Bleed in RPGs needs purpose

 Every once in a while, I go back to the Indie Megamix Mixtape. It’s a rather large collection of tiny indie RPGs inspired by songs and created to raise money for creators in need. I have intentionally treated every game as a single entity and taken my time to look at them. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve looked at the collection this year.

The Sound of Silence is a game for two-players.

You define a relationship between the two characters and a fight. Then you privately decide how you feel about the fight. Then you sit back to back and try to resolve things.

There’s a fine line in a lot of indie games between RPG/Storytelling and therapy techniques, particularly in short forms like game poems. The Sound of Silence might actually completely cross that line. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

A concept I have spent too much time thinking about is bleed. That’s when real feelings bleed over into game play.

When I first came across the idea (which was in a discussion about Wraith: the Oblivion, by the way), I didn’t like it. It struck me as both emotionally dangerous and getting in the way of the whole escapist point of RPGs.

Since then, I have quite changed my tune. Bleed can be not just powerful but useful. Games like Polaris and My Life With Master are two good examples of that. Although I say that with the caveat of Emily Care Boss’s guideline that everyone needs to be safe and protected.

But I can’t help but feel that The Sound of Silence is bleed for the sake of bleed and that just seems unnecessary.

A tiny RPG about mad relationships

Living Vie de Loca, from the Indie Mega Mixtape, combines the idea of a two-player RPG with pocket mods. One player plays the Wild One, who is trying to play the other player, the Mark. There’s room in the system for it to go from Manic Pixie Girl romance to a cynical total con job.

The game is made up of two pocket mods, little eight-page booklets that you make by folding and cutting a single piece of paper. There’s one for the Mark and one for the Wild One. And you will be writing in the game pocket mode and tearing off strips over the course of the game so you’ll need to make a new pair every time you play. 

The books guide you through a series of scenes that describe how the two characters become more and more involved with each other, one way or another. At its heart, it’s about revealing more and more details about the characters and a power struggle.

A power struggle because this is a competitive game. There will be a winner and a loser with the winner able to control the situation and the narrative. It seems like the Wild One has an edge but I’m not convinced of that.

One thing that really struck me and I liked about Living de Vie Loca is that between the amount of information the players create and the vagueness of the scenes, there’s a surprising amount of flexibility and replay potential in a game that is in a such a small space, physically and design wise. 

That said, one of the questions I always ask myself when looking at a two-player relationship game is ‘Why would I play this rather than Breaking the Ice?’ For me, that game remains the gold standard for a game about two people.

The initial answer this time is ‘To see if it actually works.’ 

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen pocket mods used as a gimmick nor is the best use I’ve seen. (Assault on Goblin Hall more fully embraces the form) And I do think it’s a gimmick in this case. It could work without the form.

The competitive aspect of the game is actually what makes Living de Vie Loca interesting. Story telling games are about collaboration so adding competition is a risk and definitely not boring.

More so than usual without playing a game, I don’t know if Living De Vie Loca is actually any good. But I admire how experimental is honestly is.

A Game Poem that emphasizes the Poem

Reading The Tears Devour You from the Indie Mega Mixtape, I was reminded why I read the individual games in the collections so slowly, even though I could probably read all thirty-odd of them in one sitting. It’s not just because they’d all blur together but so many of them are these tiny little emotional bullets.

So many of these tiny, short form RPGs read like exercises in group therapy. I say that a lot but I have to because it’s true. (Not that I’m recommend that you use them as a substitute for therapy. In fact, I’m adamantly against that) And The Tears Devour You is a doozy of an example of that.

It’s a game for two players and all you need is each other, some pencils and index cards. Index cards are like the duct tape for tiny indie games. You can use them for so, so much.

In this case, you use one each to write down things like hopes and dreams and wishes. Then you swap cards. The card you get, that’s your character for the game. And the rules tell you to be faithful to those ideas and to not be a jerk.

You play out four scenes: standing on a mountain, bathing on the sea, lying together, and the sky is falling. You have a secret list of the feelings: madly, truly, deeply and doomed. Secretly choose one for the scene and no repeats.

And that’s it. Four scenes and no definitive ending but you are allowed to wonder what happens next. (Some games ban that)

If nothing else, The Tears Devour You is really poetic and really rings true to the songs that inspired it.

I’m kind of glad that I that I don’t gorge these tiny games because I’d totally fail to appreciate them. The Tears Devour You is a sweet little game poem but the way you create each other’s characters is what makes me think hmmmm, this could be good.

