Don't Roll a One

My sci-fi starcrawl game Insomniacs is on sale for a week. There are a ton of posts here about its development and playtesting, but I’m writing this post because I think it would pair well with two of my favorite sci-fi things to come out after Insomniacs’ release.

Citizen Sleeper

First released in 2023 with a recent sequel, these excellent videogames have had plenty written about them already, especially how much inspiration they take from Forged in the Dark play. Although Insomniacs doesn’t line up perfectly, I think that there is a common element of turning drudgery into something playable. The shipboard moves in Insomniacs, the Time and Life Support tracks, and the prompt-based moves all feel like they are cut from similar cloth as many of the locations and actions in the Citizen Sleeper games. Beyond that, the gameplay of managing dice feels similar as well. Citizen Sleeper 3 is rumored to be a TTRPG, but if you can’t wait for that, give my game a look.

Scavengers Reign

But this? This is the good shit. Insomniacs’ moves and structure maps really well to this HBO series. You can even look at the various characters and probably pick out who’s weighted their abilities towards Discover and who’s prioritized Survive. The show’s truly alien “don’t touch that!” environment is a 11/10 example of the mix of wonder and danger I was striving for when designing Insomniacs.

You can get Insomniacs for cheap on itch.io, but you can get the book (still cheap!) on DTRPG.