At this point in the year I’d planned to have fulfilled The Words We Leave Behind and to have started revising my line up. Neither of those have happened. The Words We Leave Behind is inching closer to the line but just isn’t there yet. The PDF is ready, I’ve got a print proof but I still need to finalise fulfilment and the print run. My aim of revising and updating older products and my stall setup hasn’t got off the ground either. While I did finish a new ashcan at the last minute that doesn’t compensate for a big new release. Basically I’m tired and not sure if I’m at burned out or just approaching it. But the signs are definitely there. Vent over, let’s get into the actual discussion.
First up, I had a great if exhausting time at Dragonmeet. It was lovely getting to see people and feeling like part of the community again. Attending each year reminds me why I create and play games in a way that no other convention does. This was my fourth year as a vendor and I’ve hit the point now where I get people come by the stall who already own most of my games – for someone doing this in his spare time because I want to share my creations that’s an amazing boost.
Friday was a combination of travel, setup and the MuppetMeet industry mixer in the evening. Travelling to London from the NW is always interesting but booking ahead it’s still possible to get reasonably priced tickets (a railcard and the inevitable delay repay can make it even cheaper). Getting to events by public transport isn’t a great experience but I’m still at the scale where I can bring my entire stall in a large suitcase. I am right at the edge of what I can manage though and this places a lot of limitations on the contents of my stand. While I’m reluctant to make the change to driving if I ever take the step up to a stall at UKGE it’s something I’ll need to do.
I only made it to two of the Muppet Meet seminars but found it really useful for getting a feel of how the wider industry is doing and to see people i knew I wouldn’t get a chance to catch up with on the Saturday. A lot of the discussion was aimed at people working a tier or two above my current scale but still informative and helpful.
My stand and the con itself
This was my stand and overall it’s very similar to previous years. My main additions were the table runner and a second smaller wooden stand I’d picked up for a prior event. Using the boxes to raise items up at the back works really well and weigh virtually nothing when it comes to packing. There are more professional looking options out there but these work for me that I’m at and I think that’s important to remember – if you’re a hobbyist then you shouldn’t panic about replicating what the bigger, professional companies are doing.
As with prior years the changes were all incremental improvements but compared to many traders my stand is fairly minimalist. I would like to add another pull up banner and some extra signage if I can. I’ve got access to a print unit in my new day job so that’ll be easier to organise but as always the challenge will be carrying capacity.
Contents wise the big shift is that Nick, who I have partnered with the last couple of years, was over on the Black Armada stand, having joined them at UKGE earlier this year. It’s a great match up and I hope his games thrive alongside Becky and Josh’s. Comparing the numbers the loss of those items had a big impact – Nick’s games have always sold well and the drop in this years total was around what his games brought in last year.
As with prior years I hosted a number of games from creators in Scotland. Wise Women sold out, like it has every year. The others didn’t do well which is really disappointing. I want to help promote other creators that can’t attend the event but still need to find the best approach to achieve this. The stall was very much setup as mine plus guests rather than an equal collaboration and while I don’t plan to change that I do want to do better at highlighting the other games. Mid afternoon I moved the slower sellers to more prominent positions while this did lead to more people flicking through them it didn’t result in any extra sales.
On the personal front my numbers were actually a little better than I’d initially feared (but still not good enough to avoid a loss). Most of my games have been on sale for multiple years so it was surprising to see my overall total had improved. The big issue though was that I once again lacked a big release to highlight. My aim had been to have The Words We Leave Behind available in time for the con but I didn’t meet that deadline which really sucks as the print proofs did gather a lot of interest. While I had a pre-order QR code prominently on show it didn’t lead to any orders.
My only “new” product was the ashcan for SSBN which sold out (9 copies) but as an extremely rough first draft I had priced it at only £5. The experience highlighted what I already knew: that new sells better than old and that when it comes to total income it’s easier to make one sale at a higher price than many smaller sales.
Shifting away from my stand and to the event itself I think it went really well. Moving to the excel was always going to be a big change and it will take a few years for the event to bed in. I know there were a few issues over the weekend but nothing that felt insurmountable long term. The wide aisles were really nice and I think as attendance rises will be really valuable. There were definitely larger periods of time where it felt quiet as the increase in space was larger than the increase in attendance but this will give Dragonmeet a chance to grow and find its feet. As a solo trader I didn’t get to see much of the trade hall let alone the gaming spaces so I don’t know how well they worked but I didn’t hear any major complaints from people.
The Wrap Up
As always I really enjoyed my weekend at Dragonmeet, even if I continued my unfortunate tradition of making a loss. It’s something that doesn’t bother me too much – a large part of why I sell games is to fund trips to conventions. As the first year in a new venue it was inevitable that it would feel very different from the Novotel and that the community feel that the event had built would be less apparent. Long term I think it will return, just slightly more fragmented as different groups find their own places to congregate after the event. That is a shame but it is something that was already happening as the event outgrew the old site and people splintered away to different restaurants, bars and pubs.
Will I be back next year? Yes, without a doubt. I don’t know whether that will be as a trader, GM or just visitor but I’ll be there with my sci-fi and spies so say hello if you spot me.
]]>Sales
Wise Women x 10, total £193
SSBN x 9, total £42.50
Second hand zines x 8, total £22.20
Signal to Noise x 7, total £85.80
The Words We Leave Behind Ashcan x 4, total £20
The Kandhara Contraband x 4, total £36
Numb3r Stations x 4, total £31.05
We Dance Til Dawn x 3, total £28.00
Project Cassandra x 3, total £33.15
Rock Hooper’s x 2, total £16.20
The Dusk Bringers x 2, total £17.10
Hopes and Dreams of the Orbital Bound x 1, total £13
Three games (Lo thy dread empire, The great martian tripod race and Rising Star) sold 0 copies. For sales of guest items I ask for 25% of the list price as a contribution towards card and table fees.
