Way-Out Wednesday: Under The Bed

"It's a game Bill Watterson could sit down to play with Clive Barker"—so says Vincent Baker, the author of Dogs in the Vineyard, about this week's featured indie rpg: Under the Bed.

The game's website at Glyph Press is sparse but with two prominent taglines: "What are you so afraid of?" and "Do you have what it takes to be a toy?"

It's a mysterious and dangerous little game that combines elements of card games (you draw your characteristics from a deck and games have finite lengths depending on what's drawn) and RPGs, all to tell little stories of children, their toys, and the saddest/scariest/happiest parts of childhood (yours or your character's? The lines get blurred after a while, trust me). It can be wacky and wild and kind of like Bump in the Night (anyone remember that show?). It can be dark and twisted and whimsical, kind of like Plucker by Brom. Or it can be played without any toys at all, with everyone in the group playing different personality aspects of one little child, and be very sad. Grave of the Fireflies sad. Very, very, very sad. It's quite a game, and it's your indie game of the week.