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A jam submission

Depths of RealityView project page

A horror TTRPG about the doomed crew of a submarine trying to fulfill their final mission.
Submitted by Devil Whale Games — 10 hours, 45 minutes before the deadline
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Comments

Submitted(+1)

There is nothing so horrifying to me as the concept of a submarine, so this game already ticks the horror box for me on that basis alone. Congratulations on making a game that perfectly encapsulates why submarines are miniature circles of hell floating around where no person should be! 

My fears aside, this a great game with creative mechanics. The use of tearing and tape is a fun mechanic that works really well with the destructive nature of the narrative. I kept on getting distracted  from the text by how good the document design is; it helps make the game feel immersive (ha) from page one. I like your Macrophage Module and the events you created. The game is overall really cohesive, nothing feels out of place or like it doesn't belong in this game. Well done on making something that has made me squirm (in a good way) just reading it!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for the compliments! And yeah, I got one tour around a (docked) submarine once and that was more than enough to convince me that they're claustrophobic little coffins of death that nobody should ever enter. I probably channeled a lot of that into making the game.

- Rik

Submitted(+1)

Oh man, this system seems so freaking cool. I absolutely love the idea of using tearing of the character sheets and vessel sheets as a mechanic, and taping things back together with limited resources. Setting things in a submarine that is falling apart in a desperate hail Mary of self sacrifice gives the game a VERY solid combination of mechanical and thematic consistency that make understanding the rules feel super easy.

For the modules I think modifying the Miscellaneous table to be 6 entries that you could roll on as opposed to a chain could help GMs get some direction if they aren’t wanting to start one of the chains yet, and obviously a template to write your own scenario would be awesome for replay-ability. On the character sheets some reminders like the total number of bonus dice, threshold and difficulty reminders, and such would be nice. Maybe make the character sheets double sided so the wrecked info is on the back and the regular info is on the front so players can tear off the part and flip them to see the current state of their player and the vessel. Also the resources sheet was a little confusing for me starting off. Honestly I think just moving the Reality tag from the bottom of the mechanism to the top so it is on the side of the device that the numbers represent would go a long way to fixing the confusion I had.

In terms of the layout of the rules themselves, I love the way each page is a little darker background than the others and flow of the rules, but I think maybe one or two charts, some dividers and italicized text or other things to break up the text could help readability a little bit, but that feels very minor because the rules felt fairly easy to read.

Over all this system seems super fun and I would love a chance to test it out!

Developer

Thank you so much for the kind words, and we really appreciate the feedback!

Templates for making your own modules are definitely on the to-do list, but there's still quite a bit to figure out (how to customize characters and vessels, for example). Honestly, I'd be happy enough if people end up playing this once.

We plan on updating the character sheets today or tomorrow, so we'll make sure to incorporate your feedback - making a double-sided version is a great idea!