Tag Archives: Single Player Games

Articles, The Independents

Two-Hand Path Review: Getting a Grip on Luck and Magic

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“After the locusts and pits and boiling seas. After the war in heaven and feasting on earth. After the seven years of blood and forty years of night.

There is magic. Magic and bone.

Where streets grow weeds and skyscrapers stand hollow. Where old gods wake and new gods form in the hearts of the wayward. Where cult and banner flourish. Where the dead, they walk. Where the stars disregard their course and Jupiter’s children are born under powerful new signs.

Mages. Mages like you.”

With rings on your fingers, tattoos on your knuckles, and scars on the back of your hand, you’ll delve into the cursed ruins of a post-fall city and walk the Two-Hand Path.

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Articles, The Independents

SPINE Review: Making A Game Of Getting Lost In A Book

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You and Granma were, frankly, on the worst terms. That’s what made it such a surprise when you got a package from your cousin, who had wound up being the executor of her estate. Maybe, your cousin writes, Granma was able to overlook your differences since you had become a fellow academic? Either way, the actual package is a copy from her rare books collection, willed to you. You can’t help yourself, so you start to read the book. It’s a weird one, an anthology of works all talking about books and stories and death and living forever and… rituals? Hold on. You really can’t help yourself. You consider just not turning the page, but you turn it all the same. The notes you’re writing in the margins stop being the words you intended to write. You can feel the book pulling you in…

The book is Siderius Plug’s SPINE – Immortality in Ninety-nine Endnotes.

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: The last voyage of the Barcosa

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The year is 1802. The Barcosa, a merchant ship equipped with cannons, sets sail from Amsterdam under Captain Claas de Ruyter to buy goods in Java. The ship’s hold is filled with bricks and weapons. Chief merchant Henk Kuipers manages gold and silver coins which are to be used to buy spices, textiles, and fine fabrics.

What follows is the journal of Gerrit van der Zee, a sailor aboard the ship. How we came into possession of it is something we cannot divulge, but it is enough to say that the journal covers about three weeks, and that van der Zee had no idea upon leaving Amsterdam that this would be The Last Voyage of the Barcosa.

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: A Tale Before You Go

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A ghost, trapped in the tree planted above her grave, finds herself exploring the world when the tree is transformed into a ship’s mast. A lonely princess explores a crypt, hoping to find a new name and escape her fears. A merchant, far from home, plays a game of riddles with the guardian of a mountain pass.

The ghost turns the ship’s sails into truth-telling tapestries to set herself free. The princess offers herself to the crypt’s elemental guardian and takes its name. The merchant turns back, defeated by the riddles but enriched by the moonstones he found in the mountainside.

How about one more Tale Before You Go?

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: I Will Fill This Library Myself If I Have To

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I’m the town’s new librarian, which also means I’m its only librarian. It’s a small town out in the middle of nowhere, known as little more than a good place to stop for a break when traveling back roads between the larger cities. Nice views, decent diner, ‘quaint’ town center. I moved here to get away and get some privacy for my own writing, and the fact that I’m an author is probably why I was offered the job in the first place. I accepted the offer because, well, a town without a library just isn’t right. I’m not sure what was in this space before I got it, but it should do. There are two sets of shelves built into the walls behind a small counter, and a small round table with two old wooden chairs between the counter and the windowfront. The town let me grab whatever space I needed, but support for actually filling the shelves doesn’t seem to be a thing. That’s alright.  I will fill this library myself if I have to.

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: A Requiem for Horizon Prophecy Online: The Final Four

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I’ve spent years adventuring through the mysterious, whimsical, dangerous lands of HORIZON PROPHECY ONLINE, a science fantasy MMORPG that peaked at about 161,000 concurrent players. The game always had a scope and reach too ambitious for its budget, but now, with daily player counts in the hundreds, the studio has announced that they’re shutting down HPO for good. With four hours to go before the servers are switched off, I decided to create a new toon and go through the starting area one last time, as a final farewell to the world I’ve given so much of my time.

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: Paranoid Android

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The war with the androids has made everyone paranoid. Including me, and including my interrogators. See, Asimov Landing Station is on the far edge of the galaxy, manned by only a skeleton crew, most of them scientists doing research. Nothing ever happens here. But after the government discovered that androids have the capacity of perfectly mimicking human beings the atmosphere in the Station has started changing. Several things had gone wrong or malfunctioned in non-critical but totally avoidable ways before, but now things are getting more severe: research has been delayed, the station’s systems have broken down at critical moments, and people have disappeared. Station security has singled me out as a suspicious person and they’ve taken me in for questioning. I’m starting to wonder… am I really human, or a sleeper agent with programming? Could I be one of them?

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling – The Broken Cask

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Well, hello there! Welcome to the Flying Stag, our hearth and home among the treetops. My name is Wulflen Skyway, I’m the proprietor of this fine establishment. Now, the dancing doesn’t start until twilight, and you don’t look like you have an undead problem, so what shall it be? We have a moongoat shawarma that’s proven very popular, and craftsmanship demands I recommend the Frozen Drupelet, our raspberry spiced ice wine made right-

Ah, touring around looking for stories, are you? Well, I was a bard back in the day, before some… stuff happened, so I could spin you a few yarns. No, no, the scale armor is just an affectation, nothing to worry yourself about. No, I’m not going to “dish” about my past, thank you. The Flying Stag, though, well, it may not be as well known as The Broken Cask – yet – but it has its stories to tell. Continue reading Solitaire Storytelling – The Broken Cask →

Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: Grimoire

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If you are reading this, there is a good chance you already know who I am, but just in case: Hello there! My name is Cory Deepwood, and I am a witch. I have been practicing for many years, now, learning the ways of the earth and the sky and quite a bit in between. At first it was tradition, passed down from my mother to me . Eventually, though, I began to think of myself as something of a steward, taking care of the lands I have worked on and the people within them. Within these pages are the spells and appurtenances I have used in my craft. Whether I have now passed it to you or you have found it in a dusty library somewhere, I hope you use my Grimoire well.

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