The Tears Devour You isn’t perfect or brilliant but it has enough potential to make me really consider it.

An RPG where poker isn’t just the mechanic but the whole thing

It’s been a while but I decided it was time to go back to the Indie Mega Mixtape to read some more wacky RPG goodness with I Bet My Life.

Here’s the one sentence summary: Play poker with your skills and dreams and memories as stakes.

Seriously. That’s really what the game is all about. You define three overwhelming problems, crushing issues that are destroying your lives. Then symbols that represent skills and memories and dreams. Then, deal the cards.

As is often the case with games this short, there are some ambiguities. It sounds like there should be a dummy hand for The Smiling Man but that isn’t actually mentioned.

It’s also doesn’t say if you are supposed to play as yourself. If you are, I Bet My Life has a ridiculous amount of bleed and borders on being an exercise in psychoanalysis, which is going too far for my tastes.

But if you don’t go with that, I Bet My Life actually crosses the line into being a RPG. The rules state you should describe how you should role play out bidding your dreams and memories. And the idea of basically stealing other people’s dreams and skills to solve your own messed life of just a fascinating story telling method.

When I first read I Bet My Life, I was underwhelmed. But the more I’ve thought about, the more I’ve found myself thinking it could really work as a story telling and roleplaying exercise. Poker is the gimmick but it’s one that can turn around and enhance the story telling.

Wandering Stars is just the start of a good idea

The Indie Megamix Mixtape has been by go-to over the last couple years when I want a quick little RPG fix. While I am in the middle of two or three longer RPG books I’m reading off and on, sometimes I want to be able to read and process something in one sitting.

In almost the same sitting, I read My Mother’s Demons, Dyin’ Day and Wandering Stars. The first two were emotionally strong works. Just reading Dyin’ Day was a little traumatic for me. Then I got to Wandering Stars... which is a party game.

That was quite the jump, let me tell you!

Okay, here’s the elevator pitch. The host sets up an obstacle course/puzzle that the players have to solve. (And by that, I mean redecorate the entire house :D) You can’t use your arms  or walk standing up if you’re by yourself. You have to touch chests for one player to use one of their arms and their eyes have to be  closed. You can only talk if someone touches your shoulder and you have to talk to the ceiling.

I have a very loose definition of RPG. Wandering Stars doesn’t even come close :D 

Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t sound fun or, quite frankly, a riot. It does sound like it’d be a lot of work for the host so, unlike almost every other game in the Mixtape, it will take a lot of prep work. Which isn’t a flaw, it’s just a necessity of the form.

What is a flaw is that two pages is not enough to make Wandering Stars a functional set of instructions. It is the form of the Mixtape format but, boy, it does not serve this game well at all. There needs to be a discussion how you develop obstacles and challenges and puzzles. Full examples of a complete setup would also be good.

Because, if you are taking the time and effort to turn your whole house into an obstacle course, you don’t want to do it purely by trial and error. A bad first experience will be your last Wandering Stars experience since why go to the trouble again?

As it stands, Wandering Stars is the outline of a good idea. As well as quite a break from deep, serious little RPGs :D

Found an RPG that was too much for me

Dyin’ Day is a short form RPG about a father taking his babe, no more than nine years old, up the mountain to kill them because a prophetic dream told them to. And, unlike Abraham and Isaac, the game definitely ends with the killing.

Okay. I hit a wall with this game. As a daddy, this game is one that I cannot handle, period. 

It’s a two-player game from the Indie Megamix Mixtape. It openly admits that Trollbabe was a major inspiration, which wasn’t remotely a surprise. The babe player is the GM and creates the trials and tribulations. The father player uses the mechanics from Trollbabe to resolve them. 

Dyin’ Day is an interesting game for me. It’s well grounded mechanically (no surprise given its pedigree) and does a good job evoking the setting of a folklore Appalachia in its two pages. But it hit me with a theme I flat out cannot handle.

My Mother’s Demons promises to bleed onto the table

There is a thin line between experimental group therapy and some indie RPGs. (Not that I’m in a position to talk. A lot of my unpublished RPG work can be described that way) My Mother’s Demons definitely dances on that line.

From the Indie Megamix Mixtape, My Mother’s Demons is a short form RPG about a daughter going to her sick or dying mother but she can only communicate with her mother’s demons.

It’s critical to understand that demons, in this case, doesn’t mean any kind of supernatural creature or even a negative part of the mother’s personality. They are the mother’s coping or protective mechanisms like shame or anger and they are fiercely invested in the mother’s well being.

