Summary
A Mending is a solo tabletop RPG with the ostensible narrative goal of reuniting long-lost friends. It combines map-making, embroidery, journalling/storytelling, and worldbuilding all in one.
The player progresses by drawing cards from a deck as they pass through a grid overlaid on the map. These cards may introduce concepts (ex: tenacity, fear), 'events' (ex: a large tree, an animal's bone), or people (ex: merchants, ghosts) that encourage the player to embellish the map in various ways. These cards encourage you to meditate on the nature of your friendship (or friendship in general, if you want to get abstract). Few cards are prescriptive, especially among the concepts, making it a very self-guided and freeform game. The game ends when you as the player come face to face with your friend.
~100$ CAD (including shipping).
Check it out here.
Thoughts
I had a great time with A Mending, all told. I would absolutely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a more contemplative, inward-facing experience and is not hung up on crunchy mechanics.
It was a great opportunity to learn a lot about embroidery and textile arts very quickly, with some amount of structural underpinning to provide direction. While the embroidery itself was fun and my wardrobe may undergo some glowing up for it, what really resonated with me was painting watercolours on fabric - that's an interest I can see really carrying forward.
In addition, had oodles of fun weaving the fabric of the world and coming up with a narrative to suit the cards as they were drawn.
The cards themselves are excellent for being leading without directing - every card I drew felt like a natural progression, even though they could well have come in different orders. There were some days where I drew the card before my workday started and spent most of the day in anticipation of executing on them, which is a rare treat.
Personal (narrative) highlights include the transition from goldenrod thread to orange as the blighted/painted/cursed/dawn pass 'changed' the main character and leaving the cat with the merchant. A short but sweet journey, especially personal for me given how important my own cat is to me. Like most cat owners, she is my light.
If I had any criticisms of the game, I think they've been more or less absolved by the last handful of cards. Earlier on, when I was drawing mostly concept cards, I felt a bit adrift. Given the bump in 'people' and 'event' cards closer to the end and having given a glance at the ratio of cards remaining in the deck, I think I may have drawn a disproportionate number of 'concept' cards early. Even still, the deck is most enriched with concept cards - which fits the general intention of the game. This may make the game a bit more difficult if you're struggling to get started or your font of inspiration is running a bit dry.
Some of the phrasing on the cards is a bit awkward, but that doesn't reduce the intention or comprehensibility of the cards in any way. they communicate what they want to just fine despite a comma splice here or there - and who isn't guilty of those anyways? I'm not a prescriptivist when it comes to the written word.
Overall, great game. If you think you'll like it, I think you will too. If you don't think it's for you, I'd agree - this feels very much like an IYKYK-type game.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!
Biometrics
- 26 days from start to completion, drawing one card per day.
- 6881 words written in the journalization, to an average of 299-300 words per 'active' day.
- 5 days skipped.
- 2 days duplicated to make up for skipping a previous one, though I didn't over-commit myself to a one-per-day policy.
- 14 'concept' cards (yellow-green border), 6 'event' cards (green border), and 3 'people' cards (orange border) drawn.