Alone With Their Memories

You'll need A standard deck of cards (jokers removed) A six-sided die (d6) Something to write with and on About the game Alone With Their Memories is a solo journaling game. Whether you take on the role of caretaker, visitor, loved one, or stranger, the main idea is that you're a listening ear for someone who hasn't felt heard in a long while. You'll use the prompts to write down the elderly person's trip down memory lane. It's amazing the varied experiences they've lived and how they can string together story after story from one little reminder. You're left to wonder: is there no end to the personal anecdotes? It's quite impressive, but they're bound to get sleepy eventually. Inspiration Created for the Ludum Praxi - August 2025 jam, which had a voted theme of "The End is Never the End". This is a hack of Alone Among the Stars by Takuma Okada . It took a couple of days of pondering on the theme of "The End is Never the End", but as I was chatting in Discord about SRDs that I have previously hacked, Alone Among the Stars came up. I laughed at the first thought of making a journaling game about an elderly person who chats on and on, and you think they're nearing the end of their story, only for them to find a completely different conversation thread to follow. Seamlessly going from talking about that time they clocked their husband (now ex) over the head with a bag of peanuts (they were both peanut inspectors at the time) to sailing up the coastline. But then I really got to thinking about how starved for company elderly folks get and how a listening ear is always appreciated and rewarded with some amazing tales... and sometimes cookies! As a teen, I had a lovely neighbor who would call our house and invite my sister and I over to do crafts, have cookies, and chat. She made the best lemon iced sugar cookies. She'd talk about raising her many kids, about when her husband was stationed in Germany, and all the little knick-knacks she has around the house from her time there. She was the sweetest, and even as a kid, I was really happy to spend my time keeping Hilda company. So, long story short, this is also inspired by all of the amazing stories I've heard from elderly people who have lived long, full, and interesting lives. More Games Check out our previous Ludum Dare entries in this collection , as well as another hack I did of Alone Among the Stars below: and Beth's Ludum Praxi (August 2025) entry here: Find Out More Learn more about Alone With Their Memories on our Patreon . Or come chat about it on our Discord server! All of our posts are free aside from some exclusive polls. We share news, updates, behind-the-scenes design stuff, and more. Plus, each of our releases is either free for a limited time or has community copies; if you become a free member of our Patreon, you’ll get an email when we release something, and if you’re quick enough you can get everything free! Paid members help fund our creations and can get all of them as they come out, answer polls to help shape our future creations, and even get games and zines printed and mailed to you monthly in North America.