Nat 🤖

Our second MAKE WEIRD GAMES class was a smashing success! A huge thanks to our fabulous instructor @natmesnard and to everyone who came out to play with us at @20sidedstore on Sunday! We developed original games together, taking inspiration from The Details of Our Escape, a collaborative zine by Tyler Crumine, Linnea Sterte, and Renee Gladman that uses dominoes to tell the story of a massive, 2000-strong caravan. Miss the fun? You have one more chance to play with us! Join us Sunday, May 17, 1-3pm, at Twenty Sided Store for the final workshop in this three-part series. We’ll investigate Spell: The RPG by Taylor Curreysmith, a zine that outlines an evocative magic system whereby players draw random letter tiles to spell out magic abilities. How can spelling-game mechanics invoke experiences of arcane weaving? Link in bio to register.

This Sunday, @natmesnard is teaching a one-off Zoom workshop on #ttrpg design! March 29, 3-5:30PM EDT In this all-levels class, you'll take inspiration from short TTRPGs written for anthologies, legendary one-pagers, and even business cards to playstorm game concepts and mechanics for new short games. Writing a 1000-word (or less) TTRPG is the perfect challenge for a new tabletop game designer. For experienced designers, it’s an invitation to create something fresh. Together, we’ll investigate three short games, revealing mechanics, systems, and narrative tools aligned with elegance and brevity. Then participants will be invited to hack or otherwise play with elements of the game(s) we've discussed—developing a promising concept for a new short TTRPG. By the end of this session, you’ll be well on your way to designing a submission for a future TTRPG anthology, such as our Tales from the Cryptids project! Link in bio to register.

We had a blast with @natmesnard at their first MAKE WEIRD GAMES workshop last Sunday! Students gathered at @20sidedstore in Williamsburg to playstorm and develop their own original games, taking inspiration from Viditya Voleti’s Space Goblins!, a zine that creates immersion and collaborative world building through the use of legos to co-create a goblin spaceship. Miss the first class? No sweat. Join us Sunday, April 19, 1-3pm, at Twenty Sided Store for session two of this three-part, monthly series. This time, our point of inspiration will be The Details of Our Escape, a collaborative zine by Tyler Crumine, Linnea Sterte, and Renee Gladman that uses dominoes to tell the story of a massive, 2000-strong caravan. Link in bio to register.

Study #ttrpg design with Nat Mesnard at Twenty Sided Store in Williamsburg, BK 🎲 MAKE WEIRD GAMES is an in-person, three-session workshop where you'll take inspiration from "weird" story games and other innovative indie titles to playstorm new game concepts, systems, and mechanics for narrative tabletop games. ➡️ Link in bio to register! Each session will investigate one or more contemporary TTRPG zines. You'll pass around tactile components, identify key pillars of design, and play with developing a piece of a larger tabletop game, or inventing an entirely new one. Leave each session with a new design! All experience levels are welcome. Come for the full series, or drop in for one session. Each class will feature a different TTRPG zine: Session 1: March 22, 1 – 3 PM Legos & Space Goblins! We'll investigate Viditya Voleti's Space Goblins!, a zine that creates immersion and collaborative "world building" through the use of legos to co-create a goblin spaceship. What mischievous feelings, memories, and design potentials lurk within interlocking building blocks? Session 2: April 19, 1 – 3 PM Dominoes & The Details of Our Escape We'll investigate The Details of Our Escape, a collaborative zine by Tyler Crumrine, Linnea Sterte, and Renee Gladman that uses dominoes to tell the story of a massive, 2000-strong Caravan. How is collective travel brought to life by numbered, two-sided rectangular tiles? Session 3: May 17, 1 – 3 PM Scrabble Tiles & Spell: The RPG We'll investigate Spell: The RPG by Taylor Curreysmith, a zine that outlines an evocative magic system whereby players draw random letter tiles to spell out magic abilities. How can spelling-game mechanics invoke experiences of arcane weaving?

We are beyond excited to announce that Tales from the Cryptids, our forthcoming anthology of games, fiction, poetry, and other ephemera is now open for submissions! (Link in bio to submit.) We are keen to acquire TTRPGs and other narrative games that embody a sense of the liminal. We love unusual original game systems and mechanics. Send us games that could be poems and poems that could be games. Send us immersive experiences and thoughtful explorations. If we read your game and say, “Wow, is that game actually a cryptid?” you’re probably in. For fiction and poetry, we want cryptid content that prioritizes the agency of liminal beings, places, and experiences. Your work does not need to feature a cryptid protagonist or an optimistic point-of-view, but your monsters must have agency and depth. We are also interested in micro-submissions of uncanny ephemera to literally occupy the margins of this book. Send us cryptid scribbles, doodles, haikus, photographs, and other 2D marginalia. Even we don’t quite know what we want in this category. Surprise us. Submissions will be open March 1 - May 15, 2026 or until we hit our submission cap of 100 real non-AI submissions in each category. We will endeavor to send responses by June 30, 2026.

Scryptid Games is headed to @awpwriter in Baltimore this week!! We’re thrilled to present two panels alongside a rockstar slate of game designers, authors, and publishers. You can also find us at the Scryptid Games booth in the book fair all week long. Come say hi and learn more about submissions for both Tales from the Cryptids and our companion zine, The Real Cryptids of Baltimore. Scryptid Games’ co-founders @bwinterose and @neversaydustin are Baltimore natives, and they are pumped to share tips for exploring their favorite city! On Friday at 12:10pm, @natmesnard ✨, @sharangbiswas ✨, Erin Roberts ✨, @slickhop ✨, and Brigitte Winter ✨ will present Poetry, Prose, and Play: Game Design as Literary Practice, exploring the literary possibilities of narrative games! And on Saturday at 10:35am, Brigitte Winter, @domsdickey ✨, @nearfutures ✨, Nat Mesnard ✨, and @justinsirois ✨will present Story Game Presses: Pitching, Submissions, and Publishing, sharing a behind the scenes look at the unique world of narrative game publishing, submissions, and distribution. We may even bring donuts for that Saturday morning panel... See you soon!

