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Arcane Sword Press | Ham & Egg Publishing | Horse Shark Games | Solarian Games

Horse Shark Games

What is Netcrawl RPG?

Netcrawl is a TTRPG about adventuring inside a computer system. Everyone goes in, seconds pass in the meatspace as players spend hours conquering a cyber-dungeon –together.

Netcrawl RPG is inspired by Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG by Goodman Games. It can be used as a standalone game or as a cyber-sidecar to your current game. Simpler d20 gameplay and cool game mechanics like Luck and spell result tables are just some of the beats Netcrawl has borrowed from DCC RPG.

Reducing computer system hacking/raiding into a series of specialist character class skill rolls is a missed opportunity. Netcrawl RPG puts players inside the computer to face whatever digital defenses lie inside, protecting the party’s objective. 

Netcrawl is centered around cyberspace and players adventuring in cyberspace. Players guide their avatars to sabotage digital systems, steal money, gain access to systems, acquire knowledge and/or information, etc. 

The matrix, cyberspace, the WorldNet is mankind’s shared, consensual hallucination. A pinnacle achievement of machine-generated virtual reality (VR) environments is available to all. Avatars give their users superlative access and control to the myriad of simulations available within.

The WorldNet might have been created now, or a hundred years ago, or even 10,000 years ago. The computational forces and AIs that run the WorldNet’s simulations may (or may not) be cognizant of when they were set to the task of providing billions of realities to its users.

Most users seem perfectly content to experience their every desire or wallow in their woes. Are not the infinities of imagination enough for you? No, not for you. You and others like you keep asking, “Why?” Are you really ready to find out?

Something is hidden in the virtual realms, and you shall hack it.

Two Worlds

Implicit in a VR RPG like Netcrawl is the notion of reality. Netcrawl does not have an explicit “real world” setting. Netcrawl could be set within a myriad of sci-fi/modern RPGs, from space horror to post-apocalyptic to cyberpunk to spy adventures. Any game that includes computers is a perfect real-world setting for Netcrawl RPG. Alternatively, there may be little or no notion of reality in a Netcrawl campaign.

Ham & Egg Publishing

ZIMO L.A.M.F.

Ahoy! 

Hambone here, and this week I wanted to bend your ear about some of the projects I’m most looking forward to during Zine Month (A.K.A. ZIMO). 

For those unfamiliar, in February of 2019, Kickstarter launched Zine Quest, a month-long event meant to encourage independent creators to create and fund RPG zines on its service. In February of 2022, ZIMO was founded as a fully independent offshoot of Kickstarter’s Zine Quest with a community-based focus on crowdfunding indie TTRPGs. 

This decentralization was seen as a move toward greater equity and accessibility for all. So now, if there is a service that accepts payments (BackerKit, Gamefound, itch.io, just to name a few), you can find folks trying to fund their zines. 

So this week, I wanted to take a moment to shout out some creators I am a huge fan of and the projects they are currently crowdfunding. 

Leading off this week’s column is Zog. Zog first hit my radar with their instant classic, BLACKOUT in Crater Valley, a VHS-era Slasher RPG for DCC RPG. I had an absolute blast playing the adventure, and, in my opinion, it is still a high-water mark for DCC products.

So when Zog hit me up about the follow-up, Return to Crater Valley: Secrets of the Mask, I was all in. Here is the synopsis. 

Return to Crater Valley is the long-awaited sequel to BLACKOUT in Crater Valley, a VHS era slasher RPG powered by the Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game system. Inspired by VHS era slasher films, 80’s and 90’s nostalgia, DIY music subculture, and Cthulhu Mythos horror utilizing the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG system, but easily adaptable to the Old School RPG system of your choice.

This adventure takes place a decade after the original, on Halloween night in 199X. A young boy has gone missing from a mysterious video arcade tournament, and the players must navigate marauding rollerblade gangs, lycra-clad aerobics cultists, possessed urban vermin, and a virtual reality nightmare world to find Troy before it’s too late! 

Return to Crater Valley: Secrets of the Mask is a 0-level funnel where players control a group of teenage misfits that will be whittled down as the events of the adventure become more deadly. The final survivors will have to pass the final test: plugging themselves into a virtual reality fantasy world where anything can happen, but it’s no simple game: the violence is real! 

This adventure has been designed to feel consistent with horror and sci-fi films from the 1980’s and 90’s, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Return of the Living Dead, Sleep Away Camp, Pumpkinhead, Lawnmower Man, Flatliners, and classic VHS era adventures like The Goonies and Back to the Future. Character creation also plays heavily on tropes common in these and other teen drama films of the era, such as “Jock”, “Cheerleader”, “Goth”, “Young Republican”, and “Juvenile Delinquent”.  Players will roll archetypes like these from a unique d50 table of possible occupations and throw their teenage misfits against the dangers that await them. 

