Forest: a game about mental illness • 2018 rpg

The woods are dark and close, trees reaching for you like a shadowy embrace.

They say that it's haunted, this forest.

They say the deer aren't deer, anymore. They say the foxes are too smart, and the birds see too much. They say the wolves aren't what they should be. They say you shouldn't look back.

They say deeper in the woods, things change. The people who leave the forest aren't the people they were, anymore. Sometimes they've grown more monstrous; sometimes they, like the deer, become something else, an unknowable mind trapped in a familiar form.

Enter the woods. 

Roll a D6. If 4+, move forward. If 3-, a forest creature attacks. You lose something of yourself, or you accept something of theirs. Their horns; your sense of humor. Their glassy, unblinking eyes. Your mother's voice. Their buckshot hide.

The forest grows darker. You can't remember what you lost, anymore. You see differently through these new eyes, hear differently through these new ears. Maybe this is where you belong. Maybe it's been waiting for you to return home. 

You keep going.

Moving forward ten times clears the forest. 

In the leaf-shaded light, you wonder what of yourself still remains.