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Summer is almost over for my Koriko: A Magical Year playthrough. I estimate there’s about 20 prompts left for the game. I’ve grown to really like my witch, and the other characters too. Maybe I’ll play a run of Magical Year of a Teenage Witch with her next - if I feel like her magical year isn’t over. I think it would be fun to host a game of Cantrip in this setting, too!
Also, every time I think “summer is over….”
Have you played KORIKO A Magical Year?
By Jack Harrison
Solo journaling RPG about a young witch traveling in a new city called Koriko. Using tarot cards, you answer prompts and make decisions about your witch's year in Koriko, occasionally writing home about the people you meet and help. Inspired by Kiki's Delivery Service and Persona 5.
Have you played ?
Yes I have played it
No but I've read it
no but I've heard of it
Never heard of it
Can Rin not be annoying for a whole 2 seconds and let Toriko kiss his legal husband Komatsu in peace???
Game Reactions: Koriko (solo journal your year as a teenage witch in a Ghibli-world)
Link: https://mouseholepress.itch.io/koriko
A game of novice witches and teenage drama.
The continuing adventures of me struggling with solo games.
I'm back! I haven't posted in a while, for a few reasons. Long story short, after I ended up in A&E with a kidney stone, I finished my job, bought a campervan, went to Paris (not in the van), got covid, broke my iPad (on which I read all my games and write all my notes), started a new job … and now I'm here. It's been quite hectic.
Also, the next game I decided to read was Koriko. I backed this on Kickstarter and the book is so frigging gorgeous I really wanted to read through it. I decided to actually play it rather than just read it, and I'm useless at playing through solo games consistently, but stubbornly refused to read anything else in the meantime. So it took bloody ages.
This was quite a popular one so most people probably know it, but Koriko is a solo journalling game where you play a teenage witch, who travels from her village to a big city to live for a year and develop her witchy powers. The vibes are very Ghibli, though there's a lot of freedom to control the setting and the tone and refine it to your liking. More on that later.
The reason I decided to play the game rather than just read it, is that it actually teaches you the game as you go. The book is structured in chapters, and after describing the core mechanics, you immediately start "volume one" of your story. Other than the overview, you don't know how to play the rest of the game yet, but you start to create your character, and mechanics are only fully taught to you as they come up in the course of play. I absolutely love this approach, and I think I'd like to see non-solo games try it too, where the whole table can learn during play, with mechanics being revealed and layered on over time.
Mechanically there is quite a bit going on, so I'll try to keep this concise, but it won't be exhaustive. The year is split up into seasons. For each season, you'll draw a small deck of tarot cards. Major arcana cards are special characters, and the minor arcana are split into suits. Each suit has a set of prompts, and links to two of the four available skills.
What this means, is that at the beginning of each season, you get some amount of control over the contents of the deck you'll be pulling prompts from. You might be told to pick two cards from two suits, one card from the other two suits, and up to three major arcana (characters). So you can influence the focus and vibes of your prompt deck.
With your deck set, you pull a card, read its prompt, choose a 'twist' from a table for that season, and come up with a response to the prompt that ties this all together. Some prompts will be 'risky', meaning that you have to stack a number of d6 in a pile. This stack is permanent, so eventually it will collapse, you'll fail whatever you were trying to do, and the book will dole out some consequences. It does mean that you are succeeding the vast majority of the time though, which honestly works extremely well for the game.
You can write out your responses to these prompts, but the critical journaling that you do here is in a letter you send home at the end of each season. You select from a few prompts, and write back to your parent/guardian/mentor at home. It encourages a reflective atmosphere, and I found it really strengthened my emotional connection to the story.
At this point, I'll say that if you're a fan of solo journaling games, or the pitch and vibes of this sound appealing, then go for it. This is beautifully written, and if you can get hold of a physical copy you won't be sorry. It looks incredible, and the paper is so smooth I want to live in it.
