One year ago today, we launched the Kickstarter campaign for our hardback rulebook. Our expectations were quickly blown out of the water. Thanks to all of your support, we broke every stretch goal.
While there were some bumps along the way to distribution, we are still pleased with how quickly we got it out to you all and how we have been able to carry it to conventions all year long. It has done so well that we are well into our second printing.
Since then, we have published two more zines, Void Echoes Issue 2 and Ship Catalogue, Vol. 2. We have also updated the Core Rules PDF to reflect the full Rulebook, enabling a lower-cost entry into DarkSpace. Print-on-Demand for all of these books will be available by the end of 2026.
We also now have a thriving Third Party Fleet with over a dozen titles and more to come! We are thrilled that folks want to create their own products using our system, and we love promoting them every chance we can get.
We also launched our own character generator, DarkSpacers! You can now create and export your own Spacers for play at your table. More functionality, including ships and character tracking, is coming soon.
Over 100 games of DarkSpace have been played at conventions this year, whether run by us, organized play through our partners at Lurking Fears, or individual GMs who have found very creative ways to use DarkSpace (Pigs in Space?!).
Next year, we have even more planned for DarkSpace.
Conventions
DarkSpace will be at most major conventions next year in some form. We’ll kick the year off at Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo with the launch of our megaevent, Scrapper Rush: Hard Burn to the Tartarus! You and other scrappers will have the chance to team up and crawl through five decks of a derelict battleship, grabbing whatever you can in one-hour missions that will have a lasting impact throughout the entire event. The field test went very well at Gamehole Con, and we can’t wait for you to see the final product at PAGE. We will also have a booth at PAGE where you can pick up new books and merchandise.
Stay tuned to our social frequencies to see whether DarkSpace will be at a con near you!
If you plan on running DarkSpace games at conventions in 2027, let us know! We’d love to spotlight them.
New Products
We have a strong publishing slate lined up for 2027, including Void Echoes, Issue #3, in February for Zine Quest. We don’t want to give away everything just yet, so stay tuned.
However, one product has yet to come out for 2026.
Legends of DarkSpace
Those who backed the rulebook Kickstarter may remember we added a last-minute add-on to the campaign: Legends of DarkSpace, an adventure anthology that focused on many of the Legendary Denizens created for the campaign.
Many of you have asked what the hold-up was and when that will be out. Legends of DarkSpace will be out by the end of the year. That’s pretty late, but we have a good reason. While writing and editing Legends of DarkSpace, we discovered that it made sense to build a common language for referencing things and tying them together - a setting. This led to revisions and delays, but we felt that it was worth the extra effort. So, Legends of DarkSpace will be your first glimpse into…
DarkSpace Frontiers will be the official setting of DarkSpace - a galaxy where Spacers can explore planets, haul cargo, carry out mercenary missions, and crew their own capital-sized starships. This setting will greatly expand on everything we’ve already done with DarkSpace and set the stage for what's to come.
It’s ambitious, and we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we look forward to sharing it with all of you.
DarkSpace Frontiers will open up to crowdfunding in late 2027, with a release in early 2028.
Thanks to all of you Spacers out there for supporting us. We could not do this without the amazing Spacer community.
We’ll see you in the Frontiers.
-- Than and Derek
