Recently I have jumped on the “analog hobby” trend.
If you haven’t heard of this, it’s a trend you might see on social media where people are trying to get off their phones and embrace old-fashioned, offline hobbies again. Some creators I follow on YouTube have created beautiful “analog baskets” filled with activities like coloring books, watercolor paint kits, tarot cards, and yarn. (I assume they’re knitting something.) I was intrigued.
Then my sister and mom made their own baskets, and I had to get in on the action.
So, I created my own analog hobby cart. But to be honest, some of the popular analog hobbies in the social media posts weren’t doing it for me. I do have a coloring book and tarot cards, but crocheting didn’t quite work for me, and I’m not that into crafting.
Instead, I have a bunch of beading supplies, because I love making friendship bracelets. (I am a Swiftie, okay?) As a reader, I also have books and annotation supplies. But there was something missing…
Games.
I’m a gamer. I want to play games.
Already I love playing board games and card games with my family when we get together. I grew up on that; my grandpa in particular was very into card games, and I have many fond memories of playing everything from Hand and Foot to Hearts to good old Yahtzee at his dining room table as a kid.
But for my analog hobby cart, I needed a game I could play by myself, even if nobody else was around to play with me.
Right away I thought of Solitaire… but that was too plain. I wanted something that felt like a role-playing game, like the video game RPGs I adore so much. I just also wanted traditional card game mechanics.
I did zero research, okay? Instead, I just created my own game. (It’s called The Long Road, and I’ll share it with you all soon!)
I had so much fun creating my own RPG card game. But in doing so, I did a few online searches and discovered there are already a ton out there! Some of them are pretty self-contained, roguelite strategy games that use a standard deck of cards, like my game does. But there are also solo tabletop role-playing games — TTRPGs — and some of them are called “journaling games.”
I was intrigued. As a writer and gamer, a journaling game sounded right up my alley.
So I started researching and discovered a game I just had to try: Anna Blackwell’s For Small Creatures Such As We. It’s a science fiction solo RPG where you captain a ship through space, running missions and making a name for yourself… or just surviving.
But the fun part is your alien crew.
Yes, you get to recruit and get to know a crew of aliens that you invent yourself. The game gives you clever card draws and prompts that help you generate a unique alien species and character. For example, draw an Ace of Hearts, a 5 of Diamonds, and a Jack of Clubs, and you end up with an aquatic food producer who is always making music. From there, you give them specific skills — maybe they’re a janitor or a physicist, maybe they’re an artist or obsessed with explosives — that flesh them out further. It’s up to you toc imagine they look and act. You name them, add them to your crew, and get to know them as you carry out missions on a vast map together.
Blackwell, who created the game, was inspired by Becky Chambers’ books like The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. And it totally fits. Chambers’ books and Blackwell’s game are both hopeful, optimistic, character-driven sci-fi. They’re the perfect worlds to inhabit when you just want to take a breath, use your imagination, and feel good.
I also loved creating my own character, Captain Zora Hapgood. I journaled as her for quite a while as I told my own history growing up on a space station, working on a ship, and eventually becoming a comms officer and clerk before buying my ship the Dragonfly.
I’ve been playing the game for about a week, so I’m still very early days. I still have a small ship with no major upgrades, and I’ve only completed two missions. But I’m learning more about my crew — an empathic doctor who worships her ancestors in the stars; a young orphan born deaf, who’s homesick but eager to see the galaxy; and a bat-like nomad who sleeps in a nest and is trying to save his people from massive sea-born predators on his homeworld. I’m also learning how hard it is to captain a starship. We ran out of food on our last run, and my health in particular took a big hit.
There is a lot to track as you play For Small Creatures Such As We. Like, a lot. I’m constantly using my calculator to figure out how much fuel it takes to get from one point to another on the map, while also rolling dice to see if there’s an event on any given day, and then drawing cards to figure out what happens next. And all that while managing my crew’s food and happiness the whole way.
I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of all that management — but I did have a blast setting up my Notion page for this game. I love designing things — particularly websites and things like that — so part of this hobby for me is creating beautiful pages to track my progress and journal my way through the game.
While I love the role-playing in this game, I do wish I had more guidance. I’m creating a lot of the world, storytelling my way through. I suppose that’s the point of an RPG, but when I play a video game RPG, for example, I have much more to work with. I’m dropped into an existing world and just make choices in an existing story. I’m not literally worldbuilding as I go. I’m not the GM.
Playing a game like this feels a lot like laying down train tracks while the train is already moving. It takes some getting used to.
The next game on my list is Ironsworn: Starforged, another solo RPG. From what I hear, there is a little more guidance, and the world is a bit darker, which I actually like. I’m curious to compare the mechanics in the two games.
In any case, playing For Small Creatures Such As We is definitely getting my creative juices flowing. It’s a fun way to spend an afternoon, just playing and journaling and imagining another world.
It’s definitely making me want to write science fiction again too! (I don’t plan to right now though — I have another writing project I’ll share with you soon that some of you romance-obsessed gamers might enjoy!)
So, I’m curious…
Do you play any RPGs?
Whether it’s Dungeons and Dragons with friends or video game RPGs like Mass Effect or solo RPGs like the ones I’m trying out, let me know what you’ve played and what you think of them! I’m always open to recs too. :)
💜 Ashley
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