Totals include discounts for when someone bought multiple items with 10% off for buying 2 or 15% off when buying 3 or more.
Total before fees £541.00 (of which £33 was cash)
My sales total £320 (before fees)
Costs
Pitch + table £219.60 (guest items contributed £55.25 towards this so my share was £164.35)
Travel £84.50 (Liverpool to Euston for 2 people with a railcard)
Accomodation £135.07 for 2 nights in the Travelodge at the Excel
Food ~£60
Card fees: £8.54
Total £452.46
Total loss: £132.46 (approximately, I’m sure I’ve missed a couple of things from my sums)
Thoughts
Another loss isn’t great but comparing to last year it’s actually a smaller loss. Which doesn’t make sense at first glance – the takings for the table were £356.50 less than in 2024 and I had to cover a larger proportion of the table fee (which was 25% higher than before*). So let’s break it down.
First off are sales of my games. Those are actually slightly up compared to last year (£320 Vs £301). That’s surprising but also encouraging. As with last year my only new product was a £5 ashcan – while I’d aimed to have The Words We Leave Behind for sale the project has fallen behind schedule and it was only available as a preorder (of which I made 0, preorders are a hard sell).
Breaking down the numbers the drop in sales was almost entirely down to not sharing with Nick this year. Working with him the last few years has been a great experience and I hope his partnering with Black Armada goes well. The comparison with last year makes it fairly clear how much his games boosted the profile of the stall so I need to up my game (and games) to compensate for that going forward.
Cost wise the numbers were also remarkably consistent (£452 Vs £465) even though my travel costs were higher and I paid approximately 75% of the stall cost as opposed to 31% last year.
So far as expected and on track for a big loss but then you get to accomodation.
The cost of my hotel was half of last year thanks to the change in location and booking it around 9 months in advance. That’s a massive difference and one that I hope I can replicate next year. Other than finding someone to share the stall with next year there aren’t many other points where I can reduce my costs – if I want to break even at Dragonmeet it has to be about boosting my income, something that has been an ongoing challenge every year.
So that’s part 1, I’ll do a more general roundup on part 2.
*There’s been a few comments online about whether the table fees have gone up or not. While the listed price hasn’t gone up those prices are now excluding vat and don’t include table or chair hire. I don’t think the prices are unreasonable given they hadn’t gone up for a number of years but I do think it’s misleading to say they haven’t changed.
]]>This last weekend I traded at a (relatively) local event for the first time – MCR Geek Fayre, attached to the Manchester Board Game Festival. As always I want to report on my sales and costs as a small trader, so here’s the numbers.
Income
- Saturday sales: £106.90 (£105.51 after card fees)
- Sunday sales: £55.00 (£54.32 after card fees)
- Total sales: £161.90 (£159.83 after card fees)
Expenses
- Table: £80
- Trains: £38.12
- Lunches: £12.95
- Profit: £28.76
A small profit, but a welcome one given conventions normally lose me money. I made a total of 17 sales, selling 21 zines. Two sales were of 2 zines and only 1 was of 3 zines. This 3 zine sale was the only one that was high enough to get the first of 2 discounts I was running that weekend (10% off purchases of £20 or more, 15% off purchases of £35 or more). That was disappointing but I think this deal structure is better than the 3 zine bundle approach I’ve used before – it’s simpler and much clearer so I’ll probably be sticking with it in the future. At least until I get a more expensive product on the stall.
As my first time at MCR Geek Fayre I didn’t know what to expect and there were points where I was convinced I wasn’t going to make any sales. Trading was intermittent, with stretches where there were few to no customers browsing the stalls and then a few sales within a block of an hour. I’d guess that coincided with games in the main event finishing but it did make for an exhausting experience. I’ve gotten used to busier events where you don’t tend to notice the time and you get regular interactions even if you don’t make a sale. When it’s quiet it’s easier for energy levels to dip and attention to wander, especially over a two day event. At one quiet point on the Saturday I even convinced myself I wouldn’t make more than 3 sales all weekend.
What I hadn’t appreciated was outside factors. This weekend had multiple disruptions that I’ve been told impacted attendance compared to prior Fayres – Saturday had the main rail line shut due to a fire, a major motorway accident on the way into the city and an EDL march (fuck those guys) through the city centre. On the Sunday there was the Manchester Marathon, an anime event elsewhere and a cosplay parade. So quite a lot of events that will have affected attendance – this is something I should have checked to see if this weekend was representative of prior shows.
The Fayre itself took place in a side room to the main board game event, with about 35 traders. The room was well lit and nicely laid out with plenty of space for the traders and visitors. It was a little warm but the organisers had ensured the air con was on so there was a slight breeze that stopped it getting oppressive. There was also music running all day in the background. I’m not generally a fan of this as I have some very mild audio processing challenges but this wasn’t too loud and was all instrumental so rather than being an issue it did add a nice background vibe to the room. Organisationally, other than initial check in and handing badges back at the end I didn’t have to interact with the crew at all, which is a sign of a well organised and run event. I tend to get a little anxious about stepping away from my stall so I didn’t really explore the rest of the venue or the board game festival itself beyond a quick look at the start of the Saturday. I should have, as it would have helped me with getting a feel for the general vibe and attendance levels.
