The Magnus Archives Mysteries: New playable mysteries coming soon! (Patreon)

Hi folks,

Today we are very excited to tell you about The Magnus Archives Mysteries, a follow-up to The Magnus Protocol Mysteries, the immersive, co-operative puzzle-solving experience created by Indie Boards and Cards.

Like The Magnus Protocol Mysteries, this new game set in the Archives will feature six different cases, composed of dozens of pieces of evidence – from receipts to witness statements to photographs and even fully voice acted audio recordings. By reading through all the evidence, you and a group of friends can solve the puzzles, connect the dots and uncover the truth of the mystery before you!

With the Archives team incapacitated with worm-related injuries, it’s up to you to step up and become an interim archival assistant. Each case features a brand-new statement voiced by Jonathan Sims, along with related research collected by Jon, Martin, Tim and Sasha.

There’s no need to have played the previous game – each case is designed to work completely individually, for longtime fans and non-listeners alike.

Crowdfunding to support The Magnus Archives Mysteries will begin on 9th March 2026. Sign-up on Kickstarter for notifications to get updates as soon as the project goes live so you don’t miss out on pre-ordering the game!

The Magnus Archives Mysteries is designed by Sydney Engelstein, who also created the Protocol Mysteries. We spoke to Sydney to find out more and how they game to work on games with Rusty Quill.

What is The Magnus Archives Mysteries game?

The Magnus Archives Mysteries is a game designed to be as immersive and true to the podcast as possible, to give fans both new and old the opportunity to step into this amazing world and investigate the horrors firsthand. I was inspired by my love of puzzles, escape rooms, and other deduction games to create something that sucks players in and lets you feel like the main character. The best part about this kind of game is how approachable it is—there’s no complicated rules or turns, it can be played alone or with a group of any size, and it doesn’t even require any previous knowledge of The Magnus Archives to play! We wanted to make this a game that literally anyone can enjoy, but that Magnus fans would appreciate on an even deeper level.

For any fans who already love mystery and deduction board games, what sets ours apart is the fact that every case involves spooky supernatural elements, just like the podcast! Each case begins with a brand-new statement voiced by Jonny Sims, (it’s almost like listening to bonus content!) but the statements you’ve received were “damaged” in a “recent worm attack”. Some are only the beginning of a statement with no ending, some are only the ending with no beginning, others stop and start with holes in between. That’s where you come in! Your goal, as interim archival assistants, is to investigate the documents your coworkers have gathered for you and solve puzzles to deduce the full story of the partial statement.

Throughout the game, you’ll find helpful notes left for you by the original archive staff—Jon, Martin, Tim, and Sasha—and you might even run across a few familiar avatars along the way!

All in all, it’s just a really fun, immersive experience that lets you step into the archives and become a part of the podcast.

(If you got a chance to play The Magnus Protocol Mysteries, the gameplay is basically the same, but now there’s six brand new cases to enjoy. And the new ones are set in the Archives universe instead!)

Were you a fan of The Magnus Archives before you began work on the game?

Honestly, it still feels completely surreal that I get to work on this project with Rusty Quill. I spent so long just being a massive fan of the podcast, I never imagined I’d be able to work on a board game for it. I started listening to The Magnus Archives way back in 2019 and was instantly hooked. I went from just listening to writing extensive amounts of fanfiction, and thought the height of my life was going to be having Jonny and Alex read some of my fanfiction out loud during their livestream.

I was riding high on that, telling absolutely everyone I knew about this huge honor, and it was actually my boss who initially suggested the game. I’ve been a professional game designer with Indie Boards and Cards for the last eight years, and I have over 25 published game titles under my belt. I actually started designing games back in high school, before I even wrote my first fanfiction (back in the fanfic.net days, for potentially the cringiest possible canon that I just can NOT expose). Aside from my writing, game design is truly my love language, and the way I can connect with shows I love.

My boss suggested that since I was clearly the number one fan of this podcast, I should be the best person to design a game for it. That’s when I started brainstorming. As a fan, what would I most want a TMA board game to look like? I was immediately transported back to the old days of red-stringing theories on Tumblr and knew a mystery solving and deduction game was perfect. The TMA audience already loves trying to solve mysteries, and the characters themselves are always solving mysteries, so it works on both levels. Once I had the idea, I gathered all my courage and cold emailed Rusty Quill with my concept and game design credentials.

I still remember jumping up and down on my bed when I got the email back that they were interested in working with me! A total dream come true! (And I will never ever ever tell Jonny and Alex what fanfiction I initially wrote that got this whole ball rolling.)

Is there anything about the new cases you can share with us?

I think the most exciting case of this series for me is “The Hanged Man”, in the first set. I promise this doesn’t spoil the case, but I got to use Oliver Banks in it pretty extensively, which is super cool! My personal favorite part of the podcast were all the avatars, they’re just so fascinating, and I love a villain. So, I knew I wanted to include as many canon characters in the mysteries as I could, both for my own enjoyment and the fun for the fans! But it can be tricky to come up with mystery ideas that involve a canon avatar, because these games don’t require any Magnus Archives knowledge in order to play. So if I started a case by saying oh there’s this random guy named Peter Lukas, don’t worry about him he’s not important… the fans of the podcast are going to jump onto it and know everything he’s capable of—making it too easy—while the non-fans are going to have zero association and not get any help with the case from that name drop—making it too hard.

Finding that balance of not too easy for a fan or too hard for a non-fan has been one of the biggest design challenges I’ve faced, and the inclusion of canon characters makes that challenge even harder. So, whenever I find a workaround to get to play with a real avatar, it’s so exciting! And not to mention Oliver Banks is one of my favorites. I made sure to keep things canon-compliant by having all the rest of the characters call him handsome.

I can’t wait for other fans to play and enjoy!

Thank you so much for your support and enthusiasm for The Magnus Protocol Mysteries, which made this follow-up possible! You can find out more and sign-up for updates on the project by going to The Magnus Archives Mysteries Kickstarter.

Finally, in news from the RQ Network, we are excited to tell you about a brand-new show coming soon from the creators of Hi Nay. Dominus is a full-cast Catholic horror podcast in which three Catholic priests, trapped in a remote Ontario mansion by a strange blizzard, must find a way to exorcise a demon before it escapes into the world.

Unfortunately for them, the demon is a true believer and therefore inoculated against Catholicism.

Partially funded by the city of Toronto under the Toronto Arts Council, the pilot episode of Dominus will be coming out on 1st March 2026, alongside a crowdfunding campaign to raise support for future episodes.

The show already features an incredible cast, including Lenval Brown (Disco Elysium), Karim Kronfli (The Magnus Archives) and Anusia Battersby (The Magnus Protocol).

Find out more about Dominus on the Rusty Quill website, or by visiting their Kickstarter page.

Have a good week all!

The Rusty Quill team