# I'm launching a gaming magazine **URL:** \ **Category:** Meta\ **Tags:** zine, eposvox, lostsaves, magazine\ **Created:** [June 10, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431 "2026-06-10T14:24:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Akino](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/akino/32/861_2.png) [@Akino](https://demodisc.zone/u/Akino)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 12:24am UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/21 "2026-07-24T00:24:14Z")
> [@EposVox](#): > > I have big plans for the future of the magazine and moves I wanna make, so I want to hear EVERYTHING. What you liked, didn’t like. What you’d like to see more of, less of, etc. etc. Alright, you asked for everything so I took notes on everything that popped into my head during my reading sessions. I have education & work experience in digital & print design, so these notes are written in a relatively blunt, straight-to-the-point way that is predominant in the critique-culture of those spaces. I’m not writing these notes in an attempt to discourage, discredit or put down your work— instead I am writing them from a place of (relative) objectiveness that gets to the point regarding points-of-friction & curiosity/questions I may have. (I also wrote a bit more regarding the design because of my background, so apologies on the brevity of the written content notes.) I folded everything into drop downs so that it wouldn’t be a large wall of text, know that can be pretty daunting personally. Ultimately, I thoroughly enjoyed the Zine! It was incredibly fun to flip through, stumble across the inserts, feel the smooth glossy paper in my hands, and observe the visual and written content over a handful of reading sessions. I look forward to engaging with some of the call-to-action sections for the audience (I so look forward to that pin) as well as what comes next for JAMPACK’D Issue 2! **Design Notes:** > **Color contrast & legibility issues with text** > > The opening, inside cover page has a really cool image of some graffiti with an overlayed opaque white layer with text laid on top. While it is a recognition of & attempt to ease some legibility concerns, it does remain hard to read on my eyes. [Here](https://accessibleweb.com/color-contrast-checker/) is a great tool I used in my work to help check color contrast in the scope of accessibility compliance. I wouldn’t stress all too much about making sure it hits any level of compliance, but the contrast ratio tool could be helpful in sorting out issues such as these. You could also consider a gradient fade from image to white, and anchor the text to the bottom of the layout to ease this pain point by reducing the shift in color (and thus, contrast) as the text spans across the many different shades of colors. There’s a handful of instances as well with page graphics that, while stylistically I am a big fan of, also can be lumped into this bucket of contrast & readability concerns. The areas where you set a tight drop shadow on the text, such as pages 34 & 35, do a solid great job negating this issue, though. > **Page gutters** > > There’s a handful of instances where screenshots get sucked up into the gutter in awkward ways. Page 4 & 5 for example seem to have the “action” of the screenshot fall into the gutter. Even ate some text on page 22, potentially printing issues though? > **Love the colored sections for quick skim navigation** > > Love the color coded headers for the Steam Next Fest, and a couple of the following section as a way to show the overarching connection in a quick, visual way. I always appreciated these types of methods of quick visual communication, making it easy to jump back and fourth between sections. It does take a hefty amount of space, so I understand why it’s not done on every spread. Wonder if there is other methods or achieving a similar effect. > **Margins feel tight** > > I personally found the margins, both between print edge and content, and between content and content, a little tight. To me, it brings this cramped feeling to the spreads. I would consider increasing them by 50% or 100%, and compensate by adjusting type size down. > **Jumping between left & justified alignments** > > I initially noticed it on _The Newz_ page (but later noticed you use it elsewhere) that you used justified type, presumably as a nod to traditional/historical printing methods. I really like the idea here, but I think your type size is a bit too large in relation to some of your column sizes. There are some lines that have incredibly large spacing between words, simple fix would be to allow hyphenation on these lines (not default for inDesign if I recall) so that long words can be split across lines well, but I do think it’s worth considering type size in relation to column size. To add onto this thought though, you jump between left-aligned and justified spread-to-spread. I feel like you should stick with one or the other, and if you ask me, I think justified is the way to go. Justified type + a strong grid layout is just going to ooze that traditional print vibe (presuming you want to lean into that harder, of course.) > **Copy widows** > > In a somewhat similar-ish vein, there are a handful of instances where you use left alignment and have a widowed (as in, left a word by it’s lonesome) word-or-two, which visually