From here, I want to get into my struggles, which may be largely a me thing. I struggled with this game in the same way I've struggled with most of the (admittedly few so far) solo games I've played. I talked about the same issues with the Citizen Sleeper game, Cycles of the Eye. One advantage to solo games is that I don't need to schedule time with 3 or more other humans who are also probably neurodivergent and unreliable, so there should be significantly less friction in starting to play. However, when playing the game involves a tarot deck split into four suits of minor arcana (some in a draw pile and some discarded), a pile of active major arcana cards, a pile of major arcana cards yet to be drawn, a discard pile, an ongoing stack of d6, a pile of d6 to be added to the stack… it's a lot.
Each time I draw a card, I read the prompt, choose a twist, select a character to be involved, reference the areas of the city, pick a skill to apply. Then come up with something that ties all of these in together, fits in with the story, progresses your character. It often involves inventing new aspects of the world. To do it I have a volume deck, my dice, and flick between pages for the prompt, the season, the characters. It's a lot!
I think I have a dream of a solo game that I sit and play with a journal, the book, and a couple of dice. I can quickly break it out and play a little, in the bedroom, in the living room, in a cafe, a hotel. In my campervan!
Beyond the logistics, it's also a lot of mental and emotional labour. These two elements reflect each other. These kinds of games seem to feel a need to really layer on prompts and mechanics to reach a level of granularity and complexity in what is being asked of the player. My assumption is that this is to help add depth to the story you tell, and I can understand it. When I read a card prompt, maybe I struggle to come up with something - but then I remember I need to choose a twist. Suddenly, 'someone in your community is in trouble' has the added detail 'ominous return', and it sparks your imagination. This specificity can be really helpful, especially early on. As I got further in the game though, I would sometimes find myself forgetting or ignoring parts of prompts, or the twist. As the world and story I had created solidified, I needed less complexity in a prompt to find a direction to head in with it.
The problem is, it was simply exhausting to go through this whole process for 7 or more prompts per season, with a letter to write based on a bunch more prompts at the end of each one. Combined with the fact that I needed to gather all my materials and have time and space to play, I often just wouldn't - hence it took me a very long time to finish it. Even though I did actually enjoy almost every moment I was actually playing it.
I'm really unclear myself here, whether I need a game with a slightly different approach, whether I just need a different approach myself, or perhaps whether I don't actually want a journaling game perhaps. Although I can't imagine making the moment-to-moment play more mechanically focused would help.
It struck me at one point that, despite the generated complexity of the prompts, there's actually a real lack of specificity in the game in some ways. Although it has the obvious influences, your specific witch and the world she lives in could be extremely different to mine. That's perhaps a strength, but can certainly feel like a weakness too. Although I had many of the same concerns with Cycles of the Eye, the Citizen Sleeper world is one I know really well from the video game, and so I had a shortcut to identify exactly the kind of stories I could tell.
Prompt design is something really interesting to me, and it's often said that a good prompt needs specificity. I'm beginning to wonder though, if a solo journaling RPG of this nature would be better served (or at least would be better suited to me) by shifting that specificity to its own world-building - give me a really specific world and setting, with a concrete cast of characters. Hand me a really solid narrative sandbox, and give me the freedom in the prompts to play with all of those toys and build myself a memorable story.
If anyone knows of a game like that, let me know. Otherwise, check out Koriko. Despite my grumpy musings in the second half of this post, it really is a delightful book.
𝐊𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐦𝐚 𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐬𝐮 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝟳: 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵
Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service reimagined in ukiyoe style ,the warmth of Ghibli meets the timeless beauty of Edo-era art.
𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐓𝐮𝐛𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 🔎 xiaobaosg -𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 work-in-progress videos and updates.
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Hello! I made a webcomic based off my play through of Koriko a ttrpg please check it out if you have time:)
A 16-year-old witch leaves home to train in a strange city, hoping to become someone extraordinary. Instead, she slowly discovers who she is
today on greg writes stuff down my little witch has arrived in the city of Koriko
