From November 4th to December 5th, BackerKit is playing host to a massive coordination of sword-and-whiskers adventure. Mausritter Month is a collaborative event anchored by Junk City – a new neo-noir expansion from the core team – surrounded by sixteen new zines and supplements from third-party creators. With group-rate shipping, custom wooden meeples, and an invite-only game for completionists, it is a significant moment for the ENNIE-winning “family game” that secretly loves a bit of grit.
We sat down with the team behind the project to discuss how they coordinated this massive launch, why they are shifting the tone to a post-magic-catastrophe setting, and the logistical “accidental secrets” of their design philosophy.
Interview: The Team Behind Mausritter Month
Welcome! Mausritter Month looks absolutely incredible. Can you tell us how this whole idea came together? Was it always the plan to coordinate a huge 16-creator launch alongside Junk City, or did it grow organically?
BackerKit approached us to see if we were interested in doing a big Mausritter Month event, similar to what our friends at Mothership did in 2024. We were immediately into the idea, especially because Mausritter has one of the best third-party creator communities in the indie RPG space. What better way to celebrate that than with a big curated event? We had already been working on Junk City, the anchor project, for around two years at that point, so everything came together at the perfect time. We put out a call for submissions to the Mausritter community, and we got so many great ones. Honestly, choosing which ones to include was one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make. We’re lucky to have so many creators excited about the game and constantly adding to the library. There’s actually a repository online with over 1,200 Mausritter supplements. We did the maths: if you played Mausritter every day for 10 hours, it would take about 10 years to get through everything. Certainly more than we ever dreamed of!
Junk City sounds like a fascinating shift in tone—”neo-noir” and “post-magic-catastrophe” are exciting words! What inspired you to take the whimsical world of Mausritter in this grittier direction?
We’ve always thought of Mausritter as 70% Beatrix Potter, 30% Heavy Metal. The game has a strong OSR backbone: fast, dangerous, and sometimes a bit harsh on the players. The community has leaned into the cute side of it, which we fully embrace and endorse of course, and winning the Gold ENNIE for Best Family Game definitely nudged things that way too. But there’s always been a darker edge to the game. Junk City is us returning to that tone a bit – maybe even unconsciously balancing things out. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of whimsy in there: fairies, strange magic, and lots of those charming little details that make Mausritter feel like Mausritter.
Mausritter famously won an ENNIE for Best Family Game. How do you balance designing a game that appeals to veterans and newcomers, and how does Junk City fit into that “everyone’s first RPG” philosophy?
This is probably one of the luckiest “accidental secrets” of Mausritter! (laughs) When we designed the game, it was mainly for us and our friends to play. We didn’t intentionally aim for “everyone’s first RPG” – our taste just leans towards rules that are easy to learn, easy to run, and instantly immersive. Newcomers love that they can jump right in: “You’re a mouse, and everything is huge.” Veterans like that it’s something fresh that doesn’t require a ton of prep or rules memorization. Junk City still fits that philosophy. The setting broadens Mausritter’s horizons a bit. We move away from the forests and fields of the core rulebook’s implied setting, but it’s still Mausritter at heart, and still designed with the same eye towards approachability and ease of use.
Sixteen third-party projects all at once is a huge testament to the Mausritter community. How did you go about curating or coordinating this collection? Were there any standout pitches, like Mechritter or Rolling Coast, that just made you say, “Wow, we have to make this part of the event”?
As we said, choosing only sixteen projects was incredibly hard. We got so many strong submissions, but we knew sixteen was the right number for our sanity and for coordinating everything properly. Some projects were almost instant picks because they came from creators who are already deeply involved in the Mausritter community, like the Rolling Coast team or Josiah Moore, who ran one of the most successful Mausritter Kickstarters ever. Others had standout pitches, and others came from creators with a strong track record in crowdfunding, which is always reassuring. That’s basically how the lineup came together.
What do you think it is about Mausritter’s system and setting that has inspired so many people to create their own content for it?
On the rules side, it’s the simplicity and modularity. The system is incredibly easy to customize, and creators love that. On the setting side, inspiration is everywhere. There’s a Mausritter idea in every corner of the real world: a fridge as a wizard tower, an abandoned car as a settlement, a mini-golf course as an entire world (which someone has actually made!). Once you look at everyday human spaces from a mouse’s perspective, adventures practically write themselves. We think that’s probably the strongest appeal in Mausritter.
You’ve got some really clever incentives for backers, like the wooden meeples and the invite-only online game. What’s the philosophy behind those rewards, and what has the community response been like?
The meeples were a way to involve all the creators in a fun, unique reward. Each creator designing a meeple that represents their project felt like a great way to celebrate the community and make the collection feel cohesive. People really love them. The online game is our way of expressing real gratitude to the folks who back everything in the event. It felt like the right kind of thank-you.
Mausritter is a collaboration between Losing Games, Games Omnivorous, and Exalted Funeral. How does that creative partnership work in practice? Who handles what when putting together a huge event like this?
Losing Games is Isaac Williams. Isaac is the lead designer and creator of Mausritter, and he makes the core decisions about how the game is structured and presented. Games Omnivorous, led by André Novoa, originally published Mausritter, but as the game grew, it was too much for a single publisher to handle. Now André works as a co-creator and designer, and also handles production, quality control, printing – basically everything on the physical-production side. Exalted Funeral joined when the game scaled up. They’re the current publisher and handle financials, logistics, distribution, and the operational backbone of the project.
With so many amazing supplements coming out, what’s one or two from the third-party collection (besides Junk City!) that you are personally most excited to get to your own game table?
André: This is an unfair question, I love them all! (laughs) If I must choose one, I’m super excited about Diogo Barros’ Soul Food – it’s a setting in a provençal-style Kitchen and I absolutely love the immersion behind the idea. Isaac: Arg! Very difficult question! I’m a huge fan of the Tails and Trinkets project, just because who doesn’t want a big stash of beautifully illustrated item cards to hand out to your players? Of the adventures though, I’m most excited to play Hell in a Hog Waller, just because it’s so different from anything else I’ve seen before. Reframing Mausritter as a World War One battle fought on the scale of a single field is such a weird, clever idea.
For the fans getting involved in the community jam, what’s one piece of advice you’d give them for creating their own Mausritter adventure that really captures the game’s spirit?
We actually have a primer for this! The best advice is “the world is huge and dangerous”. Start there. Create adventure sites out of ordinary human objects, and create adversaries out of trivial animals for humans. But if you put this to a mouse perspective, a grandfather clock turns into a wizard tower, and a cat turns into a dragon! Setting fantasy adventures in real-world locations not only makes it easier for players to imagine and immerse themselves in the setting, but it also makes the world a more wonderful place when you’re constantly thinking, “what adventures could be happening under my feet right now?”.
After the massive event that is Mausritter Month, what’s next for Mausritter? Are you all taking a long nap, or are there already new ideas brewing for the future?
Probably we’re gonna rest for a bit! Then, we shall see. We have been talking about a few things. One of them is actually taking the IP to the next level and doing a Mausritter board-game, focused on town-building, where players are building a settlement with the resources brought in by brave mice exploring the world. We’ll see how this goes.