leaves a large chunk of white space (I originally wrote this note in context of the one instance of horizontal text, but there were a couple other instances in article copy as well.) Some slight manual adjustments of character spacing could help get those words onto the line above and clean up the white space there. > **Image separation** > > In super image heavy sections, I think bringing in a margin between them would help visually separate each screenshot from one another better. In particular, page 31 has a lot of really similar colors across the screenshots that really visually blend them together. **Content Notes:** > **Loved some of the “games you might have missed” features** > > Loved the Lego Voyagers shout out, that one fell off my radar but is totally in the wheelhouse of games my fiancee and I would play together. In a similar way, I appreciate that the content is not caught up in being with all of the latest and greatest. A “games you might’ve missed” call out such as this one, along with a dedicated spread in the back half are pieces of content that I feel really aligns with what I feel like some of your Point of View regarding gaming is. > **Some sections feel like they lack a PoV** > > On the flip side, the strictly informational News updates I felt was lacking a personal point of view. News is really fast and easy to consume, so some of the articles in this section just felt “meh” because I was already aware of them, and I felt like they didn’t really express your point of view well with them, as they appeared to be written a bit more from an objective standpoint. > **Interview felt tough to read** > > I really enjoyed the interview section and the topics it covered, but reading it was a little rough for me. The copy was incredibly true to recording and normal conversational cadence, almost too true with the abundance of “likes” and “yeahs”. In consuming this interview audibly, the inclusions wouldn’t seem as much of a big deal. But reading them felt like hitting a speed bump, and broke up the flow for me. **Misc:** > **Can we bridge the gap the other direction?** > > We live in a digital era, undoubtedly, and it’s dismantled a lot of the previous, traditional physical mediums. While we are striving to reconnect with some of these things we’ve lost— I also don’t believe we should entirely abandon the digital experience. For, presumably many of us receiving JAMPACK’d, a bulk of our connection to the experience is rooted in a shared digital community around your content. I would love to see some sort of inclusion into tapping into that strength digital has, and include some sort of direct connection to a digital space for readers to share and discuss the issue in. Potentially a privated thread with an entry code only in JAMPACK’d? Or maybe a simple “discuss this issue” callout with a forum subsection and post on mailing to match. Just spitballing, some sort of continue the discussion call feels like it would be a good fit is mostly what I’m getting at. > > That being said, I love the Games Challenge idea so much. Hope to get through it on my end! ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 3:33am UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/22 "2026-07-24T03:33:19Z")
> [@Scootsyy](#): > > It came in on a particularly rough day and immediately made my day better, my wife and I started geeking out looking at the magazine for like an hour. AHHHHHHHHHH IM SO GLAD. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 3:37am UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/23 "2026-07-24T03:37:07Z")
@Akino thank you SO much for this (and for the drop-downs; which I didn’t even realize you could _do_ in this forum software… lol)! I appreciate all the thought that went into this and I agree with most (if not all) of your feedback and will be reflecting on it. One consistent through line that probably causes some of the issues is that I didn’t have a master format/template/etc. established from the start. I originally started with a “magazine template” from Envato just to learn Affinity Publisher, but immediately hated it and just started from scratch. Specifically this lead to one thing I would love feedback on: How do you feel about the font sizes? I originally made like 75% of the layouts with MUCH bigger font. But when trying to figure out how other magazines had so much room for secondary text sections and columns, etc., I did some print tests to compare to magazines of old and discovered they had way smaller fonts. I shrunk down many of the layouts, but some earlier ones that were already done I chose to keep (both out of time savings and to test and see which felt better). Thoughts? Thank you so much. Means a lot that you’re willing to provide such detailed feedback! ---
