13 September 2025 | Rego closed

Online preregistration and scheduling have closed, but you can still come to Friday Rego (after 6pm) or pop in if you have a free session during the weekend!

10 September 2025 | Rego nearly closing

Hi phriends! A reminder that early registration for Phenomenon closes late 12th September – that’s this Friday. If you haven’t signed up yet, this is the time to do it, at https://www.pheno.org.au/2025/registration/

And it's with regret that we need to announce that due to health reasons, one of our Triptychs - Chierokmeta - has been cancelled for this year's convention. We wish Elliot all the best for a quick recovery. As the Triptychs are so quintessentially Pheno, Andrew Smith and Xole Karman have stepped up with their game The Word for World is Shoggoth!

For anyone who’s signed up for Chierokmeta, it would be very helpful if you could sign in and update your registration – this is a great time to select another great game – or message the team at info@pheno.org.au if you need help.

25 August 2025 | Registration update

Firstly, it’s still open! At this stage we’re planning to give everyone a little more time, so registration should be open to September 12th. More than enough time to invite your friends!

There’s a really helpful post by our president Jim Riley at https://www.pheno.org.au/2025/ about how registration and scheduling works, to give you a peek behind the curtain and an idea of what to expect.

Secondly, unfortunately Life has happened and two games have been cancelled - Shane Donohoe's game Contact. Handshake. Heartbeat, and Stu Barrow’s Three Wizards Short. If you’d already signed up for one of these games you should have received a message by now (let me know if you haven’t).

You can still login to change your registration right up till closing as well, so if you've signed up for those games you can remove them from your selections and there might be some other of our amazing games you can pickup instead.

Sign up early, sign up often! Hope to see you there!

10 August 2025 | New Teams what dis?

What is a team and how do we schedule?

At Pheno, our gaming experience usually revolves around teams of five. These five people have traditionally gotten together, decided on which games they want to play together and all register for those games, sometimes with only a few differences where the people split into different games (often freeforms). These teams often have names as well which you might see appear on our Tryptich and Diptych Perpetual trophies.

What is a Triptych / Diptych team?

This year in registration we have given you the chance to register your intent to “go for” the Triptych or Diptych Trophies.

To qualify for the Triptych or Diptych trophies you need to be in the same group of players for each session.

So, if you tick the box, then you (and your team if they also tick the boxes) will be listed as a priority for those games, and the schedulers will work to ensure that you are grouped with the same people for each Triptych and / or Diptych session. This works for individual entries or teams with fewer than five.

If you want to play those games but don’t want to go for the trophy, that’s fine too! Just don’t tick the box and we’ll do our best to schedule you in.

About that scheduling thing?

Phenomenon doesn’t schedule like most cons. We’ve never used a “first in best dressed” booking system as we try to ensure that everyone who attends our con gets the chance to play as many games as they would like. We usually aim for 80% of the games you ask for, but in most cases we get you into everything! This is entirely dependent on the information you give us for the process below.

Remember that registration isn’t your final chance to get in a game. Our GMs are often scheduling extra sessions at the Friday night rego session and are looking for one or two players to fill a slot that might be missing people.

The Process

Once rego closes, our schedulers then work towards putting teams into the same sessions, and for the players with different games on their list we put them into scratch teams made up of smaller groups or individual entries.

This is why we’re giving you a peak behind the scenes of how scheduling works to help make your registration a more informed experience.

The first thing we usually schedule are freeforms. These are the big events with at least 10-30 players and we often only have a single room so making sure these sessions don’t impact each other and they get to their maximum amount of players is a priority. Having one player missing from a 5 player game is often able to be covered by the GM. Missing 3-4 players from a freeform can often heavily impact the plot lines of multiple characters.

The next thing we aim to schedule are the Triptych Teams, Diptych Teams and Five player teams (including scratch teams we’ve made)

Why? Because they’re the easiest groups to slot in and lock a session. The majority of our games are for groups of five, and being able to guarantee a session for both the GM and players is the primary goal of scheduling.

After that, we do our best to fit in everything else. This is also factoring in sessions that players and GMs have requested to not do which is an option for you at Rego.

Every bit of information you can provide our scheduling team is important to them being able to give you the best experience at Pheno they can, so please double check your registration before the portal closes in September. You can always log in again to change things right up until rego closes.

By submitting your registration you’re also giving the scheduling team permission to email you about your registration in case we need more info, but hopefully by double checking your registration and with your team about the games you want to play together we’ll have everything we need.

10 August 2025 | Rego is open!

It’s here! It’s open! We’re ready to go! https://www.pheno.org.au/2025/registration/

Registration is open until September 7th. Tell your friends and start getting excited! We’re running on the same software as last year, designed by our brilliant IT team, just bigger and better. So returning players should be able to use your existing log ins.

We’re always trying to improve the experience and meet the desires of our community, and teams are famously a diverse thing that mean different things to different people. This year you can specify if you are looking at teams to enter the diptych / triptych as a consideration for the trophies. There’s more information about how teams and registration works on the about page at https://www.pheno.org.au/2025/about/

As always, we’re open to feedback and ready to help if any issues come up; you can post on our socials or email info@pheno.org.au.

1 August 2025 | Writers - Creators at the Taphouse

Dear writers - a missive from John Hughes and our writer wrangling team!

Firstly - Creators at the Taphouse

Sunday 3 August, 1.30-4.30 pm.

