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This is rad. I really like that you've set up this wider world in a good amount of detail, but the core of the module zooms in really closely into the encounter at the top of the tower - a single event that will have significant consequences. That mix of scale is really cool and gives the tower encounter a lot of weight.

Also the visual presentation - the mix of art styles and the paper minis in particular are really charming and I love that you've presented this as a physical object first and foremost.

Party on dudes!

Thank you so much, this is such a kind and thoughtful review! 

I did indeed walk away initially when I saw my assigned title, but ended up seeing a gnarly looking cat sleeping on my neighbour's car and it all sort of fell together.

Thanks so much for reading and for such considered feedback! 

I've been kicking myself since submitting the adventure that I didn't include a sick-ass jump at the end to get onto the roof of the sanctum or something.

Dude hell yeah. This goes so hard. Love the drama of the setup on the first page and the counterbalance of Ugzor the Hater just being a chill asshole, minding his own business. Perfect balance between high stakes and committing to having a bit of fun with it. 

The gull cartel I think are really key to this working - grounding the whole adventure in the bad actions of a more grounded idea (tomb robbers unearth something they shouldn't) and provides tangible group of antagonists for the first half of the adventure. It's really sticky, gives something for the party to get to grips with before things escalate to the astral realm and the star crystal prison and the mega spliff.

Visually great too - I can smell the paper.

"One plucky spoon has dug a tunnel to the city outside." is maybe my favourite sentence I've read so far this jam. 

This is rad - there's so much here, the writing implies a huge world beyond the scope of the module and it really brings everything to life.

Really nice. The layout, the writing, the premise - so much care and thought has gone into this and it really sings. An immersive experience and a tightly wound machine of a scenario.

This is hella wormy.

I love a module with a neat little concept that it really indulges in, and this is exactly that. Super playable, funny without trying too hard, everything fits together really well. It's good! I like it.

Fun and funny, and lots of fun easter eggs for those of us who have read the original book.

This is raaaaaaaad. Rad as all hell. Hella good. It's killer.

Great scenario, beautiful visuals, real sense of (a very strange) place. 

This is more or less perfect. The adventure itself is everything it needs to be and the balance between warm, cold, gross, clinical, comes across so well in the writing and the art and just the momentum of the thing. 

Also - standing on the shoulder and seeing three more in the distance? Absolutely wonderful.

Impressive how efficiently this is laid out whilst still feeling packed with content and... sort of luxurious to read in how polished it is. The locations are distinct and detailed and on theme, but nothing feels cramped or compressed to fit the space. It reads really well and feels ready to play, and doesn't feel like any compromises had to be made to fit the space limitations or other constraints of the jam. Also the use of lightning is cool and fun. 

And the art! Look at that cover! Deserved a whole page and got it. 

I love entries like this that take the title in a different direction to what was probably the "intended" interpretation, but execute it well enough that it feels like the title was made bespoke for this particular module. Are we the crypt crawlers, exploring the crypts of Mictlan? Of course not! We are EXPLORING inside the crypt crawlers, who work for Mictlan. Of course!

The descriptions are really well done - the NPCs in particular are presented with slightly more prose than the rooms, but it works - nothing is wasted, everything is very readable. The actual dungeon layout is also very good. You had me at "left anus" and "right anus", which I'm sure is limacologically accurate anatomy, but they're also really well placed dungeon exits (and, perhaps, entrances...) relative to the rest of the layout.

Also that's a really really nice green.

The contrast of the demonic and the mundane is so well executed and the little character details everyone gets brings them all to life and gives so much game to play with. 

Everything fits really nicely together - an NPC's missing item shows up in the hands of another, everyone is either sleeping with,  pining after, or (often justifiably) resentful of someone else in the office, and all the prisoners have some clear reason why the players might want to collaborate with them. The map is great - the use of colour nicely reinforces the contrast between the drab office and the demonic cast that inhabits it. 

Really good, really fun interpretation of the title, a unique entry that stands out by doing something unexpected and really committing to it. Also it's funny! Thats' good, we like that.

I can't praise the layout on the second page enough. I can see why one might take issue with the ordering of information - the page sort of needs to be engaged with as a whole to really work - but that's also why I like it so much. Once it clicks, everything is immediately where you need it to be to run the adventure and to visualise the rising water level that's so central to what's going on here. It's also just really satisfying to look at and read through - an example of great "visual design" without any art to speak of, but all done through tasteful use of colour, contrast, and layout that's as interesting to engage with as it is useable.

I love how the premise kept escalating. Of course the martian vampire count's alchemically-produced dinosaurs are also undead. I love how diligently the Count takes care of his pet raptor, the pile of unfinished marble statues, the fact that we find the alchemist rolling around because her body is round. It's great, really fun, really playable. 

An incredibly complete entry that packs so much in without feeling cramped or busy. I think my favourite thing about this actually is how restrained you were with the time mechanic - it's done really effectively with minimal fuss, focusing on a few key ideas to put across what's going on without overcomplicating anything. 

Every "hourglass symbol" entry in the dungeon key does just enough to communicate the time-shift very clearly, but also works well as a "gameable" scenario and builds up a consistent set of themes that give everything a nice emotional through line (hubris! loss! vengeance!). This all reads like it would come out naturally in play just by exploring the tower.