**Author:** ![Akino](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/akino/32/861_2.png) [@Akino](https://demodisc.zone/u/Akino)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 4:27pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/24 "2026-07-24T16:27:59Z")
Absolutely, the invitation was there and gaming magazine layouts are definitely one of the many things that influenced & inspired my career path. So, it was fun to consume and reflect not only on the written content, but also the layout & design! I naturally have the habit of reading the written word, and then taking in the entire layout & visual communication of printed work, so taking the extra step to write those thoughts down (and later refine those into more structured groupings) was super natural and easy. I appreciate the opportunity to provide some thoughts on both fronts as a reader! > [@EposVox](#): > > (and for the drop-downs; which I didn’t even realize you could _do_ in this forum software… lol) I didn’t even really know this was an option until I had the _“oh, this is an overwhelming wall of text”_ moment and decided to take a peak behind the mysterious + button on the editor, lol. Stoked to have the option there, and will keep it in the back pocket for the future. > [@EposVox](#): > > One consistent through line that probably causes some of the issues is that I didn’t have a master format/template/etc. established from the start. I originally started with a “magazine template” from Envato just to learn Affinity Publisher, but immediately hated it and just started from scratch. Yeah, I definitely picked up on the lack of a master template, but I also didn’t really mind the variety in layouts across the zine. It’s one of those things where, a super hyper templated approach _CAN_ give off a really clean, consistent, professional and/or traditional look, but in doing so you also sacrifice some of that DIY & personalized feel that comes across in zines. This is intentionally not some hyper conglomeration focused on chasing never ending growth & profit, you don’t need to fall into the same traps of streamlining, simplification & blandification that drains the soul out of shit because it’s more cost-effective to do so (I think we share an aligned perspective & opinion regarding that.) While I think in some capacity, it would be nice to lean into some of the design standards that are commonplace in publications (in regards to grid layout & typesetting specifically), I also highly encourage retaining the personal touch that makes the zine clearly yours, and oozing with self expression. It’s a zine, not a magazine after all. 😁 The backgrounds on some spreads, some of the placements of characters or game artifacts in columns, and incredibly stylized headings all feel like decisions made from a personal aesthetics choice that I really love and continue to crave moving forward. If you’re using Affinity Publisher, consider building out some _ **Master Pages** _ and _ **Paragraph Styles** _ of your own that give you a consistent jumping off point to build within a consistent rule set, as well as an intentionality for when you break these rules (which really helps when establishing a visual hierarchy for the specific element within the spread.) > [@EposVox](#): > > Specifically this lead to one thing I would love feedback on: How do you feel about the font sizes? Initial impression was that it is indeed much larger then what I would expect for a publication. So it goes against the grain in terms of what is traditionally expected. Publications typically wanted to cram as much legible text on a spread as it was more cost effective in both time & ink. That being said, it felt much friendlier on the eyes to read, especially in instances where that color contrast was rough. Personally, I would adjust it down some more, especially if you’re going to use justified spacing moving forward. There was a handful of instances I can recall where you have a line of copy above that has one rather longer word that eats up a lot of space, and then as a result the line following has 4 words of shorter length that have some wicked spacing between each, and then another crammed up line with a long word once more. A shorter type size, along with hyphenation, should drastically reduce the frequency this occurs at. There will still be some instances that you may need to hop in and manually kern, or end up choosing to rephrase a word here or there. I’ll attach a folding note with a couple standards/helpful information. > **Typography & Layout stuffs that might be helpful** > > - **Typical Magazine Type Size:** > 9-12 points > - **Point-to-inches conversion:** > 72 points = ~1 inch > - **Golden Ratio for “natural” feeling layout scale:** > _Helpful for establishing an organic or natural feel for the relationship between heading sizes and body copy._ > Y x 0.618 for decreasing scale > Y x 1.618 for increasing scale > - **Typical Magazine Margins:** > Outside - 0.5” > Inside/Gutter - 0.625” > Top - 0.5” > Bottom - 0.625” > _(this assumes page number is at the bottom.)_ Anyway, hope all that is at least a little helpful. If you ever want to bounce ideas, or just want a quick look over, you’re more then welcome to reach out. You can DM me here, or I can provide you my Discord if you would prefer. Whatever works, I’m always more then happy to leisurely chip in my two cents. _Edit: Spelling._ ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 7:58pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/25 "2026-07-24T19:58:39Z")
I finally made an announcement video for the magazine! So I’ll be extending the Batch 2 window by a week or two to allow for people who hadn’t heard about it until now to get in and not miss out! https://vids.demodisc.zone/embed.php?id=53 Order here: [https://jampackd.quest/](https://jampackd.quest/) ---