Across my products the best sellers were The Words We Leave Behind ashcan (7 sales), Numb3r Stations (5 sales) and The Dusk Bringers (4 sales). I included an extra focus on The Words We Leave Behind to help promo it and had some great discussions about it. It was also the cheapest item on my stall at £5 which definitely helped.
Numb3r Stations has always drawn people in and I wish I could bottle its appeal. It’s one of those bits of real world trivia that people have heard of and are intrigued by so it’s great that it continues to do well. I ended up having a couple of in depth discussions about them with people that came by the stall, including someone that was in the process of designing a board game inspired by the topic. That was great and those sort of chats are one of the benefits of smaller events as opposed to the frantic pace of larger conventions.
Finally, The Dusk Bringers. This short adventure hasn’t traditionally been a great seller for me but I made sure to highlight it as being compatible with D&D which really helped. I’ll be doing that even more in future as while I love the stark cover image it doesn’t really tell you anything about the zine, a valuable lesson in visually cool vs marketable.
Of the remaining 5 zines everything other than Project Cassandra sold 1 or 2 copies. I did have someone wanting to buy Project Cassandra who couldn’t because both the signal and wifi dropped just as he went to pay and he didn’t have cash. Ten minutes later both were back up. A little annoying but there wasn’t much I (or anyone else) could have done about it and it seemed to just be a temporary issue for me as opposed to everyone losing connectivity.
On the stand I made a couple of changes from Dragonmeet. I had a brand new table runner that works really well and highlights who I am. It’s reversible, with a different design on the other end for when I want to change things up. For this event I simplified my signage to improve readability but I think I can go further, especially with the standees for each zine.
So would I trade at MCR Geek Fayre again? Maybe, but not immediately. There wasn’t a heavy RPG presence amongst the traders (I think I was the only dedicated RPG stall, with a couple of others having some RPGs) or the general event. Having now talked with the organisers a large part of this seems to be that RPG traders aren’t applying for the event whereas there are loads of artists who want slots so I do appreciate that they took a chance on having my stall there. It’s also an opportunity – if I can work out what sort of RPGs would sell well I could tailor my offerings more towards the event. There’s also an interest in having more RPGs present, which is another opportunity to explore.
Unlike Dragonmeet or Expo people also didn’t seem to be there with a focus on making larger purchases (at Dragonmeet people tend to buy bundles of zines, maybe because that’s still cheaper than a single hardback RPG. At Expo a lot of people buy everything they want for the next year, so have a lot of spending power) – most of my sales were single zines with the cheapest ones dominating. The vibe of the Fayre was heavily towards art / geek merch with a lot of anime/franchise fanart, which is different from the events I usually attend. Art clearly sold well for most of the traders and they had stands that were geared towards that with plenty of variation to draw people in. Again, a case of knowing the audience and what works.
Prices at future events are going up from £40 per day to £50 per day and if that had been the case this time it would have almost wiped out my profits. I fully appreciate the need for prices to go up though, it’s a simple case of economics and the cost of rising room hire costs (the organisers shared the cost of just hiring the Fayre room – trader stalls cover the cost but not by much and after advertising the event isn’t making a profit off of running the extra room that the Fayre requires). Most of the time when I attend cons as a trader I actually make a loss due to the cost of accommodation. I was hoping for a profit here at a local event to help offset attending more expensive events where my priority is primarily networking. If I lived in Manchester and didn’t have to worry about the trains I would have doubled what I’d made to a respectable £60.
Unfortunately, once the price goes up to £100 for the weekend it’s half the price of a table at Dragonmeet (which used to be £175, is now at least £200), an event where I know my sales are significantly stronger (but has the added cost of hotels and a more expensive train journey).
A lot of this sounds rather negative but I need to balance it against the fact that this was a much smaller event than the other cons I attend (just under 700 attendees vs thousands for my usual events). At that size and with it not being RPG focused those sales aren’t actually bad and I’d probably had unrealistic hopes, especially with it being my first time.
Conventions are generally a hard calculation and very much a balancing act. Even within the RPG industry I make fairly niche games and I don’t tend to make money from events once I subtract travel, accommodation and food. I accept that for Dragonmeet as my main goal is networking while I only work a small part of Expo as part of a collective so selling simply helps towards the costs of attending. I took a big risk with TableTop Scotland last year and lost a lot more than I was comfortable with, so with this being local I’d been focused on the money aspect, probably too much given it was my first time there.
So what about the future? I said that I probably wouldn’t immediately attend again as a trader but I will be going back. The parts of the event I saw had a nice, relaxed and welcoming vibe and I’d like to go as a GM and offer to run some games, either as full or shorter slots. That would help me to advertise myself and my games a little but it would also give me the opportunity to get a proper feel for the event and what attendance is normally like. It’s probably what I should have done this time around, instead of jumping straight in as a trader.
If you’ve attended MCR Geek Fayre or the Manchester Board Game Festival in the past then I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments. This post is very much based on my personal experience with a narrow focus on my own trade stand rather than the convention as a whole.
]]>With that in mind here’s the big numbers:
Total income: 3408.39
Total expenditure: 3853.27
Profit: -444.88
The immediate headline here is that for the first time since I started recording this I made a loss. I’ll get into that in a minute but first I need to highlight something important – a large chunk of that income and expenditure wasn’t mine. During the last year I attended 2 conventions where I collected income on behalf of multiple people and then paid them royalties based on their sales. For Tabletop Scotland £818.71 of the money I received went back out to other members of the Indie Connection while £467.87 of the money went to contributors.
If you take that all away my personal numbers looked like this
My income: £2121.81
My expenditure: £2566.69
Profit: -444.88
Which makes the loss look worse but I want to let you in on something:
It doesn’t matter.
