Great game, great concept, lots of fun, but boy is that font bad. Sacrificing quality for the aesthetic, unfortunately. But truly, that's my only complaint. And once you've played enough, you probably won't be reading enough for it to matter too much.
not too complicated to get set up, just need some dice and a pack of cards and some grid paper! aaaand a strong stomach, hehehe. the desc says 1-4 players though the book says 2+, and while one player seems totally possible, i don't know how long you'll last unless you get REALLY lucky. here's a tip: if you can defeat a tower, that parasite is gonna do WONDERS for your defense game.
creepy, absolutely awesome vibes. still learning the gameplay (i dont play a lot of ttrpg and realised after the 4th fight that theres a defend mechanic, oops!) but i really enjoyed what i went thru! hope i find the treasure one day ;-;
the graphics are super cool but in some places text can be a nightmare. 1d10 looking like IOIO made me feel crazy a few times, so even if ever i print out my own booklet I'll definitely have the pdf open juust in case.
Anyway i'm glad i bought it! I'll be bringing it around anywhere i can
thank you for the kind words! If you've drawn a map I'd love to see it. Maybe come join the discord and share your adventures into the flesh https://discord.gg/DMaeHesWHH
Bilge is a vibes-y whalepunk body horror TTRPG about blood oceans and ambergris. It feels very influenced by Iron Lung, but treads new territory.
The PDF is heckin massive. It's almost 600 mb across 60 pages, with sludgy, low-fi art and a very consistently atmospheric layout. The text is sometimes a little tricky to read, and you can get really inured to all the background red, but the illustrations universally look great---horrifying sights seen imperfectly and at a distance.
Gameplay-wise, Bilge is a survival horror game, but with an emphasis on change and mutation. You have limited HP and stamina, your stats are randomized, and it's fairly easy to die if you commit to the wrong encounter, but also you can take on parasites to boost your stats and capabilities. The more parasites you have, the more likely other parasites are to leave you alone---but if you take too many, you start hemorrhaging HP and eventually turn into a monster.
There are also other factors to manage, like the discomfort of the dungeon around you (which can end the scenario if it goes too high, but otherwise unlocks new areas and makes monsters more hostile,) and combat with monsters. Combat is simple and involves attack and defense checks to grind down a monster's HP, but it can also be easily avoided by taking some damage and running away. Honestly, running away may be the best option most of the time, as it's guaranteed damage, but it's potentially a lot less damage than you'd take from getting tagged by one good attack.
No GM is needed for Bilge, as you draw the game's map with a pack of cards while playing, and monsters have their own simple AIs. However, I did find myself periodically squinting at the rules, trying to figure them out, so having a player who likes reading and deciphering rpgs serve as a sort of GM-adjunct may be worthwhile.
The book is rewarding just to read, and there's a lot of cool biohorror concepts and atmospheric flavor to soak in. The dungeon's areas are particularly good, and all change based on a variety of player-driven factors.
There's also a dang good character sheet, which adds a lot to the immersion.
Overall, if you like retro survival horror and you want a mildly crunchy GMless experience with a lot of variety and replayability, and if you don't mind staring at some pages a few times, you should check this out.
Specifically, if you're a fan of works like Iron Lung and Dead Space and maybe Dai Dark, you should really give this a look.
Minor Issues:
-Page 9, Stomatone, does this give you an extra 30% extension on your Parasite Purity cap? So you could go up to 110%? Or does this do something different? I couldn't quite be certain from the text.
-Page 10, do all members of a moving group spend 1 Fatigue or just the leader? My guess was all, but I wasn't certain.
-Page 11, "Doodle anything you might see if you must", I think this might be a sentence fragment.
-Page 16, listing all of the enemies without pictures before listing all of the enemies with pictures feels a little weird. I'm not sure these two pages are needed. Likewise with the nemasites section.
-Page 28, the "0s" here REALLY look like "05", which made it a bit tricky to figure out what this section meant until I read the "all zeroes" line on the next page.
I 100% got this for the aesthetic. It is gorgeous! Just amazing. I am only beginning to actually get into how it works and it seems really fun too. Love it!
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Will trade an honest review for a Community Copy!
Great game, great concept, lots of fun, but boy is that font bad. Sacrificing quality for the aesthetic, unfortunately. But truly, that's my only complaint. And once you've played enough, you probably won't be reading enough for it to matter too much.
