XENOSOMNIA

In the dystopian future, whole planets are disposable.

The corporate government's resource harvesting missions leave planet after planet in ruin. Minimalist ethics regulations require at least one human administrator to be present to oversee the largely automated process of stripping a planet down to its raw materials.

This time something is different. 

The humans don't know it yet, but this planet is not like the others. This one's alive. Psychic energies grant the planet a sentient, collective consciousness. Strange, psychedelic flora and fauna litter the living world and surreal sights are around every corner.

It also means the rules of reality don't apply here.

When the psychic energies overflow, planet and administrator alike are drawn into a dream-like altered state where physics is a mere suggestion, and where the borders between two consciousnesses begin to break down. In trippy, surreal sequences, the administrator and the planet learn more about each other, and maybe, just maybe, their intertwined fates will chart a different path.

Or maybe it will all burn and bleed and die. Such is the way of interstellar capitalism.

XENOSOMNIA is a two-player, GMless one-page tabletop RPG about ecological destruction, psychedelic dream sequences and ruthless interstellar capitalism. One player takes on the role of the human administrator overseeing this destructive project; the other, the sentient psychic planet they are trying to strip bare of its resources. Players work together to tell a story using playing cards to generate prompts for scenes, and then follow the story wherever it goes. Plays in one session of about an hour or two in length.

Created for the one page RPG jam 2025!

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What The People are saying about XENOSOMNIA:

Surprisingly and fantastically moving.

- My partner

Like if 'Papers, Please' was a psychic conversation between the planet from the blue people Avatar and the fracking industry.

- My brother

Cool. Really cool. Cool cool cool cooooool.

- My friend

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Game by Maddie Elder. With thanks to my playtesters for giving me their time, thoughts and imagination: Ryleigh Eldrin, Brashen Buttress, Alex Tear, Rain Egan, and Sabine Shirazian. Thanks to the one page RPG jam for giving me the motivation to finish this project. No AI was used in the creation of this game. 

Featuring art originally by erikcurrier4 and licensed under the Pixabay Content License. 

itch.io background image originally by AcidFlashes and licensed under the Pixabay Content License.

Background used in itch.io banner image is a public domain image available here.