Writing, Design, & Layout - Chris Bissette

Wretched Logo - Lore Evans

Cover Illustration © Grandeduc

Internal Illustrations © Artbalitskiy
Licenced from Adobe Stock
Fonts by Adobe

THE WRETCHED™️ is a trademark of Chris Bissette.

The Wretched & Alone logo is © Chris Bissette 2020. All rights reserved.

Chris Bissette
loottheroom.itch.io
www.loottheroom.uk
twitter.com/pangalactic
patreon.com/loottheroom

If you want to make your own games using the Wretched & Alone engine, check out the
license and SRD produced by Sealed Library:

sealedlibrary.itch.io/wretched-alone-srd

2
Special Thanks to Matt Sanders, Alex Clippinger, Jamila R. Nedjadi, Adam Vass, Will Jobst,
the Brain Trust, and everybody involved in the Wretched Jam.

All my gratitude goes to those who bought the original printing of this game.
Those 25 original copies will always have a special place in my heart and I will always
be grateful to you for supporting me and The Wretched. Thank you.

Thanks as always to Steph for having the patience to listen to me bang on about these
games even though she doesn’t fully understand what they are <3

3
4
5
 Some of the roleplaying prompts in The Wretched tend towards
the dark and violent. This is a game about fear, abandonment,
and survival. It is a game about being hunted. You are trapped,
alone, with a creature that wants you dead and there is no way
to escape. This is reflected in the text of the game. Generally, if
you’re okay with films like Alien, Event Horizon, or The Thing,
you should be okay with The Wretched.

Some specific content to be aware of: confined spaces, physical

injury, solitude and abandonment, death, descriptions of death,
hopelessness.

If you want to know exactly what you’re getting in to before you

start, read the Debrief on pages 20 and 21. That will explain
exactly what is going on in this game.

Ultimately, this is a solo game you are the best arbiter of your
own limits. If a particular prompt makes you uncomfortable,
don’t use it. Move to the previous or next prompt, cross it out
and write in a prompt more suitable for you, or just make a pull
from the tower and move on.

If at any point the game becomes too much for you, for any reason,
stop playing and do something else. Your safety and comfort is
more important than a game.

6
You are the last surviving crew member of the intergalactic
salvage ship The Wretched. Adrift between stars after an engine
failure, your ship was attacked by a hostile alien lifeform. The
crew are dead. You are alone.

You thought you had won. You launched the creature out of an
airlock, and that should have meant safety.

It didn’t.

The creature survived, somehow immune to the cold empty black

of space. Now it skitters and crawls across the hull of your ship.
It seeks a way in. It wants you.

Now it is you versus inevitability. Can you keep your life support
systems going long enough to repair your distress beacon? With
the beacon activated, can you keep the creature at bay long
enough to be rescued, assuming somebody hears your cry?

Probably not. But you have to try.

7
 The Wretched is a game about human resilience in the face of
overwhelming odds and almost certain death. It is a game about
isolation, fear, and perseverance.

You play a lone survivor of an horrific attack. You have seen and
done terrible things, you have seen your friends - your found
family - brutally butchered by something you can’t even begin to
comprehend, something that you were sure didn’t exist until it
manifested itself aboard your ship.

You are existing on the edges of your endurance, high on

adrenaline and fear and desperation. You are sure you won’t
survive this, but all you know to do is to keep fighting.

The Wretched is inspired by the music and films of John Carpenter,

the music of Nine Inch Nails, as well as the games You Are Not
Alone In This Life and you will die alone out here in the black
by Rufus Roswell.

Other things that helped:

• The Thing (1982)
• Alien (1979)
• Silent Running (1972)
• Sunshine (2007)
• We Have Always Lived In The Castle, by Shirley Jackson
• 65daysofstatic’s A Year of Wreckage
• The Quiet Year, by Avery Alder
• Star Crossed, by Alex Roberts
• Thousand Year Old Vampire, by Tim Hutchings
• The Adventurer, by James Chip

Produced during the UK’s first COVID 19 lockdown, April 2020.

8
To play you’ll need a standard deck of cards with no jokers,
a single 6-sided die, a tumbling block tower, and 10 tokens of
some kind - preferably a collection of nuts, bolts, and screws, but
anything will work. You can play without the block tower if need
be, though the game is better with it.

If you don’t have access to a block tower but still want to engage
with that part of the game, there are alternatives. For more
discussion on this go here:

https://bit.ly/Jenga-Alt

You will also need some way to record your game. Audio or video
logs work best, speaking into a microphone or a camera at the
end of each day, but use whatever you prefer - a physical journal,
Twitter, or anything else.

