Document your character’s last days in the nearby haunted woods in Carved by the Garden, a single-player structured journaling game. Using a standard deck of playing cards, you’ll follow prompts that reveal the horrors waiting for you among the trees. You’ll also roll dice, pull blocks from a tumbling tower, and write about your experiences in character.
With 52 prompts, 6 major and 4 minor endings, and 7 thought-starting character archetypes, each playthrough is unique!
Carved by the Garden is a solo journaling game inspired by folk horror stories like The Witch, The Ritual, Midsommar, and those found in Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror Anthology. Featuring a sprawling forest as a backdrop, Carved by the Garden blends self-reflecting questions with unsettling and often bloody discoveries.
What you need to play
- A standard deck of cards with the jokers
- A 6-sided die
- 8 small pieces of nature to act as tokens (leaves, pebbles, seeds, thorns, petals, etc.)
- A tumbling block tower (or one of the listed alternatives)
- Something to write in, such as a notebook or word processor
During the game, you’ll roll dice, draw cards from the deck, read their associated events, pull blocks from the tumbling tower, place or remove tokens from cards, and write about your experiences in character.
This game is for you if...
- You love the story side of RPGs.
- You enjoy unraveling your own lore.
- You enjoy horror novels and movies where not everything is explained.
- You love media like The Witch, The Ritual, and old folk tales.
You may not enjoy this game if...
- You prefer robust character creation with stats.
- You only like rolling against skills for outcomes.
- You dislike engaging with horror and uncomfortable topics.
Carved by the Garden is a tense experience based on The Wretched (found at http://loottheroom.itch.io/wretched), product of Chris Bissette and Loot The Room, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 with some changes.
It’s a character exploration exercise as much as it is a horror game. Players don’t have to track stats, health, or spell slots.
