Before I get started I need to give credit to Semicolon, a fellow poster at RPGsolo.com, a solo-roleplaying forum that I frequent.
First of all, I’ve been aware of the game Wretched and the variations made using the Wretched & Alone SRD for over a year now, but it wasn’t until I read Semicolon’s playthroughs of Final Girl that I realized the game’s potential. I already owned a few W&A games and knew there were several others free on itch.io. I began looking through some of the rules a little more closely and immediately became interested in playing. (Another reason I never looked into them too closely before was that they required a tumbling block tower, something I didn’t own nor thought would work well with my play style and game environment.)
If you are not familiar with Wretched & Alone games, they are journaling games, which means the point of the game is to write a journal of your (or your character’s) personal experiences within the story. To create the story, the player uses a six-sided die, a deck of regular playing cards, and a tumbling block tower (like Jenga). For each day/turn, the player rolls the die and draws that many cards. Each card corresponds with a writing prompt for the journal. Some cards require you to pull a block from the tower, representing something or some kind of stress that is deteriorating throughout the game. After each turn, you are supposed to use the prompt from the cards to write a journal entry that moves the story forward. You lose the game when you draw all four Kings or the tower falls. There is a win condition, but it is very difficult and nearly impossible to achieve. But winning isn't the point. Creating a story/experience is.
The specific title I am playing for this thread is called “The Buried.” In this scenario, your character is trapped underground after a cave-in and needs to find your way out. I chose this game specifically because it addresses one of my greatest fears: being buried alive. I’m not a claustrophobic person. I have no problem with large crowds (except for the fact that it is generally uncomfortable to be in one) and I can get on a full elevator with no problem. However, the thought of being trapped in a very tight space with no easy way out (i.e. coffin, small diameter storm pipe, etc.) scares the dickens out of me. I even react poorly when simply reading about it. For example, if you are a Song of Fire and Ice fan, there is a point in the books where Tyrion makes a ship voyage while encased in a wooden barrel. I could feel my anxiety rise just reading about that. So I thought playing a game that explores some of those themes might help to create a more emotional game experience. (In the end, it didn’t, probably because the setting was an open cave system and not a tight space. A large part of my anxiety is having extremely limited movement.
As I mentioned before I do not own a tumbling block tower. Also, I typically play a game over multiple settings and those often not in the same location. Therefore, using a physical tower was out of the question. Officially, the games state use of a tower is optional, however, it is so much a part of the tension and failure cycle, not using that mechanic would be to cheat the player out of an integral part of the experience. Luckily, other players have come up with several alternatives (typically using dice) that statistically mimic the length of an average tumbling block game. The method I chose to use was what I call the 100-d6 method. You begin the game with 100 six-sided dice and each time you are required to pull from the tower you roll the dice instead. Any dice that come up with a “1” are removed from the pool. If at any time you run out of dice, the tower falls.
This leads me to mechanics and the second way in which RPGsolo user Semicolon inspired this thread. In another post, Semi had asked about using some type of computer mechanic to lay out playing cards on a computer screen in a particular pattern One of the suggestions I offered was to use a spreadsheet program and type card designations (Like 2S for 2 of spades) in the cells to represent their position on a table. That sparked an idea in my own head about using a spreadsheet for all kinds of game mechanics, such as shuffling and revealing cards and rolling dice. If I could make this work, it would allow me to play a game like W&A using a spreadsheet to simulate all the mechanics, keep track of the game, and allow me to access it whenever and wherever I might be.
For “The Buried,” I created a virtual tabletop using Google Sheets. First, I listed every card in a single column, one card per cell. Next, I highlighted each cell in black, covering up the text. To “shuffle” the cards, I used Google Sheet’s randomize tool, which mixes up the contents of a selected range of cells. Then, whenever I needed to reveal a card in the game, I simply selected the topmost unrevealed cell in the column and removed the highlighting.
For my dice tower, I drew a 10 cell x 10 cell border to designate an area of 100 cells. In each of those cells I placed a formula that randomly chose a number between 1 and 6. Whenever I had to pull from the tower I would force the spreadsheet to refresh and generate numbers in each of those cells. I selected all the “1s” and deleted the formula from those cells, leaving only the remaining “die.” I even jazzed it up a bit by programming the sheet to turn the cells that contained “1s” red so they were easier to spot. Additionally, I had another cell keep track of the number of squares/die remaining.
In case anyone is interested in playing or has played “The Buried,” I want to address a couple of changes I made to the original material for narrative purposes. For starters, I changed most of the names used in the game. Early on I noticed several of the original names were uncommon and I wanted to make them more mainstream. I did keep the Foreman's name and I used a name generator for my character. Beyond that, I renamed all the characters using names that held some sort of significance in my life.
The second change is with the light mechanic. “The Buried” gives your player a limited light source which you need to conserve. For each card you draw, you need to determine beforehand if your light will be on or off. Some cards present consequences if you are in the dark. What I altered was what light source itself. The original game describes it as a battery-powered helmet lamp. I decided to use the flashlight on a cell phone instead.
Finally, I am NOT an actor, so please offer me a little grace as you enjoy this playthrough.
Credits:
All sound effects used were found at the following sites. (See the full list of sounds here.
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AUDIO LOG INTRODUCTION
Continued here.
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