The game is entirely narrative and has the daughter asking questions which lead to the demons framing scenes in order to provide answers. The daughter will not be in active player in the scenes but she can help guide the scene. In a way, the daughter is the game master. The game ends with the daughter having a conversation with each demon, putting them to rest so the mother can be well.

An important concept in many indie games is bleed, which is when emotions spill over from the game. My Mother’s Demons has a ridiculous potential for bleed. In fact, I’m sure that’s the point. A game of My Mother’s Demons without bleed would basically be a failure.

I respect the game for creating a structure for potentially very powerful experiences. However, I would be reluctant to play it myself and be very careful who I played it with. 

Even by short form, Indie RPG standards, My Mother’s Demons is a niche creation. Unlike many niche games, though, you might not know if you are in the niche.

Itty bitty game about dreams

Once Upon A Dream, part of the Indie Megamix Mixtape, is a whimsical little activity that barely qualifies as a game, let alone an RPG. However, I find it a charming exploration of minimalism.

In a sentence, you sit around discussing dreams and then roll some dice to determine who the ‘winner’ is. That’s really all there is to Once Upon A Dream, although I have to also note that the layout is built around two pretty paintings.

This is a tiny little game. If you just typed it out, I don’t think it would take up a quarter of a page. But it doesn’t seem incomplete. It doesn’t feel like it has to be any more than that.

Over the last few years, for a wide variety of reasons, I have become very interested in short form games and game poems. I’m not sure if I will ever be in a groups where that is something where they can really get played, particularly game poems. (One-shots resigned for two to four hours, that I can see)

However, they are still interesting concepts. They need to be tightly focused, like Spider Jerusalem’s gun with only one bullet, shooting your expectations in the knee cap.

I had problems with the game/track right before Once Upon A Dream, Howls in the Half-Light, because the idea and the potential were too big for the format. On the other hand, Once Upon A Dream is a tiny game for a tiny idea. It’s just big enough for its size.

It is silly and whimsical and probably takes a half an hour at best. If I did end up with a group who wants to play a game like this, it’s probably get two plays tops. But I think it would be fun that one or two times.

Another tiny RPG that I want to be bigger

Micro RPGs, particularly in this day and age, are odd beasts. Unlike micro games where you are dealing with physical components, there isn’t a functional reason to have it be small. An ebook on my phone takes up the same physical space for playing purposes. And, unless you’re using miniatures, most RPGs take up the same physical space to play. You know, a table.

Howl in the Half-Light is a two-page RPG from the Indie Megamix Mixtape and is a good example of how the micro RPG form doesn’t always really serve the game. 

It is about werewolves or maybe wolves who can turn into humans. Characters consist of an origin, a power and some bennies. Conflicts are resolved by rolling one die and there is a table for creating scenes, as well as a sample adventure.

Howl has some the start of some ideas but being only two pages absolutely kills them. It needs to be at least twenty times that length. I was left with a lot of mechanical questions, including if the game was supposed to have a GM or not!

More than that, while there are some lines about corrupting demons and different ways of becoming werewolves, there seems like there is a setting in mind but there’s clearly no room for it. I think it was John Wick who said that people can like mechanics but they fall in love with settings. Let’s be honest, werewolves aren’t under represented in RPGs. For Howl to work for me, it needs a setting for me to fall in love with. 

To be brutally honest, I am not being fair. Howl in the Half-Light was written as part of a charity collection with specific parameters. I just think it has some real potential and I wouldn’t mind seeing it expanded. The mythology that it hints at is interesting and I like the idea of a scene generator. If I found out there was an expanded version, I’d definitely look into it.

Some games are too real

After All These Years is a tiny two-person RPG from the Indie Megamix Mixtape about the relationship of being a parent and child.

It’s super simple. One player is the parent and the other is the child. After filling out a very simple questionnaire that helps define relationships, you take turns framing scenes from twelve cards that describe high and low points in the relationship. The game ends when someone picks ‘The Day You Lost Me’

All Through These Years is simple, heartfelt and looks like it would be very effective as a game. And I never want to play it.

The biggest part of my life is being a daddy. That’s a huge part of who I am. I am going to live through all these highs and lows anyway and the thought of gut wrenching game about them isn’t appealing.

(And, yes, I know. I am assuming I’ll play the role of the parent in the game. Is it bad that I can’t imagine it any other way?)

