#Journaling game

[junkfoodgames]

Necromancer Heretic is out now!

This is a solo card and journaling game. You are a sorcerer who wishes to bring your lover back from the dead. Complete the resurrection ritual and escape before you are killed by the king’s guard! Using just a deck of cards and blackjack mechanics, you’ll need some skill and bit of luck to survive!

Check it out on itch now! Please share!

[psychhound]

[ID: a banner for a game. it is light tan with a crumpled paper texture, and reads "with breath & sword" in large blue font, and "a solo-journaling game that helps you fight anxiety as you fight monster" below it in smaller font. there is lineart of gauntlets lying over a sword with some flowers at the bottom. end ID]

You find yourself tied to the monsters. The scratchy feeling in your chest. The way your hands tremble. The sweat that dots your upper lip when your senses are telling you a monster is close, again, now, and it’s your job to fight it. To stand up for your ideals and stand up to the threat. Whether you tame it, or this is truly a monster that needs to be slain, only time will tell.

 You know you will succeed. You always have before. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a challenge.

 Grab your gear. Put on your boots. You know how to find it. You know what to do.

 First, you just need to steady yourself.

[ID: a page spread from the game. it shows "step four" on one side, which goes over the five aspects of the game's oracle. on the other side it shows the first oracle component, where something you can taste determines what your heroic core is. the page is minimally designed, with a blue border and text on a white background, tan accents, and one image of a dragon. end ID]

With Breath & Sword is a solo-journaling TTRPG to help players combat anxiety. 

In the game, you play as a monster-fighter, who is being summoned once again due to the presence of a new monster. Each time a monster appears, you struggle with the emotional effects of the magic: effects that look a lot like anxiety. You must steady yourself before you go off to fight: in the game and in real life.

Over the course of WB&S, players will participate in grounding methods and breathing techniques to calm themselves from an anxiety attack. These methods also serve as the game's oracle in order to determine how the story goes. 

What You'll Need:

A safe space to play 

A method of writing or recording

[ID: a page spread from the game. it is the section called "the science" and goes over the psychology behind the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique, the 4-7-8 breathing method, and destroying journaling. it has a few lines about narrative and play therapy, and that the creator of the game used these methods in his social work with neurodivergent teens and adults. end ID]

check out the game on itch now!!

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played WAFFLES FOR ESTHER ?

By Andrew Boyd

Waffles for Esther is a solo journaling game using the Hints and Hijinx system. As the waitress of a small town diner, uncover why your favorite regular has missed her everyday breakfast.

[sneakerdoodle]

I've put together a short solo journaling game; it's available to download for free, but if any donations are made they will be forwarded directly to an initiative dedicated to aiding women prisoners in Russia & educating the public about their experiences

I'm not really a TTRPG designer, this sort of happened on its own - but I do hope it has come together in a way that translates the intention behind it 👍🏻If you like it let me know it will boost my self-esteem a whole bunch

[punkbarbarian]

[image id: a dark photograph of a grassy cliff face with dense clouds. a white illustration of a bat with its wings spread sits behind white text. text reads: Vampire Manor / a for truth's sake game by punkbarbarian. /end id]

On a rocky cliffside overlooking rolling moors as far as the eye can see sits a dark, towering manor home made of brick and iron. Tempestuous clouds cast a perpetual drizzle on the countryside and nearby forest, leaving the air damp and cold. Surely the generous owner of the manor the villagers whispered about will let you shelter there.  Maybe you’ll gather some interesting material for your research… Investigate the macabre manor, its eccentric inhabitants, and the nearby village through interviews and observation. What is the relationship between the unliving and villagers? Why do members of the community go missing without a trace? How long has the Vampire actually been alive?

Vampire Manor is a solo-journaling game where you explore a vampire's ancient manor and the surrounding village to learn more about the community and write an ethnography on them. 

Pull cards to ask questions of the residents, roll dice to see how well interactions go, and get to know a number of residents and fellow travelers, from a petty thief, to wandering nomads, a vampire hunter, and the intimidating Vampire. Unlock 12 different locations and gain levels in friendship and familiarity with the community as you document your discoveries in field notes.

You'll need: A d20, d12, and d8, and a deck of playing cards

Vampire Manor is a setting of For Truth's Sake by @hmooncreates. It was inspired by Dracula by Bram Stoker, Castlevania (Netflix), and Curse of Strahd. 

included in download: a plain text pdf and a formated pdf!

check it out on itch!!

[moodymakeshifter]

Just a heads up: Afterlife Archive is available for free download on Itch, and its page just got a bit of a redesign yesterday.

BUT— I implore you, if you're interested in trying this game, to wait just a few more days for the update to release. New features will be included. New aesthetics. New art. New writing. So it will be worth the wait. I promise~

And after that, I'll be launching the Kickstarter campaign for the first official print run of the game zine!

Super stoked to share these new features with you! >u<

Soon, soon, soon~

[monkeyslunch]

I, The Land

In I, The Land, you are a patch of land, like an island, valley, or mountain. You have unique characteristics, flora, and fauna, and unique powers. Decide to react to, and influence events as they happen on or around you, or simply pay witness to your changing landscape.

Play as is, or use this game to help generate unique locations for your own games.

Available on Itch

[ladytabletop]

Taking a page from the Party of One book and setting up a game submission form!

Fill this out if:

you are a game creator who has published a solo game you'd like to hear me play on the podcast

you are a game creator with a solo game that will be published in the future and you'd like me to promote it prior to or as it comes out

Please be advised, I'm planning for Oct-Nov, and then taking a break until February of next year! So games submitted may not air until next year, but if you have a crowdfunding campaign or release date you're trying to hit, I'm happy to do my best to accommodate that.

