Zine Month always sees a slew of creativity in the space, from TikTok filters to clever reveals when funding goals are hit, and while we’re wrapping up ZiMo, we still have a ton of great games that deserve your attention. There’s been a lot of movement in the TTRPG space and I’m excited to get back to reporting news and updates with the bi-weekly Gaming Shelf, so stay tuned!
- GIGAS: Monster-Attack Simulator — Driven by a standard deck of cards, using D6 as tokens, and including a map to play on, defend the city from a giant monster attack. Use your resources to repel or defeat a rampaging monster before it wrecks too much of the city.
- Dead Letter Society — A GM-less epistolary and journaling game for 1-2 players. Take on the roles of vampires exchanging letters via a secret society, pursue your ambitions, and delve deep into the world you create together.
- Loot Hunters — A system-neutral/agnostic supplement for any RPG, including a collection of drawings, dungeons, a regional map, city maps, and adventures that can be used for a one-shot OSR game.
- Foundations — A solo worldbuilding and map making game in which players create a fantasy world for use in tabletop roleplaying games.
- Pelogos — A multiplayer (TTRPG) for two or more players (including the GM, known as the Navigator) where you play as a paranormal investigator known as a Lantern Keeper, or as a sea ghost known as an Echo.
- Inclusive Artwork — Fantasy stock art with disability representation for TTRPGs.
- Killing in the Name — The adventure is designed to take place during seven critical days in Piedmont, each one represented by a 3-4 hour session of game play. It’s a module players that enjoy a role-play heavy experience will appreciate, but that doesn’t mean it’s free from violence: you’ll just get to know the people it happens to first.
- Turbulence — A Mothership-based role-playing game module where you step into the shoes of criminals who went to the depths of a galaxy and became trapped into a plot that surpasses them, and which they will try to survive at all costs.
- Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones is a facility-crawl module for Mothership RPG.
- ECO-MOFOS!! — A mid-future ecopunk ruin-delving survival game, as player characters (PCs or Punks) seek a safe homestead to start a new community, Weirdhope not Grimdark.
- Dimday Red — Choose your deadly mutation or faction and take your place in a world socially divided, doomed to be consumed by the Sun in 52 years.
- Necro Mech Synthesis — A Bonepunk RPG about ghosts piloting mechs via possession.
- CHOROGAIDEN or Eldritch Story (チョロ外伝) — An analog horror investigation game of eldritch terror and a slowly warping world inspired by the works of Junji Ito and World of Horror.
- Sweet Revenge — You may be dead but you’re not quite done living. Journey downward through spirals and circles of hell, laying waste to any demonic beast that stands in your way. Use the method you died to inform your inventory and abilities on your violent quest.
- Hive of the Crawling Creeps — Creeps are nasty fleshy insects who eat people. They infest towns and trade routes, building pulsing hives of wet meat below the soil, then drag their victims down to feast..
- GenoFunk — An RPG about dying heroes in a world touched by the Apocalypse. As their characters crumble under the weight of a mutating world, players gain more and more narrative power to alter the flow of the game and story.
- Beyond the Gaping Maw — An adventure module and mini-setting guide where you delve into the body of a dying god to discover what ails it. Written for everyone’s favorite doom metal fantasy RPG, Mörk Borg.
- NIGHTFRIGHT — Players map their journey through an unfamiliar house on paper, attempting to find vanished adults and a means of escape or succumbing to fear or fatigue, all while being pursued by the Figure.
- The Lantern — A solo journaling game with boardgame-like exploration, strategy, and resource management mechanics. On this dark and dangerous expedition, you will have to find a path through the forest in search of clues, trying to survive as you keep the lantern lit.
- R’lyehwatch — A rules-light tabletop roleplaying game about a group of lifeguards and their friends who protect their local beach from the monsters trying to take over. It mashes up the campy melodrama of Baywatch with the cosmic horror of the Cthulhu Mythos.
- Psychic Trash Detectives — Animals race to solve a mystery before the city’s trash is collected at dawn. A diceless TTRPG played with trash.
- Broken Cities — A diceless, GM-less tabletop RPG in which players take the role of travelers coming to a city with adventurous goals in mind, while the city wants to convince them to go through the sacrifice needed to fix it.
- Hungry Gnoles Eat the Rich — A rules-lite tabletop RPG set on an island city beset by a plutocratic monarchy. Players take the roles of gnoles—chaotic, violent, but community-minded hyenafolk compelled by their hunger to strike back against forces of oppressive control.
- Rising Star — A short-form, cooperative, story-driven TTRPG about sports.
- Goblin Gonzo — A stand-alone TTRPG built on the Mörk Borg engine. This art-punk gonzo game puts you in the role of one of many many variations of the filthy little gobbo’s full of shenanigans, Schneez, and sing-a-long songs.
- Fever Dream Nexus — A surrealist role-playing game set in the ever-shifting dreamscape of the Nexus— the place between sleep and wake. Play as a Sleepwalker and roam the six plates to solve crimes, protect the innocent, duel in bloody clashes, sate your shadow, and unleash your ego to mold the dream with your signature Track.
- If I Were a Lich, Man — A trilogy of funny Jewish roleplaying games about creative resistance against authoritarianism. The villains in the stories of our oppressors become the heroes in our play.
- Ailing Away — A solo mystery game with historical romantic elements. It really is a little bit like Clue but it’s meant for one player, you get to kiss some of the suspects, and there’s no board to set up. All you need to play is a copy of the book, a deck of standard playing cards, a pair of 10-sided dice, and writing implements of your choosing.
I’m so sorry! It’s probably because I had to skip last week. But never fear! There’s the bi-weekly Gaming Shelf, and we’ll be back next week with all new games, crowdfunding projects, and industry news.
If you think that your favorite ZiMo game (or your own!) deserves to be on next week’s Gaming Shelf, send me an email. I’m excited to hear from you.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
