brendanmcleod.dev

The temptations of the secular world are great and many.

Book two of the Smiliad is John le Carré’s second novel, 1962’s A Murder of Quality.

This month on PAPER LABYRINTHS, nic talks with Alex Jaffe about his upcoming card game Chrysalis: Dungeonwake, 2XKO, improvisation, and the theater-like ephermality of a game session.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a links-roundup, but I HAVE been assiduously saving them up.

after finishing Lord of the Rings, I felt a mighty need to dip back into some of the video games inspired by Middle-Earth.

The Smiliad begins with John le Carré’s debut novel, 1961’s Call for the Dead.

The Star Wars game I’ve spent the last two years of my life making is out today, for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5!

The Zero Company review embargo ended today, which means outlets and individual reviewers have started posting their official reviews of the game.

I beat Darkest Dungeon!

Inspired by the Every Elric Endeavor that my friend Moose is conducting, I’ve decided to pair my journey through the George Smiley series by John Le Carré (pronounced ka-REY, if you’ve ever been unsure).

The final trailer for my upcoming game, Star Wars Zero Company, came out today.

Tons of previews for my upcoming game, Star Wars Zero Company, have dropped today!

We talk with Ian Williams about his recently-announced book on miniature wargaming, the material conditions of craft, the power of nostalgia, and the impact of hydration breaks on association football.

We talk with Eve Golden-Woods about tabletop mechanics, the Book of Kells industrial complex, regency romance novels, and Ancient Babylon.

We talk with Bria Davis about Discord servers, Blaseball, passing on lessons learned, and eggs.

you ever been more tired than you’ve ever been in in your whole life?

I went to Macon to attend a small workshop being run by my friend Cameron.

We talk with Holly Nielsen about Amberspire, games in historical contexts, citing sources, and the Whiggish nature of skill trees.

I travelled to Galway to attend the FÍS Game Summit, where my friend Nic was giving a talk and my pals Eve and Sam would be around.

I went to Milwaukee to attend Adepticon, a wargaming miniatures convention!

We talk with Chris Kindred about DJing, teaching game design, and hauntology.

We speak with Meredith Gran about nostalgia, sense of time and place, cartooning, and getting a project across the finish line.

This is a master post to all of my Mythic Bastionland session reports for the short campaign I ran: Zero - Tiger, Tome, and Blood One - The Weaver Knight Two - The Enthroned Seer Three - Judgment Four - The Haunted Coast Five - The Abbey of St Genesius Six

Content warnings in this write-up for mind control and harm to animals.

We talk with Non-Breaking Space about expressive play, mechanics of scale, hidden information, and librarians.

2025 really just needed to be better than 2024.

A short one this week, because 1) it’s been a couple of weeks since we played, and 2) I didn’t take detailed notes!

I haven’t had an Xbox console in a long time, so I completely missed this game when it came out.

On October, I went to Chicago for a week to visit my friend nic!

WHALE ROADS is the chronicle of a year-long, 30+ player West Marches campaign of Wolves Upon the Coast by Luke Gearing.

We talk with Andrew “dicey” Shouldice about teaching game development, making maps, managing projects, and the joy of the game manual.