the heretic genetic algorithm

I stumbled across this well-spell-crafted game whilst wondering around itch.io: The Daily Spell, a story about a sudden surge in magical beast manifestations in a fantasy city, told through daily word puzzles that resolve into the headlines of brief newspaper articles that advance the story. Quite delightful and very well done.

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Hey, I posted my game! You can find it here.

Playtests welcome. It is a solo storytelling/journalling/story creation horror game. It uses a simplified version of solitaire to drive the story.

[ETA] From the writeup:

And yet the sun rises.

Weird. is a horror game about a flawed protagonist confronting their worst nightmares.

I, a troubled character, am alone on the longest night of the year.

You, a storyteller, use prompts and the inevitability of card order to tell a story for me, driven by fear and fate.

I am tormented by unfinished business, which, as you know, is a great way to become the target of supernatural forces.

Enjoy bringing about my nearly inevitable and almost certainly miserable end, but also maybe final moment of grace, redemption, or transformation, in Weird.

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Title-wise, I went with Weird, as an archaic synonym for fate, styled with a period: Weird.

I liked the suggestion of Patience quite a bit, but this isn't really a game about being patient. I'd want waiting, duration, something like that, in the mechanics somewhere. Actually, maybe I'll try to make such a game, since I still seem to have Game Fever. Maybe it's to play in waiting rooms.

As predicted, the game jam I made has not posted to the Itch calendar, so I am the only person who knows about it or has submitted anything. But I tried!

( Thoughts on the possibilities of this mechanic )

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Qua writing tool, I find the game a pretty decent method for creating something between a detailed outline and a rough story draft.

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As we are once again fording the atmospheric river, here's the villanelle (!!) I wrote about the one in 2022:

(Climate Change Villanelle)
After an image by K.

Consider the atmospheric river
as a dragon, slithering through peri-
apocalyptic skies. The end is never

reached of all this rain. Its teeth of silver
gnaw the bones of men who refused boldly
to consider the atmospheric river

as a dragon, not just as the weather,
winning us the wages of false bravery:
apocalyptic skies. The end is never-

ending. Consider the dragon, glitter-
ing, greedy, cruel and wise; now carefully
consider the atmospheric river

as an alternative to the wither-
ing coils of smoke, wildfires' choking, hazy
apocalyptic skies. The end is never

quite what you expect or would prefer.
Drink if you wish, smoke up, get high, daily
consider the atmospheric river,
apocalyptic skies. The end is nigh.

Hey, I made a little game jam, mostly so that I had a jam whereat to submit my own game:

https://itch.io/jam/winter-solstice-haunting-ttrpg-jam

Make something and I'll try to round folks up to play it!

I am nearing completion (fingers crossed) on a little winter solstice horror game that uses solitaire as its mechanic.

You will not be surprised to learn that this is is pretty much a solo journalling game with prompts. However, the solitaire mechanic does impose (I hope, anyway) a kind of melancholy fatalism.

I have been calling the game Solitary for obvious reasons, but of course there are many many many many games on Itch alone already called Solitairy. Any thoughts on an alternate title?

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