Daily positivity, and boardgame blethering.

Today: Discussing GAMEBOOKS with Peter Blenkharn, Harley Truslove, Scott Moore, and Paul Stapleton.

I’ve brought together a bunch of folk who know all about gamebooks, for a regular chat.

In this, the first meeting, we will chat about what draws us to gamebooks, and then consider who the audience is, and how we can expand the audience.

Let’s show-and-tell! Each person will show off a gamebook they love and explain why it’s good.


We’ll ponder the nature of the medium. What is it? Who is it for? And how can gamebooks evolve and find new readers?


Let’s discuss, listen, learn, and probably not come to any conclusion… or will we surprise ourselves?


All respectful questions and comments welcome.
Sillier Qs during the QQQ section.


Peter Blenkharn is the CEO of Inside the Box Game Studio, publishers of Statecraft, Sub Terra, Skora, Alba, and many more to come!

Peter Blenkharn is here because of their role in bringing Alba, an ‘Open World Adventure’ book, to life, as well as their desire to keep making new books in this genre.


ITB Links
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itbboardgames/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itbboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/itbboardgames





Harley L Truslove is a writer in the south of England who’s delighted to be using their writing degree for something. They graduated from the University of Winchester with a BA in English and Creative Writing and an MA in Creative and Critical Writing. They’ve always focused on writing fiction and consider it to be one of their great passions – writing Alba was a labour of love (and huge flowcharts) and they are excited for it to be a reality!

In their spare time, Harley runs a D&D game, plays D&D with friends, and generally talks far too much about D&D. Outside of the gaming scene you may recognise them as the lead in the webseries “From Mansfield With Love”, back when they had more hair.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itbboardgames/alba-an-open-world-adventure-book/

https://twitter.com/h_truslove





Born in Yorkshire, Scott spent almost all his life in such countries as England, Spain, Scotland, Germany and Hungary. He has worked as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, a telecoms market analyst, and lately as a translator, but is now spending more and more time working as a board game designer, developer, rules editor etc. for Nuts! Publishing, Phalanx, and others. His first board game, This War Without an Enemy, has recently been published. He is a member of Birmingham Boardgame Designers and, in the pre-Covid world, helped run the Birmingham Boardgame Bash.


https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/92956/scott-h-moore
https://twitter.com/ScottHaMoore
https://www.facebook.com/ThisWarWithoutanEnemy


Paul started self-publishing games in 2012, bringing out the first edition of BN1, a board game all about Paul’s hometown of Brighton. Over the following few years it was followed by the zombie infested sequel ZomBN1, and more recently Paupers' Ladder.

Paul started making games when I was still at school, most of which were scrawled onto the inside of cereal boxes and were almost exclusively set in dungeons. Like a lot of gamers of the era, it was Fighting Fantasy and Games Workshop that led the way. Talisman was the first board game that grabbed Paul’s imagination, and everything Paul designed has had echoes of Talisman - exploring ever changing worlds as you search for adventure in unlikely places.


www.bedsitgames.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/BedsitGames
https://twitter.com/BedsitGames
https://www.instagram.com/bedsitgames/