You Will Die In This Place (development preview)
A downloadable game
You Will Die In This Place is a nihilistic survival-horror tabletop dungeon crawl RPG about exile, decay, and the inevitable failure of the self. Set in the crumbling Vaulted Kingdom and the endless Abyssal Labyrinth beyond, players take on the role of exiles struggling to survive. The goal is not to save the world or vanquish some great evil, but instead to find some kind of purpose, meaning or peace of mind before death arrives.
The game is framed as the reconstruction of a lost and unfinished indie game, pieced together from fragments of notes, design documents, and personal reflections. It is a story about creativity, communication, identity and coming to terms with loss.
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Update: This preview now includes the first 200 pages, which cover the basic premise, how to play and all five of the core game classes, each with unique mechanics and character sheets. The update now includes the bestiary and a large section of the megadungeon. The full version will come in at approximately 250 pages and include a bestiary, maps, megadugeon crawl and a conclusion to the metanarrative.
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I'm also developing a range of 3d printable miniatures which could optionally be used with the game for those who like minis.
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Rules, writing & layout:
Elizabeth Little
Proof reading:
Vanessa Chainey
Artwork & illustration:
Shimhaq
Daniel Vega
Arief Rachmad
Waclaw Traier
Evgen Maloshenkov
Emmy Wahlbäck
Elizabeth Little
Public domain artwork from the National Gallery of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art used under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).
Download
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Development log
- Announcement - Selected for Gamefound RPG Party3 days ago
- Translating Narrative Themes Into Mechanics - Character Classes (part 1)30 days ago
- Major Update - New Preview Available34 days ago
- The Process of Building Dungeons35 days ago
- The Cost of Art (And Maximising Value)38 days ago
- The Transient Nature of Ideas39 days ago
- The Process of Creating Miniatures40 days ago
Comments
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Simply amazing. This game has cracked problems most people in the medium don't even know exist yet. I hope it becomes as influential as it deserves.
Thanks! I just stubbornly made the thing that I wanted to make without any concern for what conventions would dictate, except in those moments where I felt compelled to criticise those conventions. I'm already a bit shocked by the incredibly kind comments it has received from yourself and others. I don't think I ever really expected to be able to get people to understand it or even look at it. I still have no real idea of how to really explain what it actually is to people.
This is incredible work. Holy shit.
Thanks. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the sudden surge of positive feedback. I'm the kind of person who mostly stays out of online discourse and I shut myself away while I'm writing, so there were a lot of times while creating this where I wondered whether the quality of my prose was sufficient to tell the story I wanted to tell, or whether anyone would even invest the time to understand it.
I saw a House of Leaves reference and knew I was in for a treat. Absolutely stellar work!
I wasn't sure if it was too on the nose, but I was too happy cackling to myself when Samantha is going all 'I usually put my inspirations here, but I don't actually know what inspired this' as the text layout directly references House of Leaves in a way that's hopefully unmistakable to anyone who's read it.
I am perhaps very dumb as it took me until pg 147 to finally Get It, at which point I had to read back through everything. Holy COW!
This is a fantastic text, chilling me like no horror TTRPG could ever manage. Not just playable, visually beautiful, and conceptually brilliant, it is also wonderfully innovative, both mechanically and to the entire artform. I should also note a particularly amazing job on the layout, what a treat!
Would this ever be available in print? I would love to have it sit unused (but quite beloved) on my shelf. Anyway, super excited to see the full release.
Thank you so much! Regarding physical copies, it recently got selected as one of the winners for Gamefound's 2025 RPG Party, so there will be a Gamefound campaign in August to crowdfund a physical print run.
OH MY CANTALOUPE! Fantastic news (and also congratulations!). Having run a campaign on Gamefound before to mixed results, I am very excited to see how the Gamefound RPG Party works out. You Will Back In This Tier!
Thanks. Yeah, my brief brushes with crowdfunding in general have been a very mixed bag and this is such a niche thing, but we'll see. I really hate marketing and the unfortunate necessity of it when it comes to putting art in front of people.
I'm also curious, if you don't mind me asking, what it was about page 147 that made it click for you? I consider it to be an important page, personally, but it's also relatively mundane compared to some of the other parts to the point that I thought people might gloss over it.
Would be happy to lend you some Gamefound-specific tip, it can be a little hard to navigate. Shoot me an email.
Well, now I have to ask why do you consider page 147 to be important? Because I don't think it is mundane at all, the importance feels obvious, to me. As for why it was the thing that finally made it click for me- i mean, its just Samantha's biggest L ever! She replaced an Obviously impactful moment with a generic enemy. But its the last line that seals the deal, where she says "I suppose you could still play the original version if you wanted to instead." Lethal amounts of designer insecurity stabbed my heart with the pain of every generic shitty ass 3.5E dungeon I'd ever made. And yet... when you combine it with the text right below it, this amateur, cowardly sentence becomes the hardest thing ever. That is when I realized what was going on, and I loved it.
Also re-reading now, I just got an extra chuckle out of noticing that since this is the only time where the Fallen Paladin enemy appears, and they appear alone, it means their Oath of Burning Vengeance ability is TOTALLY WORTHLESS! Samantha would be so ashamed but Charlotte would love it. God this books kicks ass.
I'll hit you up about Gamefound later! Regarding page 147, you're absolutely right in it being Samantha's biggest L and all of the little details you picked out. The part that makes it important to me is its connection to page 8.
This was a very engaging read! I find myself drawn to run it, in a way that inspires a curiosity to see how players engage with it. Excited to see the full version when it releases!
Is there a section where we can see the fonts used? Unsure if I missed it in the text itself.
Thanks! I was kind of hoping that eventually someone might look into the fonts.
Samantha voice - Courier New, regular - This was a nod to House of Leaves, where Courier, meaning messenger, is Johnny Traunt's font.
Charlotte voice - BookmanJFPro, roman - 'Bookman' is an archaic term for someone with a love of books and reading.
Eve Conran voice - New Spirit, medium - This was a bit of a pun as she occasionally haunts the text. It's also difficult to distinguish from Bookman at first glance.
KC, the editor - Apparat, regular - This is a bit more tenuous, as the word evokes the machinery of the state, but they effectively play the role of the faceless common consensus prodding Samantha towards convention.
Elizabeth (hey, that's me!) - BookmanJFPro, roman - Reused font? Probably just a coincidence. Maybe the author got lazy.
Main rules text - Komet, regular - I just like it as a fairly classical looking sans-serif.
Main subheading text - OptimusPrincepsSemiBold, regular - It's the closest thing you can readily get to the Dark Souls 'You Died' font, so that doesn't really need further explanation.
Section heading text - GothicI, regular - It's just a fairly readable gothic font that's unusually frail in way which made it appealing.
Class fonts: (I won't comment on these as they were mostly just chosen for aesthetic reasons)
Muzeiiyd Mercenary - Rotunda Veneta, regular
Zirbari Headhunter - Bradley DJR, regular
Corpse Engineer - Chiller, regular
Blight Channeler - SchwarzKopf, new
Bermail Knight - BC Rebecca, grim
There are other fonts in this place, but those are all of the main ones.
such great artwork!
Thanks! I can only take credit for the minis a few of the internal pieces. I was lucky enough to find some really talented artists to bring my vision to life.