Enter the survival horror with Ink Ribbon, a tabletop RPG inspired by videogames like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Alan Wake. Make every bullet count as you fight through hordes of zombies and deadly bioweapons to escape a doomed city!
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Latest from the Creator
Old Oak Games
3 days ago
What’s in the Box?
Hello survivors! We’ve had a lot of excited fans asking what to expect when the Ink Ribbon campaign goes live, so today we’re taking a look at what’s in store. Before we dive in, I want to say a massive thank you to the over 1,000 people who have already joined us! The excitement and support for Ink ribbon have been off the charts, and the community is in full swing taking the rules for a test drive. If you haven’t already, be sure to join our Discord to get in on the action.
I’m a massive fan of boxed TTRPGs full of lots of stuff, so Ink Ribbon will launch with two boxed sets packed with booklets and other fun bits. You’ll be able to choose from the Core Set or the Deluxe Set, and both will also be available digitally. If you back at a physical tier, you get the PDFs for free!
Core Set
The Core Set will be €60 (€30 digital) and will include:
Survivor’s Handbook: Contains the core rules, quick and easy character creation, and a plethora of weapons and gear you’ll need to fight for survival.
Welcome to Sparrow’s Rest: A visitor’s guide to the picturesque city of Sparrow’s Rest, revealing the dark history and hidden secrets that lie beneath the surface (literally and figuratively). Includes optional rules to tweak your campaign, making it more action-focused or ratcheting up the horror!
Heal-X Pharmaceuticals Research Dossier: Uncover the truth that Heal-X doesn’t want you to know, with a dossier full of twisted experiments and bio-weapons gone wrong. Packed with all manner of weird monsters and mutated beasts.
Dead of Arrival: Take your first shambling steps into Sparrow’s Rest as you crash (literally) into the centre of the virus outbreak. In this introductory scenario, you’ll explore the Sparrow’s Rest Police Department in search of supplies and weapons, all while you try to figure out how the hell you’re going to escape the doomed city.
GM Screen (Standard): A black-and-white three-panel GM screen filled with important rules, reminders, and tables for finding supplies.
Map of Sparrow’s Rest (Standard): A black-and-white fold-out map of Sparrow’s Rest to keep track of where you’ve explored.
Deluxe Set
The Deluxe Set will be €100 (€50 digital) and will include all the booklets from the Core Set, plus:
Lone Survivor: Solo rules for exploring Sparrow’s Rest alone — survive as long as you can!
Unexplained Phenomena: Heal-X has been up to more than just mad science — they’ve been dabbling in the occult! This booklet adds new supernatural character options and monsters, so you can experience a whole new kind of horror
New Scenarios: Two new scenarios, written by two fantastic guest writers (soon to be announced)!
GM Screen and Map Upgrade: Larger, full-colour version of the GM Screen and Map.
Character Sheets: 10 blank character sheets (spares for when survivors get eaten)
Tokens: Easily keep track of Horror, Stress, and Adrenaline!
Custom Dice: A set of 8 custom six-sided dice.
Storage Box: An ammo-style storage box for keeping your tokens and dice!
So that’s what we have on offer — so far (we may be adding some extra stuff!). Fans who back the Core Set can pick up the other booklets for €15 (€8 digitally).
So, what are you most excited about? We want to know! We’ll be back next week with a new update — and an exciting announcement! So stay tuned.
Thanks again, survivors. Keep those medkits close and watch out for zombies!
Hello fellow survivors! Before we dive in, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has already followed and shared the campaign. We only announced Ink Ribbon a few days ago, but the response so far has been almost overwhelming. It’s awesome to see there are so many people out there who want a game like Ink Ribbon, so thank you!
For our first update, we want to introduce the designer of Ink Ribbon — me! My name is Emmet Byrne, I’m an Irish game designer living in Ireland, and I’ve been working in the tabletop game industry for over 8 years. I’ve worked on a lot of games over the years, including Doctor Who, The Lord of the Rings, Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere RPG, and every flavour of Warhammer.
Ink Ribbon is a game that’s been swimming around in my head for years, in one form or another. I’m a huge fan of survival horror video games, particularly the Resident Evil series, and though there are a ton of horror tabletop RPGs I love, none have quite managed to capture the feeling of creeping through the Spencer Mansion or the RCPD, scrounging for supplies, and frantically trying to reorganise your inventory so you can carry everything you need.
With Ink Ribbon, I wanted to bring all my favourite mechanics from survival horror video games to the tabletop. When I started designing it, I made a list of the things I loved or felt iconic about my favourite games. You can see the list below (but good luck reading my handwriting!)
Believe it not this says: ammo counting, inventory slots, safe rooms, crafting, hunter enemies, and weird puzzle logic
If you’ve taken a look at the Quick Start Demo, I think you’ll see all of these things in there! Translating these beloved tropes to the tabletop has been one of the most enjoyable challenges I’ve had as a designer. In particular, I struggled with the logic of why enemies don’t just bust into safe rooms and was trying to create rules to justify it. Until I decided to just lean into it — there’s no logic to it; that’s just how it works! Once I had made that decision, everything flowed much more smoothly. Embracing the genre's weird quirks gave me way more freedom. I didn’t need to explain why Gunpowder + Resources = Handgun Ammo; the people this game is for (you fine folks) would just get it!
I’m so happy to finally be able to share my shambling mutant creation with you all. As a huge fan of the genre, I want to give other fans the survival horror TTRPG they’ve always dreamed of — so I want to hear from you! Comment down below or join the discussion on Discord and let us know what you want to see. Cordyceps infected humans? A monster with geometry for a face wielding a giant sword? A town that succumbs to the whims of a pulp horror author? Let us know what you want and what type of games you’re planning on running with Ink Ribbon.
Ink Ribbon is a survival horror tabletop RPG inspired by video games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alan Wake, and many more. You and a handful of other survivors must fight to escape Sparrow’s Rest, a city in the midwestern United States that has been overrun by the walking dead. The shambling hordes fill the streets, and you’ll need to make every bullet count if you want to live through the night — but there are worse things lurking in Sparrow’s Rest than just zombies.
Enter the survival horror as you try to live through the last days of Sparrow’s Rest…
Ink Ribbon is a tabletop RPG that captures the feel of classic survival horror video games. It puts you in the shoes of everyday people (or a rookie cop having the worst first day in history) as you try to survive a zombie apocalypse caused by a shady pharmaceutical company. You’ll need to manage your inventory, keep an eye on your ammo, search for healing herbs, and face down rotting zombies and terrifying bio-weapons — all while trying to escape a doomed city that is just hours away from being nuked out of existence.
Ink Ribbon takes inspiration from Legacy-style board games and encourages you to play each scenario as a different group of survivors. Play through parallel stories happening over the final hours of Sparrow’s Rest and discover how different groups deal with the outbreak — and who survives. Use the city map to mark what buildings have been explored, when bridges were destroyed or roads collapsed, and where each survivor died. Maybe their corpse has some valuable gear another group can use — that is, if they are really dead…
Old Oak Games firmly believes in human creativity — AI is far more repulsive than any zombie. All of our projects are 100% human made and no generative AI is used in their creation. Human Made icon created by HINOKODO.
