Scraps

I don’t usually write reviews for games but I would just like to express gratitude for the creativity of the random tables within this RPG. I’m not even kidding when I say I now use them in other RPGs that need help with certain object generation. Seriously, thank you for your creativity. I would love to see certain aspects of this game expanded in the future, it’s so fun and unique!

I would love to try the game as my first solo rpg . Any chance for community copies? cheers

any chance community copies will be refreshed soon?

I've got a question about the art, especially the cover: is it AI generated?

Hi! I would really like to try to play this game, but unfortunately I can't pay with dollars. Will you be able to add community copies soon, please?

Wonderful game and I really like the crafting mechanic!

Is this strictly a solo ttrpg?

I would love to try the game. Any chance for community copies? cheers

Hello! I was wondering if this game is kid-friendly? I’m looking for take-home writing activities for my struggling students for this year and don’t have the $ to purchase all the options to review.  Thanks so much!

I have begun a playthrough of Scraps, which can be found on my blog.  The introduction has been published today, and write-ups of the first two journeys (and projects) will follow in the days to come.  I hope you enjoy it!

Can Scouting actions be taken in a hex where you will be gathering a special ingredient?

And can you both Gather Supplies and Find an Opportunity in one hex (paying the appropriate costs for each)?

I have a question about crafting: I see that there animal bones and skin are a couple of the products more commonly needed in projects.  In a world where there is no violence, no hunting... do you just go around looking for dead animals or something?  A skittish creature has the hide or bone you need... now what?
I mean, I can envision the scene in some circumstances but it would start to feel like a trope after a while.  I'd be interested to know how you as the author see this. 

Was wondering if you'd be able to put up some community copies?

I don't have dollars, I need a community copy!

I just started a game of Scraps, and I'm in love with it. I must say I've looked at it regularly for the last 6 months, but I never had the time to start a solo game. I now need to go far from home, in the deep caves, to find the phantom sap I need to make my glowing runestones...
I printed the game, and made a real book out of it. Crafting a crafting game was a lot of fun too ! As you might have guessed, I'm playing with Naturalia as my specialty.

I'm wondering if you envisioned a translation in French? We have quite an active solo-RPG community, and I'd be glad to help.

Scraps is an extremely well-written RPG. It is intuitive, simple to follow, and a pleasure to read; it flows logically and introduces information at the right points to make it very easy for readers to understand its world. The Battleship/Tetris mechanic is fresh and interesting—it invites an interaction with space, paper, and pen that feels tinkery and true to the tone and themes of the game. The mechanic offers a meditative, quiet space to contemplate the personal and community projects that occupy a Scrapper’s life. 

I played this as a group RPG with three other people and found that some changes helped to make the game work better for a group rather than as a solo journalling game. For example, I had the group members answer some character questions to form quick inter-party relationships to help build more collaborative narratives, and we spent some time world-building before setting out on our journey so that we could imagine the settlement we wanted to help with our project. 

We also ended up choosing one party member to roll for things like Opportunities or for skill checks such as Discern to resolve these tensions more smoothly. Because my party members had picked different skills to excel in, this generally guaranteed success, because we were well shielded from roll contingency; as a group, we rarely "failed" (i'm not sure if the mechanics could account for this aspect of group play to more fairly distribute success and failure). 

On the other hand, at the end, when we were coming together to put our scraps together into a community project, there was a feeling of tactile completion and satisfaction, of “making” something material and tangible, which we enjoyed much more than we anticipated. It really appealed to the parts of our brain that enjoy playing with space and spatial orientation, and it felt genuinely collaborative. 

The question of genre also kept coming up. We ended up telling a story that felt more fairytale than solarpunk in terms of genre. Our group of players reflected that the ingredient names we generated (ice sap, quivering bark) were evocative but tended to lead our imagination towards nature as a magical force, e.g. we created candy aphids which lived in scraps of cloud and shy flocks of moving trees. Because the game is open-ended in terms of the social and cultural life of the collective we lived in, we also tended to make a world that was more akin to fantasy than to solarpunk because of our familiarity with the former genre. If this game were ever to be revised or expanded, I think clearer direction in terms of the solarpunk genre would have been helpful (e.g. more detail on what the genre would entail, such as the relationship between technology and nature, or maybe more flavour text that detailed settlements and characters who might exist in this world). So, for example, we had to agree on what level of technological sophistication existed in this world and what kind of projects our community needed. Did communicative devices exist? What about hearing aids? We wanted to make a giant bionic turtle to carry our settlement to warmer climates—did that seem feasible or too “fairytale”? 

TL;DR: Really liked the Battleship/Tetris-ish mechanic and felt it was in line with the game’s ethos. Excellently written and easy to follow. Might need the lead of someone experienced with RPGs to help shape this for group play. Due to the imagery evoked by the random tables, the story told might lean more fairytale/fantasy than solarpunk. 

