Zine Month 2024 Highlight - Part Two
Ten more interesting looking zines from Zine Month 2024
Zine Month and ZineQuest is over half-way through, but there’s still so many amazing projects out there crowdfunding. It’s impossible to highlight everything I think looks great, but here are ten more interesting projects.
Thrifty Trades of Fey
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gametee/thrifty-trades-of-fey-zine-quest
A 32-page zine by Gametee’s AJ Hateley and Emily Pardoe-Billings. Thrifty Trades of Fey is a system neutral collection of sixty-four magic items to drop into any fantasy game, plus setting details and GM advice for running a magical thrift shop to stock the items. Bonus points for the brilliant pun name.
The Details of Our Escape
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crum/details
A 30-50-page GM-less storytelling zine from ENnie Award-winning game designer Tyler Crumrine. Played with a set of domino tiles, The Details of Our Escape sees players control a caravan of travellers in search of a new home by drawing and laying dominos, with the numbers on the tiles acting as prompts for discovery along the journey.
HOME - Mech x Kaiju Mapmaking TTRPG
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deepdarkgames/home-mech-vs-kaiju-mapmaking-ttrpg
A 32-page 5.5x8.5” zine from Nick Gralewicz. HOME is a GM-less and solo mapmaking RPG where players draw a map, build mechs, and fight kaiju to protect the world they’ve just created.
Outliers
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marx-of-high-water/far-horizons-coop-presents-outliers
A wire-bound A5 by Far Horizons CoOp’s creator-in-residence, Samantha Leigh. Outliers is a solo journaling game about being a research assistant in a weird science lab built on Chris Bissette’s Wretched & Alone SRD.
FÄNGELSEHÅLA
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diekugames/fang
A 40-page landscape digest-sized zine by Garry Snow of Dieku Games. FÄNGELSEHÅLA is a rules-lite fantasy RPG inspired by the Swedish minimalist aesthetic of IKEA. With quick character creation and easy to learn rules, FÄNGELSEHÅLA puts accessibility front and centre.
Battle School
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andrewbeauman/battle-school
A black-and-white zine by Andrew Beauman. Battle School puts the players in an Ender’s Game-esque military academy and pits them against other squads of cadets using a collaborative d6 dice-pool system. The ‘complete edition’ tier includes a 50+ card deck of locations and hazards to help the GM.
HIC: Tapestry
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toiletpaperrollgame/hic-tapestry-toilet-roll-paper-game
A 38-page A5 zine by Tanuki Games. HIC is a collaborative storytelling game where players draw a tapestry or scroll on a roll of toilet paper. The campaign description promises this isn’t a joke.
Fishbone Archipelago: Lost Lighthouse
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sandstonedistrict/fishbone-archipelago-lost-lighthouse-0
A 28-page A5 zine created by designer Mikhail Malkin. An introduction to the larger setting of the Fishbone Archipelago, Lost Lighthouse begins with a shipwreck and tasks players to explore the island to find other lost crewmates.
Shrines: Sites of Reverence & Power
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/emptymountain-ncd/shrines-sites-of-reverence-and-power
A 40-page square riso-printed zine by writer James Pianka and illustrator Conner Fawcett. Shrines: Sites of Reverence & Power is a collection of twelve system-agnostic shrine locations to use in TTRPGS. The zine includes tables to help with world-building and a critical theory essay on shrines as a trope in gaming.
Behind the Magic
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/randylubin/behind-the-magic-a-fantasy-mockumentary-game
A 24-page 5.5x8.5” zine by designer Randy Lubin. Behind the Magic is a fantasy mockumentary LARP designed to allow players to collaborate on a set-up then improvise a comedic resolution. The game was released digitally in 2018 but is crowdfunding a POD print version for ZineQuest.