My friend and I published our first game! It’s called The Hallowed Walk and it came about when we saw the opportunity to to combine a “cards and prompts” style of story game with the world around you as you go for a walk. It takes the familiar and turns it into the setting for new stories as you travel through it.
Played in a group of 2-5 you pick a tone for the type of story you want to tell, give your character a name and a title, then set out on the Hallowed Walk to perform an important rite or ceremony. As you travel you discover more about your characters, the rite and the world you are in. In the third phase of the game, you perform the rite, or tell the story of it being performed, and decide whether or not it was a success and what that means, before your characters make their way home in the final stage.
It is a good way to see a regular walk you take often through a new lens, even the same route played with different tones ( like ‘whimsical’ vs ‘enshadowed’ ) will bring about very different outcomes. We were explicitly inspired by the elements of British folklore ( it was created for the itch.io Folklore Jame ) and by the kind of mythic fiction we grew up on - The Dark Is Rising, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Mythago Wood and The Green Man’s Heir all fit under this - but the stories it comes out with are entirely dependent on the group playing it. Also, because it’s played outside you can play it in a socially distanced way, although unlike most RPGs the weather can get in the way.
An interesting thing that has shown up in playtesting is that because the mechanics ask you to tie your answers to questions into the landscape, the stories hook into memory and place in an interesting way. This is something that I think there is room to explore further- I’m not aware of many tabletop-style games ( also weird talking about a “tabletop” game designed not to be played near a table ) deliberately hooking into the outdoor environment like this and I think there’s a lot of fun to be had there. I don’t have anything much to go by in this regard but I think it’s got quite a few people interested, which I’m super pleased about.
If you want to take a look you can find The Hallowed Walk here.