Solitaire: Jude’s World

From the outset, Jude’s World faces a challenge in terms of the audience it will not appeal to. Not because it is a bad game, but rather because of its subject matter. It is a solo storytelling and journalling game, and over the two decades that the hobby has had storytelling games, they have generally dealt with generally non-commercial subject matters in a fairly direct manner. These have included love, betrayal, survival, community, mysteries, loyalty, magic, and many more. Jude’s World though, deals with divorce. And for a sizeable percentage of the gaming community—as in society, in general—that may be too sensitive a subject matter, especially one to turn into a game. And that is whether they were a child whose parents separated and divorced or an adult who has a child and goes through a divorce with a partner. For others though, Jude’s World may be as fantastical a concept as going down a dungeon and fighting monsters. More interestingly though, Jude’s World has also been written in response to the Walt Disney film, The Parent Trap, both the original 1961 version and the 1998 remake, which the author describes as being a very conservative view of marriage and relationships. This in addition to the quite bonkers nature of the films’ plot (and the German book it is based upon, Lisa and Lottie, by Erich Kästner).

Jude’s World is published by Button Kin Games, best known for its collaboration with the excellent Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I and it requires nothing more than a means to record the player’s progress, two six-sided dice, and a deck of Tarot cards. In Jude’s World, the player takes the role of twelve-year-old Jude, writing a diary about the breakdown of the marriage of their parents, Mika and Jamie, and then their effort to get them back together again. Essentially, just like The Parent Trap, but without a twin. Of course, a player need not roleplay Jude and need not set their efforts in the default period of the here and now for Jude’s World. The player is free to assign whatever names he wants and set his playthrough where and whenever he wants.

Jude and their parents are very lightly defined. In fact, it comes down to the single sentence, ‘Jude is XXX, who XXX’, where the ‘XXX’s are defined by the player’s initials and those of his favourite teenage icons. So, for example, mine would be ‘Jude is a philosopher, who loves movie nights’, whilst those for Jude’s parents would be ‘Mika is social butterfly, who speaks multiple languages’ and ‘Jamis is a goody two shoes, who wants to go to space’. Besides this, Jude has a stat called ‘Teen’ which measures their progress from pre-teen to teen and rated from zero to five, beginning at zero. Their parents have ‘Hearts’ and ‘Hurts’. ‘Hearts’ runs from one to five and starts at one, and represents the love that Mika and Jamie had for each other. ‘Hurts’ runs between one and three, starts at two, and represents the pain they have caused each other. If it rises to three, Mika and Jamie have a fight and lose two Hearts! Ultimately, the aim of Jude’s World is for Jude to get her parents back together, indicated by increasing their parents’ ‘Hearts’ to five, whilst increasing their ‘Teen’ value represents their increasing maturity.

Set-up begins by having Jude ‘Build a Life’. This is done by creating a nine-card Tarot spread, roughly shaped like a house, that indicate what Jude and Mika care about apart from Jude, how they met and what drew them together, obstacles they overcame and what they sacrificed to have Jude, a personality trait for Jude, what Jude’s happiest memory of their family is, and what they know about their parents’ break up. This represents the past for Jude, whilst her future is defined by having her ‘Rebuild a Life’ using the same nine-card Tarot spread.

As he draws the Tarot cards, the player will interpret and use them to tell the story of Jude’s efforts to get their parents back together. The Minor Arcana consist of Pentacles representing wealth and work; Cups emotions, health, family, and friends; Swords are intellect and school; and Wands are creativity and hobbies. The Major Arcana, such as Death, The Sun, and Justice represent major milestones. ‘The Fool’, ‘The Magician’, and ‘The High Priestess’ form the Twists stack, whilst three Minor Arcana form Jude’s Keepsakes stack. It is not a matter of drawing a single card each time, since that would produce a build which could be interpreted as a story, but which was wholly random. Instead, the player draws three cards on a turn. One he keeps, the others he returns randomly to the deck. The drawn cards represent different aspects of Jude’s life and that of their parents. Numbered Minor Arcana are Keepsakes, such as ‘A picture of an old house’ or ‘A teddy bear holding a stuffed heart’, that their parents once held dear and which Jude uses to strengthen the emotional effect of the Traps they will lay for them. Face Minor Arcana are a foil or an accomplice, part of Jude’s life, such as a popular and ambitious older teen for ‘Knight of Cups’ or an authoritative, determined adult for the ‘King of Swords’. An accomplice will help Jude get their parents back together, whilst a foil will not. Major Arcana are Twists, big events in Jude’s life, such as standing up to a bully for ‘The Chariot’ or running away for the night for ‘The Fool’. Effectively, these are all prompts and all handily listed in Jude’s World, which the player is using to tell and then record Jude’s efforts.

There are twin drives to Jude’s World and the key them are the Twists, which can either be picked or used to ‘Spring a Trap’. Picking a Twist, a big event in Jude’s life, increases their Teen score and their maturity, whereas a Twist is used along with three Keepsakes to ‘Spring a Trap’. The player uses a Twist and three Keepsakes to trigger a Trap and then rolls for the results on the table. An Accomplice or a Foil add a bonus or penalty to the roll if present. Results vary widely. A ‘Failure’ increases Hurt by one. A ‘Partial Success’ gives three options—adding a Heart and changing an Accomplice to a Foil; increase Heart and Hurt by one each; or reduce Hurt by one. A ‘Full Success’ increases Heart by one. An ‘Outstanding Success’ also increases Heart by one and adds further options of turning a Foil into an Accomplice, Reducing Hurt to zero, or increasing Heart by one again. The three Keepsakes are discarded, as is the Major Arcana used for the Twist if the result was a failure. On any degree of success—Partial, Full, or Outstanding— the Major Arcana is added to the ‘Rebuild a Life’ spread.

Mechanically, the flow and aim of the game is to build up enough Minor Arcana as Keepsakes and one or more Major Arcana as Twists to set a Trap for Jude’s parents to make them remember what was good about their relationship and why they got together in the first place, and to try get them back together again. The player will do this multiple times, working to fill in the nine-card ‘Rebuild-a-Life’ spread. Thematically, the player is recording the story of how this happens and what the outcome is, as well as making discoveries about Jude’s parents using the cards of the Tarot deck together with the prompts listed in the book.

Also thematically, the player is exploring his past. Primarily, his memories of being both a pre-teen and a teenager, but also the breakup of his parents’ relationship and his reaction to that—if that happened. There is a degree of intimacy to both, meaning that the play of Jude’s World is potentially more personal and even more painful than other roleplaying games, even storytelling ones. Plus, that intimacy can be exacerbated because Jude’s World is played alone and the player is not just drawing upon personal thoughts and recollections, but considering them and writing them down. Of course, a player need not draw on his past so heavily or even at all, perhaps playing Jude’s World inspired more directly by the tone of The Parent Trap than is Jude’s World itself. That said, the potential remains. Of course, as the author points out, Jude’s World is not intended and should not be used as therapy.

Physically, Jude’s World is a decently presented book. The cover is striking, but whilst decent enough, the internal artwork is more functional. The layout of the book as a notebook with coloured tabs down the side is appropriately effective.

Jude’s World is a well designed and thought out game that showcases the types of stories that possible within the storytelling genre. This is a coming-of-age story, one of the trauma of family break-up, but also an attempt to repair that trauma and put the family back together. It also offers flexibility in how a player approaches its play and replayability in the use of the Tarot deck and the prompts in the book. However, its degree of intimacy and the feelings and memories it can engender make it less of a comedy, coming-of-age drama for some players than the author intended.