PNP Friday for June 5, 2026 - What I love about 12 Years from Max Moon Games. Plus PNP news.
We look at the GM-less RPG for one or more players.
Welcome to Print & Play Friday! It’s June 5th and we’ve got a fresh batch of print and play news and games for your reading (and playing) pleasure.
Table of Contents
Main Feature: What I love about 12 Years from Max Moon Games
New Games This Week
Community Spotlight: Veselko Kelava shares Some Long/Epic Free PnP Games
Crowdfunding News (PNP Previews & Campaigns)
Where Are They Now?
What I love about Twelve Years from Max Moon Games
JASON GREENO // JUNE 5, 2026
About once a year I get the itch to play a dungeon crawl game. Sometimes, more rarely, I’ll play a roleplaying game. But usually I seek out a boardgame that simulates RPGs and can be played in a shorter time. The ideal scenario is when that boardgame doesn’t require a lot of setup or teardown. This is how I stumbled on Twelve Years — a solo (or multiplayer) roleplaying game that’s easy to get to the table and quickly scratches the itch of adventuring.
If you’ve ever played Dungeons & Dragons or a similar game, you more than likely have run into the problem of either lacking players, a gamemaster or time to actually play the game. What’s great about games like Twelve Years or Four Against Darkness is that you don’t need a Game Master or even fellow players.
In Twelve Years you are challenged with saving the world from the Lich King. It turns out that the prophecy requires you to return a magical crown to the aforementioned undead ruler, otherwise his army will rise and humanity will fall. You accomplish this daunting task by crossing the kingdom (hex map) and acquiring loot in underground dungeons (grid map).
Getting it to the Table
Right away you get to the fun part (or at least I think so) of generating your hero party. In this game though, you might be surprised to hear that there are only four hero archetypes (expansions offer more) which are not your typical heroes: Faeries, Hermits, Rogues and Giants make up the pool of random party members. You are then equipped with random weapons and loot. Then it’s off to exploring!
Hexploring
By rolling on tables you will reveal random terrain and encounters that will shape your overland adventure towards the Lich’s Castle. But the underlying message in the rules is that you might not want to rush to the castle too quickly, otherwise your heroes won’t have leveled up sufficiently or geared up enough to be a threat.
The Good, The Bad, and The Holy Crap
I’ve played Four Against Darkness and the comparison I would make here is that 4AD is best suited for players seeking more crunch and complexity at the cost of more rulebook referencing during gameplay. There’s more combat planning and resolution mechanics in 4AD but again at the cost of playtime.
With Twelve Years I was playing after 10 minutes and rarely had to re-check the rules. The trade-off here is that some rules are not clarified and there are no examples of gameplay so you sort of have to fudge things with fun in mind.
Combat is Quick
In Twelve Years all combat (heroes and monsters) is resolved in a single roll. Sometimes you’ll both take damage while other times only one side takes a beating. Your heroes weapons will matter, but if you don’t roll a HIT, then you’re out of luck. This system makes battles fly by quickly so you can scavenge for loot!
Ouch. It takes a Village.
This game is best approached from the mindset of a player expecting to envision stories befalling their heroes, and not getting too attached to those characters. The good news is that even when your party dies, you can note where they fell and send your next party to grab their fallen comrade’s loot! In this way, the game is more of a an ongoing adventure and not a solitary tale of one party.
This game has a lot of deadly enemies that will wipe your party with a few bad rolls. Zombies for example can bite you once, and turn that hero into an enemy. Cyclops cannot be attacked without befalling a curse (which KILLS the attacker in the following year of play). Traps can deal one-shot kills if you’re unprepared.
Final Thoughts
I had fun imagining the stories unfolding around Faisa and Fozo, Harklin the Hermit and Garth the Giant. Their adventure came to a deadly end, but their story lives on! I’m curious what the next adventuring party might stumble upon as they seek out the fate of their fallen heroes. Can they succeed where this first party failed? Or will the Lich King’s wrath bring the world to darkness when year twelve arrives?
Where to buy the game
Max Moon Games website offers the base game as well as expansions for more variety. You can grab them here.
Each week we share the new releases in the world of Print and Play. Here’s what’s new this week:
Dungeon Pages: Underboss - Ruinous Statue: The year-long set has been updated with the newest boss and dungeon. The Ruinous Statue sneaks up on the heroes with Ambush. The ability reduces Good Dice and then punishes heroes who end up in your crushing grasp. Link.
