Tiny Library swaps your regular pack of playing cards for a deck of 50 micro RPGs
Stop, draw and roll.
Upcoming RPG collection Tiny Library looks to offer dozens of indie roleplaying games in a deck no bigger than a standard pack of cards.
Tiny Library brings together 50 original tabletop RPGs, with each of the games contained on a single double-sided card. Tiny Library curator Ash Hauenschild told Dicebreaker the games had been created by dozens of creators; none of the games have been previously published, with many designed specifically for the project.
Examples of the micro-RPGs in the deck include robotic sports game Mecha Football, a solo RPG inspired by Itsy Bitsy Spider that challenges the player to climb the water spout by rolling, Wallet Dungeons - which sees players creating a layout of rooms in a dungeon by arranging six-sided dice - and Flyers, a game from Partners designer Steve Dee that uses real business cards to tell the story of pilots embarking on their last bombing raid during a war, with players flicking the cards off the table to see if they survive.
Hauenschild said Tiny Library was partially inspired by the growing trend of business card RPGs on marketplaces such as Itch.io, with more and more designers stretching their creativity to create complete games that fit onto a single standard-size business card.
The Pleasure-not-Business RPG Jam hosted on Itch earlier this year saw hundreds of entries designed to squeeze onto a regular business card, including a pocket-sized character creator from Arc designer Momatoes, a Tamagotchi-inspired pet sim from Animon Story creator Zak Barouh and several entries that make a reappearance in Tiny Library’s lineup, such as shipwreck survival game Whaleship Essex and dictionary-powered adventure game Tiniest Wizard.
Tiny Library will launch on Kickstarter on August 31st. Hauenschild said that the number of RPGs included in the set may increase from 50 if the crowdfunding campaign is “wildly successful”.