Soulmates: The Hands of Fate

In Soulmates: The Hands of Fate, you meet your soulmate: the person you were meant to fall in love with. Through tarot and playing cards, you will get to know them, and they will get to know you. While fate has determined this is the person who will complete you, you decide what that means - or if you want to reject that entirely.

This pen-and-paper journaling game asks the question: How do we interact with fate? What do we do when we're assigned someone to love?

Excerpt from the book: Safety & Themes

"This game may involve a lot of writing, so remember to take regular breaks! You can write as much or as little as you desire when the game asks you to record things.

Soulmates: The Hands of Fate may involve forces beyond your control trying to exert their own will over you, such as trying to “bind” you to a person whom you may not want to be bound to. While this is a metaphysical sort of binding, it can be uncomfortably similar thematically to many real world traumas.

It is intended as a safe space to confront social forces like compulsory heterosexuality, compulsory sexuality, compulsory alloromanticism, and other social pressures involving relationships. It might also confront the player with feelings of rejection and may trigger rejection sensitive dysphoria. It is a space to explore feelings of possessiveness and ownership of others, both potentially as bearer or target of those feelings. Your playthrough(s) also might not reflect those possibilities. You might instead have a soulmate that's as eager to build a life with you as you are with them.

Although you and your soulmate were made for eachother, free will does not always force itself into a mold."

If you play the game, I'd love to hear about your soulmate and anything you might have learned about yourself! You can leave a comment below or email me at buybybi@gmail.com.

After you Pay What You Want, you will get access to the following four files:

• The main book in .pdf and .txt format
• A quick reference guide in .pdf and .txt format

This game requires the following materials to play:

•  A tarot deck
• A playing card deck

If you do not have a tarot deck, this online generator will suffice (although you will have to keep note of any duplicates!): https://perchance.org/tarot-cards.

Designed while jamming to some of these songs:

1. Casina - Run River North
2. Rearview - Run River North
3. Western Medicine - HOAX
4. I Don't Know Me Like You Do - Low Hum
5. Heteronormative Horseshit Blues - Shilpa Ray
6. The Red String - Alyssa Meara
7. I Don't Want Love - The Antlers
8. One Red Thread - Blind Pilot
9. Soulkeeper - Jasper Bones
10. Don't Wanna Love You - THE ELOVATORS