Exeunt Press year-end review 2025

Looking back at the year: new releases, game jams, conventions, events, newsletters, and public library support. What went well? What do we need to focus on for next year?

Exeunt Press 2025 Year-End Review

I enjoy putting together year-end reviews for Exeunt Press.

It’s far too easy (for me) to forget about the highlights and instead focus on the projects I didn’t finish or things that didn’t go as planned. Failures are remembered while successes are forgotten. Taking time to make a list of accomplishments over the last twelve months helps put it all in perspective.¹

Here’s what Exeunt Press accomplished this year.

Notable releases

ADVENTURE! Make Your Own TTRPG Adventure

In total, Exeunt Press released nine (9) projects this year:

1. ADVENTURE!: Make your own TTRPG adventure with the help of this guide from Skeleton Code Machine. Each chapter includes practical exercises to encourage hands-on learning — accessible for both beginners and experienced designers. Art by Evlyn Moreau! (trailer | print | pdf)

2. Ghost Beacon Micro: The civilization that inhabited this planet has perished — buried under dust and sand. In an effort to be remembered, they have left behind beacons, beaming signals to whomever might hear them beyond the stars. You can save this civilization’s history before it is too late. (pdf)

3. The Trench Grub’s Thirst: Inspired by The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton and the “The Last Question” short story by Isaac Asimov, The Trench Grub’s Thirst is a retro sci-fi heist of low-tech hacking under the Nevada desert. A corporate cult feeds stolen memories to a vast worm with the goal of controlling all knowledge. Compatible with CY_BORG. (pdf)

4. Doom Quest Bundle: Although Doom Quest: An Offering of Sweet Honey was released at the end of 2024, in early March 2025 I launched the Doom Quest Bundle for MÖRK BORG. (trailer | print)

5. MÖRKTOBER Creator Kit: A collection of random tables and creative inspiration you can use to make dark and weird creations. Works in any dark fantasy setting. With art by Francisco Lemos! (trailer | pdf)

6. Blood Chapter (🔖): You are a Vampyre Hunter in 16th century Germany sworn to send revenants back to the grave. But beware — you may become the one hunted. Gather power. Strike when ready! (trailer | pdf)

7. Dragon Pages (🔖): You are a knight on a quest to slay a dragon. Journey to its lair, discovering boons, banes, and omens along the way. But move swiftly, lest your supplies run out! The dragon awaits! (pdf)

8. Massive Damage (🔖): A boss monster that fits in your pocket? A giant robot vampire lord that helps mark your book page while reading? Sort of both... Inspired by Giant Enemy Crab! at Skeleton Code Machine and Boss Fights at Exeunt Omnes. Roll 3d6 to generate a boss type, special move, and environment. Actual, real-life monsters and combat not included. (pdf)

9. In Fair Verona (🔖): Outwit fate and unite Romeo & Juliet! Inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet (obviously) but more so by Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet film that I love so dearly. Cut the bookmark into Romeo and Juliet halves. Read your book to bring Romeo closer to Juliet, but beware! Each day that passes has a to chance push Juliet further away. (pdf)

While I’m extremely happy with the projects above, I always end each year wishing I could have released more. For example, I have most of an expanded Ghost Beacon zine written and art selected, but just didn’t get it over the finish line in time. Medusa is largely written but still needs some work to be press-ready. A lot of my time went into Tumulus this year (positive), which I discuss below.

But small progress is progress, and that work is not wasted. Expect to see more games released in 2026 as they get completed.

Conventions, classes, and other events

Teaching about one-page TTRPGs at a public library.

• Make Your Own One-Page RPG Class (Carlisle, PA): I taught another public library class this year based on the Make Your Own One-Page RPG guide. It was four sessions that you can read about here: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4.

• Harrisburg Board Game Day (Harrisburg, PA): Exeunt Press had a vendor booth at Harrisburg Board Game Day in July. See the lessons learned for details.

• Lazarus Games Local Developer Day (Harrisburg, PA): This one was extremely rewarding. Some of the first-time game designers in my One-Page RPG library class sold their games at the event! Zero to published in just four class sessions.

• Muffin Meetup (Philadelphia, PA): Hosted by Tony from Plus One Exp at Unity Java, this was a really small but fun event. Had some great chats about You are a Muffin and indie TTRPGs in general.

• Unpub Festival 2025 (Baltimore, MD): As a game designer, Unpub was one of the most fun events I attended this year. It spawned two SCM articles: How to Pitch Your Game at Unpub and Don’t Ask These Playtesting Questions.

• Indie & Local Tabletop Games Fair (Takoma Park, MD): This outdoor event near DC has become one of my favorites of the year. Hosted by People’s Book, it’s all local creators sharing their work. See the lessons learned for details.

• Harrisburg University Playtesting (Harrisburg, PA): I had the opportunity to help playtest student games at Harrisburg University this year. They did a great job with both designing the games and running a quality playtest! I tried to capture what they did so well in 10 ways to have happy playtesters.

• Dickinson College Game Design Talks (Carlisle, PA): I was asked to be a guest speaker for two different Dickinson College courses this year. One course was the archaeology of tabletop games (e.g. Senet and The Royal Game of Ur). The other was interactive media with a focus on activist media. I published a summary of the four design principles that I chose to cover.²

• Teaching Game Design in Libraries Webinar (video): The Indiana State Libary hosted a webinar where I talked about “How to run a tabletop game design workshop at your library.” You can watch the recorded video where I cover five key things you need to know to run your own classes.

• PAX Unplugged 2025 (Philadelphia, PA): I love PAX Unplugged. I look forward to it all year and I’m sad when it’s over. You can read my full PAXU write-up.

