News

Virgins & Vixens, our feminist roleplaying game where players rewrite the tropes of women in fairytales and folklore, has been published by El Refugio de Ryhope! We are thrilled to have them as our first publication partners and working with a company that shares our values has been a dream.

El Refugio translated the game into Spanish, which gave it the title VÍRGENES Y ARPÍAS. The art and layout that they did for the book is stunning and it has been incredible to see their take on our game.

You can order this version of Virgins & Vixens directly from the El Refugio website, or from their distribution partners:

ASMODEE www.asmodee.es
comunicacion@asmodee.es Tfno. 91 827 00 71

DISTRIBUCIONES SOMBRA www.dbsombra.com
dbsombra@edsombra.com Tfno. 961 38 28 54

Golden Lasso Games had a blast attending Big Bad Con this last weekend. It's a fantastic, intimate convention in Northern California, knowns as a hotbed of indie designers playtesting their up-and-coming games. We were excited to sponsor one of the game rooms too. 

We ran multiple sessions of Starscape for full tables and were blown away at the positive response. Each session was totally unique but the playbooks worked together perfectly, the new ship combat mechanics worked well, and we found out that it can work as a heist game if players take it that direction. So much fun!

We also ran multiple sessions of Decuma at open gaming, and had a small sales table in the vendor hall for a few hours on Saturday. It was great that the convention facilitated smaller creators who may not have the bandwidth to have a booth all weekend when they also wanted to run and play games. We sold out of our 24 decks that we brought with us and were thrilled to see what a great reputation Decuma has built up in the community. 

We are looking forward to next year!

We are thrilled to announce that Golden Lasso Games was chosen to participate in the GAMA Horizons Fellowship. 

The GAMA Horizons Fellowship is a eight-month accelerator for prospective and newly established tabletop game publishers and retail store owners. It was created by GAMA’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee to help address the needs of communities that have been historically underrepresented in the tabletop industry.

The Fellowship connects participants with industry professionals who will serve as mentors and peer coaches and will provide access to grants and resources essential to developing and sustaining successful business relationships. The third cohort launched in September and concludes at GAMA Expo in Louisville, KY held from March 4-7, 2024. 

We are overwhelmed at receiving this incredible opportunity and can't wait to begin. 

We are thrilled to announce that our flagship game, Decuma: the R&D for your RPG has won a GOLD ENNIE! The ENNIE Awards (the “ENNIES”) are an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. The ENNIES give game designers, writers and artists a chance for recognition by their peers. The official nominations are chosen by a panel of judges, but the final winners are voted upon online by the gaming public.

Decuma won the best non-digital aid/accessory award. We are delighted that so many people found value in our product. We playtested it for a number of years to ensure its quality and the stunning art by Samantha Terry brought the game to life. |

Thank you to the judges for seeing the potential in Decuma, thank you to everyone who voted for it, and most of all, thank you to all the Kickstarter backers who helped make our little dream a reality. <3

Golden Lasso Games attended San Diego Comic Con for the first time! Kimi was invited to be on multiple panels related to game making and self publishing. It was wonderful to return to this fantastic convention in our home state. 

First was a panel on Thursday about crowdfunding and how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign. It was a big success with a lot of follow up questions after the presentation and on social media afterward. It is always amazing to see the creativity in the nerd community and the potential of crowdfunding to bring art to life. 

Sunday was a panel on getting your tabletop roleplaying game published. It was a very educational discussion with people who all took different paths to bringing their games to the market, including pitching to publishers, self publishing and even those hired by companies to write games. Special thanks to Ray Chou of Mythworks for bringing a publisher's point of view to this panel. 

Golden Lasso Games had it's first booth at GamEx 2023! We formed a co-op with some other designers called "As Seen on Happy Jacks," a spoof on the "As Seen on TV" infomercial ads, so that we can share table costs and take turns running our games. It was a big success! Thank you to Chris from Sundered Hold Scriptorium for showing us the ropes and being our first booth buddy. 

We will be at all the Los Angeles StrategiCon conventions in the future. We look forward to having our co-op grow in the conventions to come!

Our tarot-inspired world building game, Decuma: the R&D for your RPG, has been a huge success. It was our first project and we expected that it would follow the trend of many indie games where most of the people who wanted it would back the kickstarter. We ordered about 500 extra copies with the kickstarter order, and figured they'd be sitting in storage for years to come. SURPRISE! They sold out pretty quickly via our website and more people are still asking how they can get a copy. 

We've decided to take the leap and place another small order of 500 copies. We will be partnering with Indie Press Revolution to sell them. You will be able to get them via their website, our website, and a limited number of FLGS retailers who support indie games. <3

Starscape was named in The Gauntlet Podcast's 2022 Favorite Game recap episode, even though it is still in beta!!

"It's sort of based on these Trust mechanics, and when I say "trust mechanics," I mean the currency is trust... we ended up having so many good scenes in this game, that I'm going [to say] that when this game is all polished and everything, it's going to be really brilliant. But that was a game where it was just one really good scene after another. So Starscape is a PBTA to kinda keep an eye on, ok? Really good. But a very different sense of how you are moving around through scenes and stuff. I really enjoyed that.

- Sherri, The Gauntlet Podcast

I am very excited to release v2.0 of Starscape PBTA. The game has been through rigorous play testing over the last year and I am proud if the improvements to the design. Please download the new versions that are labeled v2.0 to replace older versions of the game. 

Some of the updates include:

• New, clearer way of tracking Trust
• The addition of Conditions
• New layout for the playbooks
• Updated Ship playbook and damage tracker
• Updated NPC captain mechanic
• and more!

We are very excited to finally release the first beta version of our sci-fi PBTA game, Starscape!

Trust, like breathable air, is a precious and rare commodity in space. Starscape is a Powered by the Apocalypse game that focuses on the ebb and flow of trust and the dynamic relationships that form between a crew as they explore the stars. It is a found family game that is ideal for stories that focus on a small number of main characters who agree on a central goal, such as in Star Trek, Farscape, or Firefly.

Starscape is not designed to be a simulationist take on science fiction. There can be lots of combat, but game focuses on the relationships and interactions between the player characters, with adventure, danger, and combat utilized as narrative options to help explore the theme of trust.

We would love for you to check out the current version for free or pay what you will on itch.io. You can also join the Starscape play test discord server (link is in the beta documents) to connect with other players, ask questions, give feedback or find a group. We would also appreciate your feedback via the anonymous Google form.