itch.io

There should be POD copies available on RPG-Trader soon. I just want to quality check them first.

It was written to be played with a GM in a small group, but I know that people have played it solo. If you don't read ahead and take the dungeon as it comes, it's workable but I suspect it would be very difficult for a single character to progress that far. Brad at Split/Party wrote up a piece about it from a solo perspective if that helps: https://splitparty.substack.com/p/cheating-death

Oh, not the page I expected. Thank you.

Oh, I thought I fixed that. The character sheet version should be correct.

I'm not quite sure how yet, but yes. I will have some excess stock after the crowdfunding fulfillment, mostly of the premium hardback. I might also set up a print-on-demand version if I can't figure out a better long term solution.

If you're taking it in turns and using the grid map, then you should use the movement rules. This is typically going to be most of the rooms that are not safe locations. However, if for some reason you are exploring a large space with no risk of danger and no other time pressures, then I would be inclined to narrate exploration more like a safe location and not worry about it.

Within the fiction of the rules, Samantha would just assume that you follow them exactly as written and treat it as a combat-centric tactical dungeon crawl. Whereas Charlotte would prefer that you discuss things like this, using the precedent of examples like the safe locations, and switch to threatre of the mind when it's more appropriate and makes gameplay smoother. In the same way, despite the lack of explicit rules/skills for doing so, Charlotte would be disappointed if you never attempted to resolve any situations non-violently, and would not have included the hierarchy of needs and linguistic/cultural alignment for every monster if she had wanted them all thoughtlessly murdered.

I am sorry in advance.

It is. However, I fear that it is quite difficult and that there might not be enough ciphered text to work with. A few people on the Dice Exploder discord server spent a good few hours trying to solve it and haven't managed yet.

Sorry it took a little longer than I anticipated. It happened for a few reasons, but I think the finished thing is better for that. Do you have a favourite part?

Ah, thank you. There's a part of me that always feels bad about making people cry, even though I was definitely trying to do that in places.

Funnily enough, The Goblin Was Evil was actually the first piece of writing that I did for the game. In a way, everything else kind of grew up around it.

Thanks for the message!

1. I'm in the editing phase at the moment, so hopefully we'll catch anything like that, but yes, that should be an until end of the round not turn ability. Anything that's reactionary should be a bit more clearly stated. Thanks for spotting it though, I know there's a few little things like that here and there.

2. That's an interesting question and it sort of came up recently between myself and my editor when we were discussing how Charlotte would run the game as opposed to how Samantha would, because I think they would approach it very differently. I think the answer there is really 'either'. You can play it as a linear dungeon crawl as written, or use the provided rooms and bosses as something of a starting point to expand the labyrinth into something bigger or different. For example, the route down is left intentionally unexplored.

Thanks, I really enjoyed creating all of those bits and trying to tie them into the themes.

You can download the preview for free here.

Thank you

There will be ~3 more classes, ~4 more dungeon floors, some additional essays and components of metanarrative and perhaps a couple of other additions depending on how they work out. I'd estimate probably about 50 more pages in total, mostly towards the current 'end' but with some inserted into earlier parts.

My opinion is that the current version gives a pretty 'complete' experience in itself, but the final version will have more.

Thank you.

Haha, thanks, that was really the goal of the mechanics! It's great to get a bit of feedback on how things actually work before finalising it though. The headhunter has already had one fairly hefty balance pass prior to release here, but that just based on my own testing with a few friends.

Thank you so much!

Thanks! I think ultimately I wasn't overly concerned with balance, as such, as long as each class was fun and interesting in its own way. However, I will definitely be doing a bit if fine tuning before final release. I would agree that right now the Mercenary is lagging the others a bit.

Thanks!

Thanks, I'll have a look into it. I'm aware of some export problems with the current pdf, but I'm locked from making changes here until the queer horror game jam gets judged.

I take that as incredibly high praise. Love that thing.

