These Wretched Tales -- Jenga towers, solo play and cards
Just got a restock of These Wretched Tales from Ex Stasis yesterday, we added it back in October and thought I would share some info and thoughts.
These Wretches Tales which collects 3 solo play Wretched & Alone titles by Ex Stasis (Final Girl, Catch Me, This Wretched House). The game ends when the tower falls.
In Final Girl -- you start out injured by a slasher, and are being pursued. If the tower falls you die.
In Catch Me -- you solve the case of a serial killer when the tower falls. But you are kind of sad about it being over because you are obssesed?
In This Wretched House -- the haunted house, kills you I guess. Point is now instead of being haunted you will be haunting.
Identity by Alicia Furness is also a Wretched & Alone game. In it you are one of many clones, when the tower falls the corporation that created you takes back over control of your mind.
All of these use a deck of cards that you draw from to generate prompts (situations/questions) that you need to respond to -- they will tell you to pull from the tower or not.
For those who aren't into the solo play scene-- this card-prompt mechanic is like the most common mechanic across recent indie solo play games.**
These Wretches Tales has a suggestion to use as a replacement for a jenga/tumbling block tower: a deck of cards that you draw from randomly. Once you have 3 of a card (they suggest Aces) the "tower" falls and the game ends.
Identity has a suggestion for a two-player variant. Mostly this is the first player turns and acts as an agent to make the other still "free" clone more likely to turn by manipulating the prompts deck. You just reset the tower and continue with this traitor. (This seems like a lot of fun 
)
All of these use either audio or even video logs, or journal-ling as part of play.
** it's super prevalent. It would probably be faster to say which of the 40+ soloplay titles we have don't use this than do.
Most are standard playing cards, though WILD uses Tarot.
Maybe I should make a list. . .
Comments
We've just added a new Wretched & Alone system game: Galatea. Here's a link to the UK listing.
This is a game where you are an artistic masterpiece that has come to life. This could be played with more Promethean/golem vibes too.
It specifically calls out times where you need to add a layer to your tower, which I don't believe I have seen in other Wretched & Alone games.
Since we have a good number now -- we now have a filter & category for this system!