The tale of Barbabianca is made up of rumours, words getting around without quite knowing who spoke them, and seeing the word-of-mouth that keeps bringing a few new faces in every day is heartwarming. Thanks for this, too: every time you share a link, message someone about the game, or just mention it in passing helps brings this little homemade game a little further.

As things have been less frantic, we've had time to put together a little playlist with all of the songs that inspired Barbabianca's village notables. You'll find the lyrics quoted in the Role sheets, translated so you get the gist. But there's something about hearing a song in its original language that you can't quite replace, so give it a spin: Luigi Tenco, Francesco De Gregori and Fabrizio De André are some of the best songwriters in Italian music, and the atmospheres they conjure in their music are a prime source of the memories we associate with this game.



And to keep with the musical theme, we want to shout out another Zinetopia project by our dear friend Côme Martin. 

THREE PUNK GAMES is a collection of 3 small TTRPGs, each dealing with the theme of punk in its one way. Each is presented and being played differently:

We've translated some of Côme's work into Italian, and his minimalist styles is a source of endless fascination. Give these a listen, it'll be worth it.

It's always a pleasure to see new friends join us in the village. Even if it's just for a leisurely stroll, after the euphoria of launch day, which basically felt like a county faire. While Anna's postcards wait to be mailed, we though we'd share a couple of links to help you get to know Barbabianca better, if you're curious and not afraid of a couple of spoilers.

For English speakers, here's a great article by Zeruhur. He got to know Barbabianca when he was a little younger, before Cristian and the rest of NessunDove started working together, and that play experience results in a very deep understanding of the direction we've taken the game in. We could not have hoped for a better breakdown of the game's intents.

For Italian speakers (or friends unafraid of auto-generated subtitles), Cristian and our editor Oscar had a long chat with Marco Andreetto on GdR Unplugged, where they got to discuss Barbabianca in depth. If you want to get a peek behind the curtain or just see our faces, go watch it.

For English speakers, the fine folks of EUphoria have been going through ZineMonth releases to highlight European projects. The first stop in their tour was Barbabianca and we couldn't be happier for it.

We'll have more stuff to share soon. 

P.S. In the meantime, we're still curious about that poll. Do we all agree the Gravedigger should be the most popular fellow in the village?

And now our village is complete!

Thanks to everyone, from the bottom of our hearts. Don't let Barbabianca's aloof disposition fool you, he's very happy to see the stone houses populated once again.

But this time we'd like to talk a little about the female protagonist of this tale. You all remember Anna, right? How could anyone forget her? She's the author of every single postcard that was ever mailed to the village.

Speaking of...



Our captain (à la Dead Poet Society), Oscar, wrote a little game for the Zinetopia event zine: Greetings from Anna. It can be played as a standalone or worked into a game of Barbabianca as a prelude, to refresh your memory about who Anna was before she came back to the Village and set our story in motion. Well, we'd like this little game to exist as a physical part of Barbabianca's game box, and so would love to expand and improve on its rules in order to entrust it to our backer village.

What do you say-- should we all get together and welcome Anna home?

Thanks, everyone! Goals are shooting past us almost quicker than we can count them.

Let's make some room in the crowd for the Mayor, Gravedigger, Doctor and Schoolteacher. Roles in Barbabianca are made up of simple-yet-impactful open-ended questions, so each is infinitely replayable, but having more choice is definitely a good thing.

Before introducing the next (and last!) round of newcomers to the Village, remember to vote in the community poll. We're curious to hear which Role you'll play first when you get the hands on the game!

Barbabianca is among us! And despite his age, it took him less than two days to get here.

Heartfelt thanks to all of you for making this village a little bigger by supporting the tale of an old fool, as told by fools only slightly younger than him. We won't send you a pic of Cristian's face, if only because we believe in the power of imagination.

Now that we've laid the foundation, we want to enrich this story with as many new characters as possible. Our first achievement will bring us a Mayor, a Doctor, a Gravedigger and a Schoolteacher.



Clearly, we hope you won't need to pick by the end of this campaign-- we want to unlock these Roles as well as the four missing ones we have in mind-- but we're curious to hear which ones attract you more.

Let's have fun with a community poll.

Which role will you play in the village, when you're ready to meet Barbabianca?