Zine Month 2024 Highlight - Part One
Ten interesting looking zines from Zine Month 2024
Kickstarter’s Zine Quest, and the wider scene’s Zine Month, are back for 2024. There’s over 1000 projects on Kickstarter alone, and it can be a slog to go through. Below are 10 projects that have caught my eye, some I’ve backed already.
This is the first Zine Month highlight post, and I plan on doing at least one more to try and showcase some cool projects. If you want to be alerted when the next one goes live, you can subscribe to get it straight to your inbox.
Grotten
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sunze/grotten
A 20-page 6”-square zine by Danish designer Tommy Sunzenauer. Grotten is a 1-bit dark fantasy dungeon crawl, which comes with physical dungeon geomorph tiles to create the dungeon map as you play. The zine’s black-and-white pixel art aesthetic really pops, and helps convey the vibe. The zine is suitable for both solo play and more traditional GM-led play, and can be played using the rules within the zine or as a supplement for Mörk Borg.
A Tower Made of Sky
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samhollon/a-tower-made-of-sky
A 160-page A5 zine written by Sam Hollon and illustrated by Waclaw Traier. A Tower Made of Sky is a fully illustrated, system-neutral bestiary, containing thirty dark and significant monstrosities. Each monster has lore and story hooks, and the zine also include some setting information about The Tower itself.
Beetle Knight
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brookletgames/beetle-knight
A collection of zines by Jim Hall and an all-star team of contributors. Play as the eponymous Beetle Knights in this rules-lite game. The collection is headlined by a risograph printed rulebook, but the top tier offers extra printed zines with a setting book, two modules, and a solo rules zine.
The Tower
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnsonofair/the-tower-a-puzzle-dungeon-crawl
A 20-page riso-printed A5 zine by designer Lola Johnson and illustrator Nala J. Wu. The Tower is a self-contained, system-agnostic puzzle dungeon. The illustration looks great in the risograph style and I’m excited to see the challenges contained within.
Mystery Under Magi-Mart
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bodieh/mystery-under-magi-mart
A 100-page 105mm-square book by Ennie-winning designer Bodie H. Mystery Under Magi-Mart is a pick-your-path fantasy adventure book set in the basement dungeon beneath a magic item shop. As with all of Bodie’s work, the zine features fantastic, cartoony artwork throughout.
Milk Bar
A 100-page D-sized book by Eryk Sawicki, creator of the Filmmakers Without Cameras series. Milk Bar is a great looking alt-history exploration of abandoned superstructures and includes a Polish- and Slavic-inspired bestiary and ‘domain play’ or base building around your milk bar. The zine has exposed thread binding and the yellow-and-blue colour scheme is gorgeous.
Kitsune Tales: Only the Dead Face North
A slight departure from the others in this list, Kitsune Tales: Only the Dead Face North is a historic fantasy novel by author Laura VanArendonk Baugh, with accompanying TTRPG scenario. The module is system-neutral, with suggested games including D&D 5e, Pathfinder, and Legendary of the Five Rings. There’s not a lot of detail about the module, as the focus of the campaign seems to be on the novel, but packaging a playable product with the book is a neat approach.
Random Realities
https://crowdfundr.com/randomrealities
The only entry on this list not using the Kickstarter platform is Random Realities, a 40-page 190mm-square zine by Brazilian designer Cezar Capacle. Random Realities is a collection of prompts for solo play, with each page offering set categories of sparks that differ on each page. The PDF features a random page roller, and the higher pledge tier gives you both the original Canva files and access to all the tables so you can roll your own set of prompts should you need more than the ones in the book.
Tiny Fables
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/josiahmoore/tiny-fables
A 60-page riso-printed 5x8” zine for Mausritter by Josiah Moore, who created The Ticking Tower adventure site as part of the first-party box-set The Estate. Tiny Fables contains a sandbox hex-map featuring several adventure sites plus a bunch of creatures, items, and spells. The illustrations are fantastic and really bring character to the maps and contents of the zine.
Sentai & Sensibility
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/9thlevel/sentai-and-sensibility
A digest-sized zine by Bug Boll, using the Polymorph system. The Kickstarter page has the best summary of this game: “What if Jane Austen wrote Power Rangers?” and honestly I want to own this game based on that sentence alone.
Bonus Entry!
All of the above have physical zine or book pledge tiers, which is what I wanted to focus on rather than digital-only campaigns. However I did want to mention one:
The Soft
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tellingtales/the-soft-a-troika-setting-zine-zinequest
A 30-60 page digital zine from the actual play team Telling Tales. The zine features one of the many crystal spheres from across Troika!’s humpback sky, specifically one made entirely from soft furnishings. The concept is wacky, and the campaign description made me chuckle, which is a good sign.