Novel Writing Game Tools 2023

For the entire month of October 2023 we presented Novel Writing Game Tools 2023, our second annual offer of roleplaying exercises that help aspiring writers prepare for National Novel-Writing Month. Each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with 50,000 words of a new novel. They enter the month as teachers, mechanics, stay-at-home parents, or gamers; they emerge as novelists. It’s a fun, free, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. In 2022 413,000 writers participated, and more than 51,000 met their goal. Join them! Lay the foundation for your novel by first creating a setting, characters, and plotline using these .PDF ebooks of solo journaling and group story-making games.

(Note: Although our friends at DriveThruRPG host many Bundle of Holding offers, most of these Game Tools titles aren’t available on DriveThru.)

There were five titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $53) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the three-game set Alone on a Journey (No Road Home Studio); the story-game anthology Seven Wonders (Pelgrane Press), previously in the November 2017 Indie Cornucopia 5; the Apothecaria core rulebook from Blackwell Games (previously in last year’s Game Tools bundle) plus its expansion Shimmersnow Valley; and Recipe on Kmiydish Paper (Pearse Anderson), a poignant solitaire game based on the “Lost & Found” system introduced in Artefact and Bucket of Bolts.

Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Bonus Collection with four more complete games worth an additional $57, including Jack (Koriko) Harrison’s revenge drama for 2-4 players, The Slow Knife (Mousehole Press); the Gothic family saga Curse of the House of Rookwood (Nerdy Pup Games); Cezar Capacle’s game of benevolent yet misunderstood guardian spirits, Not a Demon; and the cryptic and melancholy mystery game Bleak Spirit (Certain Death).