An Ode to Obscure Games: World of Twilight

 Hi!

Today marks the end of my current run of articles on obscure games and todays is a bit of an outlier as The World of Twilight is a current game that is well supported with new releases and supplements and shows what a small, niche game can do if done well!

Twilight is without doubt the best looking and most original game I've seen in a long, long time. Started about 20 years ago by Mike Thorpe, and gradually developed through small kickstarter campaigns and a very loyal fanbase, the World of Twilight is a wonderful success story in the independent game sphere.

Through the creation of an utterly unique setting that has races of bipedal lizard like creatures who succeed in having massive amounts of character and personality in each sculpt and an ongoing and evolving setting which periodically introduces new factions, areas to explore and a stunning array of miniatures, Twilight is the sort of game I'd love to see more people trying to develop. 

Its whimsical and engaging with some dark elements such as can be seen in a Jim Henson film but isn't all grim and gritty and more importantly isn't trying to compete with the likes of GW. It is not a game of mass battles but heavily scenario driven with simple but engaging rules and each small beastie has a real personality that many of the bigger games lack.

I love the fact that Mike has developed this whole fascinating ecosystem with unique societies, races and creatures that is at once grounded and magical and he's found this wonderful little niche where folks are drawn into joining him on the adventure of exploring the world he's spent decades developing.

Sadly I must admit that despite picking up a starter set during the lockdowns, I still haven't managed to paint up what I've got and have wandered off to do my own thing which is a real shame as there's so much to explore in the world of Twilight and alongside War of Ashes Shieldbash stands as truly original and different from the vast majority of games in my collection.

There's a thriving community of players, collectors and fans of Twilight but one doesn't see much on the interwebs of it. Instead there is this great little game that has chugged along, slowly developing into what we have now with multiple factions, guidebooks and some lovely sculpts, not only of combatants but also of the civilians of the world and the wild beasts that inhabit it.

I have to admit that while putting this article together I found myself wanting to rummage out the box of unpainted lead I have in my spare room and get painting as the game is just so beautiful looking with the creator developing something that manages to avoid all the usual fantasy tropes and cliches.

The game rules themselves are easy to learn and quick to pick up and as you don't need many figures to play, its easy to get into and even if you don't end up playing, the figures are really nicely sculpted and lend themselves to painting really well too.

Looking at the rules again as well as perusing the WORLD OF TWILIGHT website I find myself drawn to the game all over again and really will need to find the figures and paint them up as its got pretty much everything I'm looking for: It's quirky, original and doesn't require a large outlay to get enough figures to play a good game. It's also fully supported and getting regular releases which is a real boon too!

If you haven't heard of the World of Twilight, I highly recommend you take a peek as its brilliantly engaging and one of the highlights of putting these articles together has been reminding me that I actually have it and the game exists and is so visually appealing.

I hope folks have enjoyed my series of articles and I think one of the things I want to do as the year goes on is to actually get some figures painted up so I can play some of them! In some cases this may be fairly straight forward as the figures are either in my collection or available to order but in others I may have to proxy stuff...

We shall see what I can do as we trundle through the year but this retrospective has been a really enjoyable process for me as it has reinforced my enjoyment of old, obscure or niche games and reinforces my decision back in the day to leave the GW hobby and going forward I suspect I'll have a lot more interesting stuff to post about as I've barely scratched the surface with my collection.

In the meantime, All the best!

Richard