Backerkit’s Pocketopia event launches on 13th March, bringing 68 new tabletop games to crowdfunding in one short, three-week long event. And a lot of them – like, a disproportionate amount, considering it is spring and the sun is shining and EVERYThING IS FINe IN GEOPOLITICS OH WAIT – 

Right. Reset. An unsurprising number of Pocketopia games are horror, because we all need some goddamn catharsis right now. The event promises everything from dark academia, to folk horror, to gore-splattered action. There are solo TTRPGs, group TTRPGs, and card games for the discerning fear-enjoyer. Here, without further ado, is a sample of them – think of them like shining white spurs of bone jutting up from the rich dirt: there’s more where these came from.

Blackthorn

First up, Blackthorn from Spicy Tuna RPG tells pulp horror stories that will not always end well. It's not a game where player characters are destined to be the heroes, but rather one about the highs and lows characters experience when confronted with a seemingly insurmountable terror.

It’s quick to learn, quick to play, and full of advice on how to build and apply tension throughout the whole game experience. Blackthorn comes with a ready to play scenario so you can dive right into the action.

Blood in the Margins

Chris Bissette, creator of The Wretched, is releasing a dark-academia solo game for fans of The Secret History, If We Were Villains, and The Maidens. Gameplay is sort of The Wretched 2.0, with new mechanics and probing little needles to tease out even richer stories from the prompt-based journaling.

As well as a beautifully-designed game, backers get a short story in a limited edition chapbook. As part of a cross-collaboration with Hatched Games’ GAST (a collection of solo TTRPGs), backers who support both projects will get a pair of illustrated bookplates for their new purchases.

Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG

Do you like DanganRonpa? Squid Game? Great, this one’s for you. 

Double Summon Games’ new group TTRPG casts you and your friends as the masterminds behind a death game. Embody narrative forces like "The Massacre's Edge" or "The Traitor's Sabotage", passing control of the narrative between each other and guiding the actions of characters to achieve your unique goals and decide who lives and who dies.

Despair Dilemma has a community copy drive for their first 48 hours, so this is one to back early.

Disposable Bags of Meat

Ex Stasis Games, who you almost definitely don’t know but who’ve been quietly making horror games since 2020, are offering you Disposable Bags of Meat – Meatbags to its friends. Meatbags is an action-horror TTRPG where you’ll decide how to ration out your characters’ dwindling supplies of Luck and Grit in the hopes some of them will survive the story. At least one of them will. You don’t have to outrun the monster, as they say, you just have to outrun your slowest friend.

There aren’t many TTRPGs where you can survive by sheer spite, but that’s kind of what we’re doing here.

GAST

GAST, from Hatchling Games’ new horror imprint Hatched Games, is an entire collection of zines. Each one is a separate folk horror tale using the Carta system by Peach Garden Games. With a different writer for each game (and guest writer Gabriel Robinson – Token – for the deluxe version), each one will adapt, interpret, and rework Carta in a different way.

This is just Season One of GAST: future collections will use other solo game systems to tell similarly juicy and disturbing horror stories. Funding Season One also means a game jam on itch.io, with slots in the finished collection for the winners.

Survivor Sorority

Eerie Games’ Survivor Sorority is a tarot-based TTRPG in which you play Final Girls who survived their would-be killers and are back to exact bloody, satisfying revenge. Eerie have made three entire game modes for Survivor Sorority: solo, GM-led, and GM-less, so however you play there’s a version for you. They come in conveniently portable separate books, too, in keeping with Pocketopia’s “pocket-sized” ethos.

You can also, if you so desire, have your portrait included in the game’s custom tarot deck.

Finally, Eerie and Ex Stasis Games are teaming up to create an exclusive scenario for backers of both games. Carnival Obscura provides two chapters of circus-themed horror, the first for Meatbags and the second for Survivor Sorority.

More!

These are fewer than half the horror games launching for Pocketopia. If I weren’t a self-respecting horror writer who knows a cliche when he sees one, I would describe it as a banquet of dark delights. But I am, so it’s probably best if you browse the Pocketopia collection and come up with your own motif.