• MÖRKTOBER 2025: I hosted the annual MÖRKTOBER creative event again this year. It’s decentralized by design, so there’s no way to know how many people participated. That said, it sure seems like a lot of people based on the flood of dark and weird creations I saw across Discord and social media platforms!

In addition to the above, Exeunt Press was a Gold Tier Sponsor of International Gaming Month (IGM) hosted by the American Library Association (ALA). I was happy to be able to send free copies of solo games and design guides to 20 different libraries across the country!³

Newsletters and social media

Follow @exeunt.press on Bluesky.

SCM / Exeunt Omnes: Exeunt Omnes and Skeleton Code Machine, now have a combined follower count of over 10 thousand.⁴ That’s a +61% change year over year. About 80% of those subscribe to receive the newsletters in their inbox each week.

Bluesky: In last year’s review, I mentioned the social media shift from Twitter to other platforms. Exeunt Press Bluesky followers are up +72% YOY, which is cool. More importantly, I enjoy using it and interacting with readers and game designers!

YouTube: I’d still like to have more of a presence on YouTube, but remain unsure of how to approach it. There’s a question in the Skeleton Code Machine Reader Survey about it where you can let me know what you’d like to see.

EZB: Epsilon on Kickstarter

I had hoped to launch Exclusion Zone Botanist: Epsilon on Kickstarter in 2025, but that has been moved to 2026. As noted in the first monthly update, I will launch it when it’s ready and not before.

Epsilon is a huge project and my top priority in the coming year. It will be the first Exeunt Press project to hit crowdfunding, so I want to make sure everything is right.

I am posting Epsilon updates to Exeunt Omnes on the third Friday of every month until it is fulfilled. You and the other 800+ pre-launch followers will be able to follow along during design and development (now) all the way through crowdfunding (soon) and into production. I really appreciate all the support!

Turtchester and experimental games

I recently launched BEEP BEEP DANGER, a place for experimental games by Exeunt Press. As games are ready to be tested by others, I may upload draft rules. Some of it might be quite broken. Things will be added and removed at will.

The first game is temporarily called Turtchester — an area control and open drafting game for 2-4 players set in a fantasy city. I’ve already received a lot of helpful feedback via the form. If you want to give it a try, you can access the BEEP BEEP DANGER page with the password “BONEMECH” in all caps.

I plan to do public playtesting with it at Unpub Festival 2026 in Baltimore.

Tumulus: analog by design

I launched Tumulus in December 2024 with Issue 1, and now it’s been a year. It’s been one of my biggest successes of 2025 — one that is worth some reflection.

As a spin-off of the Skeleton Code Machine newsletter, I wanted Tumulus to be packed with tabletop game design articles, playable mechanisms, art, and exercises.

Inside Tumulus Issue 5

Instead of being a typical magazine full of previews and announcements, my vision for Tumulus was that everything inside is evergreen — just as good five or ten years from now as it is today. I don’t want Tumulus to be something you consume and discard. I want it to earn a place on your shelf.

I made two decisions that go against the usual business advice:

1. Tumulus subscriptions do not auto-renew.

2. Tumulus is print-only and not available in digital formats.

Perhaps not the best choices to maximize sales, but both are very important to me.

Here’s why:

1. I hate the onslaught of monthly recurring subscriptions.

Even when companies make it easy to “pause” your subscription, that’s still mental overhead. You still need to remember to cancel the subscription before some date, otherwise you’re locked in for another month. It may be “smart business” but it feels awful. If someone gets an issue of Tumulus, I want it to be because they asked for it. — not because they forgot to unsubscribe from their thousandth subscription.

2. I wanted to make something that isn’t fleeting.

On a long enough scale, everything is temporary. The sun will engulf the Earth in somewhere between 5-8 billion years and everything will become a faint chemical signature left in a dying star.⁵

That said, I want Tumulus to be a print-only artifact that lasts. Perhaps not until the sun boils the oceans away, but longer than the PDF that gets lost on your hard drive among a hundred thousand others. I want it to be something you hold in your hand, notice on a shelf, and choose to pick up. Something that competes with doom-scrolling. Analog by design.

So, thank you to the first 100 Tumulus Founders who believed in the project and thank you to all the others who joined in after that. Thank you to everyone who picked up back issues. Tumulus continues because of you.

To me, my top accomplishment of 2025 is Tumulus.

⏩ What’s next?

This year was another good one for Exeunt Press. I’m excited to see what next year brings and will talk more about goals in January.

Until then, make weird games!

- E.P. 💀

P.S. If you love tabletop games, you should check out Tumulus. It’s a print-only, quarterly zine packed with Skeleton Code Machine game design content.

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Play some weird and wonderful games at shop.exeunt.press.

Written, augmented, purged, and published by Exeunt Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. Exeunt Omnes is Copyright 2025 Exeunt Press. For comments, questions, reports from the EZ, or pro tips: games@exeunt.press

1. This is the third year I’ve put together a year-end review — usually around the same time each year. You can also read the 2023 and 2024 reviews.

2. I was able to playtest the student games this week! They chose such great topics ranging from trade on the Silk Road to fashion during the French Revolution. It was great to see that they took the assignment seriously and put in the effort. Solid games.

3. I appreciate the effort that will be required at each library to get these into their online cataloging system. If you make games, there are things you can do to help libraries add your game to their collection.

4. There is overlap between the two newsletters. About 37% of Skeleton Code Machine subscribers also subscribe to Exeunt Omnes, while 69% of Exeunt Omnes subscribers also subscribe to Skeleton Code Machine.

5. Existential credit to Dear Hank & John podcast, Episode 434 at around the 25:01 mark in response to Rachael’s question about not being OK in the long run and what alien archaeologists would find long after the sun has died.