No-Tell Motel Press Kit

Crowdfunding Feb 23 - March 15!

Fact Sheet

• Developer: Bannerless Games
• Crowdfund Launch: February 23, 2024
• Platform: Tabletop Role-Playing Game
• Price: $15 Digital, $20 Print

Game Description

Every night at the Stellar Motel is a menagerie of the human condition, and you watch it all from your vantage point behind a desk and some plexiglass. Last night was different: someone was murdered, and no one seems much interested in finding out who did it or why.

With a deck of cards, a six-sided die, a collection of dossiers and your motel ledger, you’ll track the activities of your guests night after night. You’ll sift through gossip, innuendo and what you observe on the sly to find out who these people are, the surprising ways they’re connected to each other, and who among them did the deed.

As the nights wear on, doubt will creep in, and certainty will become an illusion. So build the best case you can before you point the finger. Because if you’re wrong, a killer walks free, an innocent life is ruined and your own may very well be in danger.

Key Features

• An original rule system that uses playing cards and a six-sided die to populate your motel with Guests and generate their activities, connections, gossip, and possible motives for murder.
• A prologue and epilogue system that generates random victims and consequences for your accusation, ensuring that no two mysteries play out exactly the same way.
• Beautiful original cover and interior art by comic artist Shawn  McGuan and layout by Kelsea Zwerneman.

The print version of No-Tell Motel comes in a 32-page staple-bound comic book-sized zine. A PDF is also available.

Developer

Bannerless Games is Ken  Lowery, a writer based in Dallas, Texas. No-Tell Motel is his third solo game, following the award-winning VOID 1680 AM and Lighthouse at the End of the World. His aim is to make games that are approachable, strange, and memorable.

Press Quotes

“After writing an intensely gothic solo game in Lighthouse at the End of the World and an intensely personal and low-key solo game in  VOID 1680 AM, I wanted to strike a note somewhere in between. No-Tell Motel is saturated in much of what I love about the crime genre, and it’s possible to enjoy it simply on that level. Go nuts.

“But there is more at work here. Prompt-based solo games often rely on projection; the game asks a question and you answer it with what you know to be true about the world and the people in it. We do this a thousand times a day in real life, too. It’s necessary, and usually benign… but not always.

“We are all of us working with incomplete information. I wanted to make a game that dug into the lurid pleasures and deadly pitfalls of gossip, hearsay and assumptions. And I wanted to make it a damn good time.”

- Ken Lowery

Links to Download Assets

Grab these assets below or on Dropbox.

Contact Information

Want to set up an interview? Want a PDF or print copy to review or use for your Actual Play? Just want to say hi? Drop me a DM on Twitter or email me below - I'd love to hear from you.

• Twitter: @bannerlessgames
• Email: bannerlessgames@gmail.com