The Onward Path | Artifices

As the sun sinks, the birds of the sky turn into shadows.

You can’t sleep. You put on your coat and take a stroll through the streets drowned in the red tide of dusk.

Soon, you reach the outskirts of the city. You walk out through the Gate of Dreams.

So begins your journey to that secret crossroad of the worlds, the Garden of the Moon. You have been there many times before, but only when you're there you can remember your past journeys. While you're on the Onward Path, every journey is the first journey.

The Onward Path is an eclectic combination of baroque and zen elements, scattered like seeds upon the fertile imagery of a dreamy story.

There are five challenges, in the form of five mini games, which you need to overcome in order to get to The Garden of the Moon.

The mini games are simple and accessible, their aim being to strike that thin balance between breeziness and enough challenge to make them interesting. The idea is to play the entire booklet at once, which will provide for unexpected intrigue and variety in this serene setting.

Unlock the direction you need to take

Chase the trickster

Run from your shadow

Climb up the tree of marbles

Make your way through the lattice of light

But more importantly, savour the story

See the PDF

Get the score sheet

Feel free to read and play this at your leisure. All you need is a pair of dice and a token. You can also find the print-and-play versions of the minigames alongside the PDF.

This was inspired by my previous zine, and was produced in physical version for a Kickstarter campaign.

As the sun sinks, the birds of the sky turn into shadows. You can’t sleep. You put on your coat and take a stroll through the streets drowned in the red tide of dusk. Soon, you reach the outskirts of the city. You walk out through the Gate of Dreams.