Games are listed in order of popularity in each category, based on sales since May 1 of this year.
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Roleplaying games
With two exceptions, all of our bestselling roleplaying games this summer were solo games! That’s right - all the fun of roleplaying games without any of that pesky group scheduling.
Thousand Year Old Vampire
The perennial favourite that just won’t die! This is a solo journaling game in which you are a vampire cursed to live for 1,000 years. You interact with other people along the way, for good or for ill, but as time passes these mortals fade from your memory - despite the intensity and immediacy your relationship may have once had. Thousand Year Old Vampire is a meditation on memory and melancholy, with award-winning production design.
Koriko: A Magical Year
Koriko is a cozy solo journaling game with big Studio Ghibli vibes about finding your place in society. You’re a young witch away from home for the first time, exploring the big city and learning about yourself and your new community.
Green Oaks RPG
This is the first multiplayer roleplaying game on the list, so gather your friends and prepare to become… old. Green Oaks is set in a retirement village with a dark secret: Lovecraftian horrors lurk in the shadows, and it’s up to you and your neighbours to save the day. The RPG book itself looks like a retirement home brochure, complete with cheesy stock photography and a MS Word-style layout - to the point where our staff have removed the book from our display shelves, thinking it was something a customer left behind. Flawless.
Tacklebox
And here’s the other multiplayer RPG on the list - though designed for two players, so just barely. In Tacklebox, the two of you are just out on a fishing trip. Except… weird things keep happening to the other player. You take turns drawing cards and describing the surreal changes taking place to your partner, revealing some information and keeping the rest hidden until the time is right.
The Librarian’s Apprentice
Enough socializing; back to solo games. The Librarian’s Apprentice is set in an infinite library - and it’s your job to wander the stacks in search of six documents for the Librarian. Another Ghibli-esque title, this is a cozy exploration of curiosity and bravery.
Barkane: The RPG You Play with Your Dog
The title says it all. This is a roleplaying game for one human who gets dragged out every morning to watch their best friend poop. But what if your dog was actually a wizard? And that gnarly baggie is really a Bag of Destiny? You’d better record his business in the Duty Log so you and your four-legged friend can continue exploring the realm and completing quests!
Fall preview
Available for preorder now, these are some of the most anticipated games of the fall.
Daggerheart: Hope and Fear
An expansion to the popular Daggerheart RPG from the folks at Critical Role, Hope and Fear adds more classes, equipment, and other options for players and GMs.
Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG
If you feel like you don’t get to say “Mongo is appalled!” enough in your day-to-day life, this RPG will surely help you hit your quota. Yup, there’s about to be an RPG based on a book series based on RPGs. Considering this is the series that brought us the Iron Tangle, that progression feels like a fairly straight line.