The modern world is hectic, from 24/7 news to a torrent of social media. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and it’s good to take some time to remind ourselves to just stop, breathe, relax, and enjoy something purely for ourselves. Enter Colostle.
Solo RPGs aren’t a new invention, they’ve been around for a while, but for me at least I couldn’t find one that clicked. I picked up a few, and other solo games, but most didn’t get played, or not much. Then one fateful day at UKGE (UK Games Expo), me and my brother walked by a Colostle stand.
The art was vibrant, charming, and hooked me right off the bat. The more I found out the more I was hooked, it seemed to check all the right boxes. Exploring a strange world inside an impossibly huge castle, check. Loose gameplay mechanics driven primarily by story prompts, double check. I love stuff where you can play fast and loose with the story rather than have more rigid mechanics. Colostle gives you many questions and few answers, leaving it up to you. Does everything exist inside this castle? Are there other rooms? What are they like? Can I get out, or up? The prompts are fed to you based on where you are and what you are doing using a standard deck of playing cards. From there you can take the story any direction you like, even entirely non-combative if you prefer, and I love that.
That day at UKGE the game stuck in my mind. I foolishly didn’t buy a copy. It could have gone the way of so many other games, down into the depths of the ‘maybe one day’ part of my brain. Thankfully, my brother could tell how much it interested me and made a mental note. Low and behold on my next birthday I received a copy of Colostle. Brothers rock sometimes.
From there it was smooth sailing right? Wrong! Our brains don’t want us to relax, there is too much to do, even though taking that time to ourselves is just as, if not more important. So I set off on some limited adventures, fought some towering Rooks, discovered hidden secrets and visited the great city of Parapette, but it was slow going.
It would have been so easy to give up at this point, not because it was bad, it’s great, but because our brains don’t always let us enjoy things the way we should. But Colostle couldn’t be stopped, its giant Rook hands had grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I kept coming back to it again and again, and through that it improved my mental health, giving me more time for me. I truly hope this is something it can give you too.
Time passed and adventures came and went, until one day I was lucky enough to receive a review copy of the new Colostle core book from the amazing Nich Angell. This combines the original core book with the Roomlands expansion, which creates a more well rounded initial experience. From here you can build on it with the Kyodaina and Dungeons expansions, which all still take place inside the giant mega castle which is Colostle. I look forward to trying them both out in due course for even crazier adventures.
For now, what kind of adventures have I been up to in the Roomlands? Well, first let me say that this book is stunning. It takes all that was great about the original and adds more to it, great artwork in iconic style, clear and concise rules, and plenty of flavour. Plus, of course, it adds a whole bunch of content. More classes for a start, which is always nice.
When you create a new character you pick a Calling, your Nature, a Class, and a Weapon. As with much in Colostle, many of these things are primarily thematic. You can decide how your calling and nature affect your story, and what epic moves you pull off in combat with your weapon. Class does matter though, because they each have exploration and combat values (1 to 5, if you hit 0 on either you die). The higher the combat value is, the easier combat encounters are, or at least the more options you have. The higher the exploration value is, the more prompts you draw each exploration phase. So it’s very much up to you if you’d rather your adventurer explore quickly, be a beast in combat, or somewhere in between. I’m especially loving the Bastion class, which are essentially people sized Rooks. My ‘Lincoln’ character is battling through mountain ranges as we speak, moving away from people who are scared to have a ‘Rook’ living next door.
He may end up in one of the new room types, like the Tundroom where everything is ice as far as the eye can see, and dangerous looking shapes move across the frozen wasteland. Or perhaps one of the many other biomes, such as deserts, swamps, jungles and oceans.
For those who prefer something a little bit more structured, the new book has you covered. It includes an Oracle system which you can use to determine your fate. Instead of saying something ‘just happens’ a certain way, you can let fate decide. I must admit this is nice sometimes when you are taking on something a little more dicey and don’t want your path to be so predetermined.
There is also a section on advanced combat mechanics to expand on the straightforward basic combat for those who want a little more tactical thinking and danger. Speaking of danger, whatever combat rules you use, you can now fight inside the Rook too. They are massive after all, what kind of rooms and contraptions might you find inside? And what defences will be trying to get you out?!
While I can’t recommend Colostle enough as a solo experience, that isn’t to say you can’t experience it co-op. There are new co-op rules in the expanded book and I’m happy to say they work well. They are just complex enough to enable you to play with a friend, but don’t add too much management to your game. You are still free to create whatever story you like, but two minds are better than one. I’m currently guiding my brother (same one) and my cousin through a co-op game via text, and it works a treat.
So how do you actually play the game? Well, anyway you want really. The ‘official’ approach is to journal your adventures through Colostle after receiving your prompts each phase. Meaning that an official journal and a pencil are all you need. What if you don’t have the official journal? No problem, any old paper will do. Also, you might not get on with pencils, so why not use a pen instead and cross stuff out. Do you prefer to
type, sure thing, create a new Google doc and type away. Why even write at all? You could record voice memos. Or maybe there is no need to record it, just let your brain do all the work. This final method makes for some much faster games if you want to just pick it up one evening and throw a load of prompts at yourself to see what grand adventures you can have, rather than a more slow and detailed approach.
Honestly any combination of the above works, and likely more I haven’t thought of. Like I said I’m guiding my brother and cousin through a game over text, acting as a sort of DM.
The new Colostle core rulebook is a fantastic place to start your own adventures, and you’ll soon be itching for more. Really all you need is the book and a pack of standard playing cards and away you go. It’s a great game in and of itself, but it’s also something that prompts mindfulness through writing, and that’s great too. I really hope you can get as much out of it as I have, and maybe I’ll see you in Parapette soon!
