Mutant Pizza

Here’s the deal, Otherworldly Beings—

I fell for one of the classic blunders. Never start a land war in Asia, and never try to smash two different games together into one. I haven’t tried—nor will I ever try—the former but I am guilty of the latter. Let me explain.

Existentialitis is a game that combines hand management, narrative prompts, and RPG-lite themes. It’s that last part, the RPG-lite part, that is the problem.

Existentialitis is a narrative-building game. You face a crisis and perform activities to help you deal with that crisis. Each activity and the crisis itself has prompts encouraging you to make up a story around the situation. You have a row of cards in front of you and must play your leftmost card. The game gives you limited ability to rearrange cards from your and your teammate’s rows.

But I was looking to make something different…something fantastical and calming, with a sense of awe and wonder to it. I wanted players to feel like they were growing through how they interacted with the situations on the cards. Leveling up, in a way. Existentialitis didn’t provide that feeling that I wanted out of the game. So what did I do? I attempted to bolt on a character growth mechanic that allowed you to manipulate the cards better. It felt odd and one-sided. Abilities were either too necessary or completely useless. It no longer had a good flow to it. It felt clumsy.

Now comes an important question: Which game am I going to pursue? The narrative-building game or the RPG? My heart tells me to develop the RPG.

Enter Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is a card-only generative RPG for one to…four? five? (I’m not sure yet) players.

This game is in early, early stages of development off the back of Existentialitis, so I don’t have anything to show you yet but I do have some key thematic and game design elements to share:

Thematic Elements

• Pilgrimage is about, well, going on a Pilgrimage! You’ll play a monk who must travel on foot from your Monastery to the Grand Temple to complete your training. Along the way, you’ll travel through the countryside and visit various towns and cities.
• Unlike Existentialitis, this game is set somewhere. A wonderful place with defined people, places, and things to do. And supernatural mysteries. I don’t have a lot of info to share about this world as it’s still coming to me
• As you travel, you’ll be able to develop various skills, such as teamaking, cooking, wood or stone carving, and more. You’ll be able to put these things to use in a variety of ways to heal, help the spirits, and gain some extra coin to help you along the next leg in your journey.

The goal of this game is to provide the right balance between a slice-of-life and goal-driven experience. I want this game to be fun and cute, but sometimes a bit somber and serious. Something reflective and meditative, as well as playful and exciting at times.

Game Design Elements

• This game will use only a deck of tarot-sized custom-designed cards. Everything from what your character can do to the places you travel through will be on a card. Obviously, you’ll get a rulebook, too. But the game will be played entirely with cards. No tokens or things to write down. No boards or player mats. Everything you need to play will be in the deck of cards.
• This is a generative RPG. What that means is locations, materials, and other aspects of the game will be generated by random draw of cards. For example, when you visit a location in the countryside, you’ll have several times you can “forage.” You’ll draw Forage cards to receive things like twigs, flowers, leaves, clay, or various other materials at random. You’ll then use those materials to make things like food and beverages, ornate carvings, staffs, robes, and even instruments!
• This game won’t have combat. In Pilgrimage, you and others in your party of monks must work together to help those of the living, and those who have already passed on, to find happiness and peace. This means you’ll need to use items you’ve crafted and your various other skills to solve problems. Put your salve-making skill to use to heal a sick child. Play your hand-carved flute to calm a restless spirit. Grant a zombie its last request to see their living family so they can finally rest in peace. You’ll need to work out how to best help people along your journey.
• This game has a Karma system. When you do good things, you’ll get good Karma. When you do bad things, you’ll get bad Karma. You’ll use this Karma, both good and bad, to gain new skills. Karma will be a sort of XP system in Pilgrimage.
• This game won’t have a direct “leveling” system. You won’t get to level 20 and be a god. Instead, Karma will be used to gain new skills or improve existing ones. Think of it more like the progress system in games like Skyrim or Fallen Order. You’ll gain a “point” to use for your character’s growth.

My, that’s a lot of bullet points. I think I’ll stop there for now. I haven’t yet finished a prototype or playtested Pilgrimage, but I’m eager to get a build of it on the table and learn more about this game.

Going forward, I will no longer publish Design Journal entries on Existentialitis. Instead, I’ll be publishing entries on Pilgrimage. There may be a time when I want to continue developing Existentialitis or an adjacent game, but that time isn’t now. I’ve got to follow my heart, and right now my heart wants to go on a Pilgrimage.

Until next time, Otherworldly Beings…