2025 was a massive year for me, my family, my career as a soldier, and my career as a game developer. This timeline is all the major events I went through this year, including some things that were not connected to Ward Against Evil. I wanted to make this timeline to look back on everything that happened this year.
The timeline has three types of entries:
- Milestones and Releases: Such as the first entry, these are game releases, crowdfunder start/end dates, and major career/life moments. I’ll do short write ups for these and elaborate on what’s going on.
- Blog Posts: Wide images with a long title and date underneath. These are articles I wrote on my blog about specific topics in gaming.
- Itch Posts: Updates on the games I release on itch.io. These are short with links and a thumbnail on the left to show what game it’s referring too.
Image is of my mom and my wife pinning on my gold bars during my commissioning ceremony
— Going into 2025, 1/1/2025
In December I graduated college and commissioned in the Texas Army National Guard Field Artillery Corps, and decided to take a few months to do full time game dev. We had a solid amount in savings, and I was anticipating that I would be getting a full time position in the National Guard soon. Plus, I had a side job as a doors and windows salesman. So, it was time to dive in!
1/21/2025 – Quickstart Rules Go Live!
On this day in history…
This page went live with the free Quickstart Rules
This was the first itch.io post or release of the year
1/23/2025 – Added Character Sheet
Quick Update
Added the Character Sheets to the Quickstart Rules
1/23/2025 – Crowns 2nd Edition!
And now for the main event!
Crowns 2e’s itch page has just launched a few days ago, check it out at the link below(…)
— Crowns 2e Kickstarter Begins
I was extremely confident I would be able to hit the goal. I had series of stretch goals set up, I had built a bunch of logistics and future proofing, I contacted creators to create adventures for Crowns 2e after it was funded, I hired Runehammer of YouTube fame to create a soundtrack. It was going to be epic. There was a marketing campaign, games in the Discord, as much interaction as I could muster. But, as you’ll see, it didn’t pan out…
2/3/2025 – Kickstarter is Live!
THE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE
THIS IS NOT A DRILL
Thank you for everyone you followed the Kickstarter and(…)
2/3/2025 – Crowns 2e Kickstarter is Live!
IF YOU LIKED FIRST EDITION, YOU’LL LOVE WHAT’S TO COME
THE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE!(…)
2/5/2025 – Quickstart Update
NEW ADVENTURE
The previous adventure felt like a rush job so I sat down and rewrote it as a trifold adventure site. It’s the same base,
2/10/2025 – Combat and Monsters
After some recent playtesting, I noticed three things:
– When the combat works, it works well, and you get some truly epic fights(…)
2/14/2025 – Beast-kin!
Beast-Kin are the “humanoids” of the Crowns universe. I always felt that the word “humanoid” felt too sci-fi, I don’t think medieval/renaissance people would have used it(…)
2/17/2025 – Spells and Spears
Instead of just the first four spells, we have two sets of spells in the Quickstart Rules now: Charm and Pariah, and Dispel Armor and Mage Armor(…)
2/24/2025 – Small Items and Big Monsters
Here’s the quick and dirty of it:
– Clarifications on where to put Ammo and Armor in your inventory(…)
— Aketon Core Rules
Aketon was a fluke, much like one of previous very popular games Soldiers of Fortune. I was stressed and I wrote a game in two days and bing-bang-boom, it was extremely successful. Aketon is a hyper-minimalist dungeon-crawler with depth, and every update has made it more align with that philosophy. It was originally based on, and inspired by, OD&D and Chainmail 3rd Edition. Specifically, this video by Bandits Keep on YouTube.
2/26/2025 – Long Live Aketon!
Aketon is a tri-fold RPG side project I put together in two days while taking a break working on Crowns 2e.
Aketon is based on CHAINMAIL and OD&D, taking almost(…)
2/26/2025 – A4 Scale
foletto_ on reddit asked if I could make an A4 version. After some slight tweaks I did!
