Search Results

Lordsworn is a GMless game centering on a group of soldiers returning home after war. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: LORDSWORN is a 1-4 player GMless TTRPG where players will take on the role of a group of Lordsworns, broken, fragile soldiers who swore themselves to a (now dead) God and are returning home as the world ends! Your God is dead, you only have each other now. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: This is actually my second ZiMo Project! Last year I Itch Funded The Teapot: Fully Steeped, to get some lovely art (done by the same artist working on the Lordsworn with me!) for the game. It reached its goal, however, I'll be honest, I struggled a bit personally after the campaign, so it took me far too long to get finished. I'd hate to be so cliche, but I've learned a lot more discipline and (oddly) kindness towards myself with projects, and I'm hoping to carry that into my current funding project for LORDSWORN. LORDSWORN will be using Kickstarter and will be working towards funding cover art, interior art, and a physical print of the game. It'll be a lot more work than last year, but I definitely feel up to the task with far more experience now. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: Hmmm, I think I'll give two: the inspiration for the name and controlling multiple PCs as a player. I hadn't realized it until I announced the game, but I've had a few folks on Twitter ask if LORDSWORN was related to/hack of Ironsworn... Which, it's not, in the slightest actually haha. The name Lordsworn comes from some Elden Ring weapons, the Lordsworn Greatsword and Lordsworn Straightsword. These weapons are wielded by the undying soldiers who remained loyal to the various demigods, which was the catalyst that kicked off the entire idea for the game! The idea of these small, "insignificant" and nameless soldiers who were still seemingly loyal to a decaying series of demigods was... fascinating kindling. It started as a placeholder title and just never came up with anything that encapsulated the feeling better. The second idea was the "bold" approach I tried with LORDSWORN, namely, that players would take responsibility for multiple characters. This was a key aspect from the very beginning of the game's conception -- I really wanted to challenge players to care and RP through very, very different types of archetypes in one sitting. It can be a challenge, but also quite fun, to go from playing a bumbling Innocent Greenhorn in one scene and suddenly having to play your haughty Noble Knight in the next! Folks in the playtests also enjoyed crafting multiple characters (cause who doesn't like making characters?!) that they'd get to play out as. I think it's the forever GM in me, but I really wanted to share that joy of making (essentially) various NPCs that others would get to interact with, but... as player characters!

Paul Czege is raising funds for The Ink That Bleeds: How to Play Immersive Journaling Games. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: It’s The Ink That Bleeds: How to Play Immersive Journaling Games. I write about the aspects, procedures, and fun of playing journaling games, and show it all with excerpts from my own actual play. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: I did a ZineQuest project in 2020 just as the pandemic hit, and it was already mostly written, but it was a pretty difficult time and I ended up delivering it late. This time for The Ink That Bleeds, it’s fully written. I’ve even printed some already, so I can have a limited tier of copies I can mail as soon as Kickstarter funds clear. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: I started out designing RPGs at The Forge, talking about how mechanics and procedures create play experiences. Now I’ve played dozens of journaling games the past two years, and had such fun and such great experiences, and insights about play and bleed and self-care and everything — I realized why journaling games are having their cultural moment, and it’s not because people holed up during the pandemic and wanted solo games because they couldn’t play face-to-face; I saw why writing dialogue is so affecting, and it’s because of how we create worlds with each other in conversation; I realized why bleed happens and what it means — and I felt like I could write about it all and inspire people to play and have their own experiences. In fact, a character in a game I played told me to do it.

Tommy and Ricki of Blæk Games are raising funds for Goblin Gonzo, a supplement for Mork Borg. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: GOBLIN GONZO is a [80]+ pages 3rd party stand-alone TTRPG built on the Mörk Borg engine. Built on the fabulous Mörk Borg engine, this stand-alone art-punk gonzo game puts you in the role of one of many many variations of the filthy little gobbos full of shenanigans, Schneez & sing-a-long songs Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: Yep, this is our first ZineMonth. We really wanted to seize the occasion for getting some extra attention for GOBLIN GONZO and we are looking forward to seeing all the other cool zines! Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: What we're most stoked about is the opportunity to give people playing the game a playground where they can practice chaos & subversion - dream of other ways of being and get breathing room away from the hectic spectacle & endless screaming screens. It's no secret both Tommy and me are a couple of old socialist arseholes and we both had our formative years in punk/metal milieu's. So we see the game as a chance to escape the tiresome, bothersome house-goblin monotony of real life and throw a wrench into the endless Work - Shit - Sleep (if you can) - Eat cycle. Another thing is the light-heartedness & weirdness we bring to the setting for the Mork Borg players to enjoy.

