Interview: Alexander Jatscha-Zelt of Golem Productions

From a successful game jam entry to a standout OSR sandbox in Ravaged by Storms, I interview Alexander to get the backstory on Golem Productions.

Dec 02, 2025

Golem Productions didn’t arrive quietly, that’s for sure!

In less than a year, the two-person studio has gone from making waves in a Pirate Borg jam to delivering one of the more striking, fully realized indie TTRPG projects of 2025. With Ravaged by Storms, their art-forward approach, obsessive pre-launch prep, and unmistakable visual identity put them immediately on my radar of folks who seem to get it.

I sat down with Alexander Jatscha-Zelt—one half of Golem Productions—to talk about how it all started, why Pirate Borg became their creative home base, what it’s like running a studio as brother and sister, and where they’re headed next.

1. A big focus of your recent work has been on PIRATE BORG - what got you into the Borg-verse? Did you start with MÖRK BORG and go from there - or jump right into Pirate Borg?

Absolutely, we started with Pirate Borg. As creators, at least. And although I’ve read a few others since then, Pirate Borg was actually the first Borg game we bought and played. It may surprise you, but I haven’t played a single session of classic MÖRK BORG to this day. But of course I respect the game and its creators for what they have achieved.
So, how did I get into the Borg-verse? I learned about Pirate Borg when Free League was promoting it as their publisher. While I had no idea at the time how much I would get into the game, it immediately appealed to my inner child, who had always been fascinated by “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Okay, I thought, I’ll buy it for a nice one- shot or two. Well, it turned out to be much more than that. We just finished a two-year campaign.

2. You’re a two-person operation, working as brother and sister. Have you always been a close and creative team or is this something that has manifested in adulthood?

That’s right, we are siblings. But this kind of close collaboration is something new in recent years. Sabrina works in graphic design and her heart beats for thoughtful layout, expressive design, and strong narrative atmosphere. She’s our art director at Golem Productions, also responsible for our layouts and the whole visual identity.
Myself, I’ve been working in corporate communications and publishing for the last 10 years. So it’s only natural that I work with texts, in project management and marketing for Golem Productions. So, the division of tasks has evolved quite naturally.
Golem Productions has been around since early summer 2024, even though we started thinking about it two years earlier. And we’ve played TTRPGs together before, or the weirdly funny board-card role-playing hybrid Marching Order by Crumbling Keep.

3. One of the things that is quick to get noticed by the RAVAGED BY STORMS kickstarter is that the design / layout / art is really on point. How’d you get so much stuff put together before launching the campaign—and how much was done in-house versus hiring on artist collaborators?

One reason we decided to start with a Borg game is that it’s so art-heavy. There are hardly any repetitive spreads; instead, each one was considered individually and new graphic elements were created for it. But unlike many other Borg games, Pirate Borg is very clean and easy to use. I think the latest releases have been more influenced by the layouts of OSE or Mothership. We like that combination.
But to answer your question: everything was created entirely in-house and, of course, without AI. Just Sabrina and me. There is some public art in there, but all the original illustrations (over 40!) are hers. So is every layout.
This enabled us to ensure consistently high quality, but it required an enormous amount of effort. We started many months before the Kickstarter launch. After all, it’s our first crowdfunding project, so naturally we wanted to leave a favorable impression. Therefore, minimal waiting times have always been an important goal for us. From the outset, our objective was to do as much work as possible on our products before the crowdfunding campaign began to be able to showcase an almost finished product.
Will we continue to work entirely without other artists in the future? We are still discussing that. We will have to find a middle ground between ownership and feasibility. For example, in a future crowdfunding campaign, we might outsource stretch goals to collaborators.

4. From a quick look through your backlog, it seems like you guys have exploded onto the scene pretty recently (2024 by my research, could be wrong there!). Was there an event or specific calling that got you guys thinking “we need to start publishing our own stuff”?

That’s right, that was the beginning. Originally, we wanted to create an OSE adventure in 2022 that had something to do with golems. However, the only thing that ever came of it is today’s Golem Productions logo.
In 2024, specifically, the CABIN FEVER Jam for Pirate Borg by Limithron happened on itch.io, in which we participated and won “Best Adventure” with “The Way of the Worm.” It’s actually a funny story, because we got off to a very slow start in the jam and didn’t take ourselves very seriously at first, because we had been talking about creating something ourselves for over two years without any concrete actions.
And then suddenly people liked it. That’s when we knew we definitely wanted to continue!

5. We spoke before on how much work goes into the pre-launch of a crowdfunding campaign. Can you illuminate for readers what that process looks like the Golem Productions way?