It looks slightly different, that’s because I had to cut off the(…)
2/27/2025 – Magic, Costs, and Fonts
The will categories have been renamed to make more sense in the setting. The natural approving at spellcasting happens much slower, Seers gain their +1 to spell every 5th level instead of(…)
— Crowns 2e Kickstarter Fails to Fund
I was pretty heartbroken when this failed. I was under the impression that these funds would carry me through until I could get a full time job in the National Guard, and without them I was in trouble. However, through this process I had greatly grown my reach and following, so I sought to capitalize on it while I had the chance instead of giving up. Here’s why I think it failed:
- General oversaturation of OSR Elfgames (not helped by me)
- Lacking a strong central pitch beyond “it’s really well organized”
- Way too high of an earnings goal (goal was made using COVID lockdown reasoning, people were spending less money for TTRPGs after COVID)
- Kickstarter exclusives bloat causing high prices for the product
3/3/2025 – Character Scrolls and Supplements
We have Character Scrolls! Each is a third of the paper and has a printable dot-grid on the back for note-taking, spell-tracking, inventory management, whatever you want(…)
— Aketon, Adventurer Options – AK1
Aketon was doing really good. Really good. So, I decided to write a quick expansion for it after the Kickstarter failed. It included a bunch of random tables for generating characters, inspired by the conversation I had with Mathew Morris on my podcast a few years back, rules for guns, and a bunch of new classes for players to try out based on the classes introduced in Dragon Magazine over the years.
3/7/2025 – Long Live Adventurer Options!
Today marks the day that the Adventurer Options were fully released to the public, for free of course. This is the first in the line of supplements noted out for Aketon so stay tuned(…)
3/7/2025 – The Adventurer Options Supplement!
As soon as the game was released a week or so ago people wanted more. They wanted more classes, more races, more everything, so here’s more! In this free supplement you’ll find(…)
3/10/2025 – More Spells and Reducing Bloat
There are four more spells available for everyone, not just those with full rules! Once they’re all laid out I plan on giving the Quickstart access to all the spells because spells are cool and(…)
— Aketon, Gamemaster Cyclopedia – AK2
Aketon continued to be popular, and at the time I was focused on modularity, so the original version of the Gamemaster Cyclopedia was about giving the GM different variant rules to play around with. I think this ended up confusing people. It also included basic systems for dungeon generation and hex crawl generation. To be honest, I think this was the least helpful product I had made so far. The new version I recently re-released in 2026 (that you can download today) is much better.
3/21/2025 – Long Live the Gamemaster Cyclopedia!
A lot of the variant rules provided cover the areas of the rules where there was the most confusion, and where people were asking if there were other ways to do these things(…)
3/21/2025 – Gamemaster Cyclopedia and Affinity
In the Aketon zip is the Affinity file I used to make the core rules and the character scrolls! Feel free to take and change it as you wish if you’re interested in making your own Aketon products(…)
3/21/2025 – Berzerkers and Bards Update
It has come to my attention that Berzerker has been mispelled as Bezerker the whole time. The one responsible for this error has been sacked. I hope this does not effect your game(…)
3/21/2025 – Everything is Better Now
A running problem with the design of Crowns 2e has been trying to get rid of the Null Result on an attack roll (i.e. every time you attack something should happen, good or bad)(…)
3/24/2025 – Hex Flower Update
I added in a blank 5×5 hex flower in the Gamemaster Cyclopedia zip file you can download if you’d like. Nothing major. I just wanted to mention it for those that were(…)
— Aketon, Treasure Hoards – AK3
At this point, I was ready to leave behind the idea that this was just going to a short one-and-done product and was now looking at the long game. If Aketon was going to be a game about getting treasure, it needed a supplement with extensive treasure tables! I have always found this product extremely useful, and I use versions of it in all my games. It came out great.
3/28/2025 – Long Live Treasure Hoards!
