The Lighthouse at Kindred Rocks
A downloadable game
You grew up in Kindred Rocks, building haunted memories with a smile, but left to finish your studies elsewhere and find your own life. Years later, you return to bury your father and move into the family home as you take his role as the town’s lighthouse keeper. But, alas, things in the hometown are just as strange as they ever were…
The Lighthouse at Kindred Rocks is a solo writing RPG that blends small town life with an investigation into eldritch secrets.
Use the one page document to start your journal about returning to your home town after your father's death and then investigating 2 different mysteries. The prompt table will slowly guide you through weeks of everyday life alongside minor investigations and surprises, as well as interactions and opportunities to get your imagination and creativity cooking.
I was heavily inspired by just my aesthetic love of lighthouses, and the places that surround them. If I see a lighthouse on a trip, I'm gripped by the desire to go visit it, stare at it, see what's around it. I can definitely draw a link between my love of eerie fiction and my childhood spent watching Australian TV icon ROUND THE TWIST, wherein a family moves to a small coastal town and lives in the lighthouse. I loved that show as a kid, and still do, because that setting just felt...boss. So I'm drawing from that deep childhood love, matched with the weird occult stylings of random stuff like: PAPER GIRLS by Cliff Chiang & Brian K Vaughan, China Mieville, FRIDAY by Marcos Martin & Ed Brubaker, maybe a little ROSEMARY'S BABY, and possibly even some of the "what is reality?" vibe of Philip K. Dick.
To play this game, you only need a d20, a d6, and the way and will to write out an awesome adventure.
This game was created using the Second Guess System by Gamenomicon - which is utterly brilliant in construction - and inspired by their Hard Case game - a brilliant single page of construction and genre.
If you like this, please check out my other single page solo journaling rpgs:
- Welcome To Faraday - a suburban horror story
- The Seven Islands of Qoy - a mystical kung fu tournament story
- The Heist on Foley Lane - a revenge heist story
- The Cave Outside Heltrap - a fantasy cave clearing adventure
- Escape From Isla del Mundo - a monster island/hunting story
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
I love this concept and the prompts are all very fun to respond to, but I found the game itself almost impossible to solve at first!
Maybe I am just misunderstanding the instructions, but the Goal Check mechanic seemed to be ending the game pretty much every time it came up – which was a lot! I think the problem is possibly the use of two D20s and two sets of goals on the same prompt list? After a couple of turns it meant I kept hitting at least one of the same prompts almost every time. In the end I just decided to start again and use a D12 for goal checks & finally managed to solve both the mysteries <3
Thank you for sharing your game!
Hi, thanks so much for taking the time to play the game so thoroughly, and for letting me know about your alterations! I'm really glad you had fun, and I don't mind you switching up the game mechanics at all [creativity can be in rules as well as te prompts and your writing].
The Lighthouse at Kindred Rocks is a Second Guess game where you have returned to the small town of Kindred Rocks, the place you grew up, after the death of your father. You are presented with two mysteries to solve: how did your father really die? What is the eldritch mystery plaguing the town?
You play like other Second Guess games where you roll 1d20 and answer the prompts. Some prompts will get you closer to your goal and some will take you further away.
You start with 0 goal in both the death and eldritch mysteries and the prompts will either increase these numbers or lower them. You need to have a goal of 7 for either your father’s death or the eldritch mysteries in order to solve the case.
When you roll a number you have previously rolled you also do a goal check where you roll 1d6 vs the your highest goal number. If you roll = or higher you have a plot twist and live to see another day. If you roll lower you meet a grisly end.
I went for 13 days trying to discover what ripped my home to shreds, what was that mysterious sword? Where was its twin? And why I just couldn’t catch a break. You can read my playthrough Here
Hi, wow, this was awesome to read! You had some really interesting aspects and swerves to your story. It was an insight for me to see just how long your playthrough lasted. Thanks so much for taking a chance on this game, and for sharing it with your community. I hugely appreciate it!
I'm assuming that the goal points start at 0?
They absolutely do, yes.
Thanks for the confirmation.