What the heck's a Journal Game, Jay?
Well, the basic concept is simple: It's a solo storytelling game. It most often involves the "Wretched and Alone" system, where you have a deck of normal playing cards (most often, the Jokers are removed, but sometimes, one or both are used), which comprise events that you encounter. Sometimes, you get to arrange them after being revealed to make up a coherent narrative, sometimes, the events are already disconnected and surreal, so you go with that. There is also, in many "ticking clock" situations, a Jenga block mechanic, where you make a move on a Jenga tower after some actions (or every turn, or both), and if the tower topples... Welp, game over, man, game over!
After that, well... This is where the journalling part comes in. You then write a journal of that "day", or record an audio log. Whatever you find most fun.
Here are some examples I found in the Racial Justice and Equality bundle that happened a little while ago.
The Buried - Your mining crew unearthed a strange door, and the foreman gave the order to keep digging, causing a cave in. Now, you're alone, in the dark... And something, apart from the few survivors, is there with you...
A Mother's Love - You made such a good AI. But now, it wants to end humanity, or change them, or become an Overlord or whatever. It's up to you, it's creator, to distract it with conversation, while trying to shut it down.
There's a whole bunch of these over at the "Wretched and Alone Jam", and, if you don't have/want to futz with a Jenga tower, there's this dice roller that fits a similar bill. 100 dice, and every 1 rolled, that dice is removed from the 100. When you have none left, the tower has fallen, and you are boned.
Are there any you've played? Which ones did you enjoy? And what do you think of the format? What other Journalling type games and systems have you encountered?
So yeah, this is a "General discussion of Journalling Games"
The JournalGames Thread.
I don't know if it really counts as a journaling game, but I was doing an epistolary solo RPG thing a while back. Basically running through a bunch of old solo gaming modules in GURPS (using a simple d6 oracle for yes-and/no-but sorts of answers) and writing up the results as if it were happening to a very-much non-adventurer.
Pretty well, I think. I did a follow-up/sequel later where I ran a group of randomly-generated protagonists (normal teens without many useful skills) through adventures designed for groups of characters, and that went better... progression was a big smoother because they could rely on one another, and the writing was snappier because I could use their emotional reactions to the terrible truths of adventuring as fuel for their banter.
This was basically my "morning writing exercise" for about a year.
This was basically my "morning writing exercise" for about a year.