“Finally, a game where you get to play as a girl who gets eaten by a monster,” say relieved fans of that specific genre as The Girl With The Most Delicious Heart, a solo roleplaying journaling game heads to Kickstarter
“It’s a game about being unreasonably desired and running away to protect the people closest to you. It’s also about making a life for yourself that only belongs to you,” says the designer, “which, as I understand it, is basically what it’s like being a girl anyway.”
Ada Press and Beyond Cataclysm are overjoyed to announce the upcoming Kickstarter for The Girl With The Most Delicious Heart. A solo roleplaying game about being hunted by monsters for your entire life that is a 'INSIDE meets Thousand Year Old Vampire' experience.
“There’s lots of games about getting eaten by a horrible monster,” says the game’s designer, Christopher John Eggett, “but it’s rarer for a game to bother making a normal girl the protagonist. And honestly, when most roleplaying game characters get eaten by a monster it’s because they’ve just broken into the monster’s house and attacked the monster. It's a fair cop in that situation I reckon.”
The game, which is a solo journaling roleplaying experience, sees players take on the role of a girl who has the titular ‘most delicious heart’. A heart so delicious in fact, that, in the places where monsters meet, they talk about it as a fabled feast. A heart so delicious that they can sniff it out across the world. The game sees players take on the role of this girl as she tries to make a life for herself and survive.
Christopher John Eggett, the designer of the game, comments on its themes and design goals:
“It’s a game about being unreasonably desired and running away to protect the people closest to you. It’s also about making a life for yourself that only belongs to you,” he says, “which, as I understand it, is basically what it’s like being a girl anyway.”
The game’s creators suggest it’s as close to Playdead’s INSIDE as you can get as a tabletop roleplaying game. It also shares some DNA with the solo journaling classic, Thousand Year Old Vampire – in that it’s about finding a life and then having to discard parts of it to continue to live on.
The solo journaling roleplaying game consists of a tight gameplay loop of discovering if a monster is calling, and if it does, whether you need to flee again, or stand your ground – at the risk of losing the friends and protections you’ve built around yourself.
“It’s surprisingly OSR feeling in terms of the procedure – there’s not much in the way of ‘fat’ in the game where a player can feel unsure about how to progress their journaling. Everything you write about your character’s life is important, partly because you’re leaving a record for the next girl after you’re inevitably eaten by a dragon, vampire or big evil bird.”
It’s not all doom and gloom though, explains Chris, “while death is inevitable we can find freedom in accepting its place in our future. For the times when a monster doesn’t visit you in the game, the player spends time developing relationships, trying to make new friends, and building the community that is important for protecting the girl. Of course, protecting the girl may come at a cost.”
Throughout the game the scale of the monsters increases as the player’s legend grows, which encourages the introduction of more terrible creatures seeking out the girl.
“It’s a celebration of classic horror tropes but with a sense of hope and self-determination infused in it. You might be the life long final girl, but you can achieve a good and happy life between the terror,” says Chris.
The game only requires a pen, something to write with, and a six-sided dice. Its core loop is designed to propel players forward, which makes it an excellent ‘getting into solo roleplaying games for the first time’ game.
Chris comments on the accessibility of the game:
“It’s designed to be read like prose, and if you write along while reading, you’ll be playing the game without even having to think about it. And because everything you write about is an important and pivotal moment there’s no time to worry about whether a new player is ‘playing the game right’. It’s just about making choices – and sometimes making the best of bad choices.”
Players make friends, build protections and search for artefacts – each of these contributes to their ‘Strength’, which is then used in conjunction with D6 rolls to determine whether a monster is calling or whether the monster overcomes the girl’s defenses. When there’s a difference in the monster’s favor the player has to decide who and what is given up in the defense – creating organic, dramatic encounters and resolutions.
Chris offers a sincere appraisal of what the game could mean for people, in the long run:
"If you've ever wanted a game that really focuses on building an identity and community for yourself in times of struggle, then The Girl With The Most Delicious Heart will make you think about the active choices that need to made. It's not that there's a way to rid the world of monsters, there will always be monsters, but that by knowing yourself and building community the world can be ready for them when they call."
The game is published by Ada Press and Beyond Cataclysm. Previous games by Ada Press include the hilariously pitched OTHERSHIP and mad scientist party game The Frankenstein Society Meeting Handbook. Beyond Cataclysm are the publishers behind many MORK BORG games such as MORK ORG (an office-work-hell-based-borg) and SOLO BORG (with Patrick Beuchner of The Soloist), they also sell a range of excellent games and fiction.
Find out more about the game and follow along the campaign before launch on the Kickstarter page.
