This week is the final installment of my #33in28 series of solo roleplaying game reviews that I wanted to do for my birthday month. This post is a little late, but the final reviews took me longer than intended in the wake of some trauma and grief. I think that there are a lot of great games in this bunch though, so check them out!
Fear is Just a Lie
By KatSelesnya
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, journaling, cards, drama, unsettling, worldbuilding, towns, horror, pamphlet
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? None in text
Length: Short, Journaling (At your own pace)
Fear is Just a Lie is a worldbuilding game designed to help you establish a town setting for a horror RPG by KatSelesnya. The itchio page notes that the game was written, photographed, and produced on unceded Munsee Lenape lands. The game uses a five-phase process on a pamphlet (hence the document’s unusual layout) to help players construct a town setting.
I love town construction and worldbuilding like, a really lot, so I was super excited about this one. I like the handy pamphlet layout, and could see it being very useful at the table. I kind of wish the numbered lists were not center aligned, but that’s a nitpick thing – otherwise the text is well laid out for a pamphlet and has some lovely photography to support the vibe.
The prompts are really intriguing, guiding players through establishing the town, defining an ancient evil, quelling the wrath, discussing when there was peace, and the simmering return.Even the titles of the phases are really fascinating, and give a real sense of strength to play. The cards help determine the tone of how you respond to questions, like with fear or determination or pride or delight. This is really rad and I love how it basically creates a lead for how to respond to questions.
I don’t want to spoil the prompts for this really intriguing worldbuilding game, but I do want you to imagine a town in the desert between California & Nevada where there’s no public restrooms and it’s clear the land hates the current residents for the sins of their own and the sins of their fathers. There’s a curse, but it’s not from the first residents the land was stolen from, but instead the greedy people who cursed the land because they didn’t want anyone else to have it or take it back. The curse causes everyone in the town to take ill who tries to live there, and structures around the town become infected with a spreading mold that drowns out the light and crumbles cement and wood. That’s the kind of town you can build in this game that’s hauntingly creepy and thoughtful in its design!
Fear is Just a Lie is an unsettling and cursed but fascinating worldbuilding pamphlet game by KatSelesnya. It has a really fun and well-written set of phases of play to guide worldbuilding and create a rich town setting. Check it out today on itchio!
Live.Love.Die.Remember.
By Ray Cox
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, journaling, death, loss, mechs, dice
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? On itchio page’s linked podcast
Length: Short, Journaling (At your own pace)
Live.Love.Die.Remember. is a GMless RPG about mechs falling in love with their pilots, reliving their memories, and the cost of victory by Ray Cox. It uses prompts, some dice rolls, and marking your “chassis” (your skin) with a marker or other removable pen. The stories told in this game are really emotional, and it comes with a variety of content warnings (death, war, war crimes, character death, tragedy, hard choices, love, & relationships).
The layout of the text is really simple, easy to read, and pretty. The use of emphasis to indicate when text should be read aloud is useful as well! I like having the instruction on the left side of the page with the prompts on the right side of the page – it helps lead players through their actions and keeps things orderly. Considering you have to refer back and forth in a few instances, it also makes that simpler.
You begin the game by using prompts to describe the war, then move on to relive your memories of your love for your pilot. As an AI mech you have feelings even if you’re a militarized weapon, and you mark your chassis for each scene that you play through. Some of the prompts could be very intimate, but you can choose prompts to suit how deep you want to go. I like when it’s possible to choose prompts because, as someone with some sensitivities about intimacy, it lets me choose how much I want to engage or reveal, even in solo play. This section also allows you to choose how many prompts you’ll engage with, which helps time play and meter the depth of the play.
At the end of the game, you decide whether you sacrifice yourself for your love (your pilot), sacrifice your love for the end of the war, or sacrifice peace so you can stay together. This kind of difficult choice is really rad to play out when you know it is coming, as hard as it can be after exploring emotional stories. I love how it’s implemented, and I like that the final text includes a wrap up where you discuss the story and the experience, as well as encouraging some relaxing and decompressing since it’s an intense story.
Live. Love. Die. Remember. is an intense, deep roleplaying game about mechs in love by Ray Cox. I think that it is a really intimate experience to play solo or even with others, each player exploring their mech/pilot relationship in a shared space. Check it out on itchio today!