There are only two positive ways out of this situation, and each is
more unlikely than the last.

First, you could activate your distress beacon, survive long

enough for someone to hear it, and then continue to survive long
enough for them to get to you.

Second, you could fix your engines and leave the creature drifting
in your wake.

You can fail in a multitude of ways.

9
 Set up the tumbling block tower as you normally would for
games of that nature. Roll your die, and complete that many
pulls from the tower by removing a block and replacing it on
the top row. The tower represents the state of your ship.

If it falls at any time, a catastrophic systems failure results in

your death and the game is over. If you do not have access to
a tumbling block tower you do not need to use one and may
ignore any instances where you are asked to pull from the
tower. Your ship will never be destroyed - you are simply more
likely to die at the hands of the creature.

Shuffle the deck of playing cards and place them face down
within easy reach. If you wish to play a shorter game, make
sure the Ace of Hearts is the top card of the deck.

Record your first audio log, reading from the script that
follows.

Day 1, salvage ship The Wretched. Flight Engineer [your

name] reporting. The other members of the crew are dead
and the engines remain non-operational, though ship
integrity remains good and life support systems are
still active. I successfully jettisoned the intruder
from the airlock, but it remains alive and continues to
try to access the ship. With a little luck I can repair
the distress beacon and somebody will pick me up. This
is [your name], the last survivor of the Wretched,
signing off.

All subsequent reports should begin with the statement “Day

[x], salvage ship The Wretched, Flight Engineer [your name]
reporting”, in order to assist with an accurate reconstruction of
events should your ship be recovered. The content of the rest of
the log is up to you, but should at least summarize the events of
the day.

Now you are ready to begin.

10
The game is divided into phases meant to represent days on
board the ship. You can take this literally, playing a slow game
over the course of days or weeks, or you can play the whole game
in one sitting. This usually takes about half an hour.

Each day has two phases: the tasks, and the log.

Phase One: The Tasks

• Roll your die and draw that number of cards from
the deck, keeping them face down.
• Turn over the first card you drew and consult the
Operations Manual. If the Operations Manual asks
you to do a specific thing, do it.
• Continue turning over cards and consulting the
Operations Manual until your tasks are complete.
• When you have completed all your tasks for the day,
discard the cards you have used unless you are told
otherwise.

Phase Two: The Log

• Take a moment to consider the events of the day,
keeping in mind what you have learned about the
state of your ship, the actions of the creature, and
how you are feeling.
• Record your audio log for the day.

11
Consult the Operations Manual each time you draw a card
and complete the task it assigns you. Sometimes these
tasks will involve pulling bricks from the tower. Others will
involve quiet reflection or answering questions. Some do
other things entirely.

Hearts
Hearts represent your ship’s
systems - life support, water
purification, and the like. When
you draw a heart, you are
interacting with them in some
way - doing essential repairs, or
booting up a system that was
previously dormant.

Diamonds
Diamonds represent your ship’s
physical structures. When
you draw a diamond you are
physically engaging with the ship
- patching up the hull, sealing
doors behind you, or accessing
new areas.

12
 Clubs
Clubs represent the crew. When
you draw a club you are reminded
of the people you have lost, and
the reality that you are sharing
your space with their remains.

Spades
Spades represent the creature.
It may have made its presence
known physically, or you may
have to deal with the mental toll
its hunt is having on you.

13
 A After days of trying you have finally managed to repair your distress
beacon and activate it.
Pull from the tower. Do not discard this card - instead, put it to one
side and place 10 tokens on it. At the end of each day, after recording
your log, roll your die. On a result of 6, remove a token from the card.
If you successfully remove all the tokens, someone responds to your
beacon. Make a final pull from the tower. If the tower stands, you are
rescued and the game ends. Record one more audio log as you watch
them destroy the creature and dock with your ship. If the tower falls,
they arrived too late to stop your ship falling apart in the black. You
are dead, and the game is over.

K You hear a skittering, scraping sound in the air vents and you fear the
creature - or something else - may have got aboard the ship. How will
you make sure you don’t attract its attention?
Do not discard this card. Place it where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you have drawn, the creature has gained access to the
Wretched and it has finally found you. The game is over.

Q The door lock system fails while you are in the bridge, and you have
to spend a few hours forcing the doors open so you can get out.
Pull from the tower.

J You spend a day climbing around in the engines, doing basic

maintenance and trying to figure out what needs to be done to get
the ship moving again. You end the day as clueless as you began.
Pull from the tower.

14
10 The life support system keeps
making an unhealthy grinding
noise, and you don’t know what
6 Your scanners keep showing a
large object that periodically
disappears from the screen, only
the problem is. What will you do to show up again a few hours later.
if it fails? Is there something out there, or is
it a glitch?

