The Ravens Nest

I want you to meet the newest edition to my RPG and Comic Book library, Loup Garou. I got this at Button Shy Games in Haddon Township, New Jersey. It’s a very small shop right next to Franco’s Place, a place where you can get amazing panzarottis and, if you’ve never had one of those, you’re missing out. In fact, Button Shy Games, it’s not just a shop with only two physical locations and a website. They publish games, they sell gaming accessories, there’s a world of stuff in there and they have a place called The Backyard with a couple of long tables and shelves full of games that you can go in, sit down and play absolutely free including…

Yes, these little wallet-games that you can stick in a shirt pocket, fanny pack, coat pocket or even the smaller pocket of your backpack or whatever bag you happen to be carrying around at the time.

I should clarify that the games on the left are two or more players while the games on the right are all solo games. Each one has 18 cards and a rulebook. If you get bored somewhere, break down and start playing if you have a decent surface.

Loup Garou was probably my most expensive buy there, coming in at $22 and yes, it’s a solo game. This book is written and laid out like a comic book but it’s more interactive, you have a character sheet, you roll dice, you read the panel and make decisions, sometimes you roll based on the decisions you make. You’re not just a werewolf…you’re being hunted! You have to survive and that’s all on your decision-making and rolls. Get a bookmark, folks. You’ll need it.

If you’re like me and you love comics and RPGs, this is the intersection.

Professor Dungeon Master declared that July would be Independent Games Month…so why are we talking about the dumpster fire that is D&D?

It’s a dumpster fire. We’ve established that. The History of The Original Dungeons & Dragons is not a history, it’s republishing OD&D with self-flagellation and apologies.

Let’s move on. Stop talking about them. Give it no oxygen. Let them be dead to us.

Back to Button Shy. Yeah, they have only two locations as of right now. One in Haddon Township and another in the UK. Nope, that’s not a joke.

Now if you’re not as fortunate as me in this instance, the website (linked above) also has many of the same wallet games and, if you give them a call, I’m certain you can also probably get other stuff as well and tell ‘em Raven Wulfgar sent ya.

As a matter of fact, The Wallet Games are all hand-assembled. You get the 18 cards and a rulebook and there are expansions that might run as much as the original game, however, you’re getting more cards and they’re usually collections of a couple different expansions. I recently bought an expansion to my Walking Dead game. You can also see an expansion to the game Universal Rule. I bought that one with the initial purchase of the game.

Keep in mind, this is a publisher, not merely a couple shops and a website. It’s just Jason Tagmire, a guy who’s doing Yeoman’s work in gaming to bring us something different, new and fresh. In my opinion, I think this could revolutionize card gaming. I think giving Magic: The Gathering and Lorcana stiff competition from a small upstart collection of games, I’m all for it. This is something even I can get behind and I do.

Places like Button Shy appreciate us as customers. They need our support more than a company like Goodman Games, Catalyst Game Labs or some other company using something like Kickstarter as free marketing that essentially pays them. In the wide space that is gaming, whether tabletop RPGs, Solo RPGs, card games and board games, smaller companies like this that really do something different, fresh and new should be mentioned and often. The more eyes we can get on publishers like Button Shy, the more we lend them support, the more of those games we’ll see. You might become a Walking Dead player, a Skulls of Sedlec player, you might even be that solo journaling game enthusiast with Shades of Ink, publishing your battle reports on a blog similar to the way I’ve done The Chronicles of Thrasamund for Thousand Year Old Vampire, you might even find a love for RPGs in the card game Aurora Decree where you try to establish a system of governing star systems similar to Star Trek’s Federation. It doesn’t matter.

Games and publishers like this tend to bring you back to what you love the most about gaming while making it cost-effective and simple as well as portable. Games you can literally take anywhere and everywhere and play at a moment’s notice without things becoming too clunky or overcomplicated.

This is why Professor Dungeon Master’s declaration of making July to be our Month of Independent Games so important. In fact, I say let’s take a cue from June and make it Indie Games Pride Month where you proudly show off your independent games and we stop talking about games and companies we despise, we stop buying and playing games from companies and individuals who do nothing but complain and we start getting back to games we love and want to play by ourselves and with others. We do that and everything changes. So, July is almost halfway done and we have a choice. Do we elevate the independent games (which, let’s face it, I talk about them year-round) or do we become free publicity for the companies that don’t care about us much less their own games?

That, reader, is something I leave up to you.