Ebb Tide: A Wretched and Alone Game
A downloadable game
A cruise into terror. An ancient Being awakening. Your mind crumbling as you scratch out the last words you might ever write. You are probably already dead. The question is, can you make your death have any meaning?
Ebb Tide is a solo GM-less journaling game in which you will document your time as the sole survivor of a mass sacrifice designed to awaken something from the depths of the ocean, your attempts to understand what’s going on, and to try to stop it from awakening fully… before you go insane. You will most likely fail, but success isn't impossible.
Designed to be played by a single player in a few hours, Ebb Tide requires a deck of cards, a d6, and a tumbling block tower. A game built on the Wretched and Alone system.
Content Warnings:
This game includes themes of fear, isolation, suspense, despair, violence, ritualistic suicide, insanity, 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. Remember that you can change, ignore, rewrite or abandon any part of this game that you want.
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I've talked about this game quite a bit elsewhere, but realized I never left a comment on it! Ebb Tide was my first solo RPG, and I absolutely loved it!! I played it on my Twitch channel, and while my audio mixing wasn't the best at the time (it was early on while I was still trying to figure out levels and how to stream), I saved and posted it to my YouTube channel for posterity.
Ebb Tide is a W&A game about waking up on a cruise ship to find everyone, including the crew, is dead. Weird symbols are painted on the walls, strange noises come from all around, and you know something down here is with you.
This game plays like a standard W&A game with a block tower, but you only need 3 kings in order to trigger a Game Over instead of 4. You also only need to remove 7 tokens after finding the Ace of Hearts, and there is a special condition for finding all Aces.
Ebb Tide is an Eldritch horror nightmare on the open seas complete with: cults, sacrifice, tomes, and a whole lot more going on!
My only warning is this game does have “”sanity”” as a stat, represented by the tower, which might not be appealing to everyone.
My character only lasted 8 Days aboard this cursed ship, seeing all the death and horrors before them before realizing there was no real way out :( You can read my playthrough Here
Thanks for playing and for the review!
I absolutely loved this game! The sense of creeping, mounting dread was absolutely exquisite. You can read my full review on my blog.
Thank you so much! It was a great review, and my editor and I are now looking into dyslexic-friendly fonts. I'm really happy you enjoyed the game so much!
I wrote a review for this game on my website! I really enjoyed it. You did a great job of capturing the atmosphere and general sense of unease eldritch horror works evoke. Wonderful first game.
Here's the link to the review on my website.
Cassi, you remain the absolute best, and everyone should check out your work! Thanks so much for the great review!
For those of you who like auditory atmosphere with your cosmic nautical horror and despair, I recommend the following soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOvXQ3srt70
Took me just under 4 hours to play, but I am normally pretty slow at these things. I was able to fall right into the world and had a blast! Would recommend.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it