Seriously. It’s fine with me that I made a loss and I’m going to explain why.
- I’m doing this as a hobby, I’m not trying to supplement my income or pay my bills with this.
- A lot of that loss was me pre-paying for things that I will earn back in the next tax year. I’ve already paid for my Dragonmeet 2025 stand and most of the artwork for The Words We Leave Behind was paid for before I ran the Kickstarter (more on that in a moment). So all going well that will turn around into a profit next year.
- I have money in the bank. Not a massive amount but enough that even with that loss I’ve not had to pay out of pocket. Over the last 5 years I’ve taken £500 out of the business account as ‘pay’ and kept the rest aside for situations like this. Reiterating the point above, I’m able to do that because I’m in the fortunate position of this being a hobby business.
Now that we’ve gone over that, let’s break down the numbers a little more. I’ve already subtracted the money that went out to people I shared stalls with, so this is all just my direct income and expenditure. It’s worth noting that for last years UKGE and Dragonmeet, some of my expenditure was in the 23/24 tax year, so it’s not listed here.
Income
TableTop Scotland: (TTS): £375.30
Dragonmeet: £416.29
Other conventions (UKGE & Conpulsion): £193.06
Etsy: £197.99
IPR: £361.80
Retail sales: £80.00
drivethruRPG: £290.48
itch.io: £186.09
Other: £20.80
Expenditure
TTS: 647.24
Dragonmeet: 136.14 (costs associated with 2024), 219.60 (table booking for 2025)
UKGE: 56.29
Art: £937.50
Postage: 11.80
Printing: 136.00
Other: 31.42
So what can we take away from this – income wise I’m down, partially as there’s no crowdfunding included here (see below) but also because sales are down across the board. This is especially true at IPR. After receiving a big boost sales of Signal to Noise gradually dropped off while Project Cassandra sold so few copies this last year that it’s been removed from sale at IPR. Signal to Noise is also now out of stock there and won’t be getting a restock. I’ve got 1 final payout that will be in the 25/26 report and then it’s going to be 0 until I stock another game with them. Given how Trump is screwing about right now that might be a while.
Thanks to UK TIN and the Indie Connection I’ve started selling at more conventions and I’m going to be building on that this coming year. Sales have been ok from conventions but I would benefit from a prominent “grab me” game on the table. I made a single direct sale to retail (the always awesome Beyond Cataclysm) plus some retail sales at conventions that have been bundled into the convention numbers. I need to be more proactive at contacting FLGS and seeing if they want to take a couple of copies of games, that’s something I’ll push this year when The Words We Leave Behind is released.
My online sales have dropped considerably, partially as I didn’t release anything new and also because I’ve not been pushing that avenue. As anyone in this space will tell you it’s a constant battle to keep attention on what you have out, especially if you’re also working on your next big thing.
The two big standout numbers are the outgoings for TTS and on art. The combination of distance and it being a full 3 nights (Friday-Monday) in Edinburgh (an expensive city) meant TTS was really expensive to attend. While I enjoyed it I won’t be attending this year – my sales just weren’t good enough to justify it unless I can bring the costs down.
My spending on art was all for The Words We Leave Behind and most of that was committed before I’d even hit go on the campaign. Again, I had the money in the bank. This is the most I’ve ever spent on art and the final total will be higher than this but the Kickstarter did well enough that it shouldn’t result in a long term loss. My aim with the Kickstarter is to break even on the initial printing and start to actually earn money from subsequent sales.
Which brings me to Kickstarter.
I didn’t run a zine month campaign in 2024 but this year (2025) I ran a successful campaign for The Words We Leave Behind, a duet RPG about time travel and the butterfly effect. I’m busy working away on it and it should be released by the end of summer. You can find late pledges here if you missed it.
After accounting for fees I received £2037.92 from the Kickstarter but it’s not included on the 2024/25 finances. That money will be reported on my 2025/26 balance sheet as the funding was essentially a pre-order for the game and I’ve been told that this is an acceptable way to report the cash under accruals reporting. It is important to note that I’m not an accountant so there’s the potential that’s wrong – one of the things I’m planning to do this year is get proper financial advice to double check I’m doing it all correctly.
Where next?
As we move into the 2025/26 accounting year I’m already racking up costs, mostly related to conventions. I’ll be attending MCR Geek Fayre in Manchester the 6th and 27th of this month with my own stall. Then in May I’ll be at UKGE (hopefully working on the UK TIN stall) so I’ve just booked travel and a hotel for that. Finally I’ll be at Dragonmeet as usual and I’m already looking at the hotel options given its new location at the Excel. Finally, I’ve still got costs associated with The Words We Leave Behind to keep track of.
So if you’re on the lookout for a new game why not check out mine on itch or etsy? (or go support any of your favourite indie creators, who I guarantee are feeling the crunch right now)
]]>Greetings! I am launching my first Solo RPG – Escape From The Tower of Dusk. It’s a prison break journaling game, set in Fishbone Archipelago, telling an epic tale of regaining your freedom. I am most excited about giving my players a multitude of choices, challenges and escape plans via Bane and Benefactor playbooks.
What story or experience do you want people to get from Escape from the Tower of Dusk?
Escape From The Tower of Dusk is a story about establishing connections, gathering allies, secrets and resources to outsmart your Bane and orchestrate a daring escape from a cursed ancient prison, controlled by a paramilitary cult.
What sort of mechanics are you using? Are they tried and trusted stalwarts or are you branching out into something new and experimental?
