Books
Solo TTRPG ‘Soul Cemetery’ Taps Into Nostalgia With Its Wonderful Storytelling [Review]
Nostalgia is a concept I have a complicated relationship with. While my appreciation for things like classic survival horror and PSX-style graphics may come from games I played at a formative time in my life, I still can critically analyze them from my current perspective and identify what draws me to these tropes and what doesn’t work. Still, there’s a warm feeling returning to something you used to enjoy, even if it doesn’t hold up in the same way that you remember. It can remind you of the specific time and place you were in your life when it was introduced to you, connecting you to where you were when you experienced a particular piece of media. This is the feeling that Soul Cemetery, a new solo tabletop RPG by designer Snow, succeeds beautifully at capturing.
I’ve written a lot about tabletop RPGs, but this is my first time talking about a solo RPG, so you may be wondering what exactly that is. TTRPGs are so often a conversation between a Game Master and players, so what does a game look like when there’s only one player? Obviously there are a lot of variations on how this concept can play out, but one of the more popular iterations, and the form Soul Cemetery takes, is the journaling solo RPG. The game will provide a series of prompts, sometimes with a table to roll on, that will give you an idea for a scene that you then write about. Oftentimes there’s no stats to worry about, instead focusing on the improvisational storytelling nature of the medium, allowing you space to respond to the ideas that the game presents. It’s a completely different feeling than sitting down with your friends to play a game of D&D, but it still features storytelling at its core.
The story that Soul Cemetery invites you to be a part of is one of melancholy nostalgia. In the opening, you get a call from your mother saying that your father has passed away, and you return to your home to be with your family. In your childhood room, you find a copy of your favorite GameCube survival horror games, the titular “Soul Cemetery”, and you sit down to replay it that night. As you play, you reflect on how the game is different than you remember, and how you have also changed in the intervening years.
This plays out alternating between narrative being told to you and writing prompts, sometimes asking you to just select from a few choices, sometimes asking you to add detail to the fiction of the game or to your own character’s past. It’s extremely elegant the way the alternation draws you into the story being told then allows you to be an active participant, keeping you engaged in a different way than traditional fiction. Everything about the story is extremely well-observed and authentic, painting a perfect picture of that era of survival horror, while also telling a narrative about the challenges of returning home.
I love the variety of complexity in the prompts that are presented in the game, as it helps speed up or slow down the pace at the right times in the narrative. For example, to keep things moving fast at the beginning, the first prompt in the book has you booting up the game and seeing the character model for the first time in a decade. You’re presented with a set of physical character details, and you’re asked to pick one that you remembered, one you misremembered, and one that you now realize is part of how you present yourself that you got from this character. These don’t have any specific “mechanical benefit” by the end, it’s not like if you pick the gold locket necklace you’re going to be allowed to do something specific, it’s just clever ways to fill in the world of the game, highlighting the way media can shape who we are even when we recall it imperfectly.
Not only are the prompts very good at putting you in an eerie, nostalgic space, but the rest of the writing is outstanding as well. Snow finds clever ways to have the events of the game reflect events or feelings in your character’s life, allowing you to create a very rich story where the two parts of the game are in conversation with each other. There’s also a really amazing passage in the game that describes the experience of thinking hard about something that used to scare you until it starts to scare you all over again. It’s a deeply unsettling page that stuck with me long after I put the book down.
The game is only 24 pages long and can probably be finished in about an hour, but not only is it a well-written game, it’s an awesome piece of art that completely sells the fiction. The book for Soul Cemetery is presented as an instruction manual that perfectly captures the style of the era. The pages are filled out with item descriptions, maps, controller layouts, and more, selling the illusion that this is a lost piece of media that actually existed. I do wish there were more screenshots peppered throughout, if only because the few that are included in the game evoke the genre perfectly.
You can grab a digital version of the game from itch.io and have a great experience, but the physical edition is a complete package that really brings the game to life. Soul Cemetery comes packaged in a PS2 style case, with the book clipping in right where the manual goes, and includes a CD of the official soundtrack, which does an excellent job in putting you in the correct headspace for the game. The commitment to this game as a physical object is commendable, creating something that both looks unique on your RPG shelf and brings you right back to a specific time and place. Snow even created a YouTube video that feels sort of like a lost media creepypasta, which acts as a great sampler for the type of experience you’ll get playing the game.
Every once in a while a piece of media comes along that seems laser-targeted to you, and Soul Cemetery did that for me. It’s a beautiful package that not only evokes one of my favorite genres of games, but does so by asking you to reflect on the ways that media affects and shapes you as a person. It’s one of the most deeply personal TTRPGs that I’ve come across, exploring themes of gender identity and strained familial relationships. Like so many of the best video games, it takes you through a fixed story, but gives you so much room to add important details that make your experience unlike anyone else’s. If you’re unfamiliar with solo TTRPGs, like I was, this is a great entry point that allows you to participate in a wonderful story that’s anchored in a topic that so many of us already know and love.
Books
Urban Legends, Serial Killers, and Space Epics: 10 Horror Books We Can’t Wait to Read This June
We have entered summer reading season.
Schools are emptying, beaches are filling, and it’s a great time to pack a tote full of brand-new books and get some reading done in the shade. But even if the sun is bright, your fiction can still be dark, because June is absolutely packed with great new horror releases from rising stars and genre icons.
From a Psycho retelling to a dark twist on Peter Pan lore to a new book from a Pulitzer Prize winner, these are the horror titles we can’t wait to crack open this June.