All Through These Years reads like a beautiful little poem and I bet it would play like one as well. I appreciate the game for what it is. I just don’t want to play it.

Releasing your inner Kanye West the game

I’ve spent the last couple months focused on crafting Print-and-Play, as well as playing solitaire games (usually print and play ones I just made :D) Which has been fun and probably good for my mental health but I decided I needed some kind of mental break, even a little one.

So I reached the Indie Megamix Mixtape, a collection of tiny RPGs inspired by music. I had fun reading the first collection so I’ve started the second one.

The first game in the collection is Every Superhero Needs Theme Music, a game about unleashing your inner Kanye West. 

I have to admit that, while I am aware he exists, I have never listened to Kanye West’s music and I have only the vaguest idea what he is like or what else he does. Judging from this game, he’s someone who’s not afraid to toot his own horn.

You get together with two or three other people you feel comfortable with. You then take turns drawing from a deck of eighteen cards, each one with a quote from Kanye West and a question relating to that quote. You either paraphrase that quote so it applies you or answer the question.

Okay, I have a very generous definition of what is a role playing game  but Every Superhero Needs Theme Music doesn’t make the cut. You aren’t playing any characters or telling a story. You’re sitting around, figuring out how to praise yourself.

Having said that, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t play Every Superhero Needs Theme Music or that’s it’s a bad game/activity. My first reaction was what the heck is this? My second reaction was that this is a pretty neat idea.

Setting aside the Kanye West connection, the game is about affirming yourself. That could just be arrogant but a lot of people I know aren’t good at feeling good about themselves. This game gives people permission to explain affirming themselves.

(Okay, that almost sounds like therapy. I swear, some of these indie games feel like they were designed after someone read a textbook on group therapy. Not that they should ever be used as substitutes!)

The idea that true art needs to be angsty and dark is a common one. Let’s face it, RPGs and Storytelling games would get boring pretty quick if they didn’t have conflict. 

However, having something that you can pull out in order to be positive seems like a really cool idea.

Boy meets girl, girl leaves boy, boy gains super powers

By reading Just For One Day, I've now actually finished the first tape in the Indie Megamix Mixtape. Which means that I still have two more to read :D

Of course, when I first started reading through the micro RPGs in the collection (about a year ago... really?), I knew that I was going to take my time and try not to binge on them. If I did that, I would end up getting burnt out quickly and I wouldn't be able to judge each game on its own merits.

(One thing that has happened as I've read them is that I've gotten more aware and interested on the actual songs that inspired the games. I wonder would it would be like to actually make a mixtape of the songs. And I wonder if they would be good to have around for emergency games of Ribbon Drive. Kind of defeats the purpose of that game, I know, but it's still tempting)

Just For One Day is a game for three players. Two of them play a couple (romantic or otherwise, although the structure really seems to be geared towards romantic) while the third player plays the world.

The mechanics center around seven cards that you make at the start of the game, each one having some kind of trait that either helps or should help hold the relationship together. As the game goes on, they may get reversed but every scene will be tied to them.

The game has three stages, using the deck each time. The first stage is establishing the relationship. The second is having the relationship fall apart. Then, the character who was left gains super powers and develops a neurotic Superman-Lois Lane relationship with the other player.

Okay. Which of those stages is at least a little bit surprising?

Really, by the standards of RPGs, a romantic drama getting hijacked by super powers isn't that weird. I mean, the game before this one is about undead Mesopotamian kings playing rock music. By that yardstick, Just For One Day doesn't even register.

Still, the theme of Just for One Day is the most interesting part for me. For one thing, I like superheroes. For another thing, I like that you build up to it, developing and destroying the relationship before super powers come in. Although the mechanic of returning to the same concepts in every stage has potential.

While I'd rather play Breaking The Ice, I will give Just For One Day credit for examining how a relationship falls apart.

Rocking out with the Mesopotamians

Mesopotamians is part of the Indie Megamix Mixtape, a collection of micro RPG's. On a whole, they aren't the most polished games but they are usually a lot more polished than the micro games I've read from things like 24-Hour contests.

That said, Mesopotamians is probably the least polished game I've seen in the Indie Megamix Mixtape. It literally feels like it's missing whole chunks of rules, enough to make me wonder how playable it is. However, the pieces that are there are really fun.

In Mesopotamians, you play ancient Mesopotamian kings who have been brought back from the dead to lead the undead armies of an evil sorceress. However, you've instead decided to form a rock band and go on the road in an econovan.

