The Prismatic Oracle

The long-fated day is finally upon us — The Prismatic Oracle is live on Kickstarter!

The Prismatic Oracle is a junk journaling RPG where players gather found text, images, and objects and interpret them as omens of a prophecy. Oracle began as an extended version of my found text game The Anarchitect, and I’ve been working on bits and pieces of the writing and illustration for the past year. Now, it’s almost here, and I’m incredibly excited to share it with y’all. 

The game comes from a very personal place, inspired by my partner Ran’s junk journaling and bits and pieces of some of my favorite stories, places, and works of art: Borges’ The Library of Babel, diners and libraries all across the country, and Magritte’s The Banquet, just to name a few. It borrows much from the work of many RPG designers who push the bounds of what an RPG is; I owe much to Dialect and A Perfect Rock especially, games that are driven by the discovery and repurposing of found text and objects and the unraveling of meaning through playing small scenes. Play is propelled by a search for meaning, and I hope to capture the magic of discovering new parts of yourself and revisiting old ones in Oracle.

I have a lot of gratitude for all the creators whose work inspired me to make Oracle and all the folks who have helped the game become what it is and helped me share it with the world. I’m especially grateful to my playtesters who helped me refine the design, the folks at Dicesized who played through Temple of Prismos and talked with me about the game, Dungeons & Hammers and Dice & Dagger who create amazing games and help give opportunities to local designers, Gomez Writes Games for being an amazing design sounding board and helping me get my riso printing work off the ground, for all the folks who played my games and helped make them possible by supporting them on Kickstarter, for all my friends and family who fill my life with joy and let me talk endlessly about all my crazy ideas, and for my partner Ran who always believes in me and helps me to believe in myself.

I’ve made this game as a testament to the power and beauty of human creativity, and I hope it’s a chance for folks to try their hand at new crafts, new forms of self-expression, and new ways of coming together and sincerely connecting with other people. One of the most powerful things about Oracle is how it gives players agency to tell their own stories and bring in whatever they’d like to tell it. You could craft a prophecy from lines from your favorite books, from clippings of old magazines, from stickers and receipts, from memes from your feed, anything. It’s yours to make of what you will, and I hope it allows you to find new ways to create and connect with others.

If you want to explore the world of The Prismatic Oracle and help the game become a physical reality, you can support us on Kickstarter here and play a free demo version of the game here, The Temple of Prismos. Individual backers make it possible for me to create my games and bring them to life with risograph, and I’m incredibly grateful to you for helping make this dream of mine a reality.

– Zosimos