The only other tables I’ve found that are on bar with these in terms of ease of use and uniqueness of outcome are my Crowns 2e tables you can find in the full game(…)
3/28/2025 – Weapon Rebalance and Treasure Hoards
After some playtesting, it has come to my attention that some weapons are just(…)
3/28/2025 – Regions and Dungeons
This week has been focused on getting the Regions and Dungeons generators up and running and I’m happy to say they are complete! They’re inspired by the one’s I made for Aketon(…)
— The Abbey Lost to the Trees – DN1
This was originally the starting adventure for Crowns 2e. It was really basic and I wanted to expand on it. I still think it could use one more rewrite, but for the time being it’s exactly what it needs to be: a short, one-page adventure with color coding and cross-game compatibility. I’m really proud of the layout on this one.
4/14/2025 – The Rebirth of the Abbey
I’m so glad for this release! It’s my first stand-alone dungeon release for a complete game! Definitely more of these to come!
This dungeon is actually based on the one I(…)
5/9/2025 – Backerkit, Spells, and Stagger!
Crowns 2e is coming to Backerkit, launching on this upcoming Monday, May 12th!!! It’s going to be a lot smaller than the Kickstarter attempt, with fewer stretch goals and a more(…)
5/9/2025 – Cooking Update
I’ve been watching a lot of Delicious in Dungeon recently, and I noticed in that show that they frequently cook monsters in order to cure specific things that ail them. So, now you can!
5/9/2025 – The Great HP Boost
There, I said it, I concede, you were right. At level 0, all characters (except Dwarves) still only have 1 HP, so if you’d like to play a funnel you totally still can(…)
5/11/2025 – Hot Fix
I accidentally left in a playtesting line that said that Adventurers have two HP to start with. Just adjusted that. Feel free to just mark it out and write one. That is all.
5/12/2025 – And Then There Were Monsters…
So, the book is actually done except for the monsters. There are no longer little holes all throughout the text that need to be filled. The spells are completed, the Mastering the Game(…)
Crowns 2e Backerkit Launch
After a few months, I was ready try out crowdfunding again, this time with Backerkit. This was mostly due to sunk cost, I had already paid for the majority of the art in the book and I wanted to try and make my money back, and because I did (and do) genuinely believe in the product. So, I set the budget smaller, cut out the stretch goals, and was as straight forward as possible. No divergences. Hopefully this time it would work.
5/14/2025 – Backerkit Launch, Undead, and Roleplaying
Yesterday I hammered out all of the Undead in Crowns 2e! These are now available in the Core Rules as well as the Quickstart Rules. Here are their pages:
5/14/2025 – Print Stock Fire Sale
Physical Copies of Crowns 1e can be added onto your physical order for Crowns 2e for only $5!!! That is the cheapest we have ever and will ever let the physical zines of Crowns 1e go for!
5/19/2025 – Backerkit Success and Outsiders
Our total funding at time of writing is $4,045, which means the Backerkit is fully funded, our first stretch goal is reached, and we are nearing our second! That means we’ll be working(…)
5/21/2025 – Onto the Primevals
Our total funding at time of writing is $4,615! That means we’re even closer to our next stretch goal: developing web tools to speed up character creation, region generation, and more!(…)
5/22/2025 – Wonderous and Cursed Artifacts, Part I
Rats Nest Games just released an awesome piece of Aketon compatible content for all the masses to enjoy!
(…)
— Crowns 2e Backerkit Ended
We funded! Over 10x what we asked for! Now that we had secured the funding, the hard part started with the logistics of how this whole operation was to go. I was excited to jump into it, but I had just received a call two weeks earlier that a position had opened up in State Active Duty. I was about to stop being a full time game dev.
