A downloadable game.
I picked up Your Dead Friend as part of the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. It is a very simple but very profound game. This game intrigues me in a very good way. I’ve read through the rules a few times, but don’t really have a gaming circle that might embrace this. My gaming experience is very traditional, and, there’s a level of emotional honesty and vulnerability that I believe would be necessary to truly get the most out of this game, and I’m not sure I could achieve that.
It seems so fitting to me that a poem is central to this game as the game reminds me very much of a poem. Poems can be very short but packed with meaning, import, and emotion. Ten lines of a poem can do the work of hundreds of pages of prose. It rewards careful consideration. That’s this game. It is short, but there is great potential in that package.
Following that analogy, I generally read novels, but was captivated and charmed by this poem. Read it once to get the general idea. Read it again carefully and think about what it is telling you. And then—lie me—if you don’t think you’ll be playing it, read it again and consider how this story might flow. Consider where it might lead, were you to play it.
I would highly recommend this game, even if you generally steer more towards traditional games. If you are open to its poetry, I think it will say a lot to you.
