OK, Justin David Margulski

Playing, The Plant, by Jason Morningstar, Sunday May 2nd, 2010.

10 plant cards
The detail cards were all stuff from Taken, because I thought it might make a more action packed game, and I was concerned about excessive emo-ness.

Card #1 – The furnace room. I did have A. This is where I first learned that my daughter had been born.
Card #10 – The rolling mill hall. I did have the letters. I was around blood recently. Since card #1 established that I used to work in this plant, I decide that after I stopped working here, I couldn't find work and became a criminal, a gangster thug.
Card #4 – The work line. I didn't have the letters. Something was about to go wrong. A bit of stray metal got in the guillotine, but I didn't hit the emergency stop. I was too afraid to run to the button. I just ducked and saved myself as the chopper clipped the metal and sent a fragment flying into one of my coworkers.
Card #3 – The coil room. I did have the letters. It sent me to passage #27. A courtyard? I ate alone? Nobody would have blamed me. I decide that after the accident, everyone's coworker spirit was broken, everyone was alone then, even when in groups. And although I looked for it, it never returned.
Card #6 – The control room. I must have imagined the loneliness, the isolation of each coworker, each one knowing after the accident that the plant would close, planning his own escape. That couldn't have been real.
Card #2 – The scrap room. I did have the letters. On the day I remember, I saw someone else who worked at the plant and later became a gangster after the plant closed. He looked as if he knew our future. Thinking back on that day, I hate him.
Down through a garbage chute.

Card #8 – The break room. Back to 27? I can't think of anything else.
Card #7 – The trunk room. I don't have the letters. What was my daughter doing here? Visiting her father of course. That meant that since that time, they knew who my daughter was. If they knew who her father was, how could they have dared to bring her back here?
Card #9 – The spin block room. I have the letters. I draw, “Your daughter's jacket.” She took off her jacket in this room? Was she forced to take it off and leave it here?
Down through a hole in the floor, but all it leads to is...

Card #5 – The crawl space. Under the plant there is a crawl space. I did not have the letters. I draw, “Angry dog.” As I make my way through the crawl space, an angry dog charges me, but I shoot it.
Down

This is the last card, and there is no instructions on what to do, like which letters to look for. I decide to use card #5's edge letters, and yes I have an A on the edge of the 5 that touches the Down card.

So that brings me to 13. She isn't hiding. She doesn't want me to save her from the gangsters. After the plant closed, the town dried up. There isn't anything else for her to do. Try as I did to shield her from this existence, what else does she have? I crawl out of the crawl space and emerge into the lot behind the plant. She's there, with some of the other gangsters I know. She chose to be here. She chose to be with them. I've lost everything.

Oh I should have timed it. It wasn't too long. I didn't get bored. I can say that I was disappointed that I didn't draw more of the detail cards I made up, rather than be lead through pre-written memories and encounters.

Thanks for playing and reporting in. If I recall correctly the odds should be about even for a player-authored element to get used, so maybe you were just unlucky. You should play again!

When you say it wasn't too long, what do you estimate? Half an hour? an hour?

--Jason

Hi Jason, great interesting game.

A couple of bug reports: page 27 turns up twice, making things a confusing, and it is not clear what happens when the 'down' is the final card.

I would love to see some mechanics to integrate player-generated elements and ephemera in the game.

Do you know of any more games besides the plant and the smoke dream that use these kind of solo narrative mechanics?

cheers,
--cs

Hey cs,

Thanks for the bug report!

I was obviously influenced by The Smoke Dream. I don't really know of any other games exploring this niche right now. If you find some let me know!

--Jason