Simple Walks
A downloadable game
You are a pedestrian bridge. You will shape the landscape around you, determine who crosses you, and describe what they do. This will tell the story of a space. You are made of inanimate materials, and your observations are neutral. You observe only the crossings, not the ends of journeys.
Simple Walks is a solo journaling rpg about witnessing movement and transience. To play, you need a six-sided die and a method of journaling, such as a pen and paper.
Simple Walks is both a companion to and a variation on my previous game, Simple Plots. While the mechanical structure is the same, it re-imagines the core concept and function to observe in a different way. Outcomes will, of course, depend on the choices made by the player. Both games can be played stand-alone.
Simple Walks has the potential to be shifted to suit any genre you'd like; for example, to skew into the realm of fantasy, choose a bridge with a fantasy feeling, and flavor each crossing accordingly. Open-ended prompts are intentionally broad to inspire instead of prescribe or script. All suggestion-based prompts can be re-imagined or re-skinned to suit the experience you desire; simply modify as you record the outcome in your journal. The only real limit is your imagination.
Content Warning: The open-ended nature of this game means that many themes could arise if you bring them to the table - whether intentionally, by accident, or coincidence. The bridge is inanimate, but you (the player) are not. Take care of yourself; step away if you need to.
This game was made for the One-Page RPG Jam 2024, and is inspired by their optional theme of Transport.
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This was fantastic! I only had a few minutes this morning, but ended up sucked in and finishing the day. (Other stuff can wait, right? :D) Thanks so much for putting this together!
Thank you so much for your kind words!! I'm pleased to hear you got so invested in your play-through as a bridge - I hope you were able to get to the rest of the things on your to-do list eventually! If there are any moments from your play-through that you particularly are proud of I'd love to hear them. Regardless, happy to know the game found its way to you!
I loved this one-page journal, Maggie! I tried it out and really enjoyed the idea of being a bridge and witnessing (without being seen) human and animal behavior. I liked that you added the option "below"; I might not have thought of that if you hadn't mentioned it. Awesome! A gondola passed under my bridge, thanks to that idea.
I have an idea. You can answer questions like how old people are by rolling a 1d6 (1=child, 2=young, 3-4=adult, 5-6...). You know, the trick is to use this roll to evaluate something on a scale of 1 to 6. It could help generate random results, answer questions, or guide what to write down. How passionate is this couple on the bridge? 1 to 6... haha... How fun is what they're talking about? How suspicious do they seem? These are ideas that came to me for my one-page... :)
Thank you!!! I'm really glad you enjoyed it - the gondola is so cool! I really like walking the line between being prescriptive and being too vague, so I thought a lot about how to write questions that would allow for people to come up with their own ideas, and yet wouldn't leave people going "I don't know what to do!"
I LOVE the idea of rolling for more specifics about the people - age, etc. Or even honestly just the idea of using the 1-6 as a scale, instead of just a decision maker. You may have noticed that so far a lot of my 1-6 are just lists that I have sort of placed together.
One of the big challenges I have faced in trying to distill the essence of these games down into one page is an attempt to keep things very streamlined. A challenge that I have set myself is to keep the scope unemotional - so, like, the bridge (or the headstone in the case of Simple Plots) doesn't have a strong understanding of emotions but can observe things that people do. I think in my head, prompting people to determine things like feelings felt a little too in the vein of "the bridge understanding what they're seeing" rather than "the bridge bears witness to what they're seeing."
That said, I have a list of other ideas that I want to make into "Simple ___" games, and I would ultimately like to pull them together into a collection. Even though I don't know how I feel about putting feelings-based prompting into the original game's structure, I do think I might consider whether these sorts of questions might make for a good appendix, if folks wanted to add more of this type of flavor in or were looking for these sorts of prompts, because I think it's notable that you walked away from your play experience thinking about it!
Sorry for the long reply, I hope this made sense! Thanks again for the lovely comment and suggestion!
It was an answer really interesting! Of course, I understand what you mean, and from the very beginning, I knew you wanted to keep the concept simple, without emotions. I wonder if the people who play it will keep it emotionless, simply being a bridge and limiting themselves to being witnesses, or if they will delve deeper, or if they don't, will they feel like they want to delve deeper... I know you know this, but I never wanted to expand your game as a sign that it lacks something or that it's wrong; rather, it's my way of wanting to stay within that premise that has captivated me and seemed like a very interesting place to explore. Please understand! I've never had the opportunity to be a bridge, haha, and I wanted to keep taking advantage of the opportunity to be one.
Regarding the idea of adding options that involve feelings or questions, I think it could work to leave it open and help the player by inviting them to take the theme and tone wherever they are interested, offering them tools like a scale of 1 to 6, or answering questions with 1-3 = No, 4-6 = Yes. And the player, as it happened with me, can lead the tone and theme as they please. Although it's also possible that people who frequently play journaling ttrpgs might not need any tools... Well, what do I know. I'm still learning and experimenting. Everyone has their own particular way of designing and playing.
As an anecdote, another game that captivated me: The Wandering Library, I felt like I wanted to stay there longer, so I created several tables and a mini-system in which every day, 2 or 3 people would come into my library looking for a book, and they'd ask me if I had read it and what I thought of it. I rolled to decide whether I had it or not, if it was of good quality or not, if it was huge or a comic, or even a ttrpg, and more details to help me interact with the client and prolong the game... It was fun :)
Sorry for the long text as well, haha!
Don't worry I totally got what you meant and it's a really interesting thought exercise for me, and probably also a cool learning moment as a designer, because people might totally bring their own feelings to the game - and that to me feels like a really lovely sign that the game resonated enough that people wanted to tell more stories with it. I think there are probably a lot more ways to utilize a d6 in this type of format. I'm definitely pondering on it - in two ways. One, the appendix thing I mentioned before. But two, within the list of other premises I have for this "structure" that I've made, I'm going to look to see if any of them would benefit from other ways of choice-making and story-making as I develop. Thank you for this conversation!!!
I'll be keeping an eye on your new TTRPGs and progress! Thank you so much as well for this healthy exchange of opinions!