The econovan serves as the dice pool for the group. When there's a crisis point, a chosen player will roll the four dice on it. And here's the first interesting part. You assign the four dice to four different areas. The actual crisis, the band's money situation, the band's success as a rock group and how close the sorceress is to conquering the world.

And the second interesting bit is the the characters are just collections of pre-rolled dice. And, after the van dice are rolled, you can swap your dice for van dice. So, the game has an interesting dice juggling mechanic. I don't know how well it works but it is a different way of managing a dice pool.

Here's the structure of game play. Roleplay a scene until you reach a crisis point. That's it.

And that's my issue with Mesopotamians. There isn't any structure to the game play. There's a theme and there's a conflict resolution mechanic but nothing to tie them together. There's nothing in the game that tells you how to play the game.

Okay, given the audience that will be buying the Indie Megamix Mixtape, this isn't exactly a game killer.. The folks who I used to play indie games with back in the Midwest wouldn't have a problem with having just roleplay a scene to work with. But given the number of possible one-shot narrative games that one could play that do offer a structure to work with, that Mesopotamians isn't a strong choice.

Which is a shame because I love the theme. No complicated explanation or justification. Just Gilgamesh and Hammurabi and company forming a rock band. It's funny and absurd and it's going to stick in my head far longer than games that are much more playable

Going back to the Indie Megamix Mixtape

It's been a while since I looked at the Indie Megamix Tape, a three Volume set of micro RPGs that was created to raise money for indie designers who need medical help. My personal experience taught me not to binge but treat every game as a separate experience and spread out reading them.

Even so, I did get burned out after reading the first ten games on the first 'tape' so I took a break. After all, the games aren't going anywhere and they are all short enough that if I want a little RPG reading fix, I can spend a few minutes looking over one.

Nobody Wanna See Us Together is a two-page exercise in narrative role playing. Two players play lovers or friends or partners and everyone else plays folks who want to see them broken up.

I'm not going to go into the mechanics, which are minimal, since the entire thing is only two pages long so I'd basically just reciting the entire game. You play out a series of scenes with 'friends' talking to one of the lovers, the lovers alone together or the lovers against the world.

The rules make it clear that it doesn't have to be lovers. It could be any relationship, even a warrior and their magic sword. And, unlike some tiny rule sets, I believe that of Nobody Wanna See Us Together. The framework will work with any of those combinations.

I'll be honest. While I liked some of the structure of Nobody Wanna See Us Together, I wasn't left with any interest in playing it. On the other hand, I am interested in using the structure for writing. So I definitely got something out of reading it. 

A game I might play with D&D

I have said that all you need (or sometimes should) to create your D&D character's personality is two quirks and one motivation. The idea is to have enough of a framework to play the character but have it open enough to adjust to how the campaign goes.

In many ways, the micro-RPG Spirits in the Night feels like taking only that and seeing where it goes.

Part of the Indie Megamix Mixtape, SiN is about a group of friends meeting one last time around a campfire before all going their own ways. It isn't explicitly about graduating from high school but you'd have to modify the game to make it about something else.

The players create a group of five characters, picking Who (their role in the group), Wish (motivation) and Future (what they plan to do after this last night) from lists. You draw cards from a regular deck of cards to determine relationship strengths between characters, which can be negative.

 

During the game itself, players take turns choosing a character and having them interact with another character. You play out the scene by playing blackjack

 with the end result changing their relationship. Other players can step into to play characters. Jokers mean an outside party has disrupted the campfire. Play through the deck twice and then give everyone an epilogue.

The one mechanical thing I like about Spirits in the Night is that it is a GM-free system that is an ensemble all the way through. Not only does no one own any of the characters, no one ever takes on the role of temporary game master. That doesn't necessarily make it a brilliant design but I do admire how thoroughly it breaks the paradigm of RPGs.

At first, Spirits of the Night didn't interest me as more than an intellectual exercise. Then I realized that it describes the basic origin of the heroes of the lance from the Dragonlance Chronicles. 

At that point, I thought that if you adjusted the lists for Who, Wish and Future a little, I can see playing a game of Spirits of the Night to set up a campaign (D&D or otherwise). Play the game, have people choose characters, roll them up, and start the campaign ten years later. Everyone starts off with a shared background and connections.

I'm not interested in playing Spirits of the Night as a standalone game. However, I think it would be a really great tool to set up a D&D campaign.

