Pillars: What Remains has been on itch.io for two days and has nearly 100 views, over 20 downloads, 6 collections and 2 followers! These numbers might seem inconsequential to some, but for someone who has so far only shared this project with friends and family, it feels really big. I’ve enjoyed being creative in lots of other ways in my life, fairly content to do so for essentially an audience of one, but there is something about a game that, well, just wants to be played! It’s really gratifying to know that it is – or at least hopefully will be soon.

For everyone that has downloaded – I can’t wait to hear what you think of the game so far. Even early impressions would be super helpful.

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While I’m writing, I thought I would take the opportunity to talk a little bit about where Pillars: What Remains came from. I’ve been playing TTRPGs since I was about six years old, when my older sister brought home “The New Easy-to-Master Dungeons & Dragons Game” boxed set published by TSR in 1991. Throughout my childhood, I used RPGs and miniature wargames as a scaffold for my imagination and social connection – especially with my sister’s cool older friends.

After a pause during high school, because being a nerd wasn’t as cool then as it is now, me and a big group of friends got back into TTRPGs with D&D 4e. It was a blast to reconnect with an old hobby, and it made for some exceptional times full of heroics, chaos, jokes and endless optimization (especially by me.) It wasn’t until later in adulthood when two close friends and I began to play a regular 5e game (which has been going for almost ten years now...) that I started to really engage with the storytelling potential of table-top games. Still though, through all of our high-minded narratives and occasional dips into other systems, what seemed like a fundamental trend emerged. These were games where the inner conflicts of the protagonists served to add richness to their outer conflicts; where histories and experiences were synonymous with progress and achievement.

I’ve always loved stories where the outer conflict of the plot reflects the inner conflict of the protagonist (more A Wizard of Earthsea than The Lord of the Rings) but I didn’t know how to square that with the collaborative fun of a TTRPG. Yes, there are some great solo RPGs out there (I was recently obsessed by Mikey Hamm’s Two Hand Path) but I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too. I wanted a game where the dramatic action of a collaborative story served to address the inner conflict of the characters...It wasn’t until a post-mortem discussion of Disco Elysium with some friends that it hit me – what if this nebulous, idea of a game I had been dreaming of was one where the players didn’t play as “Harry”, they played as “Reflexes”, “Volition” and “Empathy”...

It wasn’t until quite a lot later that I realized that a game that featured players creating the inner world of a single character should really be about resisting the destruction of that inner world, and I would need both a reason for this character to be alone, paired with a setting that could act as antagonist – but that’s a thread I will pick up next time!

-HM