The Children by Melissa Albert – June 2
A blend of dark fantasy, Gothic family saga, and horror novel that’s received rave reviews from Stephen King and more, The Children follows the adult children of a legendary fantasy author who died when a fire consumed their home. Now, living their own creative lives, Guinevere and Ennis must revisit the secrets from the night of the fire, the darkness surrounding Ennis’s new art installation, and the truth of their family legacy in both fact and fiction. It sounds like a wonderful twisted nest of secrets and magic, and I’m eager to dive in.
Marion by Leah Rowan – June 2
Just when you thought we’d run out of interesting ways to riff on Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Leah Rowan comes along with Marion. As the title suggests, it’s the story of the Bates Motel’s most famous victim, but this time, she doesn’t die in the shower. She takes control of the knife and the narrative in this daring retelling of a proto-slasher classic. The story we know is just the beginning, and I can’t wait to find out the end.
Headlights by CJ Leede – June 9
Through her first two novels, Maeve Fly and American Rapture, CJ Leede emerged as one of the most exciting new horror voices of the 2020s, and she’s just getting warmed up. Leede’s third novel follows an FBI agent on the brink of retirement, running from his past and from the unsolved case that haunts him most, as he’s slowly pulled back into a gruesome serial killer narrative. Victims start turning up again, wearing someone else’s skin like a cape, with no memory of how they got that way, or how they got a lone strand of unidentified hair tied around their tongue. Both a riff on The Shining and a journey into the dark Colorado night, Headlights is one of the year’s most exciting horror lit events.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo – June 9
Cynthia Pelayo‘s novels have always felt like dark fairy tales, and with her latest, she’s taking things into the realm of one of the most famous children’s stories ever. It Came From Neverland follows a version of Wendy Darling who, while working as a schoolteacher and as an aid to rehabilitate World War I soldiers, finds old fears returning when a student goes missing. It seems that an entity Wendy knows only as “Peter Pan” is back on the prowl, and unlocking her memories might be the only way to stop it. That’s right, it’s a dark Peter Pan retelling as only Pelayo can do it, and you know you want a piece of that.
The Other by Annie Neugebauer – June 9
Annie Neugebauer’s The Extra ranks as one of the most clever and frightening horror novellas in recent memory, but that was only the beginning. This June, Neugebauer returns with the next book in what’s been dubbed “The Outsiders Sequence.” This time, Neugebauer’s strange world of doppelgangers and mimics turns to a couple on a hike who run into their exact duplicates, setting off a chain of events that will test their understanding of each other in terrifying ways. Neugebauer’s one of horror’s finest rising stars right now, so if you haven’t jumped on board The Outsiders Sequence yet, pick up The Extra and get ready for The Other.
Marla by Jonathan Janz – August 18 (Editor’s update: Release has now shifted from initial June 23 publication date)
Speaking of rising stars in the horror world, we’ve got Jonathan Janz, whose work has hit another level in recent years thanks to work like Children of the Dark and Veil. Now he’s back with Marla, the story of a local woman surrounded by urban legend, and her possible connection to a string of crimes in the community of King’s Branch. Is Marla a witch, a killer, a victim, a helpless child? We’ll have to read and find out in what feels like a perfect jumping-on point for new Janz readers.
The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus – June 23
Daniel Kraus has long been a favorite among genre readers, but thanks to his recent Pulitzer Prize win for his brilliant novel Angel Down, he’s more visible than ever, and all that visibility comes as he’s about to unleash a space epic with all the hallmarks of epic sci-fi and horror alike. The Sixth Nik promises everything from a sentient spaceship to a rogue planet full of plague to a nine-year-old “cultist” with an enhanced brain. This is Kraus playing in a brand-new sandbox, and genre readers everywhere won’t want to miss that.
Slasher Summer by E.L. Chen – June 23
E.L. Chen‘s latest novel is described as a love letter to ’80s slasher films, and anyone who’s taken a dive into the meta-horror of Scream or My Heart is a Chainsaw will want to sit up and take notice. The book follows a group of friends who grew up in a town famous as the location of a slasher movie, where they frequently played the characters during midnight shows. As adults, they return to their hometown, and to the location of the slasher movie, only to find that someone’s out to get them, someone wearing a very familiar mask. This sounds like a blast, and the latest in an ever-growing strand of slasher novels reinventing the genre on the page.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay – June 30
Modern horror master Paul Tremblay‘s latest novel sounds like his most ambitious yet, and that’s really saying something. Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep follows Julia, a former pro gamer who gets an offer she can’t refuse: For a hefty payday, she must pilot a man named “Bernie” across the country for her mother’s tech company. The catch? Bernie’s in a vegetative state, and his mobility comes from the AI chip in his head. As Julia moves Bernie’s body, Bernie’s mind moves through an unfathomable nightmare world, but where are they heading, and what’s Bernie really meant to find? Every new Paul Tremblay book is an event, and this one feels particularly special.
Red X by David Demchuk – June 30
This one’s technically a reprint, but David Demchuk’s Red X is so revered among the horror community, and particularly other horror authors, that it feels worth highlighting, especially during Pride Month. Complex and metatextual, Red X is about a series of disappearances and a demonic entity plaguing the gay community of Toronto, but it’s also an autobiographical sketch of an author navigating death, survival, queer culture, horror as a means of expression, and more. In short, it’s an essential, and this new edition, complete with fresh writing by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Anthony Oliveira, is a must-have.
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