A micro-RPG that covers love and death

Despite my efforts to read through them slowly, I was starting to get burned out by the Indy Megamix Mixtape, that collection of tiny RPG's that was sold to help designers in need. The South Side of the Sky didn't interest me and Shelter left me with so little that I didn't bother writing about it.

Then I read Darlin' Corey and realized I was not so burnt out that I couldn't find something that would spark my interest.

Darlin' Corey is inspired by and quite literally about the folk song by the same name. My parents were survivors of the great folk scare of the sixties so I grew up listening to more folk music than you could shake a banjo pick at. So I will freely admit that the subject matter was one that I could easily get into.

As opposed to being written to have you play out the scenario like you'd find in a folk song, darling Cory is specifically designed to have you roll play out that specific song. It is the story of how a beautiful moonshiner dies.

The twist and the actual game play is that at three specific points, you essentially flip a coin to determine what is really happening. Is Darlin' Corey really in love with the narrator or is he a stalker? Who really killed her? What's going to happen between the government man and the narrator in the end?

It's definitely an interesting take on the old role playing concept of railroading. Generally, railroading means that the players have to do something specific. In this case, something specific happens and the actual choice is how you react to it.

The game also has the profoundly bizarre player account of one to three. Yes, you could play this game as a solitaire exercise. Which is nothing new in the world of role-playing, given options like video game role-playing or game books. But it is kind of unusual for a storytelling game.

Heck, I might try playing it as a writing exercise.

Make no mistake, Darlin' Corey is a very simple and limited game, extremely restricted in what it does. It's not a game that you would play over and over again. It's not a game for outliers who are trying to find a way to break the game.

However, it uses the two fundamental themes of love and death in a very strong way. It will only tell one story but it will let you explore it in a variety of ways. And, as I already said, it's not what happens. It is how it effects you.

One of the things that caught my eye about Darlin' Corey from the start was that it was by Jason Morningstar. Without realizing it, I have become quite the fan of his work.

My earliest experiences with his designs was with the Shab-al-Hiri Roach, an experience that was a laugh riot in black comedy. I really hope to at least be able to play the short version of the Grey Ranks some day. And, not only did I have fun playing Fiasco several times, I also think it is an incredibly important game in the overall development of RPGs.

Darlin' Corey is not one of Morningstar's great or important designs. But it does show how his approach to storytelling and GM-free play can be applied in a game that it's only two pages long.

Dying on a mountain in about an hour

While reading through South Side of the Sky, one of the many teeny tiny RPG's from the Indy Megamix Mixtape, it has occurred to me that, even though I am trying to go slow, reading all of these little role-playing games is starting to make me blasé.

On the one hand, there is still part of me that is old enough that the idea of micro RPGs and two-player RPGs and GM-free RPGs and one-session-by-design RPGs are pretty amazing. The reality is the revolution is over and both sides won. There are a lot of new and innovative role-playing games out there but the older ways are still going strong with plenty of good gaming out there.

On the other hand, at this point, I've seen a whole lot of them. Some, like Microscope and Fiasco, have been amazing experiences period. Others, well, they can be okay but not inspiring. Any role playing game can fun and creative with the right people but some games and some systems help really bring that out.

South Side of the Sky is a two-player game about two people who are lost on a mountain and struggling to survive and get home. Hint: it's not going to end well. The best you can hope for is to not be dead yet at the end of the game.

The mechanics as fairly simple. Each player gets a hand of ten cards from a regular deck of playing cards. Each scene is a call and response, with one player setting the scene and the other responding. You play cards that define what's happening and the mood of the scene. 

Most of the rules are actually a guide to what each card means. Or, if you want to be more free-form, each suit as a general meaning, giving you more room to improvise.

Whoever played the higher card put the cards in their discard pile. If the caller gets the cards, things went well. If the responder gets the card, bad times. Whoever has the fewest cards at the end will narrate the ending and if they have more black cards, everybody dies.

Having lived in a couple different places where there are mountains and getting to hear news reports on a semi regular basis of people getting lost and dying in them, I do have to admit that the theme resonates for me. 

And I do think that the rules create a very strong if simple framework to work with. There aren't any gaping holes and the resolution system is very clean.

At the same time, South of the Sky didn't really excite me. I will freely admit that part of that is because I have just looked at so many micro RPGs this year. I'm getting a little jaded. But even considering that, I don't think there's that inspiring  hook that really makes a game like this shine. Solid ideas but there isn't a twist.

There are definitely some good ideas that work here. But I think it needs just a little more.