The Games I Played at Breakout Con 2026: Sock Puppets
I'm writing about each of the games I played at Breakout Con this year. I've already covered Brindlewood Bay and The Wildsea, so it's time to talk about the hands down most chaotic session, which was...
Sock Puppets
Sock Puppets stands out amongst the games I played at Breakout. It has no character sheets, no stats or skills, and you don't roll any dice. The game is basically one long improv scene acting out an episode of a dysfunctional children's TV show, and I had a great time playing it.
Our session was run by the creator of Sock Puppets, Kurt. He took us through the game's few rules, and regaled us with stories from its development while we made our puppets. The first half hour of the session was spent cutting and sticking brightly coloured paper, foam, and googly eyes to a brown paper bag that we then wore on our hands for the rest of the session. Here's my creation, Pip.
Each player had a couple of prompts to seed the game with, which include relationships such as one player being another's step-parent and agendas like slipping in 'subtle' product placement messages. I had to try and shoehorn in references to Luxembourg while trying to one-up everything another player did. Then Kurt said “Go!”, started a timer, and the rest of the game was us improvising an episode of children's television in real time.
This was as chaotic as it sounds, and definitely not for everyone. Without the common structures of most TTRPGs, and no GM to help distribute focus (Kurt made a puppet and played a character along with the rest of us), each player needs the discipline and awareness to share the spotlight without prompting. There's also the classic “Yes, and” rule of improv which I think would be worth calling out at the beginning if you run this game yourself. Our table did a good job with these things about 80% of the time, I reckon? Pretty good for a group of strangers at a con.
Sock Puppets was a unique experience for me, and I am glad that I got to play it with the creator. It's definitely not a game I'd recommend playing remotely over a video call though, you'd lose 90% of the fun that way. If you've got a local group and some craft supplies handy though, I'd say go for it.