

I appreciate how much of this game is about the presentation — without much theme writing to go off of, there’s a lot here that someone might assume. This game, on some level, says “I am about genderfluidity in a fluid universe; what characters, settings and stories might fit that?” It then invites you to answer however you may, and I think that fluidity is beautiful. I am curious to hear what sorts of games the designers had in mind for this, perhaps after I play a game or two of it.

This game, despite being oriented around the inscrutable, has a very space-and-structure oriented game style, where one’s Traits are moving around a board which change their ability to act. I find this version of the CALTROPCORE engine fascinating, and I’d be interested in seeing it used in a more solid game as well.

EROBOTICS by OLOStudios

I like this a lot, and I think it’s very commendable for the creator to acknowledge it’s in a bit of a preliminary state! The writing and theming that is here is really fun — I love that this is, on some level, a robot dating game more than anything? You go from meet-cute (which might just be the robot’s creation), to spending time together and building up arousal, to eventually fucking nuts & bolts style. I really like how the stat system is impacted by so much, including the answers you give and the traits. This game also gives you so much space for worldbuilding through play, which is a plus for a game that wants you so invested in its characters.

I’d love to see the stats here move around more during play, as I think that’s one of the fun prospects about a game with really mutable stats like this. I’d also be really excited to see this game take on a slightly more confident tone in its writing, perhaps after an edit pass. There’s a lot of great, sexy, weird stuff here and I think the game has earned being a bit more pushy in its rules.

A River is a God: You are a River by ginandcats

*The cover for A River is a God: You Are A River.*

I have to admit my bias as this game was created by the person who, to my understanding, was the first person I realized had blue eyes. While writing this I did smile and audibly say “man, Gin is so cool.” I love how the language here orients itself so quickly around accompanying the player, and how that cooperates with the chosen font and layout approach. There’s a real aesthetic and thematic confluence here that makes it feel like someone familiar is asking hey, wanna make a river together?

The ‘action’ prompts here are also perhaps some of my favorite prompts I’ve read in this jam, including gems like:

Kneel for a minute. You are a god.
Smack your bare ass. You deserve it.

Very cool.

I Want You To Find Me Out by LambOfDawn

*The cover for I Want You To Find Me Out*.

Huge shouts here for this game including a section titled “Alternatives to Lines and Veils” which contains the absolutely kino line, “It is your job to know when you need to take a break or stop completely.” It’s really important that we build a playerbase for TTRPGs who are active participants in the table’s safety, and this sort of thinking encourages a lot of agency and involvement in keeping yourself and others safe. This game otherwise has a ton going for it — a Belonging Outside Belonging game with an interest in clocks and stats, a book that is loaded heavy with tables, and a PBTA-style move list for a BoB game.

I am not much of a killer person, but I do like Mark Kozelek’s track You Missed My Heart (popularly sung by Phoebe Bridgers, but we give credit on Eclipse Dot Gay) which is a good vibe for a killer-victim chase. I adore the aspect of kink and violence here, how the killer gets off on all of this. Also a little Ichii The Killer, now that I think of it. I’m sure part of the point of a game like this is to let players say ‘I wanna be this killer freak from my favorite killer freak movie!’ which, fuck yeah.

Glistening World by Games, Ink

Uh oh, you went into the gaping sphincter! Bad news, guy. I think one amazing play here is that when your Thirst (read: Lust) maxes out, you don’t actually have to go fuck one of these monsters or jack off, but you’d do anything to get off. The game trusts its players in a really great way, expecting that they will roleplay to the specifications of the game to create situations for their protagonist to get mutated and fucked by fleshthings. This game is full of little clever decisions like this, like the fact that you gain benefits when you gain a few Discovery points on a critter, then either downsides or upsides as you gain more depending on the fiction.

I like the variety and weirdness of things one might find in the flesh world, the inclusion of a downtime system (I was not remotely expecting that) and the sheer mechanical robustness present. Fundamentally, Glistening World feels like a game of surprises. It’s also fun to remember that this game was conceptualized in the Faggot Games Salon Discord, and was first imagined by one designer who didn’t wind up going for this game concept, and then another picked it up.

To Sleep, Perchance by GriefSoDeerly

This is a game that allegedly contains mechanics for playing it with a Jenga Tower, but like all good brats I am reluctantly accepting the fact that this game has asked me to have consensual somnophilic sex with my beautiful girlfriend. This time, and only this time, I’m going to take the bait. I’ll report back when I have more findings — I’ll be studying this subject in the field.

worldling activities faggot by Peripheresence

*The featured image for Worlding Activities Faggot*.

This is a compilation of little games, art, songs, stories and other material. Much of this is very internal writing, coming flow-of-consciousness from the writer’s mind and experience. I think this is a really beautiful thing to see, as you can see the places where the designer decided to jam in the frame of a mechanic, and the places where the designer opted to keep things in a prosaic place. These feel like games and pieces made in urgency, and I deeply appreciate that about this project. Much of this is deeply political, specifically abolitionist and pro-immigration, which I think is really beautiful.

The creator makes clear that they (I could not find pronouns for this designer) are homeless and that Food Not Bombs feeds them. Please check out the page and use the QR code to support the specific Food Not Bombs chapter that supports Peripheresence. If you made this project and are seeing this blog, I’d love to hear from you if you’re able to reach out. Drop me an email at darlingdemoneclipse@gmail.com if you’d like to discuss the process of making this game.

The Faggot Games TTRPG Jam Review