The game uses an original d6 Dice building system representing the protagonist’s virtues as an Attribute Dice Pool. Your allies and secrets provide modifiers to your dice rolls. Players will face challenges that can be resolved with Iron, Shadow or Blaze – the attributes defining character’s ethos.
What was the inspiration for the project? Are there any shows, films, books you’d point people to and say “if you enjoyed this then you’ll love Escape from the Tower of Dusk?”
Being born in Eastern Europe, I’ve spent most of my life in a society poisoned by a legacy of Gulag camps, justice system mismanagements and rabid corruption, and the angst of going to prison has been looming on the outskirts of my consciousness for quite some time. But, aside from real life experiences, when I work on this game, I look back to 2006’s Prison Break TV series for a good close quarters drama.
Why have you decided to take part in Zine Month / Zine Quest this year?
Escape From The Tower of Dusk is indeed my first game, but not the first ZineQuest product. While Lost Lighthouse from 2024 was a system-agnostic adventure, this time I wanted to experiment with system design to create a game of my own.
What have you worked on in the past? Is this a continuation of a previous world/system/story or something new that’ll stand on its own?
As you can see, both Escape From The Tower of Dusk and my last year’s entry – Lost Lighthouse – are prefaced by Fishbone Archipelago. It is a swashbuckling setting I have been working on for the last couple of years. Both stories serve as introductory scenarios or even player character backgrounds for upcoming adventures.
We’ve talked about the project but can you tell me a little about yourself and the team working on the project? What’s your background in the hobby and what games do you enjoy playing?
The game will be fully created by myself from writing and system-design to layout and illustration.
I’ve been an active TTRPG player since the age of 13, and have graduated to GM and then game designer over time. You can find my illustrations and ideas scattered between many Indie-TTRPGs. When I choose a game to play, it depends on the format and intent. For campaigns I prefer systems with vast amounts of crunch and customisation, while for one-shots I lean towards narrative-first mechanics-light systems.
When are you aiming to launch and most importantly where can people find the campaign?
I will start crowdfunding on February 6th this month. You can find the project right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sandstonedistrict/fishbone-archipelago-escape-from-the-tower-of-dusk
Finally, is there anything else that you’d like to share?
Sure thing. I would like to wish all my fellow creatives a fulfilling and fun ZineQuest! Thank you for creating art and sharing your vision in this time of dreadful twilight. You have my support and respect. Last year I was delighted to see many indie games created by my friends over at UK TIN and beyond, showcasing what a modern story can look like.
I can’t wait to see what 2025 will bring.
What are you social media handles and which platforms do you use?
Folks can find me anywhere as Ronamis, but I think I’m most active on Bluesky lately. Here’s my linkTree https://linktr.ee/Ronamis and I hope to see you all soon! ^_^
]]>
Tell me about your campaign – what’s it for and what’s your favourite bit?
Development Hell is a non-combat focused, co-operative, GM-less tabletop role-playing game that also incorporates elements of drawing. In this game you and your friends play as filmmakers under pressure from a devilish major studio executive who increasingly interferes with your attempt to make the next best piece of cinema. Gameplay is vastly replay-able and takes around 2-4 hours for a complete the full experience. Our favorite bits are how the game tries to ‘get in the way’ of the players trying to make a story. This leading to moments of hilariously convoluted creativity at the table.
What story or experience do you want people to get from Development Hell?
The game is an embrace of the the moments where, as many gamers might recognise, their best laid plans begin to wrong and everything begins to collapse. Now, we don’t mean to suggest that one can lose this game but rather, the game celebrates the moment of joy of when the Jenga tower falls (which is honestly the best part of that game, right?). We hope that players will delight at the moments when the common goal created by the fiction of the game is subverted leading to hilarious and silly reveals. We also hope that people will be proud of the stories they have made.
What sort of mechanics are you using? Are they tried and trusted stalwarts or are you branching out into something new and experimental?
The game is primarily card driven. The cards provide a structure and series of prompts that lead players through a matrix of tricky decisions to make. The cards are also a malicious entity – a capricious and cruel overload. The role-play is fluid. That is to say, in Development Hell, who and what the players actually are roleplaying as and what they need to accomplish is constantly changing. Throughout a single game players might take on the roles of a production company official, movie director, a primadona/diffficult to work for actor (potentially), movie composer, editor and critic all in a single session. Much like when embarking on a creative project people do find themselves taking on multiple roles.
What was the inspiration for the project? Are there any shows, films, books you’d point people to and say “if you enjoyed this then you’ll love Development Hell?”
In the beginning we wanted to design a game that that incorporated two elements: movies and a game in which allowed players could listen to music. The original idea is that you would be storyboarding movie montages to songs that you chose and then cutting a movie from those drawings. A short of drawing-party-game, role-play game hybrid.
Anyone who enjoyed the twists from round to round in a game like Monikers, or the audio recording reveal at the end of 12 Candles, or perhaps even the cheeky workplace irreverence of films like: Office space, The Producers or Brazil. Movie buffs will certainly enjoy it.
Why have you decided to take part in Zine Month / Zine Quest this year?
Because you can! Anyone can do it. There is no gatekeeping here. If you are looking at the participation going up and wondering if there is room for you can I tell you there is! More people need to do this.
What have you worked on in the past? Is this a continuation of a previous world/system/story or something new that’ll stand on its own?
Development Hell is a standalone game, although it is the third game in a what we call the ‘Draw your own Adventure’ series by Tanuki Games which include the titles: Four Kingdoms (a fantasy epic world and map building game) and HIC: Tapestry (a game were you recreate your own Bayeux tapestry only to ‘rediscover’ it later).
We’ve talked about the project but can you tell me a little about yourself and the team working on the project? What’s your background in the hobby and what games do you enjoy playing?