9 The proximity alarms keep

sounding because the creature
is on the outside of the ship. You
5 You’ve been finding it harder
and harder to catch your breath,
and eventually it dawned on you
had to disable them. that the oxygen system had shut
Pull from the tower. itself off. You fixed it, but what
caused it to break?
Pull from the tower.

8 What does it feel like to look at

the sensors and the monitors
and see nothing? How does it
4 Your comms system blinks into
life, picking up garbled chatter
from far-off vessels. It falls silent
feel to know that you may never before you can signal to them.
see land, or light, or have a What were they saying?
conversation again?

7 You had to climb up into a

narrow crawlspace to fix some
faulty lighting. What was it like,
3 While you slept the fire
suppression system was
activated. What caused the fire,
squeezed in there between the and how will you make sure it
cables and the hull of the ship? doesn’t happen again?
Pull from the tower. Pull from the tower.

2 The water purification system

still works, but it’s noticeably
less efficient. What does it feel like
to drink water that smells faintly of
ammonia?

15
 A After a short but terrifying EVA you managed to boost the range of
The Wretched’s antenna. How did you ensure that the creature would
not attack you while you were outside the ship?
Pull from the tower. Do not discard this card - instead, put it to one
side so that you will remember you have drawn it. When the distress
beacon is active, a roll of 5 or 6 is sufficient to remove a token from it.

K When you launched the creature out of the airlock you couldn’t seal it
again. Every now and then the creature comes back to that hole in the
side of your ship, scratching and prying at the single internal door that
separates you from the cold black of space. How do you react to this?
Do not discard this card. Place it where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you have drawn, the creature has gained access to the
Wretched and it has finally found you. The game is over.

Q You spend a day taking the engine apart completely and putting back
together in an attempt to fix it, but you’re not sure exactly how to do
that and you suspect that you may have caused more damage than you
fixed.
Pull from the tower. Do not replace this block at the top of the tower
- remove it from the game instead.

J You lose power throughout the ship, and while you’re trying to fix it
the backup generator fails too. You manage to restore power, but you
need to cannibalise parts from the backup generator, which will never
work again.
Pull from the tower. Do not replace this block at the top of the tower
- remove it from the game instead.

16
10 With the climate control on
the fritz, mould springs up
in some of your food stores. You
6 The sewage silo springs a leak.
It smells terrible, and you fix it
as quickly as is humanly possible.
can’t fix it, so you just seal that Pull from the tower.
locker up and hope that nothing
affects the rest of your supplies.
Pull from the tower.

9 Your gravity drive fails. It’s a

long, slow process dragging
yourself over to it with no gravity,
5 You access one of the lander
modules and hope that you can
use it to escape the ship, but the
and a long day fixing it, but you asteroid that struck before your
manage to get it back up and engines failed damaged it beyond
running. repair. You jettison it into the black
Pull from the tower. in the hope that it will distract the
creature. Pull from the tower.

8 A fire starts in one of the engines

while you are attempting to
get the ship going again. You are
4 The creature detaches one of
the habitat modules and sets it
adrift in space. You manage to seal
forced to jettison it. off that area of the ship before the
Pull from the tower. creature can gain real access. Pull
from the tower.

7 The many skirmishes with the

creature caused a huge amount
of internal structural damage. You
3 After you threw the creature
out of the airlock it spent hours
trying to get through the windows
spend a day tracking down all the of the observatory deck - the only
issues you can find and fixing glass on the ship. You fear their
them as best you can. integrity has been compromised,
Pull from the tower. so you spend an hour reinforcing
them by welding sheets of metal
over the inside. Pull from the
tower.

2 Shortly before your engines

failed, the ship was struck by a
small asteroid that didn’t appear
on the scanners. Oxygen has slowly
been leaking out of the hull where it
hit, but you spent a few hours fixing
it. Pull from the tower.
17
 A While rummaging through the crew quarters you found a tool you’ve
been in need of. What was it? The next time you are told to pull from
the tower you may choose not to.

K As you were passing the Officer’s Mess you tried to avert your eyes
from the carnage inside, but you’re sure you saw something move
amongst the bodies of your crewmates. What do you think it was?
Do not discard this card. Place it where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you have drawn, the creature has gained access to the
Wretched and it has finally found you. The game is over.

Q You spend a day clearing bodies out of a small room that you intend
to hole up in if the creature gets aboard again. What was its purpose
before this happened, and why were there so many people here when
the creature came?
Pull from the tower.