5/30/2025 – Complete Rules Uploaded
My internet is out, so I had to upload this to a thumbdrive and upload it at my family’s house. Full update going into all the new features in-depth to come(…)
5/30/2025 – Complete Rules Uploaded
My internet is out, so I had to upload this to a thumbdrive and upload it at my family’s house. Full update going into all the new features in-depth to come(…)
Image of my company training for upcoming Civil Disturbance Operations
— I Finally Got a Job, 6/X/2025
I finally got a full time job with the National Guard. I was with an Immediate Response Package in Texas, I can’t say much, but mostly my job included hurricane relief and a single instance of CDO. I suddenly had a lot less time for games. Which was good, because my savings were running out.
— Aketon, Priestly Prayer – AK4
I had started a home game of Aketon before I left for the Army. In it I had a player playing a Crusader who needed spells for a Crusader. That’s the reason the divine/cleric spells came before any of the usual arcane/magical ones. I think it came out great and it set the standard for all future spell supplements to come.
6/24/2025 – Long Live Priestly Prayers!
Today marks the release of the fourth Aketon supplement! For free of course. This was the first spell supplement (and not the seer spells) for two reasons(…)
6/24/2025 – Exorcists and Prayers Update
It started as a renaming of just the Priest class, but it quickly spread to all of them. There should not be any remaining classes that have the same name as their original inspiration(…)
6/24/2025 – The Great Renaming
All of the classes that shared names with a certain RPG have been renamed. This is mostly just to sell the off-brand aesthetic that Aketon is cultivating(…)
6/24/2025 – Rename and Reduce Update
This update is small, mostly just renaming the different classes in the book to be in line with the rest of the supplements. I’ve also reduced the number of different spellbooks(…)
6/24/2025 – Catching Up
The classes and a few different key words were updated to match the rest of the supplements.
Also, I added the affinity file for this project.
Image of my unit, more national guard personnel, Czech Firefighters, and civilian agents in Kerrville prepping before another Search and Extraction excursion
— The Kerrville Floods, 7/4/2025
In the early morning, before the sun rose, flood rains washed through central Texas, causing the deaths of nearly 137 Texas. My unit was tasked with Search and Rescue operations, and when none were left alive, Search and Extraction. I learned a lot of valuable lessons on this mission, and me and my platoon made some lasting memories with some Czech Republic firefighters that flew in to aid Texas during the flood. After the flooding ended, I got reinvigorated to work on TTRPGs again (as I always do after any stressful situation, example: Soldiers of Fortune was written during US Army Airborne School).
— Aketon, Sanctioned Sorceries – AK5
This was the first product I made after everything in Kerrville and the last product I made on the IRP. With these spells the game was fully playable on its own without getting other games involved. Sure, you’d have to make a few monsters on your own, but that wouldn’t be too hard, I thought so anyway. Maybe another supplement was in order?
8/10/2025 – Long Live Sanctioned Sorceries!
Today marks the release of the fifth Aketon supplement! For free of course.
This was the second spell supplement and I feel like I got(…)
8/10/2025 – Spell Levels Update
It occurred to me today that if you were using a system that had spell levels, these spells would be confusing because they don’t have their associated spell levels marked on them. So, I(…)
8/10/2025 – Thief Update, Sanctioned Sorceries, and the End Game
The Thief’s ability to get +1 to-hit if they were the first one to act in a round led to some edge cases and confusion(…)
8/29/2025 – What is Crowns 2e About?
As strange as it sounds, it took me a really long time to figure out what this game was about, and I’m happy to say I figured it out before it was released to print. Originally, my plan to(…)
9/1/2025 – Full Art PDF and Itch Jam
As strange as it sounds, it took me a really long time to figure out what this game was about, and I’m happy to say I figured it out before it was released to print. Originally, my plan to(…)
— FEAR THE LAND SHARK
I wanted to make more content for Crowns 2e. It had been a while since that had progressed now that we were just finishing out the art and getting the printing logistics put together. It was short and sweet, and it was my first time working with SilverNightingale, an amazing artist.
