This is really cute and honestly pretty mechanically interesting. There are a lot of cool ideas here about games where there is not really a good /bad ending, just a desired one.
So You Want The Tall Vampire Lady To Catch You is a companion game to the Lasers & Feelings hack: Tall Vampire Ladies.
It's 5 pages, with a very clean layout.
Mechanics-wise, So You is a solo game with some really clever flourishes. Because the goal of the game is failure (i.e. being caught,) your stats are things like Clumsy and Dummy, and the higher your stats the better you are at stumbling into furniture and failing to puzzle out solutions.
I don't think I've ever seen this is a game before, and it's a perfect fit here where the player goes in with a positive view of their own helplessness and where the *goal* is failure.
There's also a high degree of player control over the ending, with the player accumulating points on three tracks (progress, escape, and caught) and being able to take an ending whenever one of those tracks is filled.
Note that I said 'being able to', as you're not forced to. You can simply wait until the track you like fills and keep playing until you get the ending you want.
Storytelling-wise, this is intended as a solo game. You can GM it yourself or find a friend, but there's also a table of prompts you can roll to see which situation you've just found yourself in. The situations are varied and interesting, and the writing throughout is very good, but I did have to read through a few times to make sure I wasn't missing any directions on how the progress tracks and oracle rolls worked.
Overall, So You is a very cleverly designed game with some cool mechanical innovation but not a lot of replayability. If you have an interest in Lady Dimetrescu and want to hide in her castle and see how that goes, absolutely get this. If you're just looking for a gothic solo game, this may not be quite what you're looking for, but it should probably still be fun to play.
WHOOPS the tracks are meant to just be Caught and Escape, "Progress" was a working name I thought I'd replaced all references to. Thanks for the unintended catch! I've updated the pdf with the proper nomenclature now.
(btw, if you want to see the "fill in a track, roll on it later" mechanic used in a more complete game, do check out Shawn Tomkins' Ironsworn!)
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This is really cute and honestly pretty mechanically interesting. There are a lot of cool ideas here about games where there is not really a good /bad ending, just a desired one.
Months later, I'm still thinking about this great game. One of the best, most inventive, and funniest iterations of the pbta/L&F mechanical core.
So You Want The Tall Vampire Lady To Catch You is a companion game to the Lasers & Feelings hack: Tall Vampire Ladies.
It's 5 pages, with a very clean layout.
Mechanics-wise, So You is a solo game with some really clever flourishes. Because the goal of the game is failure (i.e. being caught,) your stats are things like Clumsy and Dummy, and the higher your stats the better you are at stumbling into furniture and failing to puzzle out solutions.
I don't think I've ever seen this is a game before, and it's a perfect fit here where the player goes in with a positive view of their own helplessness and where the *goal* is failure.
There's also a high degree of player control over the ending, with the player accumulating points on three tracks (progress, escape, and caught) and being able to take an ending whenever one of those tracks is filled.
Note that I said 'being able to', as you're not forced to. You can simply wait until the track you like fills and keep playing until you get the ending you want.
Storytelling-wise, this is intended as a solo game. You can GM it yourself or find a friend, but there's also a table of prompts you can roll to see which situation you've just found yourself in. The situations are varied and interesting, and the writing throughout is very good, but I did have to read through a few times to make sure I wasn't missing any directions on how the progress tracks and oracle rolls worked.
Overall, So You is a very cleverly designed game with some cool mechanical innovation but not a lot of replayability. If you have an interest in Lady Dimetrescu and want to hide in her castle and see how that goes, absolutely get this. If you're just looking for a gothic solo game, this may not be quite what you're looking for, but it should probably still be fun to play.
WHOOPS the tracks are meant to just be Caught and Escape, "Progress" was a working name I thought I'd replaced all references to. Thanks for the unintended catch! I've updated the pdf with the proper nomenclature now.
(btw, if you want to see the "fill in a track, roll on it later" mechanic used in a more complete game, do check out Shawn Tomkins' Ironsworn!)
Ironsworn's super good, and I dig its dedication to tracks!