With only two days left to back Tales from the Cryptids, our new anthology of cryptid-inspired TTRPGs, fiction, poetry, and uncanny ephemera, join us on our Backerkit page tonight at 7pm ET/4pm PT for a treat (and maybe a few tricks) as @natmesnard and @bwinterose chat with Will Roth of @creaturepublishing for our final Tales from the Cryptids campaign livestream! (Link in bio.) We are thrilled to collaborate with Creature Publishing to offer a special Creature’s Cache reward tier for our Tales from the Cryptids campaign. Founded in 2019, Creature Publishing is a rad small press specializing in feminist, queer, and trans horror, dark speculative fiction, women-driven thrillers, and spooky fantastical and literary fiction. With this discounted Creature’s Cache bundle, you not only receive Tales from the Cryptids and three Scryptid Games releases featuring weird punk creatures and ecosystems, you also receive Mine: An Anthology of Bodily Autonomy Horror from Creature Publishing, which includes 16 original horror stories exploring the ownership and control—or lack thereof—that we have over our bodies. Hang out with Nat, Brigitte, and Will tonight to learn more about both anthologies, hear what’s new at Creature Publishing, and nerd out about queer and feminist horror!

🎲 Table top gamers, we have a special event for you! ✨ Thursday Feb 19 7pm Celebrate the release of Assemblage, a brand new queer science-inspired eco-fantasy TTRPG, by playing the game here at Hive Mind Books! Meet the creator, Nat Mesnard, who will share about the process of how they created the game, and then we’ll play. Players use prompt cards and a guidebook to collaboratively build the story of an interdependent ecosystem on the verge of environmental disaster. Free to play! RSVP at the link in bio. 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 ABOUT THE GAME When the world shatters, how will we survive? In Assemblage, you play not as a single character, but as an entire species. As each player imagines their own unique and fantastic creatures—deep sea leviathans, magical bacteria, insect cryptids, psychic cats, sentient moss—you will craft the story of an ecological assemblage: a group of species tossed together in a strange habitat, finding interdependent ways to survive. Following along with the guidebook, and taking inspiration from your deck of prompt cards, you’ll come to understand the history, shifting present, and possible futures of your assemblage. Then it will be time to encounter an epic environmental disaster—and discover how your assemblage responds. 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 🌳 🎲 Hive Mind Books Queer Bookstore & Coffee Shop 219 Irving Avenue Bushwick (L) Dekalb [except for this weekend bc of the MTA] (M/L) Myrtle-Wyckoff (M) Knickerbocker #queerbookstore #brooklyn #bushwick

New podcast episode just dropped! Nick Perron at @tabletoppedpod invited @bwinterose and @natmesnard to talk about Tales from the Cryptids, a new anthology of cryptid-themed TTRPGs, fiction, and poetry crowdfunding now on Backerkit (link in bio). In this episode, hear from Brigitte and Nat about what to expect from this project, why anthologies are cool, how to get involved with Scryptid Games, and what we hope to see when we open for anthology submissions this spring!

YOU DID IT! Thanks to you, we’ve already blown past our initial funding goal for Tales from the Cryptids! (Link in bio to support the project and learn more.) This anthology of games, stories, poetry, and uncanny ephemera will be a REAL THING. We are so excited to bring you cryptid content by @lackingceremony ✨, @sharangbiswas ✨, @sawdustbear ✨, @jasonbcrawford ✨, @aeosworth ✨, and @storygoose ✨. Anthology editor @bwinterose will be selecting additional creators to include in this book through our open call this spring, and game instructor @natmesnard will be teaching a virtual class on making short games to help you polish your TTRPG submissions. (Check out the campaign rewards for details.) Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU from the bottom of our weird little hearts. Next up, we’ll be working toward our first stretch goal, which will allow us to add more pages to this book and include even more authors, game designers, and poets when we open to submissions in March. If you haven’t had a chance to back the project, we hope you’ll help us reach our next milestone! And if you’ve already made your pledge, please help us spread the word. We’re a small team, and we’d love your support bringing this project to communities who will love it.

It’s already been quite a week for Tales from the Cryptids! We have nearly reached our funding goal for this new cryptid-themed anthology of games, stories, poems, and other weird ephemera! If you haven’t had a chance to back the project, head over the our Backerkit page to help us make this book real. (Link in bio.) And be sure to visit the page tonight, 2/6, at 7pm ET/4pm PT for a livestream featuring Scryptid Games’ co-founders @natmesnard and @bwinterose 🦝. They will share the story of how this project came to be, what Brigitte wants from submissions when we launch our anthology open call this spring, and what to expect from the rad new “Make Short Games” class that Nat is offering as a campaign reward.

It’s time for Tales from the Cryptids, Scryptid Games’ first anthology of TTRPGs, fiction, poetry, and other uncanny ephemera! Learn more and back the crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit: /talesfromthecryptids This anthology will flip the lens on conventional cryptid lore, spotlighting storytelling from the perspective of the monsters! The book will be edited by Psychic Trash Detectives creator @bwinterose and will feature work from superstar creators like @lackingceremony ✨, @sharangbiswas ✨, @jasonbcrawford ✨, @sawdustbear ✨, @aeosworth ✨, and @storygoose ✨. The more funds we raise through this campaign, the more additional work we’ll accept from game designers, fiction writers, poets, and other uncanny contributors when we open to submissions in March! #ttrpg #indiettrpg #gaymer #anthology #cryptid