32% is a game by Lostways Press’ designer Ella, where you wake up on a strange planet with only 7 days to live. The themes include adapting to (but not necessarily overcoming) your surroundings, and working with what you find around you. This games falls somewhere in the middle of required tools to play: You’ll need a way to record your journey, a standard deck of cards, and a d6.
I am lucky enough to have a few physical games from Lostways Press, and they’re all absolutely sunning. Ella’s work as a designer extends into the art in her games, the font choices, the cover and binding styles. Each game has been a delight in its own right. I highly recommend them.
But now, let’s play 32%.
32% - Day One
This planet I’ve found myself on looks a lot like Mars back home, but Mars is so many light years away. I mean, I think it is, anyway. But it can’t be Mars, because even though I don’t remember who I am (other than my nametag on this suit, which reads “Shaw”) or how I got here, I do remember that Mars has been terraformed for basically forever.
So we can’t be on Mars. The info screen on the arm of my suit isn’t any more helpful. It has vitals for me (my oxygen consumption has been really high since I woke up) and a star date of 9689.26. There are a few ration bars tucked into a small pack I found of a ruined drop pod, along with this notebook and a pencil.
While the planet looks like Mars, there’s this weird… humming bass sound? It’s a low frequency, deep and slightly uncomfortable. It’s more felt, than heard, if that makes sense. I’m honestly not sure if I’ll be able to sleep here. I guess we’ll find out later.
I’m trying to be rational. Trying not to panic. My brain wants to panic. But, for now, I need to make something to help me send a signal out, so I can be rescued. There’s no other chance I’ll be saved. So… Let’s MacGuyver this shit.
(Here is where I pulled the top card of my freshly shuffled deck: A Joker. The game’s rules says this is a life or death situation, to pull one more card and, based on the color, live or die. I pulled a red card: Death. I had a good chuckle, opted to ignore the Joker. So we are moving on with our day - Otherwise, this would be a woefully short game.)
Jack of Hearts, 4 on the die: This first day felt so long, but at least now I have a place to hole up until I can be rescued. I spent most of the light hours collecting wreckage; I found a bunch of sheets of metal and what looks like an old mattress pad from a hab pod. If nothing else, I have a little lean-to with a double roof, and a place to lay down when the light fades from the sky. Not perfect, but better than nothing.
The dark hours here are barely that: Barely dark. The sky is awash with unknown constellations, and there was a meteor shower earlier. So I guess that’s something: We know the planet has some sort of “traditional:” atmosphere.
It’s beautiful here, in its own sort of stark way. I don’t think I want to stay here forever, but… If I make it out of this alive, I might come back.
Maybe.
27.4% - Day Two
Queen of Hearts, 1 on the die: You know, I said it looks like Mars here, but I guess that was a bit of an understatement. There are trees… Or what passes for trees. They don’t have any leaves, just scraggly branches reaching their spindly fingers to the yellow sky. But I managed to break some of the branches down, and I gathered enough rocks to make a fire pit! There’s a stone here that looks like flint, and maybe some of this dry brush will burn.
I don’t know if it’ll burn in this atmosphere, or if I’ll ignite the whole planet.
Guess we’ll find out.
There are also footprints here of what looks like lots and lots of animals. Or perhaps there were lots and lots of animals? The prints are deep in the dirt, which is all dry and cracked, like maybe this area is an old riverbed?
I don’t know, honestly. They brought me on this trip for my ability to pilot and repair the ship, not carbon date footprints. Ugh. I shouldn’t be wallowing. At least I survived the crash, somehow.
Doesn’t the pilot - The Captain - usually go down with their ship? Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this is the afterlife or some sort of in-between place.
Whatever. Goodnight, notebook.
22.8% - Day Three
7 of Diamonds, 6 on the die: Today was an interesting day. I managed to dig some communications parts out of the wreckage of the drop pod! Definitely a blessing; shouldn’t need too much more to get a transponder up and running. It’s starting to look more and more like I might actually get off the planet alive.
