Jeff Hays is going to read you a rulebook. All 350-plus pages of it, fully voiced, the same way he’s been reading you Carl and Princess Donut getting chewed up by an alien game show since 2020.
That’s the headline from Renegade Game Studios’ crowdfunding push, and it’s stranger and better than the usual stretch-goal filler. The complete audio reading of the Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook is expected in summer 2027, built to work as both an actual listen and a way for players to learn the game before they sit down at a table.
Here’s the part that matters if you’re not backing the campaign: unlike some of the other rewards, the voiced rulebook is planned to be available for purchase through Soundbooth Theater after it releases.
How a cult LitRPG got to eight million copies
Matt Dinniman started this in 2020 with a premise that should not work. Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s prize-winning cat, Princess Donut, try to survive an alien-controlled dungeon that doubles as the galaxy’s most sadistic reality show. Irreverent humor, ridiculous setup, characters you end up caring about more than you planned to.
More than eight million copies sold across all formats since. Multiple installments have hit bestseller status in print and audio. And the franchise has spread outward fast: a WEBTOON, a graphic novel, and a live-action Peacock series from Universal and Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door currently in development.
Now the tabletop arm arrives, and Renegade is stacking audio on top of it.
The short story you can only hear if you back it
Hays is also narrating “Archie,” a 54-page original short story written by Ben Wolf that comes with the Crawler Chaos expansion for Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable.
The written version shows up in retail copies of the expansion. Hays’ audio performance does not. That one is exclusive to crowdfunding backers and is expected in fall 2026.
Soundbooth Theater is building a third thing too: an official Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG soundboard with effects and character audio meant to run during your actual tabletop sessions. Target is summer 2027.
Two games, one dungeon, $13 million
The Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG is a skill-based TTRPG where you build your own Crawler and try to survive a customized World Dungeon. Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable is the other half: a solo and cooperative card-crafting deck-builder set in the same brutal game-show world.
Both launched simultaneously on BackerKit. The campaign has pulled in more than $13 million from over 55,000 backers, with physical fulfillment currently estimated for fall 2026.
Which means the boxes land a year before the man who made Princess Donut a household voice finishes reading you the rules to the game inside them.
