A bit later than usual, the 2023 Fall Tokyo Game Market was on December 9th and 10th. I normally attend Sunday because there are more TRPG booths, but this year Sanyutei Rakuten had a performance on Saturday that I really wanted to see. I wasn’t sure how crowded the special stage would be, so to make sure I could watch up front I splurged on an early access band, which got me in an hour early. It was nice having a quieter event space during the early hour.

Samples

In addition to being able to check out games at their respective booths, sample copies were on display on a set of tables. The event space was large, so it was nice being able to check the various games in a consolidated space. I’ve checked out the sample space in the past, but it felt like even more games than before.

Promoting Production

One thing that caught my eye was an emphasis on supporting new game creators. This was especially true with Chakku Yokochou (zipper, or ziplock bag in this case, alley). A series of booths with the criteria of not have a box for the game and at most 100 copies. I picked up two items from here.

The first was Fantasy Announcer, which came in a A4 size envelope. Players roll to determine topics and then make up a news story based on them and can use various graphs and charts. What the players say becomes the truth of the world, with other players not being able to contradict. In this way players build up the lore of the land.

The second item is a small gamebook that caught my eye. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but will write more about it when I do.

Another way to cultivate creators is a yearly game challenge. A theme is announced for the year and entrants are exhibited in the challenge area.

Special Stage

I’ve become a fan of Sanyutei Rakuten and his TRPG Rakugo, as well as his Youtube channel. I’ll write more in the future, but I was excited to see him perform live on the special stage. He performed three stories, two of which hadn’t heard before. I’ve listened to recordings of his rakugo before, but the live performance was even better.

Booths

One of the first booths I stopped by was Yuugakugei, makers of Summon Skate (which has an English translation!). They were very friendly and I picked up a TRPG card game アリスインサイバーテイル (Alice in Cybertale) and みんなでダンジョンTRPG (Dungeon with Everyone). The latter is available for free online and handles up to 100 (!) players.

I noticed a number of Japanese history themed games. Some were quiz-like, while others used it as a theme. Two that caught my eye were different takes on clay figures from the Kofun period called Haniwa. One was from the perspective of excavating the figures and then selling, the other from the people originally creating them. I ended up picking up copies of both.

There’s apparently a Final Fantasy TRPG coming out next year.

 

Having played their Jodo Suguroku at the beginning of the year, I enjoyed stopping by the Puninokai booth and chatting with the owner. Puninokai specializes in Buddhist themed games.

Noticeably absent this time were Games Workshop and Wizards of the Coast booths. In past events Magic the Gathering had a large booth, as did the Games Workshop booth, and there was a D&D booth when I last went. Here are pictures of a few more booths:

The Spoils

I mentioned a few of the items I picked up above, but also grabbed a few others. One is the core rulebook for Roguelike Half by FT Books. Specializing in gamebooks, Roguelike Half is their new single player system that already had several supplement. Another is a journal put out by the Analog Game Museum. Finally, I snagged a translation of the a RuneQuest scenario.