For away from my “camp site,” where I walked to gather more wood for tonight’s fire (haven’t blown up, yet!), I noticed more footprints but this time they’re smaller. More like mice, or maybe burrowing creatures of some kind. I wonder if maybe they’ve gone underground. Perhaps they only come out at night? I don’t know. Either way, I still haven’t seen any creatures, but it’s interesting that I keep seeing signs of them everywhere.
I don’t want to wander too far from my campsite, but it’s becoming harder to find the resources I need nearby. I’m hoping I can find more of those tech parts, so I can piece this all together and get out of here fast.
18.2% - Day Four
8 of Clubs, 3 on the die: During my supply run today, I noticed a glimmer in the distance, near some mountains. As I approached and the spot grew bigger, it was obvious that there was some sort of bunker or something in the side of the mountain: The light was reflecting off a huge door set into the stone. At least as twice as tall as me, and four times as wide as my arm span.
There’s a keypad next to the door. The buttons don’t use the galactic standard alphanumeric glyphs, so… I have no idea what I pressed. But the door is still sealed. Took me a while to get there and back to camp, but it gave me a lot to think about. There were all these stories back on Earth about folks who were prepping for the end of the world, and they had these huge bunkers full of stuff. In the end, it really didn’t matter. The whole planet is just a barren wasteland, now.
But it made me think about what could have happened here. Was it a similar fate, where the planet died underneath its inhabitants of people thought they could outlast the disaster?
I wish I knew. Hell, I wish I knew where I am.
Maybe I’ll find the code to the door, and learn this world’s secrets before I die.
13.6% - Day Five
3 of Diamonds, 2 on the die: I went back to the doors in the mountain today, to scout the area and see what I could find. There’s a trickle of what looks like water flowing out of the rock a few hundred meters to the left of the door; not deep or fast enough to be a river, but looks like enough water that I wish I had a testing kit on me. It would be nice to have some fresh water, rather than this warm recycled garbage in my suit.
Still don’t have a clue about the glyphs on the keypad. Why couldn’t this place just so happen to use a convenient language I happen to know?
UGH. I guess it isn’t quite like the stories, where it all works out in the end.
We’re getting down to the last few percent in my suit’s battery, and I’m getting nervous. Managed to scrounge some extra rations out of the wreckage today, but not extra communications parts. I only need a few more to get the transponder working, I just know it. If I can find them, I can be rescued. I can go home.
God, I really want to go home.
9% - Day Six
Queen of Clubs, 6 on the die: Woke up this morning to a proximity alarm in my suit going off, to find myself face to face with a… Moose-like creature? Massive, with four legs and shaggy fur. Giant antlers. It was snuffling at my feet, and I scared it off when I started awake.
There was a herd of them outside my shelter. Just… So many not-moose, as far as the eye could see. They covered the small plateau where I have my shelter. It was kind of incredible.
Another day of digging in the rubble of the drop ship, another day of dreaming what’s behind the doors in the mountain, another day of that thrumming bass I can’t seem to ignore. But, one major difference: I found the last communicator parts I need to fix the transponder! I honestly can’t believe it. At the rate my suit’s battery is draining, I don’t know if I’ll make it to rescue. There’s still so much that could go wrong before they get here.
But I’ll get the transponder up tonight. And maybe the not-moose was a sign. To have hope. Maybe they’ll get here in time.
Maybe I’ll be saved. I guess we’ll find out together, you and I.
4.4% - Day Seven
3 of Clubs, 6 on the die: The transponder is working! It made little boops all night long, which was almost enough to drive me mad, but it means it’s working so I can’t be too upset.
I poked at the pile of wreckage that’s left of the dropship, and I found a random interstellar language primer. Flipping through it, there’s actually a page that matches up with the glyphs from the touchpad by the doors. As much as I want to go back there, explore this ruin - this mystery - I can’t risk it. If anything happens to me today, I’m in big trouble. I can’t even go the stream again. Nowhere.
I hope someone hears the beacon. I hope someone arrives soon. I don’t want to die here.
But if I do: Please take this journal, and the primer. Go toward the mountains, find the door. Learn about this place. Do let the opportunity go to waste.
See you on the other side.
