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The original idea of the game was for a TTRPG random generator jam. It was about a group of scientists travelling to a post apocalypse Earth, recording and drawing new species. After many twists and turns, it became a solo urban exploring game with a bit of spook.

I'd love to keep using a similar three clues, make hypothesis, see if your hypothesis is correct, kind of system for future solo crime related games.

This is the game I ended up creating for the TTRPG generator game jam. When I saw Medieval Anxiety, my first thought was "oh, so death then". However, while I love some darker topics for my solo games, I think I prefer a multiplayer game that is a bit... less dark. Instead of having every player character suffers, I will have them destroy a whole (fictional) nation instead!

This game is also inspired by my partner's work. Writing academic papers sound like it would be the perfect setup. It could also solve a problem that players may run into while playing Lexicon. Contradicting articles? No problem. It is the academic world. Contradictions, corrections, arguments, they all happen! I also saw that some Lexicon groups ran into an issue where a few players would take control of the game, writing a series of articles that only fitted their vision. To combat this problem, I have an extra rule that unless it is a solo game, you cannot complete placeholders that you created.

I've always wanted to make a dating sim/otome type of game for a solo TTRPG. The problem is what topic and how. I also had this otome video game idea where you played as the protagonist that reincarnated into a game where most endings led to bad endings, but things happened, so the game was different than you thought. I also had this other idea where in this other stat raising game, all the love interest would be randomly generated, with different backgrounds, personalities, behaviors, and date events. This game is those three ideas combined.

The name was randomly generated on a light novel title generator. When I saw the name, I had the game in my head already. The issue was how to make a dating sim felt excited or full of secrets when there would only be one player. The solution was simple, take inspiration from existing otome games! A lot of games have a system where an event would trigger when you reach a certain amount of heart points. These events usually let the player learns more about the love interest. Perhaps you learn why there's a scar on his face, maybe you catch him working at a maid cafe, or it could be you see the soft side of a tough man (usually involve a kitten). With this idea in mind, the Date system was born. Each date represent an evolution of your relationship with a love interest. Each date gives you new insight about the character.

I also want to play with the idea that you, your character, your character as the villainess, and the villainess are all different characters. In the Plot Twist table, while the plot twist is for us the players, the plot twist is for your character as well. They've played the otome game so many times, they should've known a lot of things about the game. But the protagonist dying was never part of the plot! 

I love this game when it's a lot of my old ideas combined into one. I may revisit the system and make more otome TTRPGs! Perhaps it should be a supernatural one?

Memoria is an old game idea of mine. I uncovered part of the ideas from my Google Drive when I didn't have any ideas for what to make.

I always love mystery, crime-related, investigation game that involves murder. Creating an investigation game for solo players, in my opinion, is difficult. How do you make twists and turns that make sense? How to have the final reveal feels shocking while still makes sense within the story? I had this idea where you woke up without any memories, just clues scattered around. You'd have to piece together the case and solved it. I ended up using another idea and created Case Closed: The Cold Case RPG instead.

I wanted to recreate the Memento movie but in TTRPG form. The way you slowly connect the dots, slowly understanding the protagonist's story just as he slowly understands how he got to the point was very interesting. Another inspiration was The Memory Breaker by Kobayashi Yasumi. The book inspired some of the prompts in the game.

This game is quite experimental. I thought about having two stats in it: Brains and Brawns. Player would have to roll once for every scene. The result would affect how the scenario play out, or how the next scenario play out. At the end, I took it out. Instead of playing with dice rolls and stats, I decided it was all in our head. The game was trying to make sense and connect each events. That some Memento would reveal how it came to your possession in later chapter. That later chapters may shine light to explain the behavior from an early chapter.

Another game that I found from in my Google Drive. I had the idea where the solo player played as the GM, gming for NPCs for the longest time. But that wasn't it. The premise of the game was the drama, conflict, and annoyance you felt while playing the game. I drew some ideas from playing with others. Some of the character moves happened in my games, and I'm sure a lot of people experienced some form of those character moves in their game. 