Low Spell Slots
By Amber Logsdon & Seth Witucki
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, executive dysfunction, mental health, mindfulness, health
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? None in text
Length: Short-Medium, At Your Own Pace
Low Spell Slots is “the game of giving executive dysfunction the finger” by Amber Logsdon & Seth Witucki. It uses prompts and a dice roll to help players overcome executive dysfunction and complete tasks. It’s a super simple game, but one of my favorites!
The game is laid out with high contrast color and big letters in a poster-sized sheet that could easily be printed out and posted on your wall to encourage play and help with the executive dysfunction many people experience due to mental illness, stress, or otherwise. I like the big squares with guidance on what to do based on your roll – whether that is learning, creating, nourishing yourself, cleaning, or more different things to help you get over the hump that is blocking you. It’s quite easy to play and effective!
To play the game, you roll 1d6 and do a task based on the result. While it may sound daunting, the game asks that you do just one thing – one push up, eat one bite of food, pick up one piece of trash, recycle one thing, etc. The mechanics are simple like the layout – dice roll, action, repeat if desired. It’s a good way to give impetus to an angsty brain and push you into doing something when you otherwise might not. I think it’s really clever and a fun way to try to bust out of a funk!
Low Spell Slots is a simple and encouraging game to help fight executive dysfunction by Amber Logsdon & Seth Witucki. It uses simple layout and mechanics to encourage players to bust out of their bad times and get just one thing done. Check it out on itchio today!
My Brain Is A Stick Of Butter
By Adam Bell
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, ADHD, mental illness, mindfulness, dice, cards, journaling
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? None available in text
Length: 20 Minutes a Day for One Week, Journaling (At your own pace)
My Brain Is A Stick Of Butter is a game about ADHD by Adam Bell. This game has a fun layout and is a really good way of capturing the experience of ADHD for people who may be unfamiliar with it. I really like that the creator is very honest about their own experiences in the forward, describing their brain as a stick of butter that slides from task to task! To play the game, you use clocks, cards, dice, and journaling to record playing through multiple days worth of tasks.
I will be 100% honest: I could not play this game. I am not formally diagnosed with ADHD (yet) but trying to play through it was like chasing a greased corgi through a McDonalds play place. This is not the fault of the design – in fact, I think it captures how good the design is, because people who already know what ADHD is like and what having attention or focus issues are like will struggle with it more than people who can sit down and accomplish a task without their stick of butter sliding.
I particularly appreciated the acknowledgement of sleep debt in the mechanics as you go through each day trying to accomplish all of the tasks, incurring that debt if you push through. I also liked that if you get off track of your task or keep doing the task you want to do, the mechanics account for that. When playing, I didn’t initially realize how much trouble I had staying on track, so I turned to Thomas for his perspective, and as a fellow attention-issue haver, his agreement was solid.
“As someone who has attention issues, the game’s mechanics and writing really put to words mechanically how I interact with work and how I accomplish tasks. My brain is like a scattering of forgetful squirrels, that as a group pile onto an idea. Then if one is distracted by something else, moves to another, and the whole group is led that way. Then when done with this new and interesting (but now boring) task. The squirrels return to what they had initially been doing, uncertain of how much progress they had made before.
The games clocks remind me of this and remind me of how I function when it comes to tasks and the difficulty there is in maintaining focus on a single goal. I think to play this game purely, I may have to open four YouTube videos and have them all playing at once in various split screens across multiple devices.” – Thomas Novosel
I think Thomas really encapsulates it!
My Brain Is A Stick Of Butter is a realistic and teaching game about ADHD by Adam Bell. It uses a combination of mechanics to help players understand the experience of having attention and focus issues in an approachable fashion. Check it out on itchio today!
My Welcomed Guest
By Yoshi Creelman
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, journaling, fantasy, dice, fairies
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? None available in text
Length: Short, Journaling (At your own pace)
My Welcomed Guest is a solo game about being trapped in Faerie and trying to bargain your way home by Yoshi Creelman (Dawn Bear Games). The game takes you through a series of acts with prompts that help to expand and flesh out your experience in a fairy plane. It uses a six-sided die, journaling, and “taboo marks” on your page to influence and document play.
