Zine Month—or ZiMo—is in full swing, and even more games were released this week. We’ve got a whole slew of new indies for you to check out. Again, you can read through our first roundup here, which goes over some of the history of ZiMo, and you can peruse both Kickstarter’s Zine Quest and Crowdfundr’s Tabletop Nonstop initiatives to find even more new games!
- A Butterfly Dies — Compatible with the Primal system, players are travelers exploring the land of Michoacan and can choose whether to engage with the local tensions or keep their distance.
- Curse of the Extinguished Sun — A level 20 adventure compatible with 5th edition D&D.
- Prisoners of the Elf King — Built for a one-shot adventure or a mini-campaign of 2-5 short sessions, Prisoners of the Elf King is a madcap escape from the palace of theElf King. Can you and your fellow dwarves get away?
- On the Way to Chrysopoeia — An epistolary roleplaying game. Together with a partner you will be writing a four-handed adventure, first by inventing its two protagonists and then by leading them on a legendary journey.
- Advanced Double D6 — Improves & expands on Double D6—a fantasy role playing game without the big books—and leans further into its make-things-up play style with some extra gaming guidance, a quest planner, and oodles of inspiration tables.
- These Stars Will Guide You Home — A solo journaling game about exploring an archipelago in search of a new home.
- Plasmodics — Players are mutant freaks in the weird future. In the remnants of this world, play among the smithereens. Welcome to the gonzo post-apocalypse of your choice.
- DEAD AIR — A solo RPG about running a radio station after a nuclear apocalypse. Face the unrelenting horror of nuclear obliteration with the grim certainty that things can always get worse.
- Derelict Delvers — A thrilling, action-packed sci-fi roleplaying game that immerses players in a struggle for survival and profit.
- The Bookmarked — In this game you use a book from your shelf as a sci-fi spellbook, called a Cipher. Your Cipher can take control of powerful robotic technology by reprogramming their psycuitry, using words from the book as inputs.
- Oops, All Draculas! — This d6 (six-sided die) dice pool game using either tarot or your favorite vampire book and can be played with or without a Dracula Master. In it, you play as various styles of Dracula all living together in a home of your design.
- The Last Hand — A standalone, GM-less, no-prep RPG for 2-6 players intended for a single session of play. Taking on the role of struggling survivors, you must work together to escape an unknown horror that slowly reveals Its true nature as It pursues you, while hedging your bets to be the one to make it out alive during the Last Hand.
- Tangled Blessings — A solo journaling or two-player RPG inspired by dark academia media, ghost stories, and graduate school that uses tarot cards to dive a story that blends horror and fantasy.
- The Sunset Limited — As a member of a group of fearless strangers, you have been hired to protect the wealthy Lord Ruthven on his journey across the rugged terrain of Wyoming. But there’s a twist: you and your accomplices have a secret plan to steal his riches.
- Sanctuary and Sentinel — Tells the story of a place of great power, those charged with protecting it, and the threats that seek to take the power for themselves—played out over two GM-less games—both of which can be played solo or with a group.
- Dinocar — A collaborative map-drawing game in which players take turns going on chaotic road trips and commutes.
- Drama Llamas — A narrative driven TTRPG about reality TV competition shows. Packed with genre tropes and chaos-generating mechanics, all with an absurdist, llama-flavored twist.
- Soft Focuses — A solo journaling game that encourages people to experience their life as though they had ADHD.
- Zine-o-Map vs Mini-Adventure — A two-book zine featuring cartography and system-agnostic one-page adventures.
- Blasting Off Again — A game inspired by Pokemon’s Team Rocket, it’s about failure and perseverance, about doing the wrong thing for all the wrong reasons, and watching it explode in your face in the most comedic way possible.
Someone asked me last time why I chose the category “ungovernable” and honestly I thought it sounded cooler than “gross-genre.” Literally no other reason other than I wanted it to be rad. I hope everyone found a new game, or two, to support. More this time next week. And remember, if you think that your favorite ZiMo game (or your own!) deserves to be on this list in the future, send me an email. I’m excited to hear from you.
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