This looks brilliant. I'm thinking about purchasing a printed copy - do buyers of a physical copy also get access to downloadable player sheets, maps etc?

Here's a very solarpunk single player game where you play as a tinkerer in a post-apocalyptic world full of nature and non-violence; the game revolves around space exploration and community discovery, all the while integrating a very videogame-like tinkering system where you nest Tetris pieces on large grids to build things for yourself and those you live with. The game may have a bit too much randomness for me, but it has a really well thought out and surprisingly dense mechanic, which also proves that a system without real adversity can still be very interesting and integrate failure in an elegant way (here, with the pieces of our tinkerings rotting little by little and can give rise to a bit more negative scenes than in the rest of the game). I finished my reading with the impression that it lacked a little something to make Scraps a real good game, but as it is, it is already very striking!

I bought the physical copy on Lulu, and was wondering if I can redeem a free or reduced price PDF copy?

Oh wow! There is elegant complexity here: enough structure to keep the adventure going but not so much that it inhibits personal imagination. Every design decision aims & succeeds at creating a loving, engaging world. What a success!

As the other reviewer said, the rules layout is very logical and easy to follow (certainly now with the updates).

Highly recommend for people interested in the setting. I find it a great prompt for writing out pensive adventures that make me happy but can certainly still explore inner depths. The rules overhead never gets in the way. The visualisation of projects with polyomino shapes is a brilliant aide & a pleasant puzzly feeling.

Thank you Cezar!

This game is complete as is, but I would still love extra modules if there's anything brewing in your heart. The only thing that might be missing are some additional tables to generate flora, fauna, & natural phenomena (similar to the ingredients / NPC generator); nature is a key actor in Ayera but that part of the concocting is mostly in the hands of players at the moment.

I couldn’t add anything beyond False Idol’s extensive review but I do want to say this is a great game if you fancy something completely different and totally pacifistic.  You don’t see that much in RPGs! 

It has come to my attention via the dev log here that reviews on Itch are private, one-way conduits to creators! As such, I'm reposting my review here. I've since edited it to reflect the update Cezar published on 24 Aug.

An evocative and relaxing game. I'm new to solo games, so forgive any lack of conventional knowledge. So far, I greatly enjoyed exploring, crafting, and reflecting. I had some time to spend tonight, so this may be a bit long. TL;DR — 2 thumbs up, and more if I can remember where I put my spares.

The intro, gameplay examples, and the rules evoke tranquility. Given the contemplative nature of the game and the clear emphasis on envisioning (I think the term is used 30+ times), I suggest preparing materials for journaling alongside what the booklet recommends. The layout and imagery match the game's theme (calm and pretty). Subjects proceed logically. Rolling tables function intuitively. (If you have trouble on the larger ones: first role the black/horizontal die for a category, then roll again for the specific/vertical result.) Timely play excerpts do away with most potential ambiguity. I also appreciated the full gameplay example, which you can find as a post in the game's development log here on Itch.

An earlier version of this comment suggested hyperlinking or otherwise providing easy navigation between tables—Cezar was kind enough to respond to this feedback quickly, and the instructions are better than ever. I had no issues hitting the ground running with this ruleset, uncovering the secrets of my personal Ayera.

And run I did. The map-generating hex flower engine gives the world a sense of continuity without taking away the possibility of wild new landscapes down the line. The exploration process reminded me of the weeks I spent many years ago, rolling Minecraft seeds and marveling at impossible combinations. The dice generate settlements and NPCs often enough that traveling to them to offer your services can be an easy and functionally endless goal. The tabular appendices at the end of the booklet help make each entity interesting. For environmental character, the Peril oracle creates gentle tension, giving the world a feeling of power and danger to be respected without resorting to violence. The Opportunity mechanic provides the positive flipside. You never get hurt in Ayera. At most, some materials are altered.

The act of gathering, keeping in mind the values of our setting, was meditative. I had fun generating and situating ingredients within my world, and imagining how to respectfully interact with them. After collecting my scraps, I was jazzed to actually make something. I've never seen anything like this nifty tetrominos system, and like the hex flower, its simplicity belied its ability to capture my imagination. Working and finessing my materials into place to complete my project was just challenging enough to be interesting without being taxing. I completed my project after 2 journeys. For my advancement activities, I shared some stories around a campfire and had a bittersweet heart-to-heart learning the life story of a cautious blacksmith. The concept of being rewarded with scenes of communal bonding really shines here. I intend to work on a personal project next. I like that you can design the shape of your project to be as difficult or as easy as you want.

An earlier version of this comment asked for a couple clarifications at this point, and Cezar was kind enough to clear those up for me. The game itself has also been tuned a bit regarding clarity. So those are no longer relevant.