The layout is very simple and doesn’t have much embellishment, but it’s clearly readable with decent sized text and good organization. The game deals with a lot of the same elements that most fairytales do, but takes it into a more extended exploration of how someone would be treated in such captivity, what they might offer to escape, and what they experience their captors to be like and look like. It’s really quite haunting in essence, as good fairy tales are!
Going with the trend of not spoiling prompts or results too much, I can say that my host looked, smelled, and sounded insectoid, that their posture put me at ease, and their smell concerned me and made me unsettled and I could not rationalize it. The inciting incident to get me there was a loved one in need of aid and I brought with me an iron nail. As the game proceeded, I gained a few (too many) taboos, and I was much reminded of my own game Echoes as I felt like I would spend the rest of my character’s life wandering through caverns hoping that the voice that left me would guide me out. Unfortunately, that third door did not present itself in the extrapolation I played out.
I would advise using safety tools while playing this game, as there are elements that players may touch on that are somewhat dark, including the mere nature of being taken captive. It is a really lovely, deep exploration of a very unsettling experience, though, and I do recommend taking it for a spin. The prompts are really intriguing, the play is simple but engaging, and it leaves you wondering what might happen if you return again.
My Welcomed Guest is a well-written delve into the world of the Faerie by Yoshi Creelman for the Short and Easy Jam. It takes you through an experience of captivity, pushing the boundaries, and trying to find your way home with quick and easy to understand mechanics. Check it out on itchio today!
The Love-Stained Wisdom King
By Sangjun
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, meditation, ritual
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? No examples in text
Length: Short, Optional Journaling (At your own pace)
The Love-Stained Wisdom King is a meditative game about want by Sangjun. The game uses questions and meditation to focus on the desires of the player (in or out of character). It states that no knowledge of Buddhism is required, so I was intrigued to check it out.
The layout of the game is really pretty and easy to read. Large white text on dark red and black pages with gorgeous illustrations, making hearty use of open space for thoughtfulness. I really liked the way this simply executed a process of meditation on an idea and revelations.
To begin play, you identify a want – a desire, something like success, money, love, or anything else one could desire. Then, you focus on it as you accept the presence of the Love-Stained Wisdom King. You read through the text and the Love-Stained Wisdom King reveals six treasures. I won’t spoil all of this, as I feel part of the play is in the discovery and revelations.
With each treasure revealed, you’re asked questions and given prompts to explore your want. The treasures go away and new ones are revealed. The Wisdom King shocks you and wells up within you to help you understand your want more clearly. Accepting the Wisdom King’s actions and following the prompts and questions is really thoughtful. The game does tell you to remember the answers, but I had to write things down.
The sixth treasure is truly a surprise, so I recommend checking this out if you want to meditate on an idea, in character or out of character, and discover something new about your desires!
The Love-Stained Wisdom King is a surprising and thoughtful meditative game by Sangjun. You play through with the guidance of The Wisdom King and answer prompts to help understand a want or desire in your heart, revealing more with each page. Check it out on itchio today!
The Machine
By Adira Slattery and Fen Slattery
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, pamphlet, shared, cards, haunting, multiplayer, journaling, horror
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? No examples in text
Length: Short to Long, Journaling (At your own pace), Shared
The Machine is a serial journaling roleplaying game for as many players as you’d like, each playing one at a time, by Adira Flattery and Fen Slattery. It uses journaling to detail the story of the player trying to complete a cursed machine. Each player has their own solo experience, then passes their journal onto the next person – a different take on a lonely game.
While the game does not include any formal safety tools for solo play beyond recommending stopping if needed, I did appreciate the emphasis on including content warnings for future players in the journal since the cursed machine absolutely has the possibility of creating some unsettling experiences. The game itself says “This game has themes of inevitable death, obsession, mental illness, physical and emotional self-harm, isolation, depression, fixation, and futility that might be difficult for some players.” Which like, yeah. That’s hard. Some people relish in these kinds of playthroughs though! Sometimes I definitely do. But, making sure you’re safe is important.
