Earlier this month, Sam Leigh of Blinking Birch Games dropped two long-awaited releases: Death of the Author and The World We Left Behind. Designer of the genre-pushing, Ennie-nominated solo RPG Anamnesis — a tarot-based journaling game about memory and identity — Leigh’s work is often a contemplative meditation on a given theme, with these newest releases delving into isolation, history, agency, and hubris.
The World We Left Behind is a GMless game that asks players to take on the role of cosmic researchers finding a post-society planet. Throughout multiple trips to a single alien planet, these astronauts walk among the overgrown ruins of a once great culture, uncovering it’s past while studying the plants and animals that still inhabit the ecosystem.
Played using a single deck of cards, the game leaves behind game artifacts as players take notes and draw symbols on the cards, which compound with each subsequent session. The game’s surrealist pastel artwork was made by Helena Santana, with the game’s layout by Sinta Posadas.
Commissioned by the New York City-based Ballet Collective for their 2023 season, The World We Left Behind has been in development for multiple years. The initial game was made in collaboration with composer Phong Tran and choreographer Troy Schumacher. Tran and Schumacher playtested early versions of The World We Left Behind and created a ballet of the same name inspired by their sessions, which premiered last fall in New York City’s Trinity Commons and was revived for a second performance earlier this year. A limited edition box set is available on The World We Left Behind Bandcamp page, alongside Tran’s original compositions.
Leigh’s second release, Death of The Author follows in the tarot-based tradition of Anamnesis. Building on similar themes to Dillin Apelyan’s Metalepsis, Leigh uses the card’s archetypes to depict a conflict between a fictional character and the author who wrote them.
Death of the Author takes place throughout five chapters of play, as the character rejects the story their author has written for them. As the narrative changes under their pen, the author may retaliate, forcing this fictional reality to bend to their whims, leading to an ultimate confrontation between the creator and their creation. Death of The Author’s greyscale, horror-inspired tarot artwork was done by Victor Winter, with layout by James Hanna and editing by Marx Shepherd.
I have had the opportunity to play the solo iteration of both of the games, though Death of the Author has options for two-person play, while The World We Left Behind can accommodate up to five players. Much like Leigh’s previous games, these two games offer emotionally moving experiences, which is unsurprising from the designer behind the solo TTRPG that launched a thousand solo TTRPGs. Death of the Author’s tarot-prompts focusing more on the relationship to individual agency and creation, which will especially appeal to creatives and writers. The World We Left Behind’s slow unravelling of the solitude of adventure, alongside the mystery that is this alien planet’s history, is a contemplation about the state of our world and what it might be like once we too are left behind.
