Spirit Swap: A Slice of Life TTRPG

Spirit Swap: A Slice of Life TTRPG is a solo journaling game about moving to a new city, befriending the people who live there, and becoming a full-fledged witch.

Spirit Swap’s world is inspired by creative director Alex Abou Karam’s love for their Lebanese home and SWANA heritage, solarpunk, and the colorful wired technology of the Y2K era!

The Spirit Swap TTRPG uses an adapted version of the Alone Among the Stars system by Takuma Okada and Spindlewheel by Teacabbage. Use dice and tarot cards to swap spirits, share time with friends, and more!

The Zine

Spirit Swap: A Slice of Life TTRPG is a roughly 40 page zine chock full of character profiles, spell tables and writing prompts utilizing Tarot and a novel Match-3 system using d6 dice. The zine is 5.5"x8.5", full color, and will be printed through Fireball Printing. (Please keep in mind these specs might change if the proof print forces our hand, or some of the stretch goals are reached!)

Takuma Okada designed this TTRPG version to allow players to explore all the things that we couldn’t fit into the video game. The TTRPG is lore accurate to the Spirit Swap universe and will allow you to make a life for yourself in Demashq while befriending the cast.

The Game

Welcome to your new home, the coastal city of Demashq, dear witch!

If you already know the world of “Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 to”, then you’re already familiar with the setting. Welcome back!

If not, (don't worry, you don't need it to play this) take a look at the trailer, HERE!

How to Play

To play, you’ll need:

• A Tarot deck 🎴
• A journal and writing utensil or somewhere else to write📝
• At least three six-sided dice (or 13 of them if you have a lot) 🎲

As a spirit swapping witch, you’ll flip over and match cards to get prompts about your daily life. For Minor Arcana, the suit determines the focus of each scene: Wands are magic and swapping scenes, Pentacles are city exploration scenes, Cups are relationship-building scenes, and Swords are introspective scenes. Ranks are tied to locations, so with every card you play your witch gets to know a place and its people better. 

Major Arcana are special events that teach you spells. They combine more traditional interpretations of the cards with your witch’s journey, from a new arrival in Demashq to becoming a part of the city and its community. What spells will you use to help people here?

Dice are rolled throughout the game to flip cards over and set up scenes. Rolled dice are stored on the Spirit Table, and when you gather three dice of the same number they match! Matches give you a burst of magic, a spell with special effects that can manipulate the cards or the Spirit Table. 

✨Get the Vibes with this "Spirit Swap! The TTRPG" Playlist ✨

✨Get a Peek at Demashq's Denizens ✨

And many more characters to get to know and befriend!

Budget

Soft Not Weak has an ethical minimum policy for non-owner collaborators of 40USD/hr. The budget reflects that, and here is the breakdown:

• 3000$ for design and writing work.
• 1600$ for printing a 500 unit run with Fireball Printing.
• 400$ for Kickstarter and payment processor fees.

You may have noticed something missing:

Where are the artists? A zine will require a lot of art. Let me be clear: NO genAI IS OR WILL EVER BE USED TO MAKE ANYTHING IN THIS PROJECT. Alex is planned to be the sole artist on the zine at the moment, and will be reusing as much of the Spirit Swap art made for the video game as possible. They are also responsible for new art as needed, unless we overfund enough to bring back artists who worked on the video game.

We’re keeping it simple and only offering essentially three rewards:

A digital PDF version of the zine, a physical version of it, and a couple of ways to gift the community copies and get your name in a special section of the zine -and 5 Frogs?

Community copies funded this way will be available to anyone who wants one no questions asked via itch.io, after the campaign has funded and the game has been published.

Reward Tiers and Add-ons

Economic Hardship, Early Bird and Glitch Witch: DRM-free PDF copy of the Zine.

Book Witch: A physical copy of the zine.

Multispec'd Witch: A digital AND a physical copy of the zine.

Benevolent High Witch: Both a digital and a physical copy, 4 donated community copies and a special thank you in the zine.

Wizard Frog High Council Member: All of the above, but it's an extra special thank you and we send you a Froggo plush (not sold anywhere).

Stretch Goals

Keeping it simple, once again! We're focusing on delivering the best zine possible, and paying the people making it fairly, so no extra merch or supplement promises here. For transparency, we included the planned team bonuses in our stretch goal structure.

The Team

Hello! This zine game is a collaboration between Spirit Swap’s Creative Director Alex and Stewpot’s Creator and Designer Takuma. We’ve wanted to make something together for a while, and Spirit Swap’s first year anniversary seems like the perfect time to give it a shot!

Takuma Okada (any pronouns) is a game designer creating tabletop games and music under the name No Road Home. They like to design games about strange and magical places, the everyday moments that occur there, and the sublime. Find their website and bluesky at: noroadhome.itch.io

Alex Abou Karam (they/them) is the creative director of Spirit Swap and 1/4th of Soft Not Weak. The thought of holding this zine in their hands some day fuels them.

Cris Viana (she/her) is a Brazilian Graphic Designer specializing in Editorial Design and Typography. She has been in love with TTRPGs since high school, and now she works with it, layouting TTRPG books! You can find her online at www.crisvianastudio.com and on Bluesky @crislv.

The artists whose art is featured on this page and in the zine:

• Sam Tesi:  Character and Concept Artist. Sam did the character sprites, their chibis, the spirits and many other illustrations throughout.
• Kaitlynn "Dice" Peavler: FamiliarZ and Concept Artist, Dice also did environment art and characters!
• Ro Phoenix: CG artist, Ro made the beautiful art of Samar Spirit Swap in her lush comfy room, which we used extensively to design this page.

Thank you to everyone who read this far!