“There are no committees on AM — there are only lone voices in the darkness, saying what they cannot contain, seeking connections with like minds.”
Ken Lowery
Wow. VOID 1680 AM by Ken Lowery is a cool game. I bought it for my partner who is a real-live radio DJ, and he played it a few times before I could get my hands back on it.
All I needed to play was a deck of cards, a notebook, my phone’s voice recorder, and my Spotify account. My DJ partner used our record collection, but this pleb was totally content using her streaming service.
The game itself is easy to follow, and the book includes a number of original diagrams (like the one below [thanks for having a rad press kit]) to spark your curiosity about how radios actually function.
At the start, you establish your radio persona and why you’re broadcasting into the void. In each set, you play 3 songs that each evoke a certain feeling based on the cards you draw. Once a set, a random person calls in, and you role play how you interact with that person on or off air.
Early on in my playthrough, the mood shifted from the hard core DJ persona I created at the start. But who cares! It was fun, and DJ Arson got to make another appearance.
I’ve included my playthrough below. I couldn’t record the audio from Spotify (hey, copyright, right), so instead, I linked each set as a different Spotify playlist. Each set is bookended by DJ Arson’s commentary. Just click through each, starting at the top to enjoy the full show.
Start here:
Intro
Commentary on Set 1
Commentary on Set 2
Commentary on Set 3
Outro
Hey, you wanna play now don’t you! Get VOID 1680 AM here.
Next month: I’ll dip into a solo game built for 5e by Pacesetter Games. I plan to brush off an old character from a long-ago campaign and see what happens when they turn back to adventuring.
Featured Image: cover art for VOID 1680 AM by Jordan Witt. Licensed under the Creative Comrades License Agreement 1.0.
Sara Gabler 