**Author:** ![doolittle](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/doolittle/32/862_2.png) [@doolittle](https://demodisc.zone/u/doolittle)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 2:38am UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/26 "2026-07-25T02:38:13Z")
Just subscribed. Pumped to get my first issue. ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 2:43am UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/27 "2026-07-25T02:43:46Z")
Thank you!! Super stoked ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 11:24am UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/28 "2026-08-07T11:24:49Z")
# BATCH 2 WILL BE CLOSING IN TWO DAYS If you want to get your order in, now’s the time! I will have some additional limited copies at other retailers and a small stock for myself, but that’s it probably. ---
**Author:** ![rat](https://demodisc.zone/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@rat](https://demodisc.zone/u/rat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2026, 12:30pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/29 "2026-08-10T12:30:33Z")
dang am I to late? :c was about to pull the trigger just spent to long wondering if I could deal with the shipping cost (ended up justifying it cause you and bk have brought a lot of joy into my life while im feeling quite lost and stressed ) and trying to work out if it included the customs stuff or not. getting back into reading after not for a good 5 or so years and just finishing up with “a handheld history” after struggling getting distracted by all the things.. wondering what to read next! also found some gaming magazines as I used to read when I was younger while cleaning up somewhere and now I dont know where I put them D: ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2026, 12:51pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/30 "2026-08-10T12:51:22Z")
Ayyyy good find on the childhood mags! I’m closing orders tonight. I honestly don’t know if the shipping includes customs fees for other countries, it’s not clearly communicated to me :S ---
**Author:** ![Siors](https://demodisc.zone/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Siors](https://demodisc.zone/u/Siors)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2026, 1:35pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/31 "2026-08-10T13:35:24Z")
Been keenly waiting for that UK 8bitmods listing, hope that’s still on the cards! The magazine looks so good. ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2026, 1:38pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/32 "2026-08-10T13:38:45Z")
Yes! I’m shipping their batch to them this week!! ---
**Author:** ![rat](https://demodisc.zone/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@rat](https://demodisc.zone/u/rat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2026, 9:15pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/33 "2026-08-10T21:15:04Z")
nice! just ordered from your store looks like everything’s paid shipping wise looking forward to it! grabbed some of those zines as well dont know what a zine is but they looked neat. ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2026, 2:06pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/34 "2026-08-16T14:06:34Z")
JAMPACK’d Issue 1 orders close today! I will have limited copies available via other retailers after this weekend, but this is your main last chance! I’m placing the print order tomorrow! ---
**Author:** ![agizmo](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/agizmo/32/38_2.png) [@agizmo](https://demodisc.zone/u/agizmo)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 7:42pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/35 "2026-09-10T19:42:24Z")
It has arrived. And managed to survive the one day in the past month+ it’s rained. ![PXL_20260910_194009463](https://demodisc.zone/uploads/default/original/2X/f/fba23887564f49f6ec935f60b04d28f528ce7f3e.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![agizmo](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/agizmo/32/38_2.png) [@agizmo](https://demodisc.zone/u/agizmo)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 8:41pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/36 "2026-09-10T20:41:37Z")
Also appreciate the envelope sticker. ![IMG_20260910_164129](https://demodisc.zone/uploads/default/original/2X/8/83dd563bdac87a233591e30991ceeece232aba23.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/eposvox/32/15_2.png) [@EposVox](https://demodisc.zone/u/EposVox)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 8:42pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/37 "2026-09-10T20:42:35Z")
Been trying to get through my decade backlog of random stickers! ---
**Author:** ![rat](https://demodisc.zone/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@rat](https://demodisc.zone/u/rat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 10:50am UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/38 "2026-09-11T10:50:03Z")
man i cant wait to get my hands on mine! ---
**Author:** ![BerrieV](https://demodisc.zone/user_avatar/demodisc.zone/berriev/32/642_2.png) [@BerrieV](https://demodisc.zone/u/BerrieV)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 1:08pm UTC](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431/39 "2026-09-18T13:08:01Z")
Received mine this week as well, very excited to start reading it! [Previous page](https://demodisc.zone/t/im-launching-a-gaming-magazine/431.md?page=1)