As the Crow Flies
A downloadable solo journaling game
A Magical World
There used to be humans here, but they all left. That’s what your mama told you, and what her mama told her. The Earth Mother has begun to retake the land and bring magic back to it. Green grass and vines cover the cities the humans left behind.
You are a crow.
Take flight from your nest and explore.
Find a new home.
As the Crow Flies is an exploration game built on the Carta system that encourages you to put yourself into the feathers of a young crow leaving the nest for the first time. Befriend other animals, search for food, find interesting trinkets, and eventually settle down to create a nest of your own.
What's Included
The full rulebook is included as a PDF in three formats for ease of use:
- Spreads (the pages are side-by-side, ideal for viewing on a computer monitor)
- Pages (the pages are individual, ideal for viewing on a tablet or phone)
- Booklet (the pages are side-by-side and meant to be printed and staple-bound)
The full rulebook is also included as a plaintext .TXT file for accessibility.
Additionally, a sheet of tokens is available for printing and using during play.
What People are Saying
"Solo TTRPGs are where mechanics and ideas can go wild, and As the Crow Flies by Chubby Crow Games is a perfect example of this." Jacob._.', The Ugly Monster
Changelog
v1.3 update:
I updated the working file from being a google document to an affinity publisher document, making it easier for me to work with and update as well as export different file types. No meaningful changes were made to the text of the game, save for formatting when needed, so the .TXT file is exactly the same as v1.2.
v1.2 update:
Balanced Spade Card Prompts to reduce probability of bad luck leading to a short game
- Removed Spade card prompts that caused you to lose Feather Tokens, and replaced them with prompts that cause you to gain a Feather Token instead.
Tales from the Heartland
Set during the Trade Wars, Minted in Blood puts players in the middle of the conflict. Play as scrappy heroes fighting against the plutocratic PTC. (Currently in development!)
Set 100 years after the Trade Wars, play farmers, fishers, miners, and other workers using abandoned battlefield mechs to help with their daily lives. Complete jobs for your town, calm wayward spirits, and even fall in love in the pastoral post-war Mectors.
Set at the same time as As the Crow Flies, but very, very far away from the Old World. Very much in the style of Mectors, play farmers, hullscrappers, scouts, spiriturges, and traders on a generation ship in the void between stars. Deal with spirits, fix the ship when it's damaged, and sail ever farther into the cosmos in GSXX.
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This work is based on the Carta system (found at https://peachgardengames.itch.io/carta-srd), from Cat McDonald and Peach Garden Games, and licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
The Carta logo is © Cat McDonald, and is used with permission.
Purchase
In order to download this solo journaling game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Community Copies
Support this solo journaling game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copy
Is money a hardship? Are you a member of a marginalized community? Do you just frankly not want to pay?
Please, feel free to grab a copy, no questions asked! If you like what you read, I'd love to hear your thoughts. <3 Heck, even if you don't like what you read, let me know what you think!
For every purchase of the game or 5-star rating, I will add one community copy.
Become a Crow Friend
For each purchase of $20 or more, I will add 10 community copies to the pool! And I'll add your name to the Acknowledgments page as a Crow Friend.
Development log
- Updated layout, and printable booklet available!Jul 03, 2023
- 2,500 downloads!!!Oct 03, 2022
- Feather Token Balance & Heartland BundleApr 09, 2022
- Crow Friends UpdateMar 24, 2022
- Printer Friendly and Plain Text Added!Mar 21, 2022
- Playtest Version Released!Mar 05, 2022
Comments
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You are a juvenile crow, leaving the nest for the first time, exploring the world seeing its wonders and looking for a place for you to finally settle down and build your own nest.
As the Crow Flies uses the Carta system by Peach Garden RPG and has the player lay down a set number of cards as the world they are exploring, and move a token around the card as a means of exploration. Within those cards is the Jack of Hearts, representing your ideal home and the 2 of Diamonds: your childhood nest.
The goal is to explore the world and collect a set number of tokens before you settle down. But, your crow only has so much time and energy, represented by feathers, before they decide to settle with what they have instead of their dream location.
The game also provides a way for players to play a shorter or longer game buy changing the board size, energy amount, and token amount. I chose to play a shorter game today and explored 7 areas before my little crow decided to settle in a large abandoned tower that was occupied by lots of all different kinds of birds. You can read my playthrough HERE
I just played this game — my first solo TTRPG! — as an "artist date" and though I've always been ambivalent about role-playing, I found this really engaging and fun (even though my very first card was the Queen of Hearts haha). Also ended up being very surprised and pleased by the outcome (though I didn't "win"), as well as how the randomness created "themes" and a light sense of continuity as I played through it. Great prompts, great game. Thank you!
I might suggest offering an additional PDF with the pages ordered so as to make a "booklet" if you print them out double-sided and fold it in half. I actually ended up using a tool to do this myself, and I'd be happy to provide the reordered PDF if you'd like!
Thank you so much for the kind words!! I'm glad that you enjoyed yourself even though you didn't "win", that was what I was hoping for; even if you don't "succeed", it's still a lot of fun!
Since this was one of the first games I published, I wasn't even thinking about booklets at the time, but that is a fantastic idea. I've recently been making my own booklet versions of PDFs of games I buy/download, so I know how useful and handy it is to have that compact physical copy to take with you. I can create a booklet version, but I appreciate the offer! I will upload it soon and make a devlog post giving you a shout-out for the idea.
A soft game that leaves me feeling peaceful after playing it.
Oh my gosh thank you! I haven't really had any feedback from people playing it (other than the review), so this means the world to me. 🥰
As the Crow Flies is a game where you play as a young crow leaving their nest for the first time to explore the world. You get to communicate with other animals, explore manmade ruins, and encounter magical things.
Love this low-stakes take on the Carta system! A really nice roleplaying exercise to shift our perspective from the human-centric.
Thank you! I really wanted this to be a warm and wholesome experience, while still maintaining some of the "game" elements that make failure possible. I also wanted failure to be a positive ending in its own right.