Makes for really interesting maps, with super visceral descriptions! The parasite mechanic is awesome. Here's my playthrough map of it.
not too complicated to get set up, just need some dice and a pack of cards and some grid paper! aaaand a strong stomach, hehehe. the desc says 1-4 players though the book says 2+, and while one player seems totally possible, i don't know how long you'll last unless you get REALLY lucky. here's a tip: if you can defeat a tower, that parasite is gonna do WONDERS for your defense game.
creepy, absolutely awesome vibes. still learning the gameplay (i dont play a lot of ttrpg and realised after the 4th fight that theres a defend mechanic, oops!) but i really enjoyed what i went thru! hope i find the treasure one day ;-;
the graphics are super cool but in some places text can be a nightmare. 1d10 looking like IOIO made me feel crazy a few times, so even if ever i print out my own booklet I'll definitely have the pdf open juust in case.
Anyway i'm glad i bought it! I'll be bringing it around anywhere i can
thank you for the kind words! If you've drawn a map I'd love to see it. Maybe come join the discord and share your adventures into the flesh https://discord.gg/DMaeHesWHH
Just to let you know, all number reading problems have been fixed!
Bilge is a vibes-y whalepunk body horror TTRPG about blood oceans and ambergris. It feels very influenced by Iron Lung, but treads new territory.
The PDF is heckin massive. It's almost 600 mb across 60 pages, with sludgy, low-fi art and a very consistently atmospheric layout. The text is sometimes a little tricky to read, and you can get really inured to all the background red, but the illustrations universally look great---horrifying sights seen imperfectly and at a distance.
Gameplay-wise, Bilge is a survival horror game, but with an emphasis on change and mutation. You have limited HP and stamina, your stats are randomized, and it's fairly easy to die if you commit to the wrong encounter, but also you can take on parasites to boost your stats and capabilities. The more parasites you have, the more likely other parasites are to leave you alone---but if you take too many, you start hemorrhaging HP and eventually turn into a monster.
There are also other factors to manage, like the discomfort of the dungeon around you (which can end the scenario if it goes too high, but otherwise unlocks new areas and makes monsters more hostile,) and combat with monsters. Combat is simple and involves attack and defense checks to grind down a monster's HP, but it can also be easily avoided by taking some damage and running away. Honestly, running away may be the best option most of the time, as it's guaranteed damage, but it's potentially a lot less damage than you'd take from getting tagged by one good attack.
No GM is needed for Bilge, as you draw the game's map with a pack of cards while playing, and monsters have their own simple AIs. However, I did find myself periodically squinting at the rules, trying to figure them out, so having a player who likes reading and deciphering rpgs serve as a sort of GM-adjunct may be worthwhile.
The book is rewarding just to read, and there's a lot of cool biohorror concepts and atmospheric flavor to soak in. The dungeon's areas are particularly good, and all change based on a variety of player-driven factors.
There's also a dang good character sheet, which adds a lot to the immersion.
Overall, if you like retro survival horror and you want a mildly crunchy GMless experience with a lot of variety and replayability, and if you don't mind staring at some pages a few times, you should check this out.
Specifically, if you're a fan of works like Iron Lung and Dead Space and maybe Dai Dark, you should really give this a look.
Minor Issues:
-Page 9, Stomatone, does this give you an extra 30% extension on your Parasite Purity cap? So you could go up to 110%? Or does this do something different? I couldn't quite be certain from the text.
-Page 10, do all members of a moving group spend 1 Fatigue or just the leader? My guess was all, but I wasn't certain.
-Page 11, "Doodle anything you might see if you must", I think this might be a sentence fragment.
-Page 16, listing all of the enemies without pictures before listing all of the enemies with pictures feels a little weird. I'm not sure these two pages are needed. Likewise with the nemasites section.
-Page 28, the "0s" here REALLY look like "05", which made it a bit tricky to figure out what this section meant until I read the "all zeroes" line on the next page.
Hey thank you for the kind words, I'll address all these issues in the next update! Specifically font issues!
Addressed all the issue in the latest update!
I 100% got this for the aesthetic. It is gorgeous! Just amazing. I am only beginning to actually get into how it works and it seems really fun too. Love it!
Thank you! Feel free to share any maps of the LEVIATHAN at my twitter. Same name as here.