Of That Colossal Wreck
A downloadable game
We know little about the people who lived here before the Collapse, but we know that there were people here before us. There was a time when this land was filled with people, towns, and life, but that Collapsed. We live on the grave of a once-great civilization; its headstone warns us to “Look on our works, ye mighty, and tremble.”
The eldest among us say they brought it on themselves, while our explorers and historians say that is too narrow a view. It is from that debate our tradition grew.
When someone comes of age, we send them out into the wilderness surrounding our Village. We send them out to map the land, forge connections with other villages, and seek out resources and remnants of the past.
While we don’t actively seek answers, sometimes they come to us. They did something, and it cost them everything. We make our homes in that civilization’s bones and grow our food in what was once its flesh.
Nothing else remains.
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Using a deck of cards, you and some friends will explore a wasteland, and build card house Ruins to explore. You will find ruins of a previous civilization, and meet the denizens of the current world. The mechanics of this game take inspiration from the Carta system by Peach Garden Games and Loot the Room’s Wretched and Alone system. The Dice Tree mechanic is inspired by Robert Bohl’s Misspent Youth.
This is an open-world exploration TTRPG set in a post-apocalyptic setting for 1 to 4 players. This game draws inspiration from the Walking Simulator genre and Open World exploration games such as; Sable (the demo, at least), Breath of the Wild, and Horizon Zero Dawn.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Community Copies
Support this game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copy
If you are experiencing financial difficulties or marginalization, take a free copy of Of That Colossal Wreck at no cost, no questions asked.
Community Copy Donation
If you but the game at or above the base price, an additional copy of Of That Colossal Wreck will be made available for another player at no cost.
Comments
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Hi Grahme,
I managed to download the files fine through the browser but wanted to let you know that there seems to be an issue with installing/downloading the files for OTCW via the itch.io app installer. There doesn't seem to be any files associated with the install since nothing shows up in the Install dropdown and no file sizes show up (see screenshot). Excited to try this out though!
Hey there! Thanks for the interest in the game. :)
In case there is some confusion, there should just be some PDF files. This is a tabletop RPG, rather than an app. Which may explain why it's not showing up in the installer. (I realized I had the "Games" category, rather than "Physical Games" selected).
Offhand, I'm not 100% sure where PDFs go in the Itch installer, but I did just see the files on the game page. But let me know if you still can't get 'em, and I'll see if I can send them another way.
Of That Colossal Wreck is a solo or multiplayer post-apocalyptic exploration trpg inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn and Breath Of The Wild.
The PDF is 24 pages, with a fantastic cover and a very clean, well-organized layout. The writing is user-friendly and easy to understand, and there's some nice pieces of interior art to anchor the mood in a sort of archaeological adventure story.
Gameplay-wise, Colossal Wreck is a charcuterie board of props and mechanics. You use dice and cards, but the dice aren't always rolled and the cards don't always go to your hand. You also build castles out of the cards, and you sometimes use the dice as bracing material.
On top of that, you *also* navigate a card map, which can spawn dungeons that have their own separate mechanics for exploration. It's not an OSR-style, Hit Points fueled dungeon dive, but there's still a sense of good crunch to Colossal Wreck's mechanics---it's not at all a pure narrative rpg. You even have character classes, which significantly change the way the game plays.
A lot of the challenge of Colossal Wreck lies in building and exploring card castles, but the game doesn't especially punish the player for failing. Rather, it expects the cards to fall---and it even has a table for explaining the in-universe consequences of a pet or a spilled drinking knocking over a castle.
On the narrative side of things, there is a lot of storytelling you can do with the game. Every card comes with a lot of context, and you can lean in and journal as you play if you wish. Or you can explore the wastes more casually, build a few card castles, and stop when you feel like you're done.
Overall, I think Of That Colossal Wreck is something special. It's extremely tactile, and feels poised to usher in a mini-genre of construction-based indie trpgs. The mechanics are interesting and satisfying without being punishing, and the setting gives you a lot of freedom to, well, explore. If you're looking for a solo or small group game and want to try something *very* different, but also very engaging, I'd strongly recommend giving this a shot.
Minor Issues:
-The page title and PDF title have "collossal" instead of "colossal." This keeps the game from popping up on itch searches that use "colossal." The community copy subheadings on the page spell it correctly.
-Page 16, the low contrast makes this exploration table really hard to read.
-Page 16 and 17, some of the contents in the table are overflowing their cells
Thank you as always for the insightful and delightful comments. It really sounds like Colossal Wreck is hitting the notes I wanted it to hit, so thanks as always for the feedback.
The 'What happens when your card castle collapses' table was more or less the seed that the rest of the game grew around. So, I always love seeing that being a major point of interest for folks.
(Thanks also for the fix notes. One of these days I'll learn how to a) operate tables in Affinity, and b) spell the title of my own game. Just uploaded a new, fixed version!).