Your Dead Friend
A downloadable game
You are taking a walk with a friend the day before they will die. You know they will die because you keep getting transported back to this day, over and over, and today is the day you decide you’re going to give up on trying to divert their fate by warning or dissuading them from what will happen. You are going to savor the time you have and enjoy looking at the trees and the birds with them. You are going to say goodbye.
A short, elegaic game for two players about the grief and beauty of impermanence as reflected through your connection to each other and to the natural world around you, witnessed on your final walk together.
Tone: warm, intimate, melancholy
What are people saying about Your Dead Friend?
"Your Dead Friend is such a wonderful examination of friendship and it feels perilous and affirming all at once to imagine playing it with someone you care about." — DongWon Song, literary agent at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency
Note: An updated version of the game will be posted in late summer, 2021. Previous players who've purchased or downloaded the game will be able to access the updated version without additional charge.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:
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Community Copies of Your Dead Friend
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Comments
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I want to ask, since the concept is so interesting and I have a friend who is very dear to me living abroad, can you play this game remotely? Like being on the phone while playing, or is that not possible/advisable?
Your Dead Friend (not to be confused with Dead Friend, which is also good) is a two-player game based on a Wendell Berry poem.
Specifically, it's a game about spending time with someone before they die. The death is quantum-locked, you can't prevent it, but you can change the quality of the time you spend before it happens.
The PDF is 3 pages, with a nice evocative layout and font choices that really complement the soft but intense tone of the game.
There aren't many mechanics, just some structure to a conversation, but the game doesn't need complicated dice and nothing feels missing.
Overall, if you want to feel sad, this will guide you to that experience. I don't want to feel sad, but I still think this is an excellent, well-written game with a powerful mood, and it's worth checking out if you're not worrying about the subject matter messing you up.
Beautiful and sad concept. Emotive to play. Well worth buying.
Thank you so much for saying so!
Do you NEED to play the game with another person? Or is a singleplayer experience?
Hi! Thanks for stopping by, I'm not certain how it would work as a single player game but I have no problem with players adapting things to suit their needs. I designed it around the idea of having two players, if that answers the question more directly!
This is a transcript of a twitter thread I wrote in response to this game:
Your Dead Friend is 110% my jam, but maybe not any of my meatspace friends' jams, so I just read it and meditated on it. It's a time loop game, of building friendships, exploring and reading poetry.
It's what I call a liturgical game, in the sense that it teaches you and provides you with the rules to participate in a ritual that places you in a certain spiritual space; in this case, one of love, melancholy and longing.
It speaks very deeply to enjoying the small touches in your life, and to appreciating the time you have, both with your loved ones, and in your own experience.
And in the most elegant twist, the end cannot ever be discussed, only ever the present. You can only speak in terms of what it is that you love and what you appreciate, never it terms of loss.
Anyway, this game: Buy it. Now. If you're interested in ritual play, emotional play, if you're interested in life or death or longing, if you're interested in poetry and exploring simplicity and presence in place, this is a game for you.
Wow, thank you so much for sharing this. What an incredible overview of your experiences, I'm honored!