👻 Spooky Season Solo Picks

SOLO BORG announcement, Wires in the Woods interview, Crowdfunding Card Games, and more

Oct 17, 2024

Three of the six player character “Vibes” from *The Lost Bay RPG*

The Lost Bay Studio is home to indie creator, publisher, and advocate Iko. I first came across Iko through his wonderful podcast about indie creators and their work. It was one of the inspirations for The Soloist. He also designed The Lost Bay RPG, a suburban gothic mix of 1990s teen life, dark fantasy, and horror classics. With credentials like those, I couldn’t think of a better person to recommend spooky season games.

Outliers

At The Lost Bay Studio web store, we like to carry both group and solo RPGs. Actually, our best-seller is a solo game, Outliers, by Samantha Leigh. Sam is one of my favorite solo designers; I’ll carry anything she publishes. Her journaling games are powered by nimble game engines and are easy to grasp. But, most importantly, they leave strong memories, as if you’ve lived through the experience, not just played a game. Outliers is no exception; playing it really made me feel like I was working in that weird and uncanny research lab. It was so much fun. I laughed a lot.

A Night on Rose Hill

I’m very excited because we’ve just released A Night on Rose Hill, a new Spooky Month-themed solo adventure for The Lost Bay RPG, by our lovely and prolific Allen Hall. The game combines dungeon (graveyard) crawling and journaling in a unique and inspired way. The premise is really fun: you're stuck in a graveyard, you need out, you have only one night. If you're not afraid to die and find yourself digging your way out of a fresh grave over and over, then light a few candles and make your way through Rose Hill Cemetery.

Curios

I love bundles, as in boxes and envelopes filled with a gazillion items. That’s why as soon as I got a chance to get my hands on Seb Pines’s Curios games, Albrecht Manor and Jasper Park, I snagged them. They’re two GM-less investigation games for one or more players. They take the shape of manilla envelopes that are packed to the brim with player handouts: photos, journal entries, voice mails, and (sometimes creepy) hints to solve the mysteries at hand. There’s something eerie and magical in holding and reading the unsent letters of Alex Dunn or the diary pages of Jasper Park rangers.

The Dead Letter Society

Montford Tales’s journaling games look absolutely beautiful, honestly sometimes I back them just for their covers. But I stocked them in the store because of the incredible depth of their gameplay options. World(s)-building, journaling, letter writing, character growth, their games do it all! The Dead Letter Society and its successor, The Almanac of Sanguine Paths offer players many ways to immerse themselves in the worlds of Vampires and Werewolves. I like games built with this modular spirit, facilitating accessibility for a wide range of players and experiences. You can choose to just test out the bloody waters, or you can take the plunge, diving deep into the dark night.

The All Flesh is Surplus game jam for The Lost Bay RPG is live now. It’ll run until mid-November roughly. For it, I’m working on a facilitated solo adventure for The Lost Bay. It’s very much inspired by Return to Star Station by Violet Ballard, and blends dungeon/point-crawling, journaling, and old-fashioned Choose Your Own Adventure concepts. It’s meant to be a short adventure with little-to-no setup. Its setting is that of a sinking and (mostly) abandoned hospital basement, locked from the outside. If you want to get notified of its release you can subscribe to our newsletter or follow the game jam.

2. Wires in the Woods Interview

Wires in the Woods is a solo/duet tabletop RPG where you play a curious little forager in an abandoned world. As you explore, you will recover artifacts left behind and upcycle them to overcome challenges. Wires in The Woods is crowdfunding on Backerkit until November 8.

Earlier this month I chatted with designer Tim Roberts and artist Simon J. Curd about collaborating on the game.

Tim Roberts, accidental games writer and publisher

Tim began gaming in the 1980s playing D&D and the Fighting Fantasy books.

Tim: “I’m an accidental games writer and publisher. I saw 5th Edition D&D in a comic book store and thought, ‘I used to play this.’ Got that, got back into it, and decided to write my own game.”

That game was Be Like a Crow, a solo RPG that went viral on Kickstarter. Its success led Tim to become a full-time game creator and found Critical Kit.

Simon Curd, artist and creature creator

Some of Simon's previous work within the world of *Wires in The Woods*.

Simon Curd, a graphic designer based in Nottingham, UK, creates art that explores nostalgia and decay, often imaginary creatures in a world where humans have disappeared.

Simon: “These creatures are intrigued by the evidence of civilization—old media formats like tapes and floppy disks—which they find fascinating, even though they don’t know what it’s for.”

A Comic Con Created Collab

Simon and Tim met at a Comic Con in Manchester two years ago. It was a chance encounter that sparked the idea for Wires in the Woods.

