Creature Comforts - A One Page Monster Dating Solo TTRPG - Perfect for Halloween

Yes, you read that right - a dungeon monster dating-match solo TTRPG. Since it's spooky season, I thought it'd be the perfect game to cover this week. I first played Creature Comforts by Roman Hyacinths in August, but saving the review seemed fitting for Halloween. Creature Comforts was published as part of the Itch.io One Page RPG Jam back in July. The entire RPG fits on one sheet of printer paper (front & back), and can be tri-folded like a brochure to be tucked into your journal like a bookmark. You'll also need a d6 & a d20 to play.

The goal of the game is to help lonely dungeon monsters, like oozes and skeletons, find someone to share their crypt with. You will roll dice to choose your dating candidates, send them to a prompted dating location, deal with events during the date, and see if they are compatible. At the end of the date, you tally up your score to see if it's a match made in heck, or a relationship as doomed as the hapless adventurer who just stumbled into the spike trap down the hall.

Everything about this game is full of tongue-in-cheek spooktacular fun. Roman fit a great deal of options, details, and direction into the brochure. The game can be played in about thirty minutes, depending on how long you journal about your two candidates and their dates. There's even a chance to send them on second dates if it doesn't quite work out the first time. There's also a chance they will end up as mortal enemies, and dungeon monsters can hold grudges for centuries.

Will you help that skeleton knight find someone special to help them guard their ancestor's tomb from greedy adventurers? Is this poor gelatinous cube destined to spend all eternity dissolving mages alone? What about that mimic in the corner? Can they find true lo- ...wait. No, that's just a treasure chest, but it seems the banshee might be in love. Oh, my...

Creature Comforts is available as a print & play on Itch.io for free (name your own price).

Sanctuary & Sentinel - A Solo TTRPG First Playthrough

Sanctuary & Sentinel by Meghan Cross features two solo journaling style RPG games in one beautifully designed booklet. You can play each game as completely separate entities, or you can continue the story of your Sanctuary game into the second game, Sentinel. I chose to do the latter, and it created a deep sense of connection to the setting and story for both.

• Requirements: a standard deck of playing cards, a six-sided (1d6) dice, and your journal.
• Game style: journaling, with card event prompts and creating a map with cards.
• Resource management: Minimal. There are no stats like dexterity or health to worry about.
• Playtime: Estimated at 1-2 hours for each game, but this can depend on how big you make your Sanctuary, how many prompts your Sentinel journeys through, and if you write long or short journal entries.
• Replayability: Endless. The prompts are open-ended enough to allow for countless creative scenarios, but defined enough to be inspiring and impactful.
• Booklet: 55 pages, well formatted, clear instructions, beautiful artwork. Limited run.
• Available as Print & Play: Yes, on itch.io 
• Solo RPG List Entry with additional information.

Beginning with Sanctuary, you will divide your card deck into specified suits. Some of these will be used to build your sanctuary - the place you and your comrades have vowed to protect at all costs. How many 'rooms' or areas of the keep is determined by how many cards you use to build the map, and then you flip the cards over to discover what those areas are through provided prompts. What power, object, or oath your sanctuary protects is up to you, as is the nature of the threat trying to obtain it. After setting up your Sanctuary, you will use the other cards to create events by placing a card on top of a map card (room), flipping it over, and following the event prompts. 

Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday is this month, and as a verified (yet questionably responsible) adult, I spent monies on some new printed solo TTRPG books from Tabletop Bookshelf. I was also gifted a sinus infection, so I have only been able to play one of them so far (Sanctuary & Sentinel), and a full review has been delayed until I can breathe properly again and it no longer feels as if a cloud has been shoved up my nasal passages.

The games I purchased were: