I often use journaling games these days to practice my Vietnamese, and my favorites are usually among the Alone types due to the flexibility yet suggestiveness of the prompts based on a die and a deck of cards. Also I get to exercise my story cubes on these games, but usually I forget about the cubes a few entries in as my imagination takes off.
I enjoyed this game very, very much. Chill Out builds on the framework of Alone Among the Stars and creates a relaxing road trip with elements of wonder and the unexpected by alternating sections of Alone-style prompts with significant stops that use the cards in different ways. As a result, the game is a cohesive and satisfyingly complete journey, though this means the length of the game isn't flexible. I made my road trip over the course of two days, and enjoyed my time immensely.
I didn't print out a map, as I don't always have access to a printer, so I just drew a rough simple map, enough so that I could annotate where certain landmarks occur to get a sense of the journey taken.
One thing I would add are additional, optional reflection prompts for the end of the trip.
Excellent and among the best of road trip journal games I've played.
A meditative and peaceful experience for me, although the system is flexible enough to create more drama on the journey if you want. You can tinker this to be just about any kind of vehicle you like, including horses and spaceships, and not just cars on a highway—you just need a journey with multiple places to stop.
I like that this game additionally encourages you to add different flavors to your journey setting, too, with a simple table for 2d6.
As this game features one road of multiple stops represented by cards, should the journey seem too short with the die roll, I like to add 6 for 2d6 and 3 for a shorter 1d6 journey.
An extremely good hack of Moons Among Us and Alone Among the Stars, Asphalt Among Ashes is a melancholy, often beautiful, sometimes nostalgic, not always safe road trip across the post-apocalyptic landscape. 1d20 or 2d8 recommended for maximum divisibility possibilities with least fuss. AAA in particular reminds me of why I like many Alone-style games, and why Alone games remain among the ones I love the best: the modular nature of prompt generation creates much more combined together yet with brief rules, as well as not needing much in the way of materials or space.
Materials needed: one pack of cards, dice (1d20 or 2d8 recommended), one journal.
Length: Very flexible, but you'll want to sit with this one. One hour to a melancholy overcast afternoon.
An elegant way to generate a map with plenty of geographical elements and cities/towns etc, and a great twist on the Alone game mechanics. For a smaller map, use d4s instead of d6s and a 4x4 map.
This could be hacked to generate city maps as well, maybe dungeons or odd haunted mansions too. Very lovely!
Materials needed: 2d6, a 6x6 grid, a pack of cards. Optional: journal.
Length: Maybe an hour to fill up a 6x6 map sans journaling, which you can do after the map is generated at any rate. The time passes quite quickly!
This was a very reflective experience for me, as the dichotomy mechanic prompts thinking about what each component of a dichotomy means and how it relates to other components.
And this game helped me get towards more closure on a particular life event that changed everything for me forever.
Materials needed: one pack of cards, one journal.
Length: as a very thought-provoking game, I recommend at least an hour and highly recommend longer than that.
Review: I really enjoy the Alone hacks. Alone Among the Stars and Alone in the Ancient City are among my favorites and reprinted here, alongside a new hack with a spooky deep forest atmosphere that feels very different from a similar hack (Alone on the Rocky Beach, not present here). I think of Stars and City as medium weight in terms of time investment, and Forest as lighter.
I love having these games gathered together, though I wish Beach had been added.
Materials needed: one d6, one pack of cards, one journal.
Length: all very flexible, with Stars and City coming in at around half an hour to a pleasant afternoon, and Forest being similar in scope to Beach so around under half an hour to a few hours.
Review: the second Alone type game I played after Alone Among the Stars. I really like the three-layer prompt depth: first a d6 with three options as per usual with most Alone games, then the card draw, then a second d6 with six options to make the encounter even more specific. This leads to expanding quite well the general vocabulary you need, even if you don't follow the initial set-up rule of picking out a list of words you need to use throughout your session.
Depending on how much of your learning language you use per journal entry, this game can really work out your mind.
Materials needed: one d6, one pack of cards, one journal, another language you're learning.
Length: flexible, I recommend from an hour to an afternoon of play.
Review: I don't actually like cities in real life, and I'm housebound. With this game I'm able to overcome both obstacles and spend an afternoon in an imaginary city that I've somehow not grown tired of despite many sessions. Relaxing, and I can easily stop and go home whenever I wish. Another advantage is that I can compress a whole day and night in a city into a single IRL afternoon without tiring my feet out.
Materials needed: one d6, one pack of cards, one journal.
Length: flexible, from under an hour to a pleasant afternoon.
Review: I enjoyed this journaling game very much. While the setting might seem similar to that of Alone Among the Stars, the categories, prompts, and constant space traveling without landing yields a very different thematic feeling. The isolation is far more nomadic, like a continuous bus ride versus a series of stopovers. It's an experience even more meditative and relaxing than Alone Among the Stars, which is saying a lot!
Materials needed: one d6, one pack of cards, one journal.
Length: flexible, from under an hour to a pleasant afternoon.
Review: The game that got me started exploring journaling games that follow the Alone type. It definitely yields the sometimes moody, often wondrous, reflectively alone nature of games such as No Man's Sky, all in a d6, a pack of cards, and a journal. These days I don't own a computer capable of running many modern video games, and have found I much prefer letting my imagination roam given a simple prompt generator and structure, plus any inspiration aids I have at hand.
Materials needed: one d6, one pack of cards, one journal.
Length: flexible, anywhere from under an hour to a pleasant afternoon.