JoverYou gather together the bodies of the crew you were closest to and seal
them in the remaining airlock, saying a few words of remembrance
their bodies, but you can’t quite bring yourself to jettison them.
What words do you say, and why is it so hard to send them out into
space?
Pull from the tower.

18
10 One of the crew died while
holding a teddy bear his
daughter gave him. What was the
6hadOne of the crew told you all
about a terrible dream they had
a few days before the creature
came. In hindsight, they were
bear’s name? having a premonition of what was
about to happen. Why did you all
ignore them?

9 Make a list of the five best

hiding places on the ship, in the
event that you need to use them.
5YouYou have been carrying a rifle
with you for a few days now.
pried it out of the cold grip
of a dead crewmate’s hands. How
did that make you feel, and do you
think the rifle will be effective if
you need to use it?

8andWhich
jumped into harm’s way to try 4 rest of the crew were dying?
member of the crew

protect the others, and how

Where did you hide while the

much time did they buy you all?

7ofBefore
were in the very early stages 3 ID to access an area of the ship
the creature came you You had to use someone else’s

pursuing a relationship with normally forbidden to you. Whose

another member of the crew. What ID was it, and what were you doing
was the last thing you said to them, there?
and why do you regret it?

2 You found the journal of one of

your crewmates. What thing from
home were they missing the most?

19
 A You find a way to distract the creature from its attempts to gain
access to the ship. What is it?
If you have previously drawn the King of Spades you may shuffle it
back into the deck.

K The past few nights you have been dreaming about the creature. What
happens in your dreams?
Do not discard this card. Place it where you can see it. If this is the
fourth King you have drawn, the creature has gained access to the
Wretched and it has finally found you. The game is over.

Q What do you imagine the creature calls itself? Pull from the tower.

JorThe creature can survive out in the cold black of space, where nothing
should be able to live. Is it coming into your territory to destroy you,
is it simply defending its domain?
Pull from the tower.

20
10 You find something left behind
by the creature - blood, or a
body part, or something you can’t
6likeYou find yourself muttering a
short phrase over and over again
a catechism. What is it?
quite explain. Describe it. Pull from the tower.
Pull from the tower.

9outside,
separating you from the creature 5 lights when the creature was
Despite the thick hull of the ship Something happened to the

you somehow know when near your hiding place. What was
it is near your section of the ship. it?
How? Pull from the tower.
Pull from the tower.

8hiding,
properly because you were 4 corridors between rooms on
You didn’t see the creature Down one of the long, straight

but you heard it. What did the ship, you follow gouges in the
it sound like? walls and floor left by the creature.
Pull from the tower. Describe them, and which part of
its anatomy you think left those
tracks behind.
Pull from the tower.

7don’t
through the ship’s comms. You 3 moves across the outside of the
The creature whispers to you Describe the way the creature

know how it does it. What do ship.

you hear before you kill the audio? Pull from the tower.
Pull from the tower.

2andToday you felt like giving up. You

couldn’t summon any energy,
your tasks weren’t completed.
Return any cards you haven’t yet
turned over to the deck and shuffle
it.
Pull from the tower.

21
 Take a moment.

Breathe.

22
What happened? Did you light the beacon? Did rescue come,
snatching you away from a cold lonely death?

Or did the creature take you? Did you stare into its maw as it
descended, one final victim to a nameless horror?

You tried to repair the engines. You had hope that it could be
done. Everything you knew about the situation you were in
told you it could be done.

That was a lie.

You have been telling a story during this game, but the story
began before you drew your first card. The rules in this
book are a story, and they were told to you by an unreliable
narrator - the human capacity for hope, and the desire to
survive against all odds.

There was never any hope of you repairing the ship. No matter
how many tasks you completed, the engines were never going
to fire again. The best you could do was to survive for long
enough for help to come, and even that was unlikely.

You were doomed from the start. And somewhere inside you
you knew this, even as you were desperately clinging on to
hope.

You may not have survived, but the log of your final days
lives on. What becomes of it now? Will it be found by a
salvage ship much like yours, to serve as a warning for those
intending to brave the cold depths of space? Did you pass it
on to your rescuers, a chronicle of what you went through?

Or is it lost forever, adrift in the black where nobody will

hear your words again?

When you close this book, put down this game, what will
become of all you have done here?

23
YOU ARE UNLIKELY TO BE
REMEMBERED
You are the last surviving crew member of the intergalactic
salvage ship The Wretched. Adrift between stars after an
engine failure, your ship was attacked by a hostile alien
lifeform. The crew are dead.

You thought you had won. You launched the creature out of
an airlock, and that should have meant safety.

It didn’t.

The Wretched is a solo journaling RPG played with a deck of

cards, a tumbling block tower, and a microphone.