Really neat concept. Reminds me a lot of other solo rpg games / supplements.

@xbolinger3 Thanks for taking a look! This was inspired by other games I've played before, including The Quiet Year and some currently unpublished games a friend of mine created, so you're right to see some resemblance.

I loved the X/O system you included! The coinflip adds randomness to solo play in a way that The Quiet Year lacked for me. I'll try it out when I can, this looks super cool!

This reminded me very strongly of The Quiet Year, thank you for mentioning your inspiration, I was trying to tell the person I was playing with about it but couldn't remember the name.

We liked the game a lot, very open ended with just enough structure to keep you going. You did a great job writing the secondary "O" questions so as to open the story to more creativity and storytelling, rather than close it off by looping back to the original event prompt too strongly (if that makes sense - regardless, well done!).

Also, we found it very useful to take notes as we played, so it was a good idea to suggest that.

The only issue we had with the game was the length. We played over dinner and hadn't completed half the deck by the time we were done, so decided to end the game ourselves rather than wait for the End Card, which had landed near the bottom of the deck.
We thought of a couple other ways to help the length issue:
1. Divide the deck by suits, so you can choose how long you want the game to take by how many suits you are playing with.
2. Allow more cards to be the End card, like any ace or aces and kings.

The second point goes into another system I thought might help pace the game, like a "Major Event" card. For example, draw any ace and the first major event happens. Then depending on how long you want the game to be, the next ace could be another Major Event, or it could be the End Card. This adds a little more sense of progression, but at the expense of some of the current open-endedness. But that might put the pacing and style too similar to The Quiet Year's seasons, so :shrug:

But to reiterate, great game!

@oter, thank you very much for playing!

I had a feeling the games would stretch pretty long, especially by the standard of a game jam game. The fact that it was half done in about one session is actually reassuring, because I was afraid it would go even longer.

I thought a lot about how to incorporate the End card to balance it out. Having it just drawn once would be a lot more likely to make a game way too short, but I felt like making the ending the player's decision by default would put sort of an unfun choice on them.

The idea of the Major Event Cards is pretty good. Once I do the math on the average number of turns to get to each ace, players could use that to decide ahead of time how long of a game to play. I'd have to think about what events to put on those cards so that it's not really an issue that players are more or less likely (depending on the chosen game length) to get those cards, so maybe they'd be some bonus topic, like aspects of a creation myth or something. Would you mind if I included a version of this idea in the next version of the game, and if so, would you want to be credited in some way?

E: Approximately, for whatever ace you end at, you'll have 10x that many turns. So, if you decide to end on the second ace you draw, you'll have an average of 20 turns.

Wow great concept, pretty innovative as well

I like the game concept and I would like to see any other art you might make for this too. I like the coin flip and open ended question thing. Also it generally just seems like a cool way to do world building for a setting, maybe players could use the setting they come up with for other games. It does seem like the game would be pretty long though with the rule about the end card having to come up twice. i think the end conditions could definitely be tweaked. I like the major event card idea also

I like the game concept and mechanics that are in this game. Wish you luck and succes in games cause I see a good potential

Please by all means, if you and others like the Major Events idea, try and run with it! I like your idea about developing creation myth or other broad/background aspects of the village through them. It might be difficult to put something so big in a prompt, I don't know, but you certainly have the talent for it.

I appreciate you being so on top of crediting (and development generally). I've never been credited for anything before, so I'll defer to you, but sure, if you could mention me ("oter") in the guide that'd be really cool! (and my co-player declined being credited but is on board for all of the stuff I've posted).

That was unusual to find but still amazing to play! Thank you for participating in game jams, such indie projects create an atmosphere of creativity. definitely 5/5 for innovation

Some interesting ideas at play here! Really liked it and I love that rpg feel to it.

You made a interesting concept here.

Have you managed to test the game yet?

Anyway! good job! I hope you can finish it soon ;D>

@keichits I actually haven't. It wasn't really ready to play until only a few hours before the deadline, and I haven't had a chance to play it with anyone since then. I'd like to, of course.

this is VERY unique and im all for it !! :heart:

Very original! The game reminds me of the podcast "Welcome to Nightvale", the game could be used to create episodes of that :)

Great writing for the cards, I like how the events encourage introduction of new characters and leave open lots of room for interpretation and creativity for defining (historic) events. Recommended it to my sister + husband who are really into improv comedy, I think the game lends itself well for this. I didn't actually play it myself yet btw.

One idea for the optional rules that occurred to me is that a player can draw two cards and answer both while making a connection between the two events.

The only spelling fixes I could find:

14 - Something rare and valuble -> valuable
O Why was that site targetted? -> targeted, usually

Good job!

Very impressive!

Thank you very much to everyone who played! If you had any memorable stories of your playthroughs, I'd love to hear about them

@dining-philosopher I think that idea for drawing two cards could be pretty interesting, and it would also make the timing of each session a lot more flexible. If you don't mind me adding it in the next version, is there any way you'd like to be credited?

@september-xyzx glad you like the idea, no need for crediting. :)

I am not familiar with cooperative storytelling games, but this seems interesting for imagination and writing practice. I tried the game a bit, it's very focused on the interconnection between community members, but still not having any heroes (leaders?) directly in the questions is an interesting choice, altough my playthrough intuively had to include something close to a hero. I also had to limit myself, not to refactor some story elements from before, basically just to keep improvizing without improvement.