Peter Eijk (he/him) is a writer and game designer from the Netherlands and the creator of the solo journaling RPG A Visit to San Sibilia and the meddling kids, monsters & mysteries game Pine Shallows. They're currently raising funds for Hiria, the Eternal City. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: Hiria: The Eternal City is a solo journaling game in which you are tracking down someone through different versions of the same city. You might barely notice the changes when traveling to another version of Hiria, while in other cases the city has changed beyond recognition. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: Hiria: The Eternal City is my first ZineMonth project. I rediscovered tabletop roleplaying games during ZineQuest 2020, and almost immediately started designing my own games. The next year, the first ZineMonth, I was not in the right headspace to run a crowdfunding campaign. I did join the ZiMo discord, though, and I loved the uplifting and cooperative nature of the ZineMonth community. This year I was working on a new idea in December, and I realized it would be a perfect fit for this year’s ZineMonth. I have used itchfunding in the past for two of my games, and while both campaigns were successful, they took a long time to fund, and reached smaller targets than I hoped, which is why this campaign I will use a crowdfunding platform. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: Theme-wise Hiria: The Eternal City really is a companion game to my previous solo journaling game A Visit to San Sibilia. San Sibilia is a city that changes without the people of the city noticing, while the player character does. In Hiria you travel to versions of the same city in different universes. A main difference is that in San Sibilia the actual changes were open to the player to decide, as was the reason for visiting the city and the reason to leave again. In Hiria, you have a reason: you’re trying to find someone, and the game ends either when you catch up to them, or when you lose them forever. The versions of the city are built in a mad libs style: there are 3 tables with 20 options, that can be combined in 8000 ways, so you could visit a cosmopolitan, steampunk city, connected by waterways or the abandoned, utopian city ruled by living saints or one of the thousands of other options. Just like in A Visit to San Sibilia I try to curate the perfect collection of prompts and random tables, so you people have enough scaffolding, but also enough room to create their own stories. It was very exciting to see how people interpreted San Sibilia as a city, and I can’t wait to let people wander around in Hiria.

Squeaking in under the wire, Meditating Munky is raising funds for Ninetoe's Guide to Monster Hunting (ending on February 22nd). Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: Ninetoes’ Guide to Monster Hunting is a combination of a monster compendium and Hex Crawl regional setting. Illustrated with maps and creatures by Meditating Munky and written by the compelling Ninetoes himself! This zine will offer four monster huntsand more will unlock with stretch goals. Meanwhile, the compendium will offer information, clues, and flavor to create a thrilling hunt for your band of adventurers. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: This will be our 2nd Zinequest and 3rd Kickstarter we have run! We did the Seventh Moon Adventures collection last year which was a collection of 6 one shot zines. We also ran a big Kickstarter for Tome of Dungeons, a book of fifteen plug and play dungeon crawls, and a deck of cards with traps, puzzles, items, and creatures - all of which are going to print now and will be shipped out soon! We had a blast on our last two projects, and we learned a lot from both! One of the biggest things we are doing with this Zinequest is just simplifying some of the things. With the last two Kickstarters we ran, we had all sorts of rewards from hardback books, deluxe foil-stamped books, a huge collection of zines, a slew of poster maps (literally over 36 posters between the two projects), multiple card decks, and all sorts of other goodies, and that was great, but this one is being simplified in there are just a few tiers now. We have STL files, a PDF, the VTT edition, a Print run for our zine, and then the Deluxe tier which gets everything. Managing a bunch of tiers was stressful to say the least, so we wanted to narrow everything down and focus more on just making the core book the best it could be. Another thing we did with our last Zinequest was we ran a campaign for 6 different zines, and it seemed that people would rather just support a bunch of smaller projects rather than one really big one with 6 different zines. A lot of folks back multiple projects during Zinequest, so they don't want to drop everything they have to spend on one project. So that is why we are taking this approach to make one healthy-sized zine and make it something that a DM can use for a long time. We are planning for the base book to be about 30 pages, and as more stretch goals unlock we will be adding more to it. If we hit all of our stretch goals we project the book to be close to 50 pages in size! Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: So this book is going to be focused on exploration and tracking some legendary monsters! We have a huge Hex Crawl we are using that will really ensure no two groups will share the same experience, and we also have our legendary beasts! We are starting with four of them in the core book, but as I said earlier, we will be unlocking more monsters with each stretch goal! Hunting a legendary beast is no easy task either, you often have to lure the beast out. To hunt it, you will need to find out what it hunts, where it hunts, and what attracts it, too! Furthermore, we want to introduce some crafting mechanics to really utilize the surrounding regions, the plant life, and of course, once you locate and trap (or defeat) a monster, ways to use them in recipes as well!