I came up with the system before I came up with the premise. The idea started with a dice-pool game, where you can use combinations of dice to make a move. At first, I had a fighting game in mind. Like playing Tekken or Street Fighter, there were different combos you could do. For example, 1,1,1,1 might be a weak combo, where 1,2,3,4,5,6 might be your ultimate. Player might even be able to create their own combo list. However, at the time, I had issue coming up with how do simulate an opponent in a solo game. Should the player roll for the NPC, and their move would be the best move? That the player would need to counter it with their combo? Or should the player just roll 1d10 and decide which combo did the NPC roll.

At the end, I scrapped that concept. Instead, I thought about the death anxiety I thought of in Medieval Anxiety. The main part of the game was to play god. You had limited resources, yet there were many that needed help. What happened if there were five sick villagers, but you could only brew four potions? Who would you save? What if there were only one potion left, yet you were sick as well? 

To made the player's choices impactful, I wanted the villagers to not just be a number. They weren't villager 1, 2 and 3, but Sage, the young and hopeful little boy; Marigold, the protective elder who shared her wisdom to you; or Lavender, the quiet woman that becomes your potion assistant. I hope when playing this game, the players will struggle about which villagers they have to abandon. Would they choose to abandon the oldest villagers? Or the villagers that are too deep into their illness? Or the villagers that they dislike the most?

I was running out of ideas at this point. Using the random generator, I generated What doesn't kill you makes you...? + community + a deck of cards. Immediately, it reminded me of a multiplayer game idea that I had, which also used a deck of cards. It was about a group of women was invited to a certain location, and only then, they realized they were all final girls. Killings begin, and the players compete to be the final final girl. In order to fit the prompt, instead of a competitive game, it was a game where all the final girls were helping one another, defeating the killer.

The issue then was how to develop a system that matched the premise of the game. Instead of having one main character, it was four main characters. I thought of it like the video games Until Dawn and The Quarry, where you followed more than one character, but each having their POV. You may play one card, representing the POV character getting out of a terrible situation on her own. Or you may play a combination of cards, representing how other characters helped out the POV character. To encourage helping, I added a counter at the end, where the more the girls came together, the more cards you could have at the end.

I also had a fun time drawing a before and after of a final girl.

I had this idea before bed, after watching a bunch of videos on a certain show. This ending really did suck, and the fanfics could fix it!

The entire game came into whole really quickly. I wanted the tone of the game to be humorous, and not as a commentary on bad endings or even bad fanfics. That's why if it was a multiplayer game, each players should write down their prompts in secret, then revealed it at the same time. Imagine you wrote down Dean Winchester and Castiel, and your friend wrote down William Shakespeare. Or when all of you wrote down each other's most hated tropes. 

For the game, I wanted to have funny moments where out of nowhere, Jon Snow rolled into My Hero Academia barista AU after you rolled on the character table. Or having a love triangle between Optimus Prime, Gandalf and Velma. I can't wait to see these fanfics on AO3.

Dungeon crawl is a very common type of game that I, unfortunately, am not that interested in. But a reverse dungeon crawl? Now, that's more fun to me. Instead of combating monsters, you are the monster. 

I wanted something more than just mindless, generic monsters, however. I wanted the monsters to be your companions and friends. When a monster died because a hero, my plan was that the player would not just feel like it was a shame because this monster costed a certain amount of points to hire. In order to (try to) achieve this, I added in an event phase that showed interactions between monsters, and interactions between the player and the monsters.

I was also inspired by the nemesis system by the Nemesis System in Shadow of Mordor. Just as the player and the dungeon are leveling up, the heroes should as well. If I had more time, I'd flesh out the system a bit more than just rolling for one tag and having the heroes level up. I wanted personality changes, goal changes, perhaps even changing classes. This would need to wait for another time.

At the very, very, very beginning of joining the game jam, I wanted to make a psychological horror game where you were alone in your actual home, but you were stalked by someone. Taking inspiration from horror games such as Amnesia, SOMA, and Outlast, the player would not have any means to attack. They could only hide and wait. I kept thinking for systems that would work for this game. Should it be a prompt based game? Should it have stats? Would the PC have attributes? While I couldn't come up with a good solution, a system popped into my head, one that I was familiar with. It was the Second Guess system.

I rolled on the generator, getting fear and we need to kill this man as my prompt. Immediately, I thought of the games where the player was already a killer, trying to get away with it.