Tanuki Games is a card and board game publisher based in Fukuoka, Japan. We make games designed for education purposes as well TRPG games that have fun artistic outcomes. Our members include Stephen Case, David Kendrick, Juha Vaittinen and myself Jay Underwood.
As for myself, I have been a lifelong gamer and role-player beginning with D&D all the way back in the 90s. Now we I can find the time outside of work and game design, I enjoy playing my home-brew rpg systems and mostly GMT com-sim board games such as Fire in the Lake or Here I Stand
When are you aiming to launch and most importantly where can people find the campaign?
We plan to launch on Feb 2nd and run until the 28th.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toiletpaperrollgame/development-hell-a-storyboarding-trpg
Finally, is there anything else that you’d like to share?
We hope any potential backers have as much fun playing this game as we have. We are going to be taking part in micro-game May this year with Kickstarter. My live show “Off With Your Head” will be at the UK Game Expo this year – come and see us!
https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/events/2171-off-with-yer-head/
What are you social media handles and which platforms do you use?
@tanukigames.bsky.social
Tell me about your campaign – what’s it for and what’s your favourite bit?
Sure! It’s “Cabin in the Woods” but for Hallmark Movies. It’s called “Love for the Love Gods.” It’s a GMless queer comedic collaborative-storytelling game about tweaking the delicate balance of corny kitsch. Too much affectionate chemistry, the ritual fizzles. Those enemies never become lovers? The Gods’ Fury Cometh!
What story or experience do you want people to get from Love for the Love Gods?
That we can have queer love stories that aren’t tragic. This is not a game about forbidden love or horrific loss. Queer love stories should be able to be as boring and escapist and revelatory as heteronormativity itself. I have other “Tenets of the Love Gods”, like Post-structuralism, but that is a big one for me.
What sort of mechanics are you using? Are they tried and trusted stalwarts or are you branching out into something new and experimental?
Haha, I almost never lean on “tried and trusted” though hopefully they are quite stalwart. So it’s like “The Truman Show”, characters are living through a manicured and manipulated experience on an elaborate set. They are ever watched by The Love Machine, or simply, The Machine: the vast shadowy international organization seeking to shape, with scalpel and hammer, the fate of those within. You generate the “Perfect Little Town.” You create characters not knowing if they’re double agents or not. Players adjust and tweak the synthetic romance of the “The Lovers”, known as the The Pursuant and the Perfect. They are the only characters that cannot know that the town is a fakery and the ritual is happening. At first at least. And The Perfect is Perfect, as we all are. By adhering to heteronormative ideals of beauty, we actively skew what is or isn’t possible. Be conscious of your choices. By reframing what is Perfect, we recreate the world anew.
What was the inspiration for the project? Are there any shows, films, books you’d point people to and say “if you enjoyed this then you’ll love Love for the Love Gods?”
I’d say the first would be Cabin in the Woods. If I had to pick a second, probably Hallmark movies.
Why have you decided to take part in Zine Month / Zine Quest this year?
Zine Month and Zine Quest are the BEST. It gets folks to push by their insecurities and self-doubt. We all have that one concept shifting in the back. So now DO IT. Doesn’t matter if it’s printer paper and staples. It’s ideas. It’s love. Getting a game project to 100% is essential. And almost all sit at the 99% and below category. Make your thing. I WILL give you money for it.
What have you worked on in the past? Is this a continuation of a previous world/system/story or something new that’ll stand on its own?
No, I haven’t made other Cabin in the Woods Hallmark Movie projects before. I wrote “Under the Autumn Strangely,” a pastoral horror game of anachronistic Americana in a land that Never Was. It is now part of the Mythworks Presents series. I wrote and produced the comic book “Wyrdspace“ with artist Jacob Peifer. I made “The O-Card” safety tool, which is getting a second edition this year. And I facilitated the megagames for the first three Shut Up and Sit Down Expos (SHUX) in Vancouver, Canada.
We’ve talked about the project but can you tell me a little about yourself and the team working on the project? What’s your background in the hobby and what games do you enjoy playing?
So I’m Graham Gentz (he/they). I’m a game designer, facilitator, and occasionally a puppet. I enjoy hip-hop, turtles, and surrealism. I also love to playtest.
Layout is by the extremely talented Cenza Della Donna, a self-proclaimed “nerdy illustrator and typographer.” Cenza did the incredible cover for “Under the Autumn Strangely.”
When I was 11, my mind was utterly blown by 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons. After playing for the first time, I immediately took my dice and graph paper to my school’s Game Club– which was 7 tables of kids playing chess and one table of me running D&D for eight curious 6th graders. I never looked back and never stopped playing and teaching RPGs to new people. By high school, I was running Call of Cthulhu and Vampire the Masquerade while writing plays and then directing them at my local theater. It was all the same thing to me. Exploring character, empathy, language, story, imagery, all of it. Each part taught me about the others.
The games I like are the experimental ones. The weirder and more challenging the better. That is the space that really inspires me.
When are you aiming to launch and most importantly where can people find the campaign?
We launch on BackerKit on February 14, ie Love Gods Day.
What are your social media handles and which platforms do you use?
You can find my stuff at grahamgentz.itch.io and on bluesky at @thismaybegraham
Finally, is there anything else that you’d like to share?
YES. Please check out all the other Zine Quest and Zine Month Projects. Heck, share them with me! Sword Opera by Eli Kurtz is funding now. We got Mum Chums, which may or may not be about luring sharks. We got Warped FM by the indelible Goosepoop Games. But best of all might be The Words We Leave Behind. Apparently you rewrite history as you fight an endless war across time and reality by unleashing the butterfly effect as a duet RPG. Seems incredible.