Albi F is raising money for These Stars Will Guide You Home, a solo-journaling game. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: These Stars Will Guide You Home is a solo journaling rpg about journeying through a mysterious archipelago in search of your new home. Then, hundreds of years later, writing the epic poem of your ancestor's voyage. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: This will be my third time funding a zine - I did Zinequest in 2021 with Superstition and Zine Month in 2022 with The Royal Cartographer. I think with this game I'm going "back to basics" a little bit compared to The Royal Cartographer - that game had stickers and maps and a flippable booklet and it was amazing but I had to assemble each and every copy by hand. The result is stunning, but I have a second child now so I won't have time to do that again! I'll be keeping it to one, possibly two booklets with no "add ons", and I'll be relying a lot less on product design and much more on art design, which is why I've got the fantastic Fernando Salvaterra to illustrate it. I'll also have slightly more interactive KS campaign, and I'm hoping to have some guest writers on board. The cool thing about The Royal Cartographer is that I worked with seven different artists, and the variety of contributions they brought was fantastic. That's something I'll keep the same going forward, always attempting to have more than one contributor to the project, costs permitting! Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: There's two things that I hope will be slightly different compared to other games. The first is that I've come up with a way of shifting the islands about on each playthrough, as well as changing which islands show up in your playthrough out of the available ones. This means replayability is different to other games and hexcrawls because its the geography of the map that changes instead of the prompts. Secondly, I think the idea of revisiting the story you wrote, but having to rewrite it like an epic homeric poem hundreds of years after events took place, is a cool twist that's not been done often before!

Rhodrick is using Crowdfundr to raise money for Traysikel - Ride or Die!. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: Traysikel - Ride or Die! is a high-speed adventure featuring Filipino tricycle taxi chases, nightmarish Aswangs, and a brewing revolution against imperial colonizers. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: This will be my first ZineMonth. I was writing my first zine around this same time last year and didn't find out about ZineMonth until a few months after it ended. I definitely felt like I missed out on something special. The projects that emerged from that time were inspiring and I really wanted to be a part of this community of artists, writers, and story enthusiasts. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: Traysikel - Ride or Die! is very special to me both on a personal level and design level. This game is an opportunity for me to make something fun and exciting that was inspired by my Southeast Asian roots. On the surface, this module is a high-speed action adventure with motorcycles and monsters. But underneath lies a constant exploration of identity. What makes it extra special is that I approach some of the mechanics from specifically an Asian-American perspective. This adventure is all about finding identity and discovering the lengths people will go to erase or preserve it. The Style mechanic in Traysikel is a sliding spectrum that allows players to dress their taxi to suggest alliances with either the rebellion or colonial powers. In each leg of their journey, they will encounter the prejudice and benefits that come with the polarized viewpoints of their surroundings. No matter how players try to mitigate their appearance, they will always find themselves at the center of controversy for simply existing as who they are. They are characters with no country. Much like how many 2nd generation Asian-Americans, like myself, felt growing up never learning their native tongue or visiting their homeland. Americans suggested that I was never American enough, Filipinos suggest I was never Asian enough. These themes are now being explored in films like The Farewell, but I wanted to make a ttrpg experience simulating this same idea while still embracing a fantastical adventure story within a mythical setting. While I have drawn inspiration from Southeast Asian culture, politics, and folklore, I feel that the social and moral themes tackled in this adventure are universal.