Simon: “Tim’s wife and business partner, Sarah, stopped by my table at this comic con and said, ‘You know what, I think my husband would really like this.’ A little while later, Tim comes round, and I think even at that point we kind of mooted the idea.”

From there the collaboration evolved quickly with Tim envisioning Simon’s creatures in a game setting.

Tim: “I took Simon’s business card back to Sarah, taped it to an A4 sheet, and started writing all around it. Within 5 or 10 minutes of meeting him, I knew I wanted to make a game out of his creatures.”

Twin Peaks Meets The Wombles

Wires in the Woods is a cozy RPG, where the post-apocalyptic world is one of curiosity and creativity rather than fear and survival.

Tim: “I call it Twin Peaks meets The Wombles. The Wombles were these creatures that lived in a world where people were still around. They would take trash and things left by people into their home to use, but spent more time in family disputes than actually making things.”

The game focuses on exploration and upcycling, with no concept of death—just a loss of enthusiasm, which is measured by a mechanic called “zeal.”

Tim: “You don’t have death. You just get a lack of enthusiasm and decide to fall asleep for a while, and you can come back to the game later.”

Using the Carta System

Wires in the Woods is built on the Carta SRD a card-based framework for creating solo tabletop RPGs. In Wires in the Woods the cards reveal locations, resources, and challenges.

Tim: “It’s the first time I’ve used another system. I figured the Carta system’s exploration and resource mechanics were a good fit. It wasn’t just to save myself work, but to see what it feels like and support the community.”

Creative Process

Some of the Foragers you can play as in *Wires in the Woods*.

Tim and Simon influenced each other’s ideas. While Tim focused on the mechanics, Simon’s art shaped the game’s tone.

Simon: “We worked through some of the prompts together. Tim would bring in mechanics and I’d suggest scenarios or tweaks based on how I saw the world.”

Together they balanced whimsical exploration and darker undertones.

Tim: “I’d done a lot of the prompts already, but Simon said, ‘We can make it a little bit darker, like turn the darkness button up a bit,’ and I thought, ‘Okay, that’s good, we can do that.’”

Wires in The Woods is crowdfunding on Backerkit until November 8. The campaign, which includes a variety of pledge levels and add-ons, easily met its funding goal and is blasting through stretch goals. I’m looking forward to it!

3. SOLO BORG — By Me — Crowdfunding Soon

This month I’ve been participating in #MÖRKTOBER, a month-long game and art jam where creators release daily content for the dark fantasy tabletop RPG MÖRK BORG. I’ve been sharing solo-focused tools that you can check out here.

Some readers including #MÖRKTOBER host

Exeunt Press

suggested I assemble the tools into a book, which I plan to launch on Kickstarter later this year.

MÖRK BORG doesn’t come with built-in solo mechanics. However, the game’s simple rules, rich setting, and random content tables make it ideal for solo players. What’s missing is a structured framework to guide adventures. SOLO BORG will provide that structure plus tools like a quest generator, worldbuilder, NPC and companion behavior, oracles, and more. The toolkit is designed to fit seamlessly into MÖRK BORG but can be adapted for other systems.

Because of the rapid creation of these tools for #MÖRKTOBER, I want to go back and ensure they are consistent. Crowdfunding will support an overall edit including layout and art.

FOLLOW SOLO BORG ON KICKSTARTER

4. Crowdfunding Card Games

The DUNGENERATOR

The DUNGENERATOR: DIE in a Dungeon is a solo or 2-player co-op dungeon crawler where you build a dungeon by drawing cards then dispatch polyhedral dice (your adventurers) to stop creatures from sacking the nearby village. The cards include actions for players to take. Each action is associated with a verb, and this generates a story each game session. DUNGENERATOR is meant to be played as a rogue-lite campaign where you’ll complete village quests, gather loot, and train. There are many ways to customize your party throughout each campaign and several paths to victory.

I had a blast playing DUNGENERATOR with its creator Rollin Kunz. The game had plenty of surprises from drawing cards, but because you don’t roll for random combat outcomes, there were a lot of interesting strategic decisions to make. To Rollin’s amazement, we managed to survive our first 45 minute session!

Voidpilot’s Legacy

Voidpilot’s Legacy is a solo sci-fi tabletop card game where you lead your ship and crew through dangerous missions (combat, mining, salvaging, and more) to earn status and fortune. You win by surviving eight runs through the event deck. You lose if your ship takes too much damage, if your crew is lost, or if you’re defeated too often in combat. Voidpilot has an interesting Heroism mechanic where you can sacrifice a crew to change your die rolls. Check out the five minute How to Play video for a detailed overview.