Darling Amongst the Dust
A downloadable game
Darling Amongst the Dust is a solo, GM-less journaling game about trying to survive in a bleak, post-apocalyptic world while losing touch with yourself and what it means to be human. This world will not leave you unchanged and it is not an easy world to survive in, but if you're lucky, you just might make it.
Some relevant content warnings for this game are: themes of isolation, body horror, self injury, hallucinations, violence and death, both human and animal. Please be kind to yourself and play at your own risk.
This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
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Development log
- Final UpdateOct 29, 2022
Comments
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This was so incredible to play!!
I'd never done a journal game before and was really blown away by how fun and captivating it was! I've recommended it to some friends and look forward to playing through again
thank you so much! honored to be your first journaling game!
dark in the best way! I played four rounds in a row over the weekend and there's enough inspiration in the prompts to make you think but enough flexibility that each can apply to a whole variety of characters. Definitely a new favorite!
oh thank you so much for commenting to let me know this! this makes me so happy that you enjoyed it so much!
Reading this over, it looks really fun! However, I can't find anywhere that says when to add tokens to cards, just that you remove them from the Ace of Hearts as you progress. How do the tokens work?
my understanding is that you put 10 tokens on the ace of hearts & at the end of every day you roll a d6. On a 6 you remove a token. Once all 10 are gone you get to read about what happens if you catch up to the human. The tokens are just a way of seeing how close you are to finding another human.
Is there a way to add tokens to cards outside of the single instance where you add all 10 to the ace of hearts? The instructions seem to imply it with "place or remove tokens from cards" on page 2, like you're adding tokens to cards other than the ace of hearts (once drawn)?
I don’t think so, but I haven’t drawn every single card so there might be another prompt that has you add tokens. There are some cards that you keep & don’t discard, & maybe one of them also uses tokens to track something. But the main token mechanic is the 10 on the ace of hearts. If more tokens come up in gameplay just follow whatever the prompt says to do with them. I don’t think the game needs more tokens added to cards to be enjoyable though.
after a quick search for the word “token” in the pdf, it looks like you only ever place tokens on the ace of hearts, but if you draw the ace of spades you can remove a token from the ace of hearts. I think the “place or remove tokens from cards” is just because “card” would sound funny & that the game is still intuitive & easy to understand. You just don’t add tokens until you pull the ace of hearts & the prompt explains what to do rather than it being in the rule’s section, so I think playing the game & not just reading the rules makes everything clear.
I'd just say "ace of hearts card" for clarity instead of "cards" at the beginning. Going back and rereading, all the ace of spades does is modify the ace of hearts so that you can remove a token on a roll of 5 or 6, instead of just 6.
I enjoyed this game enough that I wrote a small program that simulated the cards, dice and tower rules so I could play it without worrying about my kids and cats interfering with the props.
This is so flattering! I'm glad you enjoyed the game so much!
Highlighting Solo and Alone 3 entries in my Twitter account. https://twitter.com/RabbitMatchGame/status/1617634765603229698
(If you're avoiding the hellpit that is twitter)
Indirection (rather than misdirection) is its real strength. From the art selection to the questions not asked, the player finds themself making a lot of "off the page" inquiries, deep and unexpected.
(And always happy to talk rabbits.)