A little role-playing game which took me by how brilliant it is, even so far away from my usual comfort zone. You play as beings wandering in an infinite palace, meeting incredible rooms and no less extraordinary residents, looking for something more or less vague. It's a game about wandering in a dream, about walking through a magical realm, without looking for anything but fragments of your own heart.
What really struck me is the powerful writing of the playbooks. They hit that perfect middle ground between 'specific enough to evoke inspiration' and 'vague enough to leave room to explore'. Great work Josh!
Fractal Romance is a cross between a dungeon crawl and the elemental essence of chill.
You play as vague beings known as Forms, looking for purpose in a labyrinth called the Fractal Palace, and you wander, muse, try to make friends, and just hang out.
The PDF is 19 pages, with clean, readable layout and some abstract photoedited illustrations.
Gameplay is largely collaborative and "yes and" driven, but there are also card-based mechanics. You can discard from your hand to overcome obstacles, generate NPCs, or trigger other effects. You can also draw from the deck by following the nature of your character.
There's deliberately no monsters or traps here, just a quest for meaning, although this absence of immediate threats may draw out and amplify fears from the players like a sensory deprivation tank.
Safety tools are provided, and the game's directions are to stop when you feel like you're done, so it can fill whatever sort of time block you need to fill.
Overall, I don't think I've seen anything else like this, and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who's interested in dungeon crafting or mellow, low-key games.
Minor Issues:
-Page 6, period missing from the end of the last paragraph.
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A little role-playing game which took me by how brilliant it is, even so far away from my usual comfort zone. You play as beings wandering in an infinite palace, meeting incredible rooms and no less extraordinary residents, looking for something more or less vague. It's a game about wandering in a dream, about walking through a magical realm, without looking for anything but fragments of your own heart.
Thank you for the kind words!
What really struck me is the powerful writing of the playbooks. They hit that perfect middle ground between 'specific enough to evoke inspiration' and 'vague enough to leave room to explore'. Great work Josh!
Thanks Logan!! I'm really glad to hear the game is working for you (I think you might be the first group of people that I know that have played it).
It’s so neat Josh! We’re having a great time :D
Fractal Romance is a cross between a dungeon crawl and the elemental essence of chill.
You play as vague beings known as Forms, looking for purpose in a labyrinth called the Fractal Palace, and you wander, muse, try to make friends, and just hang out.
The PDF is 19 pages, with clean, readable layout and some abstract photoedited illustrations.
Gameplay is largely collaborative and "yes and" driven, but there are also card-based mechanics. You can discard from your hand to overcome obstacles, generate NPCs, or trigger other effects. You can also draw from the deck by following the nature of your character.
There's deliberately no monsters or traps here, just a quest for meaning, although this absence of immediate threats may draw out and amplify fears from the players like a sensory deprivation tank.
Safety tools are provided, and the game's directions are to stop when you feel like you're done, so it can fill whatever sort of time block you need to fill.
Overall, I don't think I've seen anything else like this, and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who's interested in dungeon crafting or mellow, low-key games.
Minor Issues:
-Page 6, period missing from the end of the last paragraph.
Thanks so much for the review! I really appreciate, and the comparison to a sensory deprivation tank is really cool!
Also thanks for catching that missing period, I've gone ahead and updated the files to fix that.