Appendix G

My entry in the Appendix N bandwagon proposed by Marcia B..

TTRPG

Mage: The Ascension — What I love most about Mage is the freedom its magic system gives you. It’s not just about flashy spells, but about how creativity collides with consequences. I’ve long toyed with the idea of making an RPG in RPGMaker where instead of spending mana, you’d accumulate paradox and the more paradox you carried, the worse the fallout would become.
3D&T — The Brazilian TTRPG of my youth, and the one I played the most. Its streamlined rules made it possible to fire up a game at a moment’s notice. That simplicity, that immediacy, is something I’ve been chasing again, which is probably why I’ve been drawn to Mythic Bastionland.

Ursula K. Le Guin — What stays with me is her gift for showing so well the collision of cultures, and her hopefulness about humanity. A line from The Left Hand of Darkness keeps echoing in my head: “Truth is a matter of the imagination.”
Ted Chiang — His stories shaped the way I see the world. The precision of his ideas and how they unfold stay with me long after reading. I don’t have many words for it, other than that his writing defines what I find compelling in storytelling.

Undertale — This game is all about feelings, meta-commentary, and minimalist art. It’s exactly the style I feel most drawn to for my own creations. And I’ll admit it: break the fourth wall and I’m hooked.
Slay the Spire — A masterclass in making every choice interesting. To me, that’s the essence of game design: giving players meaningful decisions from the start.
Factorio — People talk about automation, but for me the heart of it is puzzles and creativity. It’s about open-ended solutions and the joy of design. Other “Zachlikes” scratch that same itch.
Tametsi — Playing it feels like having a quiet conversation with the designer. You can sense how ideas evolve and are presented so that you think exactly as intended. Games like Baba Is You and Patrick’s Parabox carry that same energy.

Everything Everywhere All at Once — What makes it stand out for me is its boldness: the way it leans fully into its meta-commentary, absurdity, and sincerity at the same time. It’s a movie that insists on being everything at once. Ridiculous, heartfelt, and deeply human. That kind of fearless intention is something I admire and want to bring into my own work.
No Country for Old Men — One of the strongest examples I know of deliberate creative choices. The first time I watched it, I left the theater baffled, convinced it was pointless. But then I thought, “The Coens knew what they were doing.” That question pushed me to re-examine the film, and the reward was immense.

Daniel Johnston — His art inspires me when I imagine characters for my worlds. The name of this blog itself comes from one of his songs: “True Love Will Find You in the End.”
The New Sound — I want to feel as bold and confident in my work as Georgie Greep does here. His fearlessness in diving into difficult artistic choices is something I deeply admire.
Everything is Romantic — I keep this image in my head of Jesus Christ on plastic signs. The way the song throws strange, rapid-fire images together and somehow makes them cohere is exactly the energy I want to capture.

Metaphysics of Morrowind — I’ve only played a couple hours of Morrowind, but this post lives rent-free in my head. I keep coming back to it because I’m obsessed with meta-analysis. I’m so meta even this acronym.

Fujimoto — What inspires me most is his strangeness. His storytelling feels deliberate and original, always with purpose. And the ruthlessness he shows toward his characters is something I want to embrace too. Great stories demand zero pity.

Mind MGMT — The art reminds me of what I love in Undertale and Daniel Johnston: naïve, strange, experimental. The deduction, though, is the star. You genuinely feel like a detective, slipping into the fugitive’s mind.