Colostle is a solo journaling RPG. It is very highly regarded in the solo RPG community. I imagine that the reason for this is largely because of the game's setting. Colostle is a mash-up of the words: colossus and castle. In Colostle the entire world is a huge castle. Rooms contain mountains and rivers and span dozens or even hundreds of miles. Walls create barriers that disappear into the sky.
This setting is amazing. The descriptive text and the beautiful illustrations combine to create a vision of a place that ... it made my jaw drop.
I had heard about this in other reviews and the scope of it ... the potential of it ... just didn't sink in. After reading it for myself, my first thought was, "Wow!" My second thought was, "I want to run this game at my table for my players."
But, I can't. The game is designed for solo play. I don't think I could even adapt another game to work within this setting. The character classes are tied to the setting in a significant way. This is the way to design a role-playing game. The character options and the world work together and cannot be separated. Here's why.
In the world of Colostle the only "monster" threats are giant stone automatons called Rooks. These things would seem to be a manifestation of the Colostle itself. They are part of the world. The people of the world are human. They aren't special in anyway, except by virtue of the world that they exist in.
The Rooks have been harvested and used for their parts. One character class attaches a detached stone arm from a defeated Rook to their own body (and the part still works!) Another harnesses mysterious crystals from inside defeated Rooks to gain magical powers. The entire world is based around these Rooks and the strange nature of the Colostle itself. It boggles my mind and is so fascinating.
If I can figure out a way to get this world to my gaming table, I will.
What about the game within Colostle? It uses a deck of standard playing cards and is minimal. Characters are defined by two stats: Exploration and Combat. These stats denote how many cards a player can use during these phases of game play. Combat looks really straight forward and I like it.
Exploration is another story. It wasn't clear to me on my initial read through why having more exploration cards is good. It seems like you get to use however many cards you have for exploration each day. So fewer cards means you'll do less with a "day" of time in the game, but time in the game seems to be of little consequence.
Also, I'm a little worried because the exploration prompts seem like they will be too open ended. The examples that I read make me think that the prompts that I am going to be working from are very minimalist. That said, I don't know this for sure. This is a first impressions review and I want to get Colostle to the table for myself before I make any judgments.
Because I plan to play Colostle, I avoided reading the tables that produce the prompts for exploration. If there are surprises in the text, I don't want this ruined for me. So, my worries may be for nothing. I will revisit this after I have played.
For now, I recommend Colostle. It is a joy to read, and its illustrations are beautiful. Own Colostle just for the pleasure it will give you to look at its pages. Even if you never intend to play it, just get it to read.
It's awesome! Also, it's only about 60 pages. It's a fast read. It does a lot with a little.
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