With the most recent release of 'Alone Together,' I made the decision to remove the option for 'Pay What You Want.' The main reasoning behind the decision was me wanting to remove any hesitation someone might have about accessing our resources. I know most people will see the zine and download it for free (the metrics prove this), but there are people out there who won't take something for nothing if there is an option to pay. And right now money is tight for everyone.

It felt as if I was at a crossroads and making a decision that would shape the culture of the zine moving forward. Not accepting money can make it hard to, well, make money doing this. But as a reddit user recently reminded me, we need to hold everything to our values and vision and see what burns away. My vision is to offer top-tier solo advice for everyone. If even a small handful of people are missing out on that then I am missing the mark.

So, lets get rid of that pesky 'pay what you want' option.

Now don't get me wrong, I love money. My dream is to pay other writers to play games and write for this zine and that won't happen without some money coming in. My current plan is to keep growing this zine's subscriber count until I can offer advertisement space to indie publishers. I would love to have custom human-drawn full-page artwork in the zine, like in the style of old comic book advertisements, that display some of the hot new solo products and crowdfunds coming up.

Projects, Issues, and Playthroughs

Work has become very slow on the samurai drama, but that is due to some hard design decisions being made. Currently, I am trying to decide if the combat and injury system needs to be reworked and whether items should stay in the game. Since this is meant to be a very minimalist product I am most likely going to be cutting some features from it and need to determine how that will affect the gameplay experience.

Work has begun in earnest on polishing April's issue and beginning May's. I am very excited about May because I was able to play one of my all-time favorite games, Legend of the Five Rings. I played through a gm-less duet version of Curse of the One and it was amazing. In addition, the zine is featuring some new template changes and new layouts as I get a bit more familiar with Canva.

Mausritter has captured my attention and I am planning to prepare a sandbox, open-world play-through and write a review of the system. Everything about the game excites me and as a longtime fan of Redwall I am looking forward to playing in a system that captures some of the same vibes.

May will also herald the shift from Sci Fi to a fantasy heavy theme. I am going to be reviewing games like Legend of the Five Rings, Warhammer Fantasy, Mausritter, and Forbidden Lands. I have been downloading, reading and prepping to review a whole slew of new fantasy resources such as dungeon generators and random tables. Overall, this month will be insanely busy, but oh so worth it in the end.