Another example I really liked - the needle giving the power to double/freeze time in a small area hits the sweet spot of feeling sufficiently powerful, but (probably? hopefully?) not being overly complex to actually adjudicate in play. 

Really neat, and a demonstration of how to do something as potentially fiddly as time travel in a really straightforward, gameable way.

Such a great idea, beautifully presented. So many clever little touches. A masterclass in how to commit to a focused concept.

STRONG! FAST! COOL!

Absolutely gorgeous, all of it, even the font. I love how overwhelmingly excited the whole thing is about wax and the heat mechanic and then unpacks this gnarly waxy toolbox for you to mess around with it. 

The font is difficult, but the information design is so smartly handled that it doesn't matter so much - like the first page telling you outright that players are going to need a way of accessing fire, and then the second page going "you know, like these kinda characters". Or the hint that hey, players might need to light a villager to survive, and then later the horrific "candled villagers" illustration both reminding you that you can do that, but also showing you why you probably don't want to unless you don't have another choice.

Also just throwing in the "you could also use wax in real life! maybe! if you want!" mechanic right at the very end is so awesome and casual, but fits perfectly with everything else. Ah man. This is so great.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

The King of Catland! Thank you for checking it out.

Hell yeah! Thank you for checking it out and for such a kind comment!

Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

Hell yeah! Thank you for the kind words - if you do run it let me know how it goes!

This comment absolutely made my day. I don't know what to say other than thank you so much!

Hey I really liked this! I think the basic idea is great, the characters are fun and it's nicely written with a really distinctive voice and clear prose.

 As others have said, I think some layout work would really make this sing! The art you have at the end is KILLER and fits the tone of the adventure so well - but it feels really disconnected just having it all at the end. I finished reading the module, saw the art and thought "woah, okay, hang on" and went back and read it again with a new appreciation for what you're doing here.

Yessss

• I love love love that this is orientated around such a strong central mechanic (the receiving and unloading of burdens). A powder keg of drama and conflict that ties everything else together. No need for any laboured contrivances or relationship webs or whatever - wind it up and let it rip.
• Each of the four ‘monsters’ plays a specific role that supports the above - and feels like it would be fun and straightforward to communicate this in play from their appearances and context clues
• The map is fire. Looks great and neatly does everything it needs to do to support running the thing.

The room descriptions pack so much flavour into so few words, but I had to read a few of them of them a couple of times to parse what’s actually being described. To my taste, the basement is perfect - set the scene, key point of interest, complication in the detail. Snappy. Others like the Sweat Room and Paradise Bound are evocative scenarios poetically described, but feel less digestible as room descriptions. 

I think this stands out more because all the moving parts - the burdens mechanic, sinking temple, the map, and the monsters - are all so clean and intuitively useable without sacrificing theme. Maybe that means you can get away with a little razzmatazz in the room descriptions. 

Either way, this is obviously a great piece of work. Committed to its core ideas, bold, fun to read, surely fun to play. One for the "to run" list.

I think you absolutely nailed the minimal hex descriptions and the dungeon map is really beautiful. I really like that the way you've interpreted the title is simultaneously an unexpected twist and also completely literal.

This is really, really good. Everything just feels so fleshed out and cohesive. Visual presentation is spot on, writing very evocative - a beautiful piece of work.

The various ways you’ve used the irradiated green colour in both the art and the text is such a nice touch - I can imagine seeing the green glow in the forest and it really communicates a lot of vibe and atmosphere in a very subtle way. Loved this.

Absolutely wonderful. A parallel universe of reference points and unfamiliar conventions.

You know, I concede that it’s not strictly a circle looking back at it, but it feels circle-esque, so I stand by my comment

I love the council concept, you give each of them so much character with minimal text, and something about arranging them in a little circle is so flavourful and charming. The Pilot is a great encounter waiting to happen too.

This sets out to do something really specific and completely nails it, which is awesome. 

Hell yeah - thank you for such a thoughtful, fair review. Expanded edition will come with a just chilling by the side of the road table,  d66 cosmic billboards, and a much longer road. 

(The header text thing was a mistake initially, but it felt like a fun production error that fit with what I was going for so I left it in)

Hell yeah! This is rad. I love the map, I love the red bees. The land sharks and blood mechanic really ties everything together well - the blood, ash, lice, rival pirates - it all feels like a situation waiting to explode.

It's a dungeon and a spider cult, as promised -  but there are loads of fun ideas in here that are really clever and keep it fresh. I love the cultist disguised as an abductee whose story immediately falls apart under any scrutiny or even mild observation of the surroundings. Things like that where players are very likely to overlook the obvious and then feel that any comeuppance is completely justified because the clues were so obvious in hindsight are so fun to play out. 

Really fun to read and just hang out with for a little bit. A cool concept brought together really well - the writing is really punchy, the art is great, and all the little visual touches in the presentation really make it sing.

There's a lot of emotion in this that I really like. As others have said below the mechanics are a bit tricky to parse. The curse die gives everything a real sense of momentum and growing threat, but I think just a tiny bit more info at the start about scouts, movement, etc. would really help. Great premise, really cool art, gets across the idea of feeling both lonely and desperate but also powerful and determined really well.