]]>
Tell me about your campaign – what’s it for and what’s your favourite bit?
PREQUEL is a tactical storytelling game of heroic sacrifice where you play as doomed heroes fighting against their final adversary. It is a oneshot game for a GM and 2-4 players. The game consists of a “final fight” that results in a collaboratively-built setting complete with story seeds to start a long-term campaign, if desired. The game focuses on the burdens heroes accumulate across their quests and the legacies their actions leave behind.
What story or experience do you want people to get from PREQUEL?
Over the course of the game you play out a tactical combat while building the Heroes’ quest using the world, events, and bonds that led the heroes to this point. Although you will not defeat the Evil, you can still leave a legacy for future generations.
What sort of mechanics are you using? Are they tried and trusted stalwarts or are you branching out into something new and experimental?
PREQUEL is built using the Lumen 2.0 system by Spencer Campbell and draws upon world-building elements from Microscope by Ben Robbins. Each system is tried-and-true for their respective genres of TTRPG. But together, they create a unique experience where you experience flashbacks of your quest while engaged in the fight of your life.
What was the inspiration for the project? Are there any shows, films, books you’d point people to and say “if you enjoyed this then you’ll love PREQUEL?”
PREQUEL spawned from a love of the heroic fantasy genre and the trope of legendary heroes who had fought the Evil before our main characters were even born and paved the way for even the possibility of victory. Particularly, the first 10 minutes of The Lord of the Rings movie was a major inspiration.
What have you worked on in the past? Is this a continuation of a previous world/system/story or something new that’ll stand on its own?
Ethan is probably most well-known for co-creating the solo journaling game, Fetch My Blade, which was listed in Polygon’s The best tabletop RPGs we played in 2023. James has worked on a number of games, including crowdfunding Afterworld and self-publishing numerous D&D supplements. PREQUEL is our first collaboration and is meant to be a standalone game which can be used as a one-shot or the start of your own long-term fantasy game.
We’ve talked about the project but can you tell me a little about yourself and the team working on the project? What’s your background in the hobby and what games do you enjoy playing?
Ethan Yen (co-creator) is an independent and freelance tabletop game designer and writer. He provides contract production support for Ghostfire Gaming and has worked with publishers including Evil Hat Productions, Hit Point Press, and Wet Ink Games. He enjoys playing FitD games and TTRPGS that incorporate board game mechanics.
James Quigley (co-creator) is a digital and tabletop game designer. In his fulltime job, James works as a game designer at Iron Galaxy Studios where he’s contributed to a number of AAA titles such as Teamfight Tactics. He’s self-published a number of D&D supplements and co-authored the card-based apocalypse rpg Afterworld.
The team also include AJ Lim, a multidisciplinary editor, artist and legal clerk, Graham Ward who has done layout for The Last Caravan: A Cars-and-Aliens Roleplaying Game, cover artist Carly A-F, and art by Sinta Posadas, Jericho Rose, Sovanny Vorn, and Emily Entner (of Graftbound Press).
When are you aiming to launch and most importantly where can people find the campaign?
PREQUEL will be crowdfunding from February 3rd through February 16th. You can back the game on kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/355301516/prequel-rpg
What are you social media handles and which platforms do you use?
Ethan: BlueSky @ethanyen.com, and also @glyphtide.games
James: BlueSky @quigjam.bsky.social
Finally, is there anything else that you’d like to share?
The base rules of the game are available now in the PREQUEL Preview Packet. The packet contains everything you need for you and three friends to start playing now! Get the preview packet here: https://ethanyen.itch.io/prequel
]]>
Tell me about your campaign – what’s it for and what’s your favourite bit?
The Words We Leave Behind is a duet time travel RPG about exploring the butterfly effect as two temporal agents fight for control of history one event at a time. It was inspired by the novella This is how you lose the time war but drifts the focus more towards the time travel aspects of the story and the effect the two characters are having on history.
My favourite mechanic is called Cascading the Changes and continues my interest in having players engage with the game by manipulating the written word. As the characters change history they slowly change the existing entries, adding a sentence here or changing a word there. Over time these changes will accumulate and result in the final text being very different from how it looked at the start.
What story or experience do you want people to get from The Words We Leave Behind?
I want players to feel like the missions they’re undertaking really are changing history and that they’re in this back and forth struggle as the other player makes their own changes. RPGs have a difficult connection to time travel stories – it’s easy to focus on big changes but it’s hard to highlight more subtle changes to the timeline. Most of the time players will jump back and forth between their home time and one or two other periods, they don’t see the long term impact of what they’re doing unless their actions result in drastic changes to history.
Tied to this is the idea of an unseen antagonist. The first ashcan of the game stuck close to the themes of the novella, with the two characters interacting via letters but the current version focuses on the story told via the missions and fighting an asymmetric war without knowing what your opposite number is up to.
What sort of mechanics are you using? Are they tried and trusted stalwarts or are you branching out into something new and experimental?
The Words We Leave Behind adapts the escalation engine I developed for Signal to Noise. Each player uses a hand of cards to determine their missions but each time a suit is played it increases the chances of that suit being played again, as a particular approach spirals towards the endgame.
The values of the cards played represent the period of history you have been sent back to and the mission you’ve been given. The prompts are designed to be open to interpretation, so instead of being told you’ve been sent back to the battle of Waterloo you might be told you’ve been sent to a climactic battle of a great war. So it leaves the choice up to the player and lets them fit it into the story that has already been told.
