25 October 2025

Capsule Reviews #9: HELLO//GOODBYE Charity Bundle

Friends of the blog Swan and Raven Studio are hosting the HELLO//GOODBYE Charity Bundle for Legal Aid - I grabbed my copy and am facing the same challenge as with every itch.io bundle - how to even get your arms around the treasures within? By my count 203 items from 114 creators - it is a lot for $15.

I already looked at the Hello/Goodbye zine itself - you can read that review here. Trying to get my arms around 'what is even here' I come back to my classic approach to all these bundles - are there at least a few things in here to justify picking it up and then everything else is bonus, gems to be slowly revealed over time.

I draw on the wisdom of crowds somewhat here - the thinks I have seen others rave about as reasons to pick this up are Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, Paris Gondo - The Life-Saving Magic of Inventorying, Rosewood Abbey, Arkyvr and DNGN + DRGN. If you want back up for those recommendations you can see the reviews of others here:
Playful Void reads Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast
LunarShadow Designs gives a quick review of Paris Gondo - The Life-Saving Magic of Inventorying
Burn After Running reviews Rosewood Abbey
Rob Wieland reviews Arkyvr on Enworld
Deathtrap Dungeon reviews DNGN

Ones that I have experience with - mostly from the local crowd here in Vienna -

Worldbreaker by CrowberryCake - the serpent Jörmungandr grows, waters rise, villages vanish and the players are those who remain. A one-page of mechanics plus bonus second page bestiary and third page of character sheets. Characters have eleven stats split into two groups (pillars and virtues) with dice assigned to them - combine two for your roll to resolve challenges. Failures in a roll advance the 13-step 'clock' of serpent growth until the world is wholly taken over - complete your goals before that. A whole system with plenty of flexibility to run different things, lots packed into three pages.

GREEN CORRIDOR - MixUpPixels - players are agents of REWIND, a group of survivors of the climate catastrophe and corporatism that has ravaged the world. Agents seek out pockets of The Green, habitable regions where people and wildlife can flourish, aimiung to rebuild the world one ecolocial pathway at a time. A punchy tri-fold pamphlet game, agents have three stats, challenges are resolved by roll under system. Designed to be played with a hex-map where the players travel, face down challenges and to create 'green corridors' across it. Pithy and stripped down, a good seed that lends itself to inspiring a GM to pick up and run with it.

M is for Muscle - Wasbart - a 4-page game where a group of enormously bulky giants must drop their adopted 5-year old off at day-care in a world was made for puny weak people. Grapple the world with your squeeze, think or feel muscles with d6, d8 or d12 assigned. Take on challenges with a roll-over system and chance inflating your muscles to bump your die to a d20 or fail and deflate to d4. A page of tables at the back provides sample challenges for the gang to encounter on the way to kindergarten drop-off. Looks good for quick one-shots, a great beer-and-pretzels game.

Rockpool by Jubal Barca - is a "tiny RPG about tiny Rockpool creatures" with their own aims in the bounded, busy world of a rockpool. Twelve pages gives you a page to set your aims, two to build your character with their three stats of Tidefast, Shelltwirled and Spinethrown, two pages of 'occurences', five pages of bestiary, a half page of things to find in the rockpool and some flavour text to close. Self-contained and a distinct vibe of striving to achieve small goals in a world in flux.

Also throwing in Just Make Shit - Diogo Nogueira - a 13-point manifesto and guind on getting things done and making the things you want to make. Useful.

Honorable mention to:
Songbirds an eldritch fantasy game.
The Lyric Game Manifesto-Essay on "Why you should make a lyric game"
The Obligatory Fishing Minigame is a system agnostic Tabletop RPG about going fishing!
Begin Transmission - A planet exploration letter-writing game for 1-2 players
Galaxy Black - Space Fantasy Adventure in the collapsing universe
Sprouts is a family-friendly game of hand-drawn creatures traveling across real-life terrain.
Tea & Toadstools: a solo GM-less journaling game in which you play as a hedgehog in a twill vest who just wants to be left in peace!

All of which just scratch the surface of this bundle but I hope provides confidence that there is enough in here to justify the price - and lots more to provide future pleasant surprises.

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