Parable Games are likely best known for their horror tabletop Shiver. I suspect Don’t Play This Game will double their creepy horror score.
While Shiver can be bought from Parable or downloaded from DTRPG, DPTG cannot.
The game is called “Don’t Play This Game”, to be clear.
There are some reasons why you might not play, but they also include reasons why you might be tempted anyway.
Announced this week at UK Games Expo, the huge tabletop gaming convention in the NEC, Birmingham, in the UK, Don’t Play This Game is a solo game with some quirks.
It’s a solo game that demands you get out and about. It’s more than a journalling game; it makes you do… stuff.
Straight up, I’ll concede that I’m not sure what I think about that. Who’s in charge here? Me or the game? Must I go outside and photograph a weird building just to progress?
Secondly, Parable told Geek Native that Don’t Make Me Play was a bit like a mad chain letter.
You might not have encountered a chain letter or chain mail before, and that’s no bad thing. I had one, and it was a handwritten note mailed first class to a young teenage me from an ex-school friend who had moved towns. It was mundane, but it said I had to copy it and send it to three more friends, or I would be cursed.
Foolishly, I did. Hey, I was young!
If you make it to the end of your time with Don’t Play This Game, if you’ve done all the things the game demands of you and have made wise choices, then you can hand it on to a friend. In that sense, Don’t Play This Game is a cooperative solo LARP-RPG hybrid monster.
Don’t Play This Game, therefore, picks up a bit of a “Found Footage” vibe, ala some iconic horror stories like The Blair Witch Project, because it’ll be your journal, your archive of evidence, your legacy that gets handed on. Parable hopes to build a community of solo RPGers or journalers around the game.
You can get the quickstart for free, but, which seems fitting for the game, you must do stuff and be prepared to pay an uncertain alternative price. In this case, you have to register for their newsletter.
There’s a Kickstarter slated for October.
Quick Links
- Register for the Don’t Play This Game quickstart.
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