What was the inspiration for the project? Are there any shows, films, books you’d point people to and say “if you enjoyed this then you’ll love The Words We Leave Behind?”
The primary inspiration was the novella ‘This is how you lose the time war’ which is about two temporal agents and the relationship they build as they try to outsmart one another. It’s a beautiful, poetic story that flows from chapter to chapter and draws the reader along with it.
The other inspiration was the alpha of Nick Bate’s Against Time and Death which is also crowdfunding as part of Zine Quest (you can find his interview about the game here and the campaign page here). That game is very much focused on the relationship between the agents and the choices they make. For The Words We Leave Behind I wanted to explore the mechanics of time travel and the way that the individual missions interact with one another to create a shifting, connected timeline.
What have you worked on in the past? Is this a continuation of a previous world/system/story or something new that’ll stand on its own?
This is my fourth Zine Quest campaign and the game loosely fits into my big space opera setting called the Dyson Eclipse. I say loosely because it’s not directly connected to the main narrative of that setting but there are certain prompts that I’ve used to help develop the backstory. For most players though it will play as a standalone game.
We’ve talked about the project but can you tell me a little about yourself and the team working on the project?
Part of the reason I run crowdfunding campaigns is because they give me the opportunity to hire people to improve my games. For this campaign I’ve been lucky to secure the talents of Carly AF, who has done the cover art and the other pieces you can see here. Part of the goal has been to use them to highlight a changing timeline so there are two versions, each incorporating a slight change thanks to the influence of the agents. If the campaign does well Carly will be adding additional art to the game and I’d love to commission some full page illustrations from her.
The second member of the team is Emzy Wisker, who will be editing the text and once again pointing out my inconsistent use of tenses. I’ve worked with Emzy on each of my projects, she’s got a great eye for detail and being able to bring the text to life.
Finally there’s me, Craig Duffy. I’m the designer, writer, layout artist, promotor, and crowdfunding manager. Basically if it’s not art or editing then it’s down to me. I’m a hobbyist creator living near Liverpool in the UK and an academic scientist in my day job. I work within two primary genres – sci-fi and the Cold War period. They fascinate me for different, almost opposing reasons. At its best sci-fi is about the future that could be and how we as people would live in that world. The Cold War on the other hand was a darker period, where people were living their day to day lives in the backdrop of potentially explosive global tensions.
When are you aiming to launch and most importantly where can people find the campaign?
The campaign launches on the 4th February and you can find the pre-launch page here.
What are your social media handles and which platforms do you use?
I’m most active on bluesky where you can find me as @whodo.bsky.social.
Tell me about your campaign – what’s it for and what’s your favourite bit?
We (Will of Gamenomicon fame and myself, Jerod from Paroxysm by Design) are launching the core rules for Honorbound, a TTRPG for ZineMo/ZineQuest. My favorite bit is the players get to narrate their own Charles Dickens like past that intertwines with current swashbuckling adventures.
What story or experience do you want people to get from Honorbound?
It’s about exploring and overcoming each other’s unknown shared dramatic histories. These moments of intimate revelation are interspersed into ongoing tales of espionage, chivalric romance, and high science fantasy.
What sort of mechanics are you using? Are they tried and trusted stalwarts or are you branching out into something new and experimental?
The Wound by Tension system isn’t new but this will be its largest exposure to the community. It’s a simple d6 pool building game with an absolute ton of flexibility. What I love about it is that a social encounter can be just as life threatening and nuanced as a duel.
What was the inspiration for the project? Are there any shows, films, books you’d point people to and say “if you enjoyed this then you’ll love Honorbound?
Lots of inspiration is drawn from the Three Musketeers, Firefly, and the writings of Charles Dickens shot into space. I have recently loved Arcane on netflix and the Cinder Spires series by Jim Butcher. The mechanics nail the All for One feeling by allowing the players to combine their skills once or twice in an adventure to scream into the void together and do something epic!
What have you worked on in the past? Is this a continuation of a previous world/system/story or something new that’ll stand on its own?
I believe Party First: Twilight War was our first foray into the breach together. That was a follow up to Gamenomicon’s Party First which is a 1980s alt history horror game set in Russia. Then we then did Goblyn Market, a Victorian era farcical romp as goblyns challenging (and mostly cause havoc) social norms of the times. So, this is a vastly different project using the same mechanical chassis created for Party First but streamlined and updated for sci-fi swashbuckling.
We’ve talked about the project but can you tell me a little about yourself and the team working on the project? What’s your background in the hobby and what games do you enjoy playing?
Will has been running Gamenomicon for close to 20 years I think as an independent publisher and podcaster. I did several freelance gigs for him starting about 6 years ago and just started creating my own stuff as Paroxysm by Design for about 3 years. We have both been into roleplaying games since our teenage years. Mine were just a bit further back than his into the 90s!
This project is the first time we have built a war chest to include bringing in outside artists like Into the Weird Blue Yonder and kevrayval with stretchgoals for legendary Fernando Salvaterra.
When are you aiming to launch and most importantly where can people find the campaign?
February 1st! Honorbound: A Wound by Tension TTRPG – Zinequest 2025 by Gamenomicon — Kickstarter
Finally, is there anything else that you’d like to share?
This project has been a ton of fun and a personal best in terms of blending roleplaying and mechanics into what I believe are the best parts about gaming.
What are your social media handles and platforms?
Jerod Leupold
Jerod Leupold | Paroxysm by Design (@jerodleupold.bsky.social) — Bluesky
Jerod Leupold (@[email protected]) – Tabletop.VIP
Will
Gamenomicon (@gamenomicon.bsky.social) — Bluesky
]]>