Mark Finn is raising funds for Polite Society: the Zine for Thieves, Rogues, and Scoundrels. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: Polite Society is a quarterly zine, designed to help transform your 5e "vanilla" D&D game into a sword-and-sorcery style City of Thieves campaign: get a crew together and stage daring and audacious heists in open defiance of the nobles and corrupt politicians who rule the once-great city state with draconian cruelty! Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: This is my fourth Zinequest project! I'm doing something different for ZQ5--in past years, I've used ZineQuest to put a smaller project out so I can build an audience for my stuff and keep working on my big splat book project, Polite Society: The RPG. Well, I've made a bad habit out of adding more to my Kickstarters than originally promised. Doing ZineQuest kept interfering with my now-five-year-long writing and development of Polite Society. I've written 80k words, and I need to do another 20k, but now here's another ZineQuest? What to do? Then it hit me: instead of creating an interesting zine and then setting aside my passion project AGAIN, I thought, what if this year's ZineQuest IS my passion project? Boom. Done! Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: What excites me most about this collection of rules I'm publishing is that no one has done the real work in putting a heist generator and a supporting campaign together for D&D, ever. This hearkens back to the original Thieves Guild supplements, Chaosium's Thieves World boxed set, and of course, AD&D's Lankhmar setting. Polite Society updates those concepts for modern players and GMs.

Chris Airiau, also known as Chris Air, is a French American game designer who is raising funds for Bio-Drones and Cryo-Clones, an adventure for the Mothership rpg. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: Can you save Nanshao Co-op from a dead despot's resurrection, or will you Become the Mutant? Find out in Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones, a biopunk adventure for Mothership RPG! Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones is my first Zine Month project, and the first crowdfunding project I've ever run. Zine Month 2022 was a huge inspiration for me to start making a Mothership RPG zine. Loads of incredible Mothership 3pp creators launched these awesome projects last February, and it's been motivating following the production of all their great work. I really didn't think I'd be doing one so soon, but I received a ton of support from game designers like Terry Herc, Marco Serrano, Christian Sorrell, Alfred Valley--all Mothership 3pp creators who had successful 2022 Zine Month projects. Instead of releasing a totally self-produced zine, I reached out to other folk in the scene to make a game worthy of Zine Month. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: The central concept in Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones is designed as a tongue-in-cheek translation of a “save point reset” into a sci-fi horror ttrpg experience. As an avid Metroidvania fan, I’ve always thought it's so underwhelming to die and “reset” as if your character’s death has no real impact on the environment. I wanted to build a consequence-heavy sci-fi scenario that emulated the effect with a heavy dose of Cronenberg's The Fly. This module wants to explore what it looks like when multiple PCs deaths during the same adventure are likely. How will players endeavor to use their marks on the environment to survive, solve or save? Oh right, and also they're on a timer, mutating into horrific monstrosities, so there's that too.

Brazilian indie game designer Cezar Capacle is another person using Crowdfundr (this platform is open to folks in the South America, which Kickstarter is not), and they are currently raising funds for their game Derelict Delvers. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: Derelict Delvers is a solo/coop dungeon crawler in space, with a twist. Players take on the role of space soldiers scavenging derelict ships for profit and resources, and getting way more than they signed up for. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: It is my first time! My motivation to participate this year was threefold. Firstly, I really wanted to work within the size limitations of a zine. I think it is a great self-imposed constraint, one that makes you think about what is essential in your game. Secondly, a good friend of mine, Igor Moreno, another great Brazilian designer, released the SRD for his game "That Dungeon Game with Dragons and Stuff". It's such a fresh take in so many tropes of the classic RPGs that I felt inspired to work with. I have since departed quite a bit from the original mechanics, but the spirit is still there. Lastly, I came across this new crowdfunding platform called Crowdfundr, and the simplicity and accessibility of their service made me want to give it a go> Kickstarter is not available for people from the Global South, so I really want to spotlight other platforms that do, and not only that, cater to their community of creators. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: Oh, excellent question. This is my first dungeon crawling game, and although I enjoy the simplicity of the premise, I feel a little weird with its original themes and how close they are to problematic topics such as colonialism and otherness. So I felt I had to address that in my game somehow, and a content warning didn't feel enough. So that's when I devised the Wounds mechanic. It may be a little of a spoiler, but basically when you get hurt, you get an alien infection. As that infection progresses, you start to understand more of their movements and predict their behavior. At first, this is yet another advantage for you to keep killing them all. After all, from your perspective, they were the invaders that destroyed Earth's peaceful diplomatic missions. But then, you start to get a glimpse of their hive mind, and comprehend their language, their culture, their individuality. Eventually, you start to question your purpose there, and that finally breaks your soul, when you realize the horror you brought to that society you didn't understand. So yeah, this is an aspect I'm excited about. On the surface, there are a lot of other neat mechanics on how you abstract loot and come up with your own powers (it's super flexible yet very parametric) that I also find really fun, but those cater to the intended experience of a dungeon crawler. Not the wounds. The wounds will catch you off-guard.

