Julian K. Jarboe
Julian K. Jarboe
2020-06-25
Teen (13+)
Inscrutable Cities is a fabulist journaling game about conjuring a new world into being by traveling through it. It requires no cards, dice, or tokens, and falls somewhere between "lyric table-top role play," "interactive fanfiction," and "guided meditation from an alternate universe." It is designed to be suitable for both solo play and with a group, in person or remote. The shortest possible complete play-through takes about half an hour. A Note on the Source Material This game is inspired by, and in response to, the works of Italo Calvino, primarily but not exclusively Invisible Cities. Without getting too into the weeds here, my conceptual goal is to allow players to re-experience the awe and mystery of the worlds Calvino so meticulously built in language, without his unrelenting fixation on women's bodies, among other things that sour a lot of his fiction for me.