9/3/2025 – FEAR THE LANDSHARK
Fear the Land Shark is now live! I find that one-off bounty hunts and monster hunts are really useful, sometimes even more so than dungeons, because you can just slot them in(…)
9/23/2025 – The Full Release
There are no more rounds of editing, rebalancing, and fixing things, this is the final version of the PDF! This is the version that will be going into limited edition offset printing(…)
— Aketon, Monstrous Bestiary – AK6
This was the last Aketon supplement of the year. A new one wouldn’t be posted until 2026 (the day this blog post goes out actually). This was a condensed bestiary of different monsters you could encounter in the game. It was a simple, and dense, and I think there’s a better version of it out there that I could have done. However, it gets the job done just fine as is. It was also around this time that I was getting ready to move to my next position, the IRP was ending, and so started slowing down on development.
9/24/2025 – Long Live the Monstrous Bestiary
Today marks the day the Monstrous Bestiary was released for the world, giving 90 examples of classic monsters for the world to use in their Aketon games. This also marks the sixth(…)
9/24/2025 – The Chainmail Update
How ironically named and very fitting. All of the Aketon armor provided by starting backgrounds is now Chainmail armor because character ALREADY get free Aketon armor to start(…)
9/24/2025 – Monstrous Bestiary, Chainmail, and Housekeeping
The sixth supplement is now released, this one covers monster stat-blocks, relieving you of the burden of having to convert all of the monsters you’ve been running into Aketon stat:(…)
— Crowns 2e, Title Cards – CR1
Title cards was a promised supplement during the Crowns 2e Backerkit, giving cards with wonderfully illustrated art that you can hand out to the players with quick rules they’ll need for play. Some of these are generic handouts for things like Combat and Camping, but most are for the 36 Titles in the came that players can earn through play. The same thing was done for Crowns 1e, so it felt right to do it for this. This was the last Crowns 2e update for the year.
9/28/2025 – Long Live Title Cards!
On this day, the twenty-eighth of September, in the Year of Our LORD twenty twenty-five, the first supplement for Crowns 2e has been released! These are the Title Cards, they’re printable(…)
9/28/2025 – Title Cards Released
The Crowns 2e Title Cards have been released to the masses with a free black-and-white option as well as an in-color premium version. In the zip file you’ll find(…)
Image of me on the border of Texas and Mexico
— Operation Lone Star, 10/X/2025
Now I’m on the border mission in Texas. It’s been extremely enlightening from a leadership stand point and I learned a lot. The landscape is beautiful. Some of the friends I made on the IRP came with me. It’s good to see everyone in such high spirits. After a few months of getting my bearings, I think it’s time to start making games again.
— Street Warfare for SPRAWL GOONS
I’ve really liked Paul Gallaghers Sprawl Goons for a long time, but I wanted the combat to be a little different. So, taking some of my own advice from my blog article “Make Things for Small Games,” I made something for a smaller game. It was short and sweet, and I got to work with Drew Shields (who I’d only ever seen on Twitter and is extremely talented). It was a really fun project and the second in the line is coming out later this month (the month of posting this blog article).
Looking at the numbers, this year I nearly doubled every metric there is. It’s averaging that out of my 5 years of operating on itch.io, in 2025 an average of 41% of every View, Download, Follower, Payment, and Dollar I earned was gained in this one year.
For reference, that means I started the year with 22.9k less views (34.8k), 8k fewer downloads (11.7k), 225 fewer followers (477), 230 fewer payments (265), and $1,354.80 less gross revenue ($2,052.12). And when I look back further, I can see this trend of doubling seems to be repeatable true.
Here’s hoping next year has the same trend and I continue to grow. If I do, I can expect the following next year:
- 86.6k total views
- 29.6k total downloads
- 903 total followers
- 742 total payments
- $5,110.38 gross revenue by 2027
However, I suspect this system is actually not doubling and instead logarithmic. I think you hit a point of popularity where you break out into the common conversation and start to do a lot better for yourself then you did previously. There’s only one way to find out, and that’s by doing.
Thank you for reading!
Until we meet again,
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ADVENTURES
Ward Against Evil 
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