The artist Stuart Robertson is raising funds for Advanced Ancient Academy, an adventure for Old School Essentials. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: Advanced Ancient Academy is a dungeon adventure zine for Old School Essentials, suitable for a party of low level adventurers. This is an expanded version of the original Ancient Academy and as funding progresses there is the potential to unlock more content, including new levels which will turn the zine into a mini mega-dungeon, or even a small campaign setting. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: This is my first time doing ZineQuest, and I'm really excited to be a part of it. I've been contributed writing and artwork on a number of different people's indie game books, with recent titles including Knock Magazine, Dwarrowdeep, and the Megadungeon Monster Manual. I think ZineQuest will be fun to do and let me combine both my writing and artwork in the same book. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: The original Ancient Academy was published a decade ago as part of the One Page Dungeon contest, as an experiment in packing the most dungeon I could onto a single sheet of paper. Most of my original notes for the adventure had to be condensed to the bare minimum, with many rooms only having 7 or 8 word descriptions. A great deal of the mystery behind the academy could only be hinted at with a few random objects I could squeeze in. I'm sure dungeon masters have expanded the game in their own ways, but I've always felt I could have expressed my original intention better without the one-page format. I'm really looking forward to sharing the Advanced Ancient Academy with everyone!

Max Moon, the author of Twelve Years, Fairyland, and other zines, is raising funds for The Demon Lord Expansion. Q: Easy question first: Give us the elevator pitch of your project. Tell us about it in two sentences or less. A: The Demon Lord Expansion is the first expansion zine for the Twelve Years solo+ roleplaying game. This expansion adds a new quest, BBEG, new encounter types, enemies, two new archetypes, and a more specific dungeon type, the Hellmouth. The core gameplay remains the same, assemble a party of adventurers, gather your gear, and head off into the wilderness in search of the six sigils to complete the banishing ritual to rid the world of the scourge of the Demon Lord! And all beautifully crafted and assembled. Q: Is this your first ZineMonth project or have you done it before? If it's your first, talk a bit about what inspired you to give it a shot this year. If you've done it before, what's something you've learned from previous crowdfunding projects that you may be doing differently this time, or, if you're not doing anything differently, talk a bit about your previous projects. A: This is my 3rd ZiMo/Zinequest project and my 5th Kickstarter campaign (6, if you count, supporting Black God's Kiss). Something I have learned and struggle with is to keep things as simple as possible while balancing that with allowing backers the types of variation that give them personal choices and are exciting for me to make. It can be easy to overdo it when it comes to offering options and variants. I haven't quite crossed that line yet, but I have definitely pushed it. I love making interesting and unique cover variants. I have worked with foil, screen printing, and now am experimenting with gold leaf. The biggest thing I am doing differently this time is offering a standard edition without a screen-printed cover. I have not been able to keep zines in stock as well as I had hoped, so I am shifting to making the screen-printed covers a bit more exclusive. I love screen printing, but I have to admit that it does slow things down quite a bit when I need to produce a few hundred zines at a time. Q: Finally, tell us something about your current project that really excites you but the average backer may not be aware of. Maybe a twist to an old trope, a new way of presenting something, or maybe just something you've never tried before that you're using this as an opportunity to try out. A: One of my favorite parts about any project is the art. I am most excited about the team of phenomenal artists who have agreed to work on this project with me. Justine Jones is someone who I have wanted to work with for a very long time, so having her on the team is incredibly exciting. Another artist I am working with is Robin Harris, aka Mystic Barbarism, who I have actually worked with a little in the past but that secret isn't out yet, so very few people know anything about that. And lastly, Andy Webber, who has worked with me on almost everything and aside from being a phenomenal artist, is a key person in making almost any Max Moon Games zine happen. I am, of course, excited about the expansion itself, but just wait until you all see the art for this zine! I am very excited about opening the door to expansions for Twelve Years. I designed it with the assumption that expansions would come and so now it feels like I am really supporting the game in the way it deserves! I look forward to more expansions over time!