Deck the halls with affirmations.

The best thing you can give a game designer this holiday season is your attention. Seriously, nothing makes them happier. A five-star review on Itch or Drivethru does more for their game than a single sale. A stellar review? Even more.

Last year, I wrote a little gift guide encouraging it. This year, I'm bringing it back with a name inspired by Sam Dunnewold. I saw some really cool ideas on Discord servers last year, namely Prismatic Wasteland and Dice Exploder. This year I'm seeing similar projects like Lady Tabletop's The Endies, which is a great excuse to talk about other people's games.

So, without further ado, let's get to it!

#1: Rate a designer's game five-stars.

Give them five stars on Itch or DriveThruRPG. Ignore the multiple stars. These platforms are like Uber, anything fewer than five tells algorithms to bury the game. That's why your rating is important. If you don't review your favorite games, a person who only gives one-star reviews will—and that will kill it. Help your favorite designers out. Give them good ratings.

• Walkthrough your Itch/DriveThru collection and rate everything.
• Write a good review on Exalted Funeral, Tabletop Bookshelf, etc.
• If you bought a game in-store, tell the owner you liked it.

#2: Share the designer's work around.

Word of mouth is a game changer for designers. Especially new ones. There was a time when Mörk Borg was underrated, Mothership a little sci-fi zine, and Liminal horror a system's hack. Not anymore. Fans, creators, and other designers shared it on forums and social media. The rest is history.

• Share books and zines with friends, clubs, and libraries.
• Talk about the game on social, Discord, forums, YouTube, or a blog.
• Share links from the designer's blog, store, or social.
  • Bonus points if you share it somewhere anti-promotion or new.
  • Examples: Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook Groups, etc.

#3: Make stuff for the designer's game.

Go one step further and make something. Every blog post, video, hack, supplement, artwork, and play report gets the designer's work out there. If you're reading this, you're probably a designer too, so this is mutually beneficial. Engage with another designer's work by adding to it.

• Write, design, and share a tool like a new character sheet or reference doc.
• Publish a product or blog with new character options, alternative rules, etc.
• Share a play report of your session with their game or adventure.
• Design a supplement, adventure, or new setting for your designer's game.

Host a Critmas this year!

Last year, the Prismatic Wasteland Discord hosted a "Covert Critic" where everyone got a Secret Santa. If you don't know what a Secret Santa is, it's a surprise gift swap. Covert Critic is where the gift is either a blogpost, review, or newly designed thing based off the recipient's work.

If you have a community I think this a great way to capstone the year. Call it whatever feels right, Critmas, Hackukkah, Yule Love This, etc. Here are a few ideas:

• Host a Covert Critic using a website like Elfster or Drawnames. I think this would be hard to pull off with a big server, but it's a lot of fun.
• 12 Days of Itchmas where everyone rates and reviews a thing once a day, and then shares that effort with their community to create accountability.
• Critmas Bounty Board. Sometimes the best way to sing praises for a designer is to say, "Everyone say or make something for that person!"

This year's Critmas nice list.

Here are just a few people that deserve praise and admiration for being especially good this year. What are yours?

• Nova of Idle Cartulary. She's doing Critique Navidad again, where every day she reviews a game. It's an incredible amount of work. Check out her games.
• Ryan of The Weekly Scroll. He's been interviewing underrated creators on an almost weekly basis for the past year. His new game just launched.
• Elmcat of Among Cats and Books. If you haven't seen their herculean effort to Map the Blogosphere, you need to. Check out the blog!
• Amanda P of Weird Wonder. They gave me some much-needed advice and editing on my Appendix N Jam entry. You can find their games on itch.
• Xaoseed of Seed of Worlds. It's one thing to share people's work with a monthly newsletter, it's another to do it every week. The blog's waiting.

Happy holidays everyone!

Gift ideas. Holiday party ideas. Most of them you can give or start in less than an hour. Thanks for reading this year. I look forward to writing more in 2026!

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