“From the first time I played Super Mario Bros. back in the 80’s I knew I wanted to be a game designer,” Jed Doerksen of Trapped Chest said. “Unfortunately coding is like watching paint dry.” He went on to say that he found his path when he started playing D&D and began fiddling with story writing and game mechanics right out of the gate. Doerksen describes himself as a small RPG and board game developer and publisher from rural Manitoba and a forever GM, with countless campaigns behind him and many more on the horizon.”

Doerksen’s company Trapped Chest is best known for Reanimated, a zombie apocalypse sandbox TTRPG and The Nullam Project, a rules-light orbital colony game. Both projects use the Key Powered System, a d8 based set of mechanics that Doerksen designed and released an SRD for so other designers can also use it in their games.

Reanimated features rules to create a variety of different types of zombies and ever rules for if your players want to be the zombies. It was inspired by low budget zombie movies and, Doerksen says, “I saw a gap in the market and felt that I could do in 20 pages what All Flesh Must Be Eaten took over 260 to accomplish. I feel I was successful.”

The Nullam Project is set in a distant future where a human generation ship arrived at a distant planet to build a new home for itself only to find that the planet is already inhabited by a pair of warring alien species. It’s inspired by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Jed Doerksen describes his work as “highly efficient” and says he likes to keep his rules as short as possible. When asked what his creative process is like, Doerksen replied, “Get an idea, focus like a madman for several days [or] weeks, get burnt out, put it on a shelf for several months.” He says if he has a deadline he can push forward but without one, he just keeps finding new ideas, starting them, and then shoving them into his WIP folder until he can get back to them at a later date. He says the folder currently contains 25 projects at various states of completion, some of which are already awaiting playtesting or art.

Doerksen is currently hard at work on Quest Nexus, a d12 dice pool system that brags it can run any adventure from any system with minimal work. He says he started work on it when his players “bounced off” Shadowrun’s mechanics but said they loved the system. His attempt to solve the disconnect at his table resulted in a 6+ year project that he plans to crowdfund in 2026.

He’s also planning to release Essence of the Arcane, a two-player abstract strategy board game on January 23, 2026 at Game-itoba. In Essence of the Arcane you control motes of magical energy and try to eliminate all your opponent’s motes. The playtest version of the game is available to print and play for free on the Trapped Chest website.

FUN FACTS

First TTRPG Played: D&D 3e

Dream Collaboration: an official RPG for Vizzipop’s Hellaverse or working with Mel Brooks to make Spaceballs: The RPG!

Fave Canadian drink/snack: Canada has some great craft beer and I won't turn down a good poutine

Best Advice for New Indie Game Designers: You have a long road ahead and if you want to be successful you have to treat it as a career path, not just a hobby.

You can check out Jed Doerksen’s work at TrappedChest.com or find him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, and Itch.