Game: Dredge by scyllallycs.
"Dredge is an exploration-based journaling game about sailing through an enormous lake known as the Wringwaste, hauling up mysterious items from its depths as you go, while struggling to regain the memories you've lost."
My time with DREDGE
Dredge has been one of several Solo-RPG journaling games I've played in recent months, and I wanted to get an entire playthrough completed before I sat down to collect my thoughts about the game.
Skipping right to the chase, I really enjoyed playing this one. You don't need anything more than a deck of cards, some paper and something to write with, and a bit of spare time. The system is well thought out and not overly complicated. All in all, a great solo-rpg experience.
Now, having said that... I should fess up that I didn't play this "as intended" (which, if you've been reading my blog for a while, probably isn't a shock to you).
Rules as written, the game is designed to be played with a spread of cards laid out in a 4x6 spread, and as you flip over each card, you read the prompt and do the journal entry for that day, and move your token.
I changed this in a few ways. First, I didn't have space for the full spread of cards on my table, and second, I didn't have time to journal in between each round. I also decided not to keep true to the setting of the Wringwaste, as I thought it'd be more fun to set it in my own world. So, what I did was this:
I laid out the grid on a spare piece of paper instead, and after playing in the intended fashion for the first three rounds, I decided that I'd get the mechanics out of the way first... and settle down for the journaling part after.
So, the board here was all completed in about an hour on the first day of play. To help me remember what happened on each turn, I jotted down the turn number in the bottom right corner of my box, the card value in the top left of my box, and a summary of the prompt event in the center of each.
Relevant cargo and other notes I scribbled along the margins of my makeshift 'game board'. Having completed the mechanics of the game, I then sat down to use the journal prompts for a combination of free-write journal entries and worldbuilding prompts.
I decided not to make a plot for what my character would do, despite knowing each day's prompt ahead of time and the mechanical ending. Each journal entry was posted the day I managed to find time to write it, so some of these were a week or two between in-game days, and until my post on Day 18, I honestly wasn't sure how I'd tie everything together to end my explorer's tale. Inspiration struck as I was writing that day, and the foggy outline of a plan formed... but even so, I still didn't do much pre-planning for my writing. I knew I wanted the character to be dead, and in the process of being resurrected by their teammates. I wanted it to feel like a scene from a D&D (or other TTRPG) character's point of view since my world is predominantly designed for tabletop play.
The game itself has provided a ton of enjoyment. Having completed it once, I'm quite sure I'll be doing other playthroughs of this as I want to explore more endings and - hopefully - even get caught by the Deep Hunter at least once and 'lose'. It has also inspired me to consider how resurrection works in my ttrpg setting, and I think going forward I'll probably loosely base a series of skill-checks on this game for any resurrections that happen to take place at my table.
The last thing I'll say is that I highly encourage you to check out Dredge. It's been fun, thought-provoking, and inspiring. Also... as I've suggested in the past... consider how games like Dredge and other Solo-RPGs can inspire your own worlds and settings. These are great games and if you want to play in the worlds they've created or the nebulous nowhere realms some of them exist in... do so! But don't be afraid to play around!
If you missed some days and want to go back to read the prompts, I've created the following Dredge Playthrough collection for convenience.
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