Cozy RPG
The quiet radicalism of farming sims
Why 40 hours of watering crops taught us more about community resilience than any grand-strategy campaign ever did.
A solarpunk gaming journal • Carlton, Melbourne
Where cozy dungeons meet a brighter world
We play the games that imagine kinder futures — cozy RPGs, hopeful indies, and slow-burn strategy — then write the honest, thoughtful deep dives you actually want to read.
Reading room open Tue–Sat, 10am–6pm • 87 Drummond Street, Carlton
Our mission
Games are worlds worth taking seriously — so we cover them with care, not clickbait.
Lunar Dungeon Legends started in a Carlton terrace with a shared shelf of dice, cartridges, and cold coffee. Today we're a small independent team publishing three long-form pieces a week — no review scores sold to publishers, no sponsored verdicts, just craft-focused writing about the games building hopeful, verdant, human worlds.
640+
Reviews & deep dives published
9 years
Writing from Carlton, ad-light
28k
Members in our reading guild
From the blog
Recent features & deep dives
Worldbuilding
Building cities that breathe
A studio-by-studio look at how solarpunk city builders model living ecosystems instead of pure extraction economies.
Indie spotlight
Five Australian indies to watch
From a Melbourne two-person team to a Perth solo dev, the local scene making hopeful games on a budget.
Tabletop
Running a solarpunk one-shot
A ready-to-play tabletop scenario and GM notes for a single evening of hopeful, low-conflict adventure.
The writers
The people behind the pages
A tiny crew of critics, GMs, and lapsed speedrunners who argue about pacing so you don't have to.
Mara Ellison
Editor-in-chief
Twelve years reviewing RPGs. Refuses to grade a game she hasn't finished.
Devan Wu
Indie & tabletop lead
Champions two-person studios and hand-drawn maps. Owns far too many dice.
Priya Nair
Features writer
Writes the long, weird essays on ecology and design. Our resident optimist.
Tom Beckett
Video & community
Runs our Tuesday reading-room streams and keeps the comment threads kind.
Reader love
What members say
★★★★★"The only games site I actually finish reading. Their farming-sim essay convinced me to start a garden — and a new save file."
★★★★★"Honest scores with no publisher fluff. I bought three of their indie picks last year and loved every one."
★★★★★"The Tuesday reading-room stream is my favourite part of the week. It feels like a book club that happens to be about games."
★★★★☆"Their solarpunk one-shot scenario saved my table when a session fell through. Ran it that night — a huge hit."
★★★★★"Beautifully written and genuinely thoughtful. It respects both the games and its readers, which is rarer than it should be."
★★★★★"The archive alone is worth the membership. I keep finding older deep dives that completely change how I play."
Membership
Support independent games writing
Reader-funded, ad-light, publisher-independent. Cancel anytime — prices in AUD.
Reader
For the casual visitor
$0/mo
- ✓ All weekly reviews & features
- ✓ Public comment threads
- ✓ Monthly newsletter
Most popular
Guild
For the regular
$9/mo
- ✓ Everything in Reader
- ✓ Full deep-dive archive
- ✓ Tuesday reading-room streams
- ✓ Members-only tabletop scenarios
Patron
For the champion
$22/mo
- ✓ Everything in Guild
- ✓ Name in every article credits
- ✓ Quarterly print zine, posted
- ✓ A seat at our Carlton game nights
Say hello
Pitch us, join us, or drop by
Got a game we should cover or a pitch to share? We read everything. Freelance pitches welcome.
- Phone
- +61 3 9912 5847
- [email protected]
- Studio
- 87 Drummond Street, Carlton VIC 3053
- Hours
- Reading room open Tue–Sat, 10am–6pm