This game is really compelling. You begin by choosing two or three unique traits from a paragraph of options, then the game instructs you to reflect on your journal and its similarity to the machine before writing your first log. As the journal calls to you in your pursuit to finish the machine, you draw cards that help determine your progress. The suits and numbers of the cards define different events and themes that guide your logs, continuing until you’ve drawn a face card or an ace three times – each time drawing a skull on the corner of the log. After this point, you detail how your character fails to finish the machine and their downfall – what happens to them. A truly haunting moment, and one that takes some deep reflection.
This game really captivated me, and I want to play it through with a partner or multiple people, passing the journal back and forth. It also really makes me want to create my own storytelling game like this that uses a shared journal! I love the simple design and the evocative language in the text. Anything that makes me feel this inspired is really awesome!
The Machine is an evocative, haunting shared journaling game for one and multiple players by Adira Slattery and Fen Slattery. The compelling prompts and simple play create a really fascinating solo and shared experience that I think deserves exploration. Check it out on itchio today!
The Sealed Library
By Matt Sanders
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, cards, block tower, journaling, history, knowledge, dice, wretched & alone
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? Linked on itchio page
Length: Short to Medium, Journaling (At your own pace)
Content Warning: Mention of rape, resource scarcity, isolation
The Sealed Library is a solo journaling RPG played with a six-sided die, a deck of cards, a tumbling block tower, and a notebook by Matt Sanders. It is about the preservation of knowledge and presents you as the surviving librarian of the greatest library in history. It presents two conditions in which you can win, unlikely though they are: either you save the works you consider most important by sealing them in a vault and escaping through the sewers, OR you discover ancient spells that transport you and the Sealed Library to a pocket dimension. Only then can you escape the ravages of the world outside.
I admit, the initial quote in the text includes the world “rape” and it unsettled me, distracting me from the otherwise pretty and useable layout. I feel like there could have been another way to approach it, but I understand not everyone has the same kinds of triggers I do. The game unfortunately doesn’t seem to have supporting safety tools, but that is not a huge surprise – safety tools in solo games are still uncommon. It would be helpful with this kind of game, though! Especially considering that the included debrief is one of the bleakest things I’ve read in these reviews.
Nonetheless, it is an interesting game! Each day you play through two phases – the tasks, and the diary. You have an initial setup with the block tower, rolling the die to pull a certain number of blocks, more of which can be pulled based on future card draws each “day” of play. If the tower falls, you lose, the game is over. The tower is optional, and if you don’t use it, you are still at risk of failing and having the library razed – it’s just not done in that manner. Each day you draw cards and complete tasks (phase one) and then do your diary entry reflecting on the day (phase two).
The game’s prompts are stimulating, though they are certainly challenging. Everything from food poisoning to grievous wounds await in your defense and survival, and precious things must be saved in the process. I personally really struggled with the prompts regarding bad food, as someone who has lived through poverty and resource struggles. To another player, however, all of the prompts I found unsettling could just be another opportunity for grisly and fascinating storytelling! While this turned out not to be the game for me, maybe it’s just the dark spot you want to go.
The Sealed Library is a bleak and intriguing journaling game using cards, dice, and an optional block tower by Matt Sanders. It takes you to dark places in pursuit of protecting knowledge in a legendary Sealed Library at the height of a crisis. Check it out on itchio today!
Village Witch
By Kestrel Rae
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, journaling, cards, dice, magic, witches, supernatural
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? None available in text
Length: Short, Journaling (At your own pace)
Village Witch is a solo journaling game about a witch finding a home by Kestrel Rae. It uses a six-sided die, a standard deck of cards, and journaling to tell a story based on prompts that correspond with the cards. I loved the premise of this game from the start!
The text is laid out simply in a rich, warm palette with some lovely photographs for art. It’s very approachable and has a comforting vibe to it, which I really appreciated! I liked that each page is presented very much to walk the player through the experience. There are no specific safety tools listed, but you could easily integrate tools into the experience.
You begin by answering a series of prompts about your character and the setting, establishing the time period, your character’s identity at the start, and more. Then, you play through seasons, trying out new homes each season by choosing a location and answering more prompts. Through the season you draw cards and tell your story until you feel it’s time for the season to change. This is a very fluid and pleasant pace of play, and the locations make the way you translate the card prompts different enough that you could explore for the whole year before settling down, but you also might find the right spot first try!
