Within a week, they had you hooked up to the temporal projection unit and were running limited tests. Microsecond jumps at first, then minutes. You were up to 4 hour jumps in controlled conditions with only minimal deviations when you heard Sam had been infected. The doctors had said it’d be a matter of days.
You pleaded with your superiors to make the jump. The target: the terrorist cell delivering the canisters.
Against their better judgment, they hooked you up to the unit and entered the space-time coordinates.
It was going to be the longest jump anyone had made: 36 days in uncontrolled conditions. You prayed it would go well.
It didn’t.
– Description by author
Game Description
Unmoored is a solo journaling RPG based on the Wretched and Alone rules by Chris Bissette and Matt Sanders.
You take on the role of a fresh recruit in the Tactical Unit of the Department of Special Relativity, entrusted with a crucial mission. However, something goes horribly wrong, and now you are lost in time and space, making uncontrolled jumps at random.
You cling to the hope that they will be able to locate the signal from your relativistic chronometer and bring you back somehow, but with every jump, you find your hope, sense of purpose and identity crumbling.
It uses:
- A standard deck of 52 playing cards, with jokers removed
- A single six-sided die
- A tumbling block tower (optional)
- 10 tokens or counters
Like most Wretched games, your journal progresses until the tower falls.
Your deck of cards represents the events that will happen on your jumps, and the 6 sided dice determine how many cards are pulled for each round of play.
The 10 tokens come into play at the end of the game.
Setting the Scene / Getting into Character
The “Who & What” section of the players guide sets the scene. It explains who you are and how you got into this situation.
The first couple of jumps are included in the introduction. The rest of your story is told by drawing cards and pulling blocks from the Jenga tower.
How to Play
The game is divided into jumps. Some jumps can be short, over in seconds or minutes, while others can drag on for weeks, months or years.
Each jump has two phases.
- The Events
- The Journal
The Events
Roll your die and draw that number of cards from the deck, keeping them face down.
A low number means the jump was uneventful, while a high number means it very busy.
Turn over the first card you drew and consult the tables of prompts. If the instructions ask you to do a specific thing, do it.
Continue turning over cards and consulting the instructions until your tasks are complete.
When you have completed all your tasks for the day, discard the cards you have used unless you are told otherwise.
The Journal
Take a moment to consider the events of the jump:
– Your hardships and successes.
– Your whereabouts in time and space.
– What inspires you to keep going.
– Your thoughts and memories.
Record your journal entry for the jump.
The Card Prompts
Each of the 52 cards have a unique prompt that relates to the face value, and the suit it belongs to.
Hearts are mostly about your memories from home. Home is where you want to get back to.
Diamond cards relate to your personal identity. They are cards about your history and sense of self.
Clubs ask questions about your understanding of the mission and how it makes you feel.
Finally, Spades are cards about the jumps through time and space. This is where all the actions happens.
Note: I don't post actual prompts in my reviews. This is to protect the IP of the designer. You will need to buy the game to read the actual prompts.
Overall Impression
I have always loved the idea of time travel.
The introduction is really good. It definitely sets the scene and gives you a clear idea of what is meant by a “jump”.
The Spades contains all of the prompts that define where you land after making a jump. Only one of the cards sends you to a specific place and time. The remaining cards leave the destination up to your imagination.
As well as the standard “how do you feel?”, “what do you remember?”, “who taught you this?” prompts, there is a good mix of ideas that give you time to reflect on where you have come from, and where you are trying to get back to.
There are also several cards that relate to injuries or aging. These help reinforce the idea that you may not succeed in your mission.
VERDICT : RECOMMENDED
Safety
This game includes themes of fear, suspense, despair, violence, and death.
Read and play with caution, keeping in mind that you can take a break or stop completely at any time. Your mental health is important, and this is just a game.
This game is designed to make success very difficult and very unlikely. It is meant to be challenging and harrowing and emotional. If that doesn't sound fun to you, that's absolutely fine.
If you ever draw a card that makes you uncomfortable, or that you do not want to journal about for any reason, discard it and draw a different card.
Remember that you can change, ignore, rewrite or abandon any part of this game that you want.
The Wretched
This work is based on The Wretched, product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
THE WRETCHED™ is a trademark of Chris Bissette. If you want to make your own game, the System Reference Document (SRD) can be downloaded from the Sealed Library itch.io page
How to get the Game
Unmoored was created by Lari Assmuth.