10 New Solo RPGs & "Micro May" Games
In this issue: We’ve got Army Rangers facing down dragons, a serial necromancer, and eldritch ballet. Plus solo-friendly Micro May card games and a few Substack picks.
1. New Solo Releases
🏰 Forgotten Ruin: Adventure Wargame - Modern soldiers vs. ancient magic. Based on the Forgotten Ruin novels and powered by the solo Five X system (Five Leagues, Five Parsecs), this miniatures wargame lets you command a squad of US Army Rangers stranded in a fantasy world of orcs, dragons, and dark magic. Like other Five X games, your squad will fight through randomized missions, battle enemies controlled by the rules, and evolve over time with new loot, skills, and powers. Available now as PDF or hardback.
🪓 Bloody and Alone in Appalachia - A solo survival horror RPG set in the eerie hills of Eastern Kentucky. You play a lost city dweller who’s wandered into the wrong Appalachian town. Built on the Wretched & Alone system and adapted from the multiplayer RPG Bloody Appalachia. Available in PDF or print-on-demand from DriveThruRPG.
⛈️ Before the Storm - It’s just minutes before a high-stakes mission—an infiltration, assassination, or heist. Card-driven prompts guide you through what your character sees, hears, thinks, and feels in the moments before the action. Before the Storm, designed by Soloist favorite
, has an interesting poker-like mechanic where you place cards on a grid to build the strongest hand possible. That final hand determines your character’s mindset in the last second before action.🩸 Blood in the Margins - The creator of The Wretched,
, has a new solo game of personal secrets and denial. In Blood in the Margins, you’re a gifted student at a prestigious academy—brilliant, ambitious, and now complicit in a murder. Built on an evolved version of Chris’ own Wretched & Alone system, the game uses cards, dice, and tokens to track the investigation closing in on you. Available now on itch.io.🩰 Pirouette - A solo horror RPG about a ballet dancer performing for an amorphous eldritch horror. Each move in your routine brings you closer to exhaustion, injury, and making a costly mistake. Played with a tarot deck and a block tower. Available on itch.io on its own or as part of the Bringing Down the House bundle.
🏗️ Let us Build a Tower - While it’s designed as a standard GM-led RPG, Let Us Build a Tower is a nice fit for solo players who like OSR systems and don’t mind a bit of DIY hacking. Set in a fantasy Bronze Age world, players attempt to ascend the Tower to Heaven—a structure reshaped by divine chaos every time it’s entered. It’s that random mega-dungeon generation, matched with flavorful room descriptions and encounters, that look fun for solo play.
2. Solo RPGs Crowdfunding in May
🌲 The Balsam Lake Unmurders - A serial necromancer is raising the dead in a quiet Minnesota town, and it’s your job to track them down in Paul Czege’s (The Ink That Bleeds, Inscapes) new solo journaling game. Unmurders uses a standard playing card deck to drive play. Each card corresponds to a prompt that guides what you write: a conversation with a suspect, a clue about the necromantic method used, or time spent reflecting on the case. Hearts, diamonds, and clubs represent victims, suspects, and other townspeople; spades track your progress piecing together motive, method, and opportunity. A limited number of printed copies will ship as soon as funding clears. Kickstarter is live now.
😱 Liminal Grimoire - One of my favorite Substack writers,
, has a collection of five pamphlet supplements for the modern horror RPG, Liminal Horror. The Liminal Grimoire includes multiple adventures as well as a solo-play toolset. You can also get, as an add-on, a five book bundle of M. Allen Hall’s solo RPGs. Live on Backerkit now.
❄️ Morkin: The Lords of Midnight Solo Adventure Game - A massive solo RPG based on The Lords of Midnight, a cult-favorite computer game from 1984. In this version, you are Morkin, a half-fey hero on a 30-day journey to stop an unnatural winter. The 290-page book includes character creation, exploration across a hex map, dynamic weather, travel mechanics, dungeon delves, and over 170 events and quests. You’ll upgrade Morkin’s stats and skills, manage hunger and fatigue, and battle enemies in tactical combat. Available as a PDF with at-cost print options, or as a limited-edition book. Kickstarter is live now.
On My Radar: Sin Eater - Inspired by the old ritual of consuming a dead person’s sins to cleanse their soul, this solo journaling game has you judge the life of the deceased. I’m excited by what I’ve seen so far and looking forward to playing. Kickstarting soon.
3. Solo Card Games of Micro May
Micro May is Kickstarter’s open call for game designers who want to launch small-scale tabletop games. You can browse all games launching during the event here. I’ve picked out a few that might interest solo players.
🎣 Shallow Regrets - A fishing game where you collect a progressively horrible haul of sea monsters. It’s a Button Shy wallet game version of Judson Cowan’s Deep Regrets and comes with no extra components and packaged in a vinyl wallet. While it’s built for 2 to 3 players, Shallow Regrets comes with a solo expansion where you play against Frod, a simulated opponent.
👸 Cinderella at Midnight - In this solo card game you draw and place cards to create a maze Cinderella must explore to complete her tasks, avoid her step-family, and attend the ball before midnight. The game is beautifully illustrated by the game’s designer.
🐉 In the Blink of a Dragon’s Eye - A fantasy novella where each chapter comes with its own mini-RPG. The story is set on a world where every person is born with a connection to a natural element—fire, water, air, stone—and follows a human and a dragon who form an unexpected bond. The story lays the foundation for a larger setting, Harbor of Blight, planned for future games and books. The RPGs are one-page, rules-light, and playable with just two six-sided dice.
📜 Hieroglyph Historian - In this 18 card solo game, you create words to collect parchments and decipher Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It’s a mashup of games like Scrabble, Wordle, and Paperback Adventures.
4. Last Roll 🎲
I can’t keep up with all of the new RPG Substacks in my feed, but damn, there is some great content! Here are a few posts that stood out to me recently:
I think you manage to cover a lot with how much is being released now. Some people also don't really make it clear they are solo compatable sometimes. Example? Tiny Cyberpunk delivered digitally recently and there was a whole hefty section in the back with guidence and everything- and it wasn't even advertised in the kickstarter!
There are so many cool things out nowadays, it's hard to keep track of everything. Thanks for the write up - and the shout!