I found this to be a really gentle and thought provoking game. It satisfies a little bit of wanderlust in me, wanting to find a space of my own that’s safe and where I feel like I am needed and wanted. In times where we find ourselves locked into place, sometimes a game like this can bring some peacefulness to the equation.
Village Witch is a contemplative game about finding where you belong as a village witch by Kestrel Rae. It uses stirring prompts and exploratory questions combined with die rolls and card draws to help tell a story that is pleasantly peaceful. Check it out on itchio today!
You’ll Find A Rainbow
By Riverhouse Games
The General Idea
Genre Tags: solo, lonely, dreams, dice, meditative, music, space, queer, ritual
Replayable? Yes!
Actual Play Available? Many examples in text
Length: Short (At your own pace)
You’ll Find A Rainbow is a space dream by Riverhouse Games. It uses polyhedral dice, prompts, and text guidance to take you through a roleplaying experience that is as much ritual and meditation as it is a game. I do recommend having a friend to call as it indicates, and maybe your own methods of dealing with introspection (safety tools or otherwise)!
This game is actually super hard to review because it is really super different! It’s beautifully and simply laid out, though it may seem hard to follow. It starts with a section to read along and internalize as part of play, then moves on to establish the game, where it came from, and what its purpose is. It states specifically that it’s about queer people struggling with self image, struggling with doubt, and struggling with feeling enough. It also notes it’s based on Sword Dreams, too, which is really rad. There’s a lot of great stuff going on in the establishment of the game!
I really appreciated this quote:
“You’ll Find A Rainbow encourages you to fight yourself and to love yourself. It explores combat as a tool to highlight your invincibility and strength. It asks you not to ignore what hurts you, but to realize that the hurt is what makes you perfect and indestructible.” – Riverhouse Games, You’ll Find A Rainbow
As a queer person who is constantly living the Struggle™, I really enjoyed this game. You need about fifteen minutes to an hour, two sets of polyhedral dice (one that brings you joy, one you despise), something to prove, the rules, contact information for a friend, and optionally the album “Rainbow” by Kesha. You play CosmiQueers, space-faring adventurers “haggard from the empty sadness of space” who are adults of all kinds. You roll on a table to define your Space Magic, including things like Nova Nonbinary and Quantum Queer.
As you play you roll dice to set up where you’re playing in space, adding elements like “freefall from a great height” or “migration of millions moving toward something unseen,” including items like “footprint that shouldn’t be there,” “life where it should not exist,” and so much more – there’s endless creative possibility in these varied prompts. You then have four aspects – pride, vibrancy, heart, and resiliency. You use the stats with dice rolls when the time calls, and your aspects and the dice that represent them are affected through play, including when you roll the dice you despise and when you roll the dice you love. Over time you lose Pride, and you confess your true feelings to your contact person. There is a broad list of questions you answer when you tell your friend that you’re playing the game and share these results. It’s very fascinating! I do recommend getting consent from your contact person first before sharing, as some of this might be intimate or emotional and we all deserve that consenting respect.
Overall I think this is a really beautiful dream and I do recommend it! Flowing through it does take some throwing away of structure many players might be used to, but if you’re a queer person seeking some positive and passionate vibes, I think it’s absolutely worth checking it out. If you’re not queer, playing it could be enlightening to some emotional vulnerabilities you haven’t had to give a shot before.
You’ll Find A Rainbow is an introspective, colorful space dream by Riverhouse Games. It will take you as far as you want to go into the depths of space and the heights of your dreams, so long as you let it. Check it out on itchio today!
Thank you all for joining me for #33in28 and checking out all of these amazing solo games! I think this dive into what solo games are available only scrapes the surface, and that there are tons of beautiful and amazing games for one player that we can enjoy and share with each other as we see fit.
Thank you to all of the featured designers for putting their work out there and for making this a fascinating and revealing experience! I hope you’ll check out some of these games (and tip the designers!) for your own pleasure. Don’t forget to support Thoughty on ko-fi.com/thoughty and keep an eye out for more posts in the future!