Evil forces are at play and corruption is spreading in Morta. It’s up to you, Bergson family, to work together to defeat monsters and eliminate the evil once and for all!
Let’s fill up the botanical garden! We have flowers, foliage, and fish, and you can add gazebos as you create nooks of each type of terrain. Stretch your nooks far enough, and you can add gazebos to patios too! Can you add gazebos to the garden faster than all your opponents?
Number of Plays: 632
Unique Games Played: 351
Different People Played With: 92
Unique Locations Played At: 9
Days/Hours Spent Playing Games: 222 days / 428 hours!
Games I Spent the Most Hours On: Middara (21 hours), Marvel United (19 hours), Masters of Crime Series (12hours), Unlock! Series (9 hours) and Heroes of Barcadia (9 hours)
H-Index: 7 – That’s 7 games played at least 7 times! – Marvel United, Unlock!, Similo, Middara, The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game, Heroes of Barcadia, and Toy Battle
New-To-Me Games/Expansions Played: 255
My 2025 Win Percent: 56%
Stephen’s 2025 Win Percent: 53%
My Least Favorite New-to-Me in 2025 Games: Get Baked!, CakoZaurus, and Top Trumps
My Favorite New-to-Me in 2025 Games: Middara, Trinket Trove, and Wild Gardens
My Favorite New-to-Me in 2025 Expansions: Die of Barcane Chaos for Heroes of Barcadia, and Mastercraft for Merchants Cove
Stephen’s Least Favorite New-To-Him in 2025 Games: TowerBrix, Everdell Duo, and CakoZaurus
Stephen’s Favorite New-to-Him in 2025 Games: Middara, Trinket Trove, and Echoes of Time
Stephen’s Favorite New-to-Him in 2025 Expansions: Mastercraft for Merchants Cove, and Booze Ooze Invasion for Heroes of Barcadia
Here’s to much more gaming throughout 2026!
Are you a horror fan? Maybe of the Eldritch variety? Do you like engaging narratives with mystery, intrigue, and monsters? Then Our Brilliant Ruin is waiting for you. This is a sociological, horror-themed drama multi-format series. If you like horror, and world building, then keep reading to see which story or stories might be right for you!
Horror at Crane Manor
This is a 3-issue comic series about an investigator who runs into unexpected horror at an heiress’s birthday party.
🟢Very ominous vibes
🟢Felt “Sherlockian” to me, which I loved
🟢Great horror imagery throughout, especially later; overall great art and a good use of the art for “action” scenes
🟢Strong female lead, who I adored!
🟢Compelling series that keeps you engaged
🔴I did think Issue #1 had a bit of a slow start, but it turns around quickly enough
Clawmoor Heights
This is a 10-episode audio drama about a historian who is drawn into the turbulent affairs of a dying baron and his children.
🟢The music is definitely a vibe
🟢Great dive into what “Ruin”/”Ruinology” is to help build that world
🟢A lot of strong voice acting
🟢Definitely leans into the horror theme, including some scenes that are very gore-forward, even just in audio!
🟢Weaves an overall engaging story
🔴I wasn’t as enamored with Agatha, the lead, early on, but she grew on me
🔴I’d definitely say it’s a bit of a slow burn with the action, but it seems to try and build up the tension for the payoff
🔴I did think the intros/outros were a bit long
–I’m not the biggest audio-only format fan for stories, but I did enjoy this because the theme was strong and I liked a lot of the voices. If you like audio dramas, you’ll probably like it more than me!
Our Brilliant Ruin TTRPG
I’m not really a TTRPG player, so I haven’t played this myself, and most likely won’t. But in looking at their website, they seem to have a lot of great resources like a virtual tabletop and free map packs and more, which is cool.
It has an original system which uses dice pools driven by characters’ emotions and motivations, and features 3 factions. Like the other formats, this also focuses heavily on Ruin, which is a cosmic horror / powerful force of corruption. If you like horror and TTRPGs, it’s probably cool!
Our Brilliant Ruin: Gravesend Castle
This is an upcoming horror narrative ARPG video game that will focus on the fight against vampire of Gravesend Castle who is spreading woe and Ruin.
From the trailer, it looks like there’s some exploration and combat as you work through the story to take down the vampire. Again, the theme seems pretty cool, I like the art style, and it looked like other games I’ve played and liked in the past, so I’m looking forward to checking this out in the future!
Additional Information:
Publisher – Studio Hermitage
Website
Buy the TTRPG
This month I played through all the new games I bought at PAXU, and a fair amount of the games I got to review (though there are still a lot of those to go, haha!). I also spent a lot of this month playing through a Middara campaign, which has been a lot of fun too! Great way to end the year 🙂
❤️ – Loved It/Definitely Want to Play More (I rate it a 9 – 10)
😄 – Liked It/Will Likely Play Again (I rate it a 7 – 8)
🤷🏻♀️ – Okay/Take It or Leave It/Could Play Again (I rate it a 4 – 6)
👎🏻 – Didn’t Like/Would Not Play Again (I rate it a 1 – 3)
⚙️ – Prototype (so take the rating with a grain of salt)