👁️ 10 Games of Zine Month 2025
From Time Wars to Curious Cats; Are Zine Month Zines Really Zines?, and More
1. Zine Month
It’s February and that means Kickstarter is hosting Zine Quest and Crowdfundr is running Tabletop Nonstop. Dozens of tabletop game creators are announcing and crowdfunding new games and supplements during “Zine Month”.
What’s a Zine?
Zines trace their origins to early 20th century amateur printers producing small runs on specific topics. This included writers of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance who self-published “little magazines” to undermine the established literary system.
Sci-fi fans in the 1930s began writing self-published works which later expanded to genres like comics and horror. The punk music scene in the 1970s and 1980s used zines to promote music groups and venues—rejecting corporate labels and mainstream publications.
Zines and RPGs
Zines have been a part of RPG culture since the beginning:
In 1975, Len Lakofka’s Liaisons Dangereuses—a “Dippy” zine about the board game Diplomacy—began covering D&D just a year after its release.
The Dungeoneer, created by Jennell Jaquays and Mark Hendricks in 1976, became one of the first zines dedicated to D&D. It helped shape the way we engage with RPGs today—promoting creativity, house rules, and DIY content. It also demonstrated that independent creators could influence the broader RPG industry.
Are Zine Month Zines Really Zines?
Zine Month blurs the line between DIY zine culture and small-press RPG publishing. While most projects are self-published, creator-driven, and niche, Zine Month is also a corporate marketing event. As
says in this issue’s interview, Zine Month’s spirit is “small, weird, fun, affordable.” But some, like , argue it favors established creators over newcomers.In most cases, what creators showcase during Zine Month fits the classic fanzine model, but the event lacks the anti-establishment spirit of the 20th-century zine scene. Still, dozens of creators are launching amazing projects this month—and that’s worth celebrating!
2. The Games of Zine Month 2025
Here are 10 solo and GM-less zines that caught my eye. I’ve marked what I find interesting with an 👁️.
Heavy Weighs the Crown is a solo game played from the perspective of a magical crown, watching monarchs come and go while helping to decide the fate of the realm.
👁️ Two great solo game creators Jason Price (Notorious) and Jack Harrison (Artefact and Bucket of Bolts) are collaborating on this one. See the short interview with Jason below.
Against Time and Death and The Worlds We Leave Behind are separate duet time-travel RPGs about rival agents rewriting history inspired by the Hugo Award winning book, This Is How You Lose the Time War.
👁️ The book is great material for a two-player game—both epic and personal. It will be interesting to compare how these two games explore the concept.
Caught in The Rain is a solo RPG system for creating investigative mysteries from gloomy noir to far-future sci-fi.
👁️ I’m intrigued by a solo mechanic that seeks to create mystery narratives with clues and false leads that unfold as you play.
, of the Lost Toad, wrote a great preview and interview with the designer. Check it out here.
The Traveller is a solo and GM-less RPG about an Earthling on a mission to investigate extrasolar planets, gather and share knowledge with a mandate to do no harm. The game explores what keeps a person together when they’re far from home.
👁️ Sci-fi worldbuilding and exploration is my jam!
Catcrawl is an exploration game for 1-4 players about a cat in a new home. The exploration can be curious and cute or chaotic and destructive.
👁️ This hexcrawl for a cat comes with an apartment map to explore and paper cut and fold minis. Also, my daughter’s cat is moving to a new home—so this is personal!
Tail-end Charlie is a solo game about the contrast between the dangerous life of a WWII tail gunner and the normality of pubs, cinema, and girls between missions.
👁️ The game’s playing card mechanics help build relationships with crew and romantic partners, but the chance of survival in the game is about 50/50—similar to what it was for a bomber tail gunner during the war.
A Perfect Rock is a GM-less worldbuilding adventure game for 1-4 players about searching for a new planet to call home.
👁️ You build planets using real rocks that you’ve collected!
O Patron Mine is a prompt-based solo RPG about a regular person, their encounter with a powerful entity, and the contract they enter into. The prompts, inspired by tarot’s Major Arcana, shape the who, where, and what of the encounter between the player and patron.
👁️ Lots of potential replayability with 66 prompts for determining patrons, meetings details, and contract terms.
Realms: Etria is a solo and GM-less RPG that blends storytelling and strategy. Players generate scenes using a chapter-based system, then arrange them into a narrative before playing through them with dice-driven challenges.
👁️ The flexible chapter system combined with dice challenges is intriguing.
3. Jason Price Interview
Jason Price is an ENNIE and IGDN-nominated writer and game designer from Southampton, UK. He runs Always Checkers Publishing and focuses on solo and GM-less TTRPGs including one of my favorites, Notorious. Jason has a new game launching during Zine Quest.
Why is Zine Quest important for indie RPG creators?
In my experience, it’s a great event to jump in as a first-time creator—my first game, A Complicated Profession was written for Zine Quest 3 back in 2021! I’m always drawn in by the supportive community and how exciting it is to see what others are making. Having a date to work towards each year really helps to focus your mind too.
What makes it the right event to launch Heavy Weighs the Crown?
It’s a staple-bound, DL-sized zine, with an interesting pitch and no frills. In my opinion, it perfectly fits the ethos of Zine Quest—small, weird, fun, affordable.
For fans of Notorious, what will feel familiar in this game?
Notorious has been praised for how easy it is to navigate and play, even for beginners. I hope Heavy Weighs the Crown is similarly accessible, with a theme that most people interested in RPGs would be familiar with (ruined realms, fantasy monarchs, magical items). Torben’s rad art style is also instantly recognisable. [Editor's Note: Torben created the cover art for The Soloist.]
What’s different?
Notorious uses two D6 dice to resolve actions, with prompts for optional journalling. Heavy Weighs the Crown is a pure journalling game where you'll answer questions to build a short story of your fantasy realm—either alone or as a world-building exercise with your RPG group.
This is a colab with Jack Harrison—how has that shaped the game?
Heavy Weighs the Crown is based on two of Jack’s other games, Artefact and Bucket of Bolts (both Zine Quest alumni!) so it’s been useful to bounce ideas off him and figure out how it could work. We've also recently been co-writing card-based versions of both games for the Lost & Found collection, so we’re neck-deep in this system.
4. Follow Zine Month Creators on Bluesky
Over 60 Zine Month creators opted into the Bluesky “starter pack.” You can use this to pick all or some of the creators you want to follow and hear directly from them. You can also follow the list seperately.
5. The Soloist’s SOLO BORG Coming to Zine Quest
I will be launching the Kickstarter campaign for SOLO BORG during Zine Quest 2025. It’s a 46-page standalone game based on and compatible with the award-winning MÖRK BORG RPG. SOLO BORG will work as a complete single-player RPG on its own, but its systems and generation tables will supplement MÖRK BORG and other games.
What Will Be Inside?
An Intro to Playing Solo RPGs to teach the fundamentals
Worldbuilding Tools to create a unique setting
Quest Generators to provide purpose for your adventuring
Oracles to inspire story elements and add unexpected twists
NPC and Companion Behavior rules to develop unpredictable allies and foes
Random Encounters and Challenges designed specifically for solo play
Mysteries and Veils system to keep your games surprising and challenging
And more!
Follow SOLO BORG on Kickstarter to be notified when the campaign goes live.
I'm curious to learn more about MÖRK BORG. Very cool.
Can't wait for the Solo Borg kickstarter! Very nice writeup about Zine Month 2025. So many cool products to start the year off right!