Joyful Friday, adventurer!

For me, it is, because...

I'm on vacation!

So I'm doing what I love most: discovering new places.

The excitement of looking at a map, planning the route, and the satisfaction of arriving where you set out to go and finding unexpected treasures.

It's wonderful.

What if I told you there's a video game that represents this perfectly?

And that you can also apply its secrets to your role-playing games!

Plants and maps

I don't know if you're familiar with Strange Horticulture.

But if you like investigation games and gothic settings, you have to try it.

You are an herbalist that sells plants that can be used for all kinds of remedies and spells.

But it's not enough to just know the plants and their properties.

You also have to know where to find them.

This is where the game shines with puzzles that seem simple but are actually very entertaining.

Navigating the map

The way it works is simple.

You have a map divided into grids.

When you click on a grid, your character travels to it and tells you if they have found anything useful.

So far, so simple, right?

The fun part is figuring out which squares are of interest.

This is done through riddles that the game sends you every day.

“North of Hawkshead, East of Lowick, South of Crinkle Crags, and West of Rusland.”

(This riddle is real. If you figure out the square, reply to this email!)

This one is easy. You look for those four places on the map and find the square that meets all four conditions. Great.

But the genius of this game lies in the variety of puzzles. I'm not going to list them all here because we'd be here forever, but I'll tell you how my two favourite puzzles work.

The map on the table

To do this, of course, the first thing you need to do is print out a large map.

An A3 size will do, but if you have an A2, even better.

Once you have printed out the map, you can use the following tricks to give your characters clues.

If your map is hexagonal, you can surely adapt it.

The mysterious silhouette

As you can see here, it's a card with a cut-out silhouette and a cross.

The solution is to find the edge of the land that matches the “torn” edge of the card and align the card with it. The X is on a square where something special is located.

This is an easy one to do.

Trace the edge of the map onto a piece of paper and then cut it out with scissors.

Watching your players pore over the map and the card is delightful.

Secret code

One day, you receive a letter that says “Endmoor, Raven, Spider.”

Endmoor is one of the towns in the game, on square L29. Looking at the wheel in the image... Can you figure out how to solve the puzzle?

That's right. You place the wheel with square L29 in the center and see which square the Raven points to.

Now you place the wheel on that square and see where the Spider points. There's the treasure!

I can think of an adventure in which the characters receive a series of words that mean nothing to them.

Investigating strange events in the village, they find that artifact and... bam! Suddenly everything makes sense.

Videogames and TTRPGs

As I mentioned last week, I attended the BCN Game Fest.

Next week I'll let you know how it went (although I can tell you now that it was great).

Partly because it's the first event where I've borught a new idea...

Dice sets inspired by video games!

I think after what I've told you, the inspiration is obvious, right?

What's the last game you played? How would you make a dice for that game?

Bountiful quests and successful rolls!

🦉 Irene the Wizard

🦃 Saul the Bard

P.S: Do you know any other tricks for making riddles with maps? I'd love to hear them!