A Lonely Trek
A downloadable game
Climate change’s rapid oscillation in temperature extremes has finally destroyed civilization. All your loved ones are gone. Your home is destroyed. Trapped in the worst blizzard history has seen you cling to a single hope. A rumour of a haven, an underground bunker only ten days journey from your location. Will you survive the arduous trek? Or will you be claimed by the apocalypse?
A Lonely Trek is a solo role-playing game playing upon the potential of extreme climate change within our lifetime.
To play this game you will need:
- Two D6 (one will do but two is easier)
- One D10
- One D12
- A writing instrument
- The game sheet (or any scrap paper)
Download
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Comments
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Hello, thank you for your game, I'm currently playing a nice narrative scenario. However, I do have a question about the rules.
Some elements from the result tables (4a-c) impact "all future rolls". Are these only the rolls on the survival roll (step 3a), or on every roll, including rolls in step 1, step 4 etc...
I suppose having an impact on the step 4 rolls could make the game much harder and grim, and I don't think it makes much sense to impact danger rolls, so I went with only affecting survival rolls.
Anyway, thanks for your game. It's been a nice support for narrative plays ! I play a (game) day every day, and it gives me a sort of "writing prompt" to write regularly.
Hi, I'm really happy to hear you're enjoying the game!
Your instinct for the future rolls outcome is how it was intended when written. It should only impact the survival rolls however that is extremely unclear in the text.
Thanks for your feedback!
Hi. I tried to read the micro-game, however I have difficulties to follow/understand the rules.
In "How to play" it's quite understandable, for anyone already played a TTRpG, until the point 4. Let's say I'm at day 1. I rolled "1" for danger selection (Snowfall). I suppose to start with all the 6 Equipments, correct? I choose to use the 2nd one (Heat Pack)**. I roll the Danger (1d10-1 = "6") and my Survival roll (1d6+1 = 4).
Now, in point 3 I record both the results (4 survival and 6 danger) in the "Day 1" space on the sheet.
Now, what? In point 4 it says to compare the results, and then it says "If higher..." in the 3 rows, but it doesn't say what to do if lower.
The point 5 is unclear too, 'cause it's apparently related to point 4 , but point 4 says nothing about advancing or not in the Progress Track, nor how many sectors to advance or not.
Finally, it's unclear why and how I should roll on the last tables that apparently give effects related to the different Dangers. And some of those results are obscure, like the Medical Supplies that remove 1 "negative effect", while there are not "negative effects" explained.
Note **: I suggest to remove the numbers from the Equipment list. They are useless, and it seems they are related to a 1d6 roll (they are not). Maybe a simple pointed list is enough.
PS: aside from fixing / explaining the rules better, I suggest to expand at least the Dangers table: only 6 voices are really few.
Hello! First of all thanks for taking a look at, trying out and giving some feedback. I'm sorry if it was confusing so I'll try and address what you brought up here.
First you mention that point 4 in the How to Play section does not address what to do if you roll lower. This is because the three possible outcomes are covered in the subsections of point 4. The outcomes are that either the survival roll is higher than the danger roll (4a) or that the danger roll is higher than the survival roll, which could also be reworded as if the survival roll is lower than the danger roll. For the second possibility this is then divided into whether the danger roll is from weather (4b) or from wildlife (4c). Therefore all the possibilities are covered by point 4, just with a wording where you only have to focus on the highest roll.
Jumping to your third point about when you should roll on the last tables, that is related directly to point 4. If the danger roll is higher, you then roll on the table corresponding to the type of danger. These tables are also identified as 4a, 4b, and 4c respectively to link them directly to the How to Play section that is pertinent.
Continuing with your point about the Medical Supplies. The removing negative effects simply refers to anything that negatively effects your character. Essentially any ongoing effect from tables 4b and 4c, such as the Frostbite (-1 to all future rolls) or Injury (This result 2 times means death).
Jumping back up to your question about point 5, this is not addressed in the How to Play section as it comes up in the tables. Certain results such as Vehicle (bonus 1 movement today) and Disoriented (No movement today) can affect your standard progression of 1 per day. This is worded a bit poorly, as something along the lines of "potentially altered by step 4" would be clearer.
Moving to your note about the numbers on the equipment list, these actually do play a roll in the game play. At the top of the Equipment? section it stats "Add number to 1D6". Therefore in your example of using the Heat Pack you would actually add 2 and therefore have had a result of 5. This makes the equipment worth varying values.
Finally your final point about expanding the dangers, I agree it would be nice to have more than 6. However due to space constraints and wanting to keep the various tables at a consistent number of 6 that was a sacrifice I chose to make.
I hope this helps you, and anyone else, having some trouble following the rules. Hopefully you'll give the game another shot!
Nice, thanks for the reply.
Yeah, I totally misread the point 4.
About the other doubts of mine, I understand that you have very few space, however I'd say that you could try to do a deeper, or cleaner, explanation, as you did here in the post.
For example, you could put a ▢ aside the various Equip. Then, after the description, put the bonus in brackets, ie. ▢ Worn Hunting Rifle with only a few bullets left (+6). Then, put in the rules "Add the bonus between brackets to the 1d6 roll".
This isn't too much verbose, however it helps a lot (also, the square is clearly a space to "mark off", as you write in the rules). Etc.
PS: about the few space you have on the sheets: I find that the whole "3" area in the second page is wasted. You have no reason to keep the log of the various rolls, also (apparently) there's no rules about "losing the game after 12 days" or other time restraints, so the days count space is probably better used for other cool elements (expanded Danger or other tables).
In any case, nice! Thanks again.