It's absolutely okay to say that and actually I'm inclined to agree with you. However, the thought motivated me to want to create something that was designed from the ground up with that in mind.

Thanks! Honestly, it's a thing of many pieces (which is probably an obvious statement). I think I described it in a devblog as something like the stitched together and reanimated corpses of every dead and discarded idea I ever had. The core structural framework was something that came to me just over a year ago, though, while I was standing behind my table at a local con during a quiet moment pondering about the paradox of largely unplayed but still beloved indie games.

Thanks! I just stubbornly made the thing that I wanted to make without any concern for what conventions would dictate, except in those moments where I felt compelled to criticise those conventions. I'm already a bit shocked by the incredibly kind comments it has received from yourself and others. I don't think I ever really expected to be able to get people to understand it or even look at it. I still have no real idea of how to really explain what it actually is to people.

There's also a photograph from the perspective of someone walking across the real bridge in the background of the page, although it's a bit hard to make out in the pdf.

Thanks. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the sudden surge of positive feedback. I'm the kind of person who mostly stays out of online discourse and I shut myself away while I'm writing, so there were a lot of times while creating this where I wondered whether the quality of my prose was sufficient to tell the story I wanted to tell, or whether anyone would even invest the time to understand it.

I wasn't sure if it was too on the nose, but I was too happy cackling to myself when Samantha is going all 'I usually put my inspirations here, but I don't actually know what inspired this' as the text layout directly references House of Leaves in a way that's hopefully unmistakable to anyone who's read it.

Thanks! I was kind of hoping that eventually someone might look into the fonts.

Samantha voice - Courier New, regular - This was a nod to House of Leaves, where Courier, meaning messenger, is Johnny Traunt's font.

Charlotte voice - BookmanJFPro, roman - 'Bookman' is an archaic term for someone with a love of books and reading.

Eve Conran voice - New Spirit, medium - This was a bit of a pun as she occasionally haunts the text. It's also difficult to distinguish from Bookman at first glance.

KC, the editor - Apparat, regular - This is a bit more tenuous, as the word evokes the machinery of the state, but they effectively play the role of the faceless common consensus prodding Samantha towards convention.

Elizabeth (hey, that's me!) - BookmanJFPro, roman - Reused font? Probably just a coincidence. Maybe the author got lazy.

Main rules text - Komet, regular - I just like it as a fairly classical looking sans-serif.

Main subheading text - OptimusPrincepsSemiBold, regular - It's the closest thing you can readily get to the Dark Souls 'You Died' font, so that doesn't really need further explanation.

Section heading text - GothicI, regular - It's just a fairly readable gothic font that's unusually frail in way which made it appealing.

Class fonts: (I won't comment on these as they were mostly just chosen for aesthetic reasons)

Muzeiiyd Mercenary - Rotunda Veneta, regular

Zirbari Headhunter - Bradley DJR, regular

Corpse Engineer - Chiller, regular

Blight Channeler - SchwarzKopf, new

Bermail Knight - BC Rebecca, grim

There are other fonts in this place, but those are all of the main ones.

I'll hit you up about Gamefound later! Regarding page 147, you're absolutely right in it being Samantha's biggest L and all of the little details you picked out. The part that makes it important to me is its connection to page 8.

Thanks. Yeah, my brief brushes with crowdfunding in general have been a very mixed bag and this is such a niche thing, but we'll see. I really hate marketing and the unfortunate necessity of it when it comes to putting art in front of people.

I'm also curious, if you don't mind me asking, what it was about page 147 that made it click for you? I consider it to be an important page, personally, but it's also relatively mundane compared to some of the other parts to the point that I thought people might gloss over it.

Thank you so much! Regarding physical copies, it recently got selected as one of the winners for Gamefound's 2025 RPG Party, so there will be a Gamefound campaign in August to crowdfund a physical print run.

I love how clean the layout is

Thanks! I can only take credit for the minis a few of the internal pieces. I was lucky enough to find some really talented artists to bring my vision to life.