Uusing https://deck.of.cards/ , I limited myself to first 10 cards, my story was:

Nine of diamonds - News from outside the community arrives. Bad news.

A messenger from another tribe arrives, bringing bad news about their chieftain being assasinated.

Nine of Clubs - An unexpected romance takes place between two community members. It lasts.

Young messenger is exhausted from a tiring journey, but he is happy to see the girl he met the last time he was in our tribe. They talk, and walk, and talk, and walk, and can't get away from each other. The kiss happens. A forbidden love between members of different tribes.

Eight of Hearts - A reclusive citizen goes out into public for the first time in a long time. Everyone is happy to see him.

Hearing of the chieftain being assasinated, an old crone sworn to silence speaks. Everybody is happy to hear her wise words, but alas, she prophecies the great danger incoming.

Three of Spades - Something seemingly miraculous occurs, but some citizens suspect it to be a hoax. Not genuine.

A storm rises, completely unexpected. Are gods angry with us because of something we didn't do? The old wise crone speaks, while the rain pours from the sky, the time has come for us to rise.

Eight of Diamonds - A public landmark is vandalized.

Everyone took shelter from the downpour, and the rest of the night was clear and silent. In the morning, the tribe found our shrine vandalized. Stone altar to the gods broken, and muddy tracks all over the place. This is just the first sign - says the crone.

Four of Hearts - A group of citizens competes in a tournament against another community.

A test of strenght must be done, for a new chieftain needs to take place within our brother tribe. The strongest and mightiest went far away to another tribe, but only few returned. Leading the small bunch, one of them wore the crowns - our chieftain.

King of Diamonds - A new philosophy becomes popular among the community's youth. Eveyone accepts it.

All hail the new chieftain! All hail the Brotherhood! We should conquer the world! God chose us! shouted the whole tribe, from young children to the eldest seniors.

Two of Spades - A former citizen returns to visit the community.

An old warrior returns from a journey far away. So many seasons passed... Where were you when we needed you the most? Traitor! They didn't even bother to see the things he brought with him.

Ten of Diamonds - A citizen leaves the community for good.

The warrior is shocked and dissapointed with the tribe. I knew of no fear in the wilderlands, saw all kinds of gods beast all over the land, but never I saw such wild bunch. He left in anger and despair, looking for his new tribe.

Seven of Spades - Something believed to be lost forever is found again. A much needed thing.

Travelling far away, the warrior reached our brother tribe, They demanded a gift - a magical crystal, told to be lost forever in the desert. But I have already found the crystal - said the warrior, I have journed long and wide, collected all imaginable treasures, and the crystal is yours now. They accepted him into the tribe.

@rongon Wow, it's really impressive to see how cohesive of a story you formed from those prompts. Were those cards drawn in that order, or did you add events non-chronologically?

@september-xyzx I drew a card, roll a die for yes/no, and wrote that part of story, trying to keep it cohesive :)

Thanks for sharing this! I told a story about a village with strong religious ties to a central (but distant church), that struggled when an outcast joined the village as a productive member.

Overall: I had fun, thanks!
Feedback: There are lots of events in the deck, but as the storyteller I felt sometimes like I was wrestling them into telling a cohesive or thematic story. I wished for something like: a cycle in the game where I reflect on how the village has changed; or stronger theming to the cards (they're *all* about how missionaries interact with the village); or 1-2 mechanic reflecting how prosperous the village is and how it views outsiders (for instance).

@james-laird What you said about wrestling with getting the events to fit is a good point. Obviously, there's a lot of possible events with pretty varying topics, so if you're playing alone there may be ones you just want to skip, but it's hard to draw the line there. Having more than one story develop in parallel, maybe at separate points in time, can also help with that, but that's trickier for solo players. A compromise may be to put cards aside if you can't figure out where it fits, and add it later when it can be combined with another card?

Balancing out the game so that it can be focused, but is still open ended (and also has enough different cards) is tough, but if you have any suggestions, I would be interested.

I'm spitballing here, so take as "this is the kind of thing I mean" rather than "this is actually a good idea." BUT...

Right now your ending is, "does the village survive?" If that's your theme, I'd try to focus the events around things that threaten or benefit the village. A bad harvest, a treasure found, etc. Maybe some events are always good or bad, some are neither, and some could go either way based on the die flip (an omen... is it good or bad?).
Maybe you keep a running Prosperity score which is just the total of "good things" minus the "bad things", then at the end you roll a die, add the running total, and that tells you whether the village survives.
So you get a story about a village that's struggling to survive, and in the end we find out whether it does.

OR, you make the theme "tradition versus change" or something. You keep similar events as your current game, but for each one you ask, "What changes in the village? What stays the same as it's always been?"
Or instead, each time you flip a coin, it's to answer, "Does the village accept this change or not?"
And then in the end, instead of a coin flip maybe it's just a reflection on "how is the village different? What has been lost, and what has been gained?"

OR, you focus tightly on a cast of characters--maybe one family, maybe you name ~5 families in the village. Then you can ask questions like, "A stranger comes. Which family do they stay with?" or "Someone leaves the village. Who is it?" This way, the events are tied together by the named characters--when an artist creates artwork, it's so-and-so whose father died in the last event.

The game is interesting, it was quite nice to play it, keep working on it and everything will be cool