Return to Crater Valley launches February 13th, 2026. Back the prelaunch today and don’t miss out! 

Next up, I’ve got Dungeon Death:16-Bit rules for Shadowdark by Josh Yoder. The concept is incredibe. You play a group of ragtag ’90s teens trapped inside a deadly fantasy video game, fighting to survive, and searching for a way home! 

This Shadowdark 3rd-party zine is inspired by Jumanji, Tron, isekai anime/manga, and LitRPGs, with art by the legendary Tiger Wizard. 

Here is the synopsis:

Art by Tiger Wizard

Dungeon Death features new classes, ancestries, and backgrounds, as well as a new mode called GAME OVER. Can you use your 3 lives wisely?

Best of all, the book is DONE. They just need to raise money to print it. 

You can learn more and back Dungeon Death here.

Arcane Sword Press

Magazine Madness: Reader Choice Poll!!

So I’ve been having fun reading some old gaming magazines during the rise of the tabletop hobby into the mainstream. The only publications I have focused on so far are ones I was already familiar with. I’m sort of stuck trying to determine where to go next, so that is where you, dear reader, enter the fray! I have compiled a list of some notable gaming magazines that i’m considering diving into but I need help deciding! What makes this list different from the prior ones is that I have extremely limited familiarity with and are essentially blind-spots to me within the history of the hobby. Thai also means I have NO IDEA what i’m getting myself into with any of these! The list of potential magazines are:

• Ares Magazine: RPG and Wargaming magazine published by SPI

• Adventurer: A mid-late 80s full color UK publication from Mersey Leisure Publishing that seems to put White Dwarf to shame!

• The General: A Chit-and-hex wargaming magazine published by Avalon Hill

• Imagine: TSR UK’s answer to The Dragon!

• Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A general RPG magazine by Flying Buffalo, featuring Grimtooth!

• Duellist: Magic The Gathering and other TCG magazine published by Wizards of the Coast

• Dungeon: A dungeon master-focused magazine by TSR

• Challenge: Game Design’s Workshop continuation from The Journal of the Travellers Aid Society but expanded to GDW’s other games such as Dark Conspiracy and Twilight: 2000

• Adventure Gaming: An early gaming magazine by Manzakk Publishing that was edited by the legendary Tim Kask (RIP!)

So to see the direction that readers would like me to focus on, I made a poll to determine my NEXT overview. In the survey you can choose 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most interested magazines along with a least interested choice. From there I will determine the order of the next round of Magazine Madness! Please fill out the survey here!

• Bryan

Solarian Games

ModCon is coming May 30th

Game submissions are open now, and badges are on sale for the first ever ModCon. It’s happening May 30th at the beautiful Smith College Conference Center in Northampton, MA. ModCon is a one-day convention dedicated to the modern-era genre of TTRPGs. 

That includes games like…

321 RPG • Call of Cthulhu • World of Darkness • Cyberpunk • Shadowrun • Marvel Super Heroes Mutants & Masterminds • Delta Green • Savage Worlds • Burn 2d6 • Apocalypse World • Masks Dresden Files • Night’s Black Agents • Twilight 2000 • Kids on Bikes • Troy City Mysteries • Tales from the Loop • Outgunned • Top Secret • Fiasco • Triangle Agency Weird Wars • Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland • Weird Heroes of Public Access

It’s going to be a great day of gaming, dedicated to all kinds of settings in the 20th and 21st centuries, in worlds both like our own and very, very different. Sign up below and we’ll see you there!

Judging begins this week for the 2nd annual Golden Fez awards

The 2nd annual Golden Fez awards for excellence in tabletop gaming will be presented at TotalCon this year on February 21st. 

Judging begins this weekend, so there’s still time to get any last-minute nominations in, whether it’s your own game or someone else’s that you happen to love.

The categories are:

• The Holy Hand Grenade Award

  • Given for best new game mechanic.

• The Pick Up and Play Award

  • Easiest game to learn.

• Honey, I Shrunk the Dice Award

  • For micro-RPGs that will fit on one page or less.

• The Velvet Smooth Award

  • For best design and production.
• The Everlasting Fun Factory Award
  • This award is given to a game that was published prior to the current judging year. It is for the enduring classics as well as the hidden gems from the past.

• The Hack the Planet Award

  • Presented to the most unexpected idea. Originality in any form, whether it’s rules, setting, design, or anything else.

• The Bucket of Blood Award

  • Best combat rules
• The Golden Fez Game of the Year
  • Game of the Year is given to the one game published this year that we feel best embodies all of the things about gaming that James loved

Submit your nomination at the link below.

Your editor this week has been John Hambone McGuire of Ham & Egg Publishing.

Keep on emailing us at hello@analogunion.com to let us know what you’d like to see more of, less of, or just ideas you’ve got.

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See you next week!

-JHM