Sunday 10 August, 1.30-4.30 pm.

Sunday 24 August, 1.30-4.30 pm.

Local writers, let’s talk about your Pheno module. Your game is a work-in-progress, the blurbs are settled, the plot is forming in your head. There is time before playtests begin to sharpen your creativity. What works? What requires polish? What are the core ideas that make your game unique?

Join us for Creators at the Taphouse. Sunday 3, 10, and 24 August, 1.30-4.30 pm. Dickson Taphouse. Grab a drink and talk with experienced Pheno game wranglers about your module. Bring a laptop and tap away with a coffee or beer.

Secondly - Last call for the playtest weekend. The plan is August 30 & 31; however we haven't found much interest to date. If interested, please RSVP to John at john.hughes@anu.edu.au

29 July 2025 | Website launch, discord link, and rego fast approaching!

Lots of things have been moving in the background and we’re now proud to present -

The pheno website! Yay! – www.pheno.org.au

We’ve been planning for – well, years – to start splitting the website into Phenomenon Convention and Phenomenon Labs (the organisation), so our phriends can focus on the upcoming event or look have more detailed access to our principles and documents. (We’ll soon have up all the policies that we worked on last weekend, for those who attended.)

We’ve got all of this year’s game blurbs up – time to start planning your weekend!

Discord - https://discord.gg/WfPX2bSwrb

Launched last year, we’re now ready to publicly post links so we can find all our phriends. It’s a great place to link to like minded people and read all the hype for upcoming games!

We plan to open registration August 4th, available through the website. So now’s the perfect time to check out the games and tell your friends! Hope to see you there!

6 July 2025 | Writers Support

And to writers in particular : Support now available through our discord!

Hullo Writers! We expect you’re all now well into the weeds of the design process, so we wanted to make some support available. Announcing: OFFICE HOURS! Starting this Sunday 6 July from 2-3pm, Luke (plus other wranglers, as schedules allow) will park themself in the voice channel for an hour each weekend, available for questions, brainstorming, advice, feedback, encouragement, etc—whatever you might need. This will last through the month of July, possibly into August if there’s demand. We’ll try to advance the time slot by Wednesday of the preceding week; you’ll have to forgive us for short notice this first time. Hope to see you there!

Discord available at https://discord.gg/WfPX2bSwrb

26 April 2025 | Game Submissions Closed!

Game Submissions have Closed.

25 April 2025 | Game Submissions Closing!

Hi all! A quick reminder that the call for games for Phenomenon 2025 closes tomorrow 26th April.

So if you're interested in running, now's the time to let us know!

You don't have to have a full game written; just a "back of the pub coaster" pitch is all you need to get things started.

Let us know your pitch at https://www.pheno.org.au/2025/run/

And if you want more information about running games at Phenomenon, it's available at [https://www.pheno.org.au/run.html](https://www.pheno.org.au/run.html)

Cheers, Lara, Phenomenon Secretary

31 March 2025 | Game Submissions Open!

(If you're just looking for the Submit Your Pitch form and do not need the whole speech, it's here)

We are looking for new writers, old writers, and especially writers who aren’t quite sure about writing a game but could totally do it with a little bit of help. Send this form to people outside of the Pheno community who you want to bring into the convention!

Pheno is best known as a home for games with emotionally complex themes, light-hearted romps, and dramatic catharsis - we are always looking for the latest offering from our community of talented writers and GMs.

Even with our above reputation, Phenomenon is actively excited about games that are mechanically complex, crunchy and full of deadly traps and puzzles. If you've got a pitch for something crunchy, we want to see it and cheer you on.

The Coordinator team (Luke Jordan, Joe McNamara, John Machin, John Hughes and James Woodman) are here to help you. In 2025, the Coordinator team wish to facilitate "Office Hours" where you may ask for writing advice from the experienced convention writers AND a return of "Playtesting day" in August where you can playtest your game with members of the community.

If you’re looking for support from the whole community, our Phenomenon Discord server has a dedicated GM’s channel where you can network and seek advice - as well as receive more support and updates from the Writer Coordinators.

The above initiatives are in addition to the usual advice as you write your game: from crafting the perfect blurb, feedback during the writing process, and taking care of your tired selves during the convention.

Even if all you have is a vague game concept, use the questions in the form to inspire you.

Key dates:
Pheno will run this year from Friday 03 October - to Monday 6 October 2025.
Game submissions close 26 April 2025.
Final game blurbs due 25 May 2025.
Interested in more details? Check out https://pheno.org.au/run.html.

30 March 2025 | Mailing Lists Updated

Hi all! As we're getting the gears moving for the 2025 convention, we have the mailing lists all refreshed and ready to go.

If you signed up at the 2024 event, you should be already signed up (and I'm about to send out test emails) - though as ever there are bugs in the system, forgive me for anyone missed!

https://listmonk.pheno.org.au/subscription/form will link you to mailing lists regarding,
Phenomenon Convention - the main event
Phenomenon Organisation - the shadowy collective of overlords who toil behind the scenes. But more practically, AGMs / general meetings / etc.
Phenomenon Other Events - for any Phenomenon-supported games that aren't directly linked to the convention.

The call for games will be soon, so get those creative juices flowing!

11 February 2025 | Save The Date!

Save the date!
Phenomenon 2025 : Livin' Large!
03 - 06 October
Daramalan College