The Wretched, a game developed by Chris Bissette at Loot the Room, has a bit of a reputation. It’s said to be brutal and unforgiving, while at the same time masterful in how it evokes the sort of high-strung, tightwire feeling of anxiety one gets from movies like Alien. That is a reputation well deserved, in my opinion.
The Wretched is a game with unique mechanics, as it’s one of the few titles I’ve seen that utilized a block tower (think Jenga) as a core feature. I feel that the block tower is the most anxiety inducing part of the game, because the mechanics account for “acts of God” working against you and causing your tower to fall prematurely.
In short: Don’t play this game on a wobbly table. Or with a cat. Or breathe too hard while playing.
You get the idea.
Overall, the mechanics weave together to create something unique: A sort of brittle, edgy energy that I haven’t felt in many other TTRPGs. In this game, there is something out there to get you. You know this, because it’s destroyed your ship and killed your crew, and now it’s coming after you. You’re the last one on the ship known as The Wretched, and it’s up to you to repair the distress beacon so you can escape.
As you read through the mechanics of this game, it can be a little easy to become overwhelmed: You have your tower, your cards, your dice, and your journal to keep track of. Personally, I found that once I sunk into the rhythm of the phases in the game, it became much easier. If you’re giving this game a shot for the first try, I suggest taking your time and giving yourself an opportunity to understand how everything works. It can feel a little complicated at first, so don’t feel bad if you feel overwhelmed.
One of the things that The Wretched does so beautifully (which is explained more fully in the SRD, which we’ll cover next week when we discuss Wretched & Alone from a design perspective) is create hope for the player. Yes, there are overwhelming odds that the character in this story will not make it out alive, but that’s the beautiful thing about this game: People have so much hope and find deep reserves within themselves when faced with the impossible. We want to survive, even if it’s just to tell the story of how we did it. We all want to leave a mark on this world, some way, somehow.
The Wretched taps into that innate desire, the urge to keep going, the need to survive even though everything within you says that it’s impossible. This story you create is one of human resilience, even if you don’t make it out alive in the end. Someone will know your story.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
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