TITAN/child, Blood/Lust, Magical/Girl

The Oblique Engine

The Oblique Engine is my own system framework. Oblique Engine games are made for 2 Players, with each taking a complementary role in the pursuit of some shared goal. The Scenes of Oblique Engine games are a series of lines and prompts, one for each player, and only one player will read and answer their prompt for each given line. As occasional dice rolls switch which player is “in the lead” and answering, play takes a weaving and diverging path through a plot. Failure is impossible, only how you get there is in question.

With the plots of the games set, Oblique Engine games focus heavily on the interpersonal relationship of their two characters, looking deep inside their heads as they struggle, bond, fight, and experience. These introspective games are highly intimate experiences to share, even on repeat plays.

There are three Oblique Engine games: TITAN/child (a sci-fi mecha game about duty, individuality, and impending doom), Blood/Lust (a gothic horror romance about a love that cannot be), and Magical/Girl (a fantasy story about light, connection, and hope standing against fear and despair). The first two are currently available in their completed forms. The final is still under development on Patreon.

TITAN/child
A Struggle For Control While Disaster Looms

“The string is cut and the Sword of Damocles falls upon us all,
The Third Child will come, and with their TITAN save us.”
- Prophecy of the Ancients, Final Lines (Chapter 4, Verse 12)

TITAN/child is a game about the struggle between a handful of fated children and an ancient alien mind for control of the alien body, a towering colossus and the only weapon to stop invaders from space from destroying the Earth. It is a game for two players, one of whom will play the TITAN while the other plays the series of children who will attempt to pilot the TITAN. The game starts by filling out the First Child, TITAN, and Setting sheets, then starting play with The First Attendant.

Deeply inspired by parts of Neon Genesis Evangelion, this is a game about the struggle between individuality and synchronization in the face of duty against incredible odds.

CW: This game contains violence perpetrated by and against children in a dramatic context.

Blood/Lust
A Gothic Horror Romance Tragedy

Blood/Lust is a 2-player game of gothic horror and romance, about a vampire and a human who fall in love (or lust). An intimate and inevitably tragic game, Blood/Lust is about temptation, indulgence, sex, death, and transgression.

The game is heavily inspired by a French short story from 1836 called La Morte Amoureuse, about a vampire who seduces a priest. As I discuss on the Details page at the end of the game, this inspiration drove me to explore the space of Vampires as embodiments of indulgence and temptation, rather than the more directly predatory demon-figures of Dracula or Carmilla. The game is also gender-neutral throughout, allowing any combination of romantic connection you might want to play.

Magical/Girl
Connection & Understanding in a Shattered World

Magical/Girl is a tabletop roleplaying game for two players about a magical girl trying to stop an other-dimensional evil.

Each player will take on the role of either The Magical or The Girl. The Magical is a spirit of light and justice from the same dimension as the invading evil. The Girl is the human that will host The Magical, and together they will stop the dark Shattered from destroying the world.

However, the path they take is not set. The Magical is powerful, but this game is not about simply attempting to destroy the Shattered. Each Shattered has taken its own human host and possessed them, warping the world around them into a dark, twisted version of itself. With a lot of trying and a little luck, the Magical Girl can forge a connection with the Shattered through its human host and bring them back to the light. Sometimes they won’t get through, and the Shattered will need to be destroyed, but the Magical Girl will never stop trying to find understanding and connection, even in the darkest moments. Magical/Girl is a game about empathy, understanding, and showing compassion to others struggling in the dark. It is also about the toll that brings upon a person, the vulnerability of opening up, the guilt of redeeming people with dark pasts, and the fear of inching ever closer to the darkness ourselves.

Ultimately, this is a game about hope in the face of fear. With the dice in control, sometimes fear wins. While the light will succeed in defeating the Shattered eventually, it can get very heavy at times. This is a serious game, capable of producing deeply intimate conversations about responsibility, guilt, forgiveness, crisis, trauma, and much more. Individual scenes come with content warnings, so play safely.

The development of Magical/Girl is nearing completion!
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TITAN/child
Cost: $7, $10 for a physical book on DrivethruRPG
Availaible on: The Store, DrivethruRPG, Itch.io

Blood/Lust
Cost: $7, $10 for a physical book on DrivethruRPG
Available on: The Store, DrivethruRPG, Itch.io

Magical/Girl (in-development)
Available only on Patreon! Only $3/month!

Get all three of these games, plus many more, for $10/month.