Into The Glacier - A Solo TTRPG First Playthrough

After a few stumbles in the past week with a couple DNF game trials and an end of summer cold, I sat down to do a first playthrough of Into The Glacier with a bit of lingering lightheadedness, the sniffles, and few expectations. After playing a quick, thirty-minute session, I am delighted to report that this is a game I will be returning to, and can easily add to my stack of recommended solo TTRPGs.

Into The Glacier by Blind Snake Studio (formally Peach Garden Games), offers a quick set-up, easy to understand concepts, a forgiving play loop that encourages exploration, well-written prompts, and four main separate storylines that offer immense replayability. All you need is a deck of playing cards, some six-sided dice, a token to act as the player, some tokens (like buttons or pennies) to track your Warmth level, and your journal. Although Into The Glacier is intended to be a journaling game where the card discovery prompts act as inspiration for your story, you could easily turn this into a bullet-point goal quest or a map drawing rpg as well.

After choosing which of the four main stories you wish to follow, you gather your cards, deal out a grid, set your player token on one, flip it over and get exploring using the wonderfully descriptive card prompt lists. As you move, you make decisions and manage your Warmth level. With a semi-mystical setting steeped in folklore, you build your story as you search for your goal card, depending on which starting story you chose. Each card flip invites you to make a quick journal entry or draw a map section as you explore The Glacier.

In my playthrough, I set out in search of a wish granting unicorn from a story my grandmother told me. Along the way, I met a strange oracle in a tree, discovered a carved boulder that looked like a knight, was saved by a kindly hermit, nearly froze to death while trying to cross a river, and tracked hoofprints in the snow. The prompts were really good and inspiring for writing journal entries, and even if you run out of Warmth, the game isn't necessarily over. This forgiving system encourages exploration of more cards, and emphasizes story crafting over game strategy.

This gameplay style reminded me of my highly enjoyed experience with The World We Left Behind (and a couple DNF games that were less enjoyable), and for a good reason. Into The Glacier's creator designed the 'Carta' system of using card grid exploration and prompts. Into The Glacier is the OG carta game. As someone new to solo-rpgs, this was a fun discovery, and it proves that although the system can be copied, it's the story and prompts that might bring you hours of enjoyment, or have you setting it aside for something else. As for Into The Glacier, I'll be playing this again soon.