NO REFUGE
A downloadable game
No Refuge Or What’s So Cool About Bullet Hells, Tarot Cards, and Loneliness
You are a Fighter. A lone warrior, the last remaining soldier in an impossible war. You alone stand in the face of an insurmountable adversary with only your ship as your sole weapon and constant companion. Despite these dire circumstances your faith and resolve do not falter. You will face these harrowing trials head on and forge a path through these innumerable enemies. You have No Refuge, but You will Fight On.
No Refuge is a solo narrative generating rpg inspired by arcade shoot em ups like Ikaruga or ZeroRanger. Use a deck of tarot cards to create dramatic battles against endless waves of enemies and overwhelming foes.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $7 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
No Refuge is a solo bullet-hell storytelling rpg.
It's 10 pages, with a clean black and white aesthetic.
Mechanically, you play by drawing cards from a tarot deck and rolling 2d6 against them. Meet or beat their value, and you overcome the card. Fail, and you lose a life. Lose 4 lives, and you game over.
There's a little more tech than this, and you do have elements of your ship that you can sacrifice or get benefits from depending on how you roll, but it's fully possible for the RNG to just decide it's going to kill you.
As a result, the focus of the game shifts to the fiction. What do the enemy waves and bosses look like? What does your ship look like? What is the overarching aesthetic of the bullet-hell you're playing? The tarot deck can answer, and honestly it may give you a really solid foundation to build your own bullet-hell on.
Overall, if you want a quick solo rpg with a neat premise and easy to learn gameplay, I would recommend checking this out. Likewise, if you're interested in creating a shmup but haven't decided yet what you want it to be about, definitely give this a shot.
Minor Issues:
-Page 2, there's a "w" after 1d4
-Page 9, "Criticall succeed" critical
Hey, I noticed this was marked as a video game instead of a tabletop (or physical game, as itch.io calls them). I’ve updated this page for you but please make sure to check your others to ensure your page is showing up in the right spot.
Thanks