We Were Here Once
A downloadable game
The stars have gone silent. The great cities crumble. Your people, once explorers of the cosmos, are now whispers on the wind.
You are the Chronicler, the latest in a lineage of those who record the last days of a world long severed from the stars. Each generation, you document what remains—what is lost, what is forgotten, what is desperately held onto. The sun grows redder, the days grow shorter, and you know that soon, there will be no one left to remember.
Through the roll of dice and the draw of cards, you will witness the slow erosion of your civilization. Traditions will fade, knowledge will vanish, and the final echoes of humanity will slip into the void.
Will your Chronicle endure? Or will it, too, be lost to time?
A game of loss. A game of memory. A game of the inevitable.
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Development log
- Fixed Some Tables71 days ago
- We Were Here Once – Update v1.572 days ago
- We Were Here Once – My New Solo TTRPG About the End of a Civilization72 days ago
Comments
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Hello! I thought this game was beautiful. I wrote about it in relation to climate emotions (and suggested Seeds of Renewal as well).
Thank you for your work!
https://notesfromtheinflectionpoint.substack.com/p/games-grief-and-the-power-of-imagination
Reading this was incredibly moving. Thank you for holding We Were Here Once with such care and clarity—it means a lot to see it living in someone else’s hands and imagination like this. The idea that play can be a container for grief, not an escape from it, resonates deeply with why I made the game. Vashelek’s story, as you’ve told it here, carries a quiet dignity and warmth even in its final moments. That balance between loss and agency, collapse and creation, is exactly the space I hope we can keep exploring—together, and in our own time. Thank you again for this thoughtful reflection.
Generation 11 – Year 3904 – Chronicler Xyra Olar
"I remember Othor Cain—may the gods rest his soul. In the end, he was but an empty shell. Yet before that, he taught me all he knew. How to keep this chronicle. How to record the fate of our people.
Zericho now decides who gets what. All the cards are in his hands. All the supplies belong to him.
He tasked the chronicler with preserving the memory of all that happens. He seeks the answer to death within these scrolls. He desires his name to live on forever.
And me? I do not know if everything I write is the truth or merely the way I see things."
Generation 11 – Year 3915 – Chronicler Xyra Olar
"We left everything behind.
Our proud city is now nothing but a corpse upon the face of the earth. Only the shadows of our dreams remain there. The very ghosts of our fathers.
Our people drew closer. We supported one another as we followed Zericho northward, beneath the warm rain.
Somewhere out there is a refuge for us. A glimmer of hope.
Surely, we can not the only ones left."
Great game with a great concept. Really enjoyed it! Thanks a lot for your work!
Thank you! Inspiring except too!
Such an interesting concept... love to read thru the table of random and imagine the other scenarios that could appear in different stories.