Thoughts after playing Lost in the Deep

This isn’t a review of Lost in the Deep the journaling RPG, instead see it as my thoughts after playing through the game for the first time. The game is a solo RPG and that genre has confused me for some time.

I think Lost in the Deep with stay with me for a long time in the role of an eye opener for solo RPG games in general. For the longest of time I had this view that solo RPGs were those choose your own adventure books. The kind of game that would mimic parts of the game components I thought of as RPG games.

While I played some of those books in years past they never caught on to me. Even though you had some choices to make, I never felt like I was playing anything or that I was part of any story. I’ll admit that I haven’t tried any of those in 30 years and both me and the games could have changed a lot.

It’s safe to say that Lost in the Deep is nothing like those games. As I took a greater part in the creation of the adventure I felt a lot more connected to my character and his adventure.

Over the last few years I’ve seen solo rules getting included in RPGs on Kickstarter. Still, I never cared much about those due to some false notion of what they actually were. In my mind I didn’t see how solo RPGs would work as I thought that the easiest parts would be to convert mechanical combat rules.

What I struggled with was I didn’t see how story elements would translate to solo gameplay, short of going back to the choose your old adventure games. After playing Lost in the Deep I started to read more about solo RPGs and learned about oracles and other forms of play.

While I might start to look at games like Ironsworn in the future, for now I’m going to focus on the journaling games.

Lost in the Deep takes its inspiration from the mines of Moria, where you play as a dwarf exploring an old dwarven kingdom under the mountain. Former thoughts of glory have gone, instead the goal is to survive and escape the mine.

You navigate the games with a dice and a deck of playing cards where each card provides a prompt for your journal. Within the story or gameplay, I’m still not sure what to call this, I’ve included the card I drew for each prompt.

The game suggests a brief introduction, so I didn’t start from a blank slate. Still, in the beginning I knew nothing about Tordhir, my dwarven character. By following the prompts Tordhir along with the history and mythology of his world started to emerge.

I had some thoughts to include the prompts on the pages of this site. But I also didn’t want to replicate the work of someone else. Instead I’d urge you to pick up a copy of the game if you want to follow along better in my gameplay.

I enjoyed the writing prompts a lot and after a few of them I felt that I’d gotten to know my dwarf better. A small annoyance I had was after writing about the ace of diamonds prompt that mentions finding an artifact. When writing that one I added a statue to the text only to actually find a status in the next prompt for the nine of clubs. But I also like the fact that while I’m writing the story and choosing where to take it I’m never truly in control of what happens.

I think Diogo Nogueira, the creator of Lost in the Deep, did a great job with the prompts in Lost in the Deep. I haven’t read them all yet as I enjoy the surprise when playing. But based on the few others I’ve read I can see that the tone of the story could have been a lot different had I drawn other cards.

After I read the rules again I think my gameplay wasn’t following rules as written. As I understand it you should review all the cards for the day and then write your journal. Instead I wrote each entry as I drew that card. I see merits of both approaches. If you compile a journal entry for all the cards for a given day, the diary might be a bit more coherent. But if you write each entry as you draw that card it feels more like an exploration.

Lost in the Deep uses the Wretched game engine, while I haven’t yet played the original that one takes place in space. For my next few games I’ll try some other systems first. But I’m eagerly looking forward to playing The Wretched as well as other games that use the same engine.

The block tower used in the game felt great for the atmosphere. I can see that part working a lot better when exploring the mines in a fantasy game, compared to one set in space. What I didn’t like as much with the block tower is that if you write somewhat longer entries. There’s a chance that you won’t be able to finish the game in one sitting. At least in my house it’s challenging to have something like a Jenga tower left standing for days. Of course it’s up to you how long journal entries you want to write and with shorter ones you’d be able to finish a game in one sitting.

While I’ve seen digital alternatives to the block tower, I enjoyed the feeling of those wooden pieces and felt it to be a great fit for this game. I felt the pain when the tower fell signaling the end of my dwarf.

I’ll get back to Lost in the Deep in the future, and try a different tone. It might be more high fantasy or an even grimmer tone. Time will tell.