It was a very strenuous process that took months, because we had to learn everything from scratch and are still learning again now in the fulfillment process. I don’t know if we have established our own process that differs so much from others, as we have often sought a great deal of advice and guidance from more accomplished creatives in the very supportive OSR scene.
We planned Ravaged by Storms well in advance and started working on it a good four months before launch, contacting printers and fulfillment partners early on. We had a small project plan for nine months, setting monthly goals and monitoring progress in terms of text, layout, and art, so that we would be as ready as possible by the launch date.

6. We both share our thoughts and opinions on OSR / TTRPGs in general on Substack! How did you find yourselves writing there and what’s the draw of Substack over other blog-writing platforms (or is there one)?

Yes, at the beginning of this year, apart from an itch.io page, we didn’t have a dedicated online presence other than our private channels. Not to mention a mailing list. While a publication like an adventure has to speak for itself and be convincing, I am also firmly convinced that in order to be successful, we need to be visible even as an indie creator and interact with our audience. I therefore thought it likely that our Kickstarter would fail if we simply launched out of the blue without having made ourselves visible and accessible.
To this end, I rolled out our other channels at the beginning of the year, primarily Substack and BlueSky. However, I am also active on Discord, Reddit, and Facebook. Of course, this is not just about advertising, but also simply about participating in the communities.
Specifically regarding Substack: I know very few people here in Germany who are even aware of this platform. Perhaps it’s different in North America? In any case, I knew about it from Sean McCoy’s blog and was fascinated by the possibility of getting a blog and newsletter from a single source. It’s working well for us at the moment and I’m delighted with the interactions that are taking place.
However, I can’t claim to have such a good overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the other blogging platforms that I could give a complete assessment.

7. Recently, BackerKit has been attempting—and succeeding in some cases!—to get their foot in the door on the crowdfunding scene. What led you to launch your project on Kickstarter?

I am particularly impressed by the fact that BackerKit has introduced some serious innovations to crowdfunding: collaborative crowdsourcing in themed months (Mothership Month, Mausritter Month, OSE Month...), collaboration goals, freebies for following the landing page, wow …
I can well imagine using BackerKit in this context in the future. Events like this are really powerful. That said, I still think that Kickstarter appeals to a larger audience, has greater visibility, and strong networks. For individual projects like our last one, which are not financed in conjunction with others, I would therefore continue to rely on Kickstarter. But BackerKit is clearly catching up.

8. What’s next on the horizon for Golem Productions now that Ravaged by Storms is moving into fulfillment? Are you sticking in the Pirate Borg universe or moving to something new?

Yes, Ravaged by Storm is approaching fulfillment, but we still have a few stretch goals to work through that we promised for later in 2026. Beyond that, we will remain loyal to Pirate Borg as our foundation. However, we will no longer do everything on our own. Ravaged has also opened the door to collaborations. We do some of this as a duo, but in some cases I only provide words and Sabrina provides art. We are currently working on three different Pirate Borg projects that were initiated by other parties.
It’s quite clear, however, that we also want to broaden our horizons: both in our own projects and in collaborations. First, there’s the fantastically weird Wind Waker meets Waterworld RPG from the ECO MOFOS!! series called Islands of Weirdhope, which is currently being funded on BackerKit. There’s an official companion book called Four Fathoms Deep, basically a hardcover adventure compendium. We’re going to provide one of those official adventures, Neptun’s Heartstone.

Little break here, but Islands of Weirdhope has just under 48 hours left in its crowdfunding campaign. Go check it out—and read my interview with one of its creators, David Blandy!

Back Islands of Weirdhope Today!

Less concrete, but currently just a thought experiment: I would love to do something for Mothership and Dolmenwood. Probably in the form of a collaboration or a theme month. However, we cannot tackle everything at once. Especially since we also aspire to do more than just develop third-party content in the medium term. We definitely have the idea of developing our own game, even though these thoughts are still very much in the early stages.

9. What’s your favorite game you’ve ever played (video game, ttrpg, etc.)? Is it a different game for each of you?

Wow, that’s a tough one, after half a lifetime of gaming. Video games. Final Fantasy VII has remained in my memory from my childhood as something very special, like no other game. I have no idea if I would still feel that way today. Otherwise, I have to say that my various TTRPG groups over the last 5 years have been mostly fantastic. Among these, Coriolis: The Third Horizon deserves special mention, even though it is not an OSR/NSR game. I am currently running a campaign in its fifth year.
For Sabrina, For Sabrina, this is a (video) game she would love to experience again for the first time: Detroit: Become Human. Among TTRPGs, it’s Vampire: The Masquerade.