Having found myself unemployed recently, I wanted to find something to fill my time that would engage my creativity. I’d just finished playing the Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, so I looked into maybe getting into the tabletop RPG as it had been years since I last played one, and that was Dungeons & Dragons.

Back then we were still on 3E and if I was going to get into another system, I figured I might as well spread my wings a bit and see what else was available. Cyberpunk’s sourcebook turned out a bit too pricey for me, but I somehow stumbled upon solo RPGs, probably while checking out DriveThruRPG’s offerings, where digital copies of Cyberpunk RED was sold. I looked more into it, and then discovered another array of options here on itch.io. And many of the solo games were free!

I was hooked. I played so many games, discovered a world I never realised existed. The host of options that were possible when playing a tabletop game solo made me realise that I had always designed games in my head and they were all mostly games you could play by yourself but I never really did anything with the ideas because… well, I never really thought they would go anyway really. Some I imagined would make for great video games, but I didn’t want to bother coding one. Some were games I felt were cool only to myself, and finding others to play with me would just be a tedious chore.

Well, finding myself with a lot of time on my hands, and feeling inspired by the solo games that I had recently played, I sat down and wrote a document for a game.

I knew I wanted it to use tarot cards, because I had played Princess with a Sword and The Lonesome Cartographer and I loved the concept behind using them as a randomiser.

I loved the journaling aspects, so I wanted that as well. I love games that use dice, so those needed to be in as well. My main inspiration here was from Notorious, which I really enjoyed playing and really showed me what the solo TTRPG genre could do (it was one of the first solo games I played).

I brainstormed a few ideas and the one I felt I could really sink my teeth into was one of the most significant moments in Malaysian history – the conquest of Malacca by the Portuguese in 1511. A lot of Malaysian media has covered this period but they were almost always concerned with the side of the defeated sultan, and never really exposed us to what Malacca was like under Portuguese rule.

That led me to think, y’know what, telling a story from the perspective of the “bad guys” would be a fun premise. So that’s what I did. I expect some people who encounter this game in the future will accuse me of “romanticising the colonisers” or whatever, but at least it’ll be unique.

Or at least I hope it will be when I finish the game. I will share more about the game in the next devlog entry, and I hope you will find the game interesting.