If you're not a game creator but you have a solo game you think is cool that you'd like to hear, you're still welcome to submit those games to me via message/askbox without using the form; I don't prioritize those as highly but I do keep a running list to pull from for times when I need to fill an episode in my schedule in a pinch!

[christiansorrell]

Memory Manifest - a solo game (for free!)

Memory Manifest is a solo game where you, real life you - not a character, are recruited by DeSERT's Well-Remembered Artifact division and given instructions on how to tunnel back to foundational memories and retrieve artifacts imbued with power by your lifelong remembrance.

It's a short 8-page zine I dreamt up last night and threw together today as this month's TTRPG freebie for my newsletter. It's small but interesting (to me anyway), and I'm excited to mess more with this thought experiment kind of game in the future.

You can find it about halfway through the latest issue of Missives from the MeatCastle, my monthly newsletter.

[midnight-endings]

A Wizard's Tower

My game can now be found on itch.io! 'A Wizard's Tower' is a prompt-based journaling game about being a wizard and building your tower. 

[junkfoodgames]

Wither and Grow out now!

You wake. You wonder why you’re here and what the world is like.

You hope for things and think of the future.

You wither and grow.

Wither & Grow is a solo journaling game. You are a plant creature that has just gained sentience for reasons unknown. The game is played over 5 stages of your life. In each of these stages, parts of you will grow and wither. You will document these physical, mental, and emotional changes in your journal. Your story may end early if your growth stagnates or becomes uncontrollable. 

In addition to the game rules, you need 4 six-sided dice, paper, and something to write with. The entire game can take an 1-2 hours, or more, depending on how much you decide to write in your journal entries.

The game is a 32-page pdf with lots of great hand-drawn illustrations.

It is formatted to be printed as a 4.25''x5.5'' booklet. Please share!

[psychhound]

[ID: a banner for a game. the banner has a speckled purple background with the top of a building rising on one side. light text reads "the graveyard game" with the word "game" having three ghosts rising out of it. there is a block of yellowish-green at the bottom with the words "a for truth's sake ethnography writing game". end ID]

Cecilia the groundskeeper said the ghosts have been extra cranky ever since that tour of schoolchildren came to visit last week. Parsimony Smit (1667 – 1721) disagrees, stating merely that the coming supermoon is what has all the spirits in a tizzy. Not that he would ever stoop to such behavior himself.

Parsimony Smit (“Death is a debt to nature due that I have paid and so must you”) is one of the more respectable members of the deceased community here, according to himself, unlike Archie Jack (1854 – 1881 “Now between / these carved stones / rich treasure lies / dear Jack his bones”) who never got over his childish love of pulling pranks. Cecilia said you should be fine, as long as you don’t bring anything into the graveyard you don’t mind mysteriously winding up in a nearby tree. You’re not sure exactly what you’ve gotten yourself into here.

The Graveyard Game is a solo-journaling game where you travel to a magical haunted graveyard in order to learn more about the community and write an ethnography on them. 

Pull cards to ask questions of the residents, roll dice to see how well interactions go, and get to know a host of colorful characters from prankster ghosts, to the cemetery gravedigger, to a local vampire, and a mysterious stranger. Unlock 12 different locations and gain levels in friendship and familiarity with the community as you document more and more in your field notes.

You'll need: A d20, d12, and d8, and a deck of playing cards 

The Graveyard Game is a hack of For Truth's Sake by @hmooncreates. It was inspired by The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Includes a formatted pdf, a plaintext document, and a dyslexia friendly document!!

check it out on itch!!

[chiakiakito]

The Magus & The Oracle

or, my yearly ZineMonth breakdown waiting to happen

Here we are! I can finally spill the beans on what I'm working on for ZineMonth 2024. This year NessunDove is joining forces with award-winning designer @momatoes for the first-ever English print of The Magus, the solo ttrpg about pathos, arcana, calamity, and the infinite loneliness of power... Plus a brand-new addition in the form of The Oracle: a 78-card inspiration deck designed to provide visual and storytelling prompts for The Magus, ttrpg systems, and all acts of storytelling.

I was overjoyed to work on the Italian edition of Magus back in 2021, and it was the first ever print run of the game. Now it's time for a new and improved English edition, with a new layout and updated rules that keep The Magus's narrative-driven crunch intact but supplement it with a new source of endless inspiration.

If you're in the mood to tell the tragic story of a sorcerer's quest for arcane mastery, do follow the pre-launch page on Kickstarter and help keep my anxiety at bay by making number go up.

[transmisc2]

// electric sheep // [WET DREAM]

coming prematurely to a computer near you 🍑🦋⚡️

watch this space!

[b-marsollier]

👻 haunting news 👻

I'm launching a kickstarter for my very first zine this February!  

“100% Modern Ghosts” is a humorous horror journaling zine that delivers the experience of playing spooky games at a slumber party. Volumes I & II will be available simultaneously, and each 24-page volume will contain 3 ghosts: at least one solo-play ghost, at least one 2-5+ player ghost, and journaling prompts for all three ghosts.

Join the Bureau of Occult Observation (BoOO), and assist in the documentation of ghosts like:

A ghost that protects you in your sleep

A ghost that inspires beautiful works of collaborative art

The theoretical ghost of a betrayed party guest

A  time-traveling ghost of yourself

My Kickstarter launches Feb 13th, but in the meantime, please enjoy this teaser trailer, check out my pre-launch page, and hit “notify me on launch” 💖👻

[maxkirin]

Happy holidays, survivors! 🎁🎄

Today my latest one-page rpg is out! ONE PAGE HOLIDAY sees you trying to survive a horror holiday movie. Celebrate not just Xmas, but 12 different holidays. Get ready for a bloody good time! 🩸🩸🩸

Get it now for FREE

☕ My Shop 🎮 Itchio 🎲 DriveThruRPG