Tune in to 2048 AM Voices in the Wood: a new miniseries from Tales Yet Told

Tales Yet Told is thrilled to announce a brand new actual play coming this August, set in the Sublime–the setting of their series Strangers in the Wood. 

2048 AM Voices in the Wood is a five-episode mini-series following 5 broadcasts of a student-run radio show in a dystopian world, where “everyone has a place” and those who don’t like their place are cursed to transform into animals. 

Mixing the elements of DIY music, body horror, and TTRPGs, Voices in the Wood explores the anxiety, frustration, and fear of what it’s like to realize that the world you live in isn’t as “great” as those in charge would have you think while also exploring what it means to find hope and community amongst the chaos.

Voices in the Wood is an immersive listening experience using the framework of the Ennie Award-winning TTRPG: VOID 1680 AM–featuring an incredible cast of 17 powerful and diverse voices from across the actual play space, such as Josephine Kim (GUDIYA), Barnaby (Unprepared Casters), Sea Thomas (Transplanar), and many more. The series also showcases a soundtrack consisting of 28 independent, genre-spanning bands and musicians, such as We Are The Union, American Television, and Missouri Surf Club. 

“One of the most surprising things about making Voices in the Wood was that even though all of the music was chosen before the recordings, they fit perfectly with the tone of the episodes they were put in and helped to further build upon the inner worlds of the characters who suggested them. There were a lot of times when we just silently freaked out on cams as a song was playing because it just fit perfectly with what happened during a call and that’s a kind of magic you can only get in this kind of game.”
- Kendo Smith (They/He), creator and producer

This mini-series mixes elements of semi-scripted, improvised performances alongside gameplay using VOID 1680 AM by Ken Lowery of Bannerless Games as a structure to outline its story and soundtrack. But in the moments where the game suggests that the player detail a fake conversation between themself and a listener, Voices in the Wood instead brings on guests to play those characters—thereby creating a cast of rich, varied individuals from whose perspectives and stories we can further explore the strange world of the Sublime.

In addition to showcasing incredible performances from a cast of creators across the TTRPG space, Voices also uses VOID 1680 AM’s “playlist” mechanics to spotlight the music of our independent artists catalog–put together by producers Will Malkus (Live From The Apocalypse) and Kendrick/Kendo Smith (Tales Yet Told). In each episode, the show’s host and guests picked music from this library to request the station to play, allowing deeper insight into their character even after their “calls”.

“It always struck me as odd that there isn’t more overlap between the worlds of actual play and DIY music. They’re nearly identical at their cores: a group of people who may or may not know each other particularly well come together with whatever resources they can scrounge up to create art, not because they think it will make them famous or successful but because they have something to say. In a lot of ways this project is the ultimate expression of that commonality; where the waning but critically important medium of radio frames improvised performances that are both informed and enhanced by the music of independent artists, coalescing in the warp and weft of an audio tapestry that shamelessly belts out our singular, shared ethos: keep shouting, someone will listen.”
- Will Malkus (He/Him), Co-producer and music journalist

2048 AM Voices in the Wood will premiere on August 14th, 2024 with the first of 5 episodes, which will then be released weekly.

The Breakdown

2048 AM Voices in the Wood - Miniseries

• Premiering X, then releasing weekly
  • 5 episodes, ~1 hour 30 minutes runtime each
  • Immersive sound design and a soundtrack featuring 28 independent artists
• A self-contained story in an episodic format set in the canon of Strangers in the Wood
  • Great for first-time listeners or fans caught up with the series
• Experimental use of a solo TTRPG to expand an established setting
• Cast
  • Kendrick/Kendo (They/He) as Lil’ Harry
  • Aki (She/Her) as Bellinda Lincoln
  • B Marsollier (She/Her) as Francoise
  • Barnaby (They/Them) as Corrie Parker
  • Calamity (She/They)  as Latrice
  • Darby (She/They) as Sorrel
  • Gwendolyn Kelly  (She/Her) as Victoria Cooper
  • J Strautman (They/Them) as Ruth
  • Nala J. Wu (They/Them) as Eve Wen
  • Josephine (None/She) as Chanyeol Park
  • Kelly (She/They) as Maisie Hinkle
  • Nada/Amir (They/Them) as Jennah
  • Oleander (They/Them) as Delroy
  • Rook (They/Them) as Truman
  • Sea Thomas (They/Them) as Granny Maja
  • Will Malkus (He/Him) as Kennedy Mills
  • Youngles (She/They) as Susan

Tales Yet Told - The Podcast

• Four-time award-winning production
  • Audio Verse Awards 2021
    • Best New Improvised Production
    • Best Player Direction For A New Improvised Production
  • New Jersey Webfest 2022
    • Best Ensemble Cast in an Actual Play Podcast (Strangers in the Wood)
    • Best Game Master in an Actual Play Live Stream (PRAYERS in the STATIC)
• Queer-led production, established in 2021 with two ongoing series
  • Strangers in the Wood (Over the Garden Wall but blend in The Matrix and The Fly)
  • Whispers in the Sea (Dramatic, fantasy-horror, swashbuckling adventures)
• Uses a variety of indie TTRPGs and frequently switches systems to tell one off stories within larger seasons