Publishers / designers submit your new PNP releases here: PNP Arcade Submission Form.
Veselko Kelava shares Some Long/Epic Free PnP Games
If you’re home this weekend and looking to keep yourself super busy (with playing games, instead of crafting them), check out this video from Veselko Kelava looking at some longer PNP games. The video includes: D100 Dungeon, Pocket Civ, Epic Solitaire Notebook Adventure, and Banzuke Shoushin along with links for each in the description.
Here are a few PNP-related crowdfunding campaigns that we thought you might find interesting:
Flock and Squabble is a fast moving, family friendly card game where players slam their seagulls onto a table piled with rubbish. The player who swoops with the most seagulls, wins the pile.
2-4 players with a discounted add-on PNP of Hieroglyph Historian for $10, discounted from $13 for this release. Link.
Trial by Fire is a print & play Roguelike Dungeon-Crawling game for 1 to 99 players. You only need a pen and a quest sheet to play. You must explore a deadly dungeon, battling monsters, collecting treasures, and survive until you reach the exit.
At the start of the campaign, the game features 72 carefully crafted quests, divided into 3 compact books of 24 quests each, small enough to fit in your pocket! Link.
Any PNPers into 3D printing as well?
Kaiju Capers is a fast, family-friendly tabletop game where 2–4 players take control of giant monsters battling across a destructible city. Tear through districts, build up radiation, and unleash powerful abilities—but push too far and your kaiju risks catastrophic overload.
Includes all 15 Kaiju STLs, printable character cards in PDF format, the full game mat PDFs, complete rulebook, and token STLs — everything you need to print, build, and start smashing cities straight away. Link.
Submit your PNP crowdfunding projects here:
PNP Arcade Submission Form.
Are you looking for your favorite publishers from PNP Arcade? Check out this list.
Alexander Shen: If you’ve never played Quests Over Coffee or any of Alexander’s other fun games, be sure to check out his stuff on Itch.io. Link.
Button Shy Games: With hundreds of games on PNP Button Shy started uploading games on Itch.io and The Game Crafter. Expect regular releases of the older library of games as well as new content to come. Itch.io Link. The Game Crafter Link.
Cezar Capacle: Brazilian game designer, graphic designer, architect and musician. He’s been creating unique games for the past five years, on a variety of genres. Link
Clearly Sharp: Home page for Daniel Young, the designer of Gem Getter and Forest Floor. Link
Daws of Darkness: The Lost Village and its mini-expansion are now available at itch.io. The thick line art style of these co-op games really makes them stand out. Link
Epic Endeavor Games (Jason Greeno): The independent games by JG can be found on his Patreon page. Link.
Grimscribe: If you are looking for the year-long Grimlore series, you can find those here. Publisher Website. PNP Stash.
Jack Neal Games: Jack’s games about power, value, and systems (Rust and Revenue and Charters: Profit Through Public Works) are now available at JackNealGames.com. Link.
Jason Greeno / Epic Endeavor Games: Jason hosts his collection of games like Night Class (superhero roll and write) and The Cursed Menagerie (haunted cards and dice) at his new Itch.io page. Link.
Kealf Games: The new location for all things from Kelvin Soong of Kealf Games. PNP Stash Link.
Mark Tuck: Mark has brought his collection of PNPs (from the beloved Orchard to Pocket Aquarium, and many more) to the Game Crafter. Link.
Nathan Meunier: Featuring many of his games in both physical and PNP, you can now grab Doom Machine, Mindbenders, Hot Garbage and more at doomthoughts.com. Link.
PNP Arcade Publishing: For everything Dungeon Pages (and more to come) check out the PNP Arcade page at Itch.io. Link
Shiny Pigeon Games: PNP Arcade previously hosted Around The World In 15 Minutes, but at their site you can pick up Starfront Scouting Academy and the Packing Party series of games. Link.
We Heart Games: The Itch store for Mike Berg’s games (Crownfell, Exobase, Exoship) has the entire catalog of games. Link.
Would you like to submit a PNP Game?
With the help of publishers, designers and the community we will continue to share PNPs with all of you.
Click this link to submit information about a game
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Games featured in these posts are not sponsored.
I've backed Trial by Fire, having backed and enjoyed the creator's earlier PNP campaign for Deadly Thrones. I'd suggest getting that one, too, if it's available here (since I have it, I didn't check), but in any case, more support on this campaign will help unlock more stretch goals, which will continue to provide more content and game play options.