They Should Have Sent a Poet

Leaving Earth and its disasters behind, you search the cosmos alone. You encounter the impossible and unimaginable. It challenges the beliefs and training that brought you here. Humanity feels so far away. Science and language aren’t sufficient. You write: documenting your journey, or to secure your memories. Remember your mission, and who you are. Find what you were looking for. Or don’t. +++ They Should Have Sent a Poet is a solo journalling game about searching alone for the impossible among the stars, and desperately, hopefully, unfathomably holding on to your mission and humanity. Taking 1-2 hours to play, over the course of the game your astronaut travels ever further from Earth. Waking up to continue their mission three times, in each era you check the ship and mission status, carry out research, and reckon with your own beliefs and resolve. Using prompt tables and simple stat rolls, you’ll develop your astronaut’s mission, discover where they travel to, and what they find. You’ll also explore their psyche - whether their scientific or spiritual beliefs withstand the trials of their journey, or evolve into something wholly different. +++ They Should Have Sent a Poet is inspired by films and novels such as Ad Astra, Contact, First Man, Interstellar, and Red Mars. It was made for the 2025 One-Page RPG Jam . Fonts used are Cataclysm by Legacy of Defeat, OCR A, and Consolas. Writing, art, and design is by Telling Games. TSHSAP is Human-Made.