Hoo?

Hoo? is a browser-playable solo journaling tarot RPG based on Anamnesis. It was created for the Anamnesis Jam.

As you progress through the four main chapters of Hoo?, you will use the imagery and descriptions of the tarot deck to answer questions about your character to build up a story of your past. Finally, in the fifth chapter, you will choose a card from the Major Arcana to represent your character's present and complete your story.

Art

This game contains quite a few original works of art including a full 78 card tarot deck: the Hoo? Deck with full text descriptions of the cards, traditional meanings and amusing modern meanings.

You can read more about the creation of the deck on my website:

http://ratfactor.com/hoo/deck

Create your story!

A printable HTML summary at the end of the game gives you the complete transcript of your answers divided into chapters appropriate for printing and pinning on your fridge at home.

In addition to being fun for its own sake, the story you create could also be the back-story for a character in a table-top RPG game or any kind of fiction story. (Wow, now you can get to that novel you've always been meaning to write!)

A note on save/resume

Though the idea is to play straight through, Hoo? attempts to save and resume at any point to survive a browser refresh or even a re-visit days later. The game always resumes at the start of a "chapter".

(It may appear that you need to draw some prompt inspiration cards again, but do not be alarmed. The original prompt question and your answer will re-appear for editing once you reach the text entry area.)

Colophon

All artwork was drawn in Krita with a decade-old Wacom Intuos drawing tablet. The art took about two months to create. The game itself took several weeks.

This game was written in Vim from a blank file using nothing but HTML and JavaScript (no frameworks or libraries). It ended up a bit of a rat's nest as the deadline loomed and there are certainly some things I would do differently if I were to start it again. Feel free to view the source (a single index.html file) to see how it's made. Save/resume uses the browser's localStorage.

In addition to the entire concept, the question prompts for the minor arcana chapters were taken (and then tweaked) from the original Anamnesis (CC BY 4.0).