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| Do I run with the loot from this ship or risk dying as it falls apart? |
One Breath Left is a procedurally generated solo journaling sci-fi horror game which I bought on a whim when I ordered the second edition of Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City from Exalted Funeral. Later I realised that the publisher was UK based and I could have picked it up direct from them.
The game riffs on tropes you’ve seen before, but is a fun, gentle game. I decided to try it one evening while away with work in a Premier Inn.
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| Ready to play |
It comes in a small box secured with a red card band, and inside there are three books, a meeple, and several sets of cards. The cards represent corridors, standard rooms, special rooms and items. When they are shuffled, they drive the procedural element. The components are of nice quality; not top end but more than good enough.
You start by setting the game up and choosing an ID card for your character. There are 5 to choose from. I went for ‘The Analyst’, although there are other options (‘The Applicant’ - a student, ‘The Nomad’, ‘The Patient’ and ‘The Radical’). Each are defined by their lung capacity (how quickly they consume their air supply), a unique skill and their desires which can be achieved with cash or favours. There’s also an interview log - a set of prompts to build your character’s background.
My Analyst - who I’m going to call Orva Ping - is dispassionate, careful and bureaucratic; a cog in the machine. They work for the Nosmok Metals Corporation, in the structural reclamation department where they are responsible for the survey of salvaged vessels before they’re broken up. They report to Yuri Nosmok, a family member and the Operations Director, who has taken a shine to Orva.
Orva lives the good life - or would if they weren’t glued to their desk. They have a luxury space condo with a full holographic reality (TM) fit out including suspensor fields. It’s a nice neighbourhood on the orbital, clean and safe with lots of similar corporate blocks nearby, but they never really see this as time at home is rare. Yuri is concerned, so told Orva to get a better life/work balance and assigned them a pet allowance. However, they spent the allowance on whisky and sleep suppressants. And now Audit want to come and check on the pet’s health! Orva needs to get a pet, which will cost them between 5 and 7 cash, or they’ll be fired!
Fortunately, they realise that a new ship has been brought in, and perhaps some unlicensed asset acquisition is in order…
There are several contracts you can attempt to fulfil, all of which offer different payouts. The most simple is the unlicensed asset acquisition mentioned above. You explore and investigate rooms to find loot and then try to haul it out. Alternatively, you can explore a ship for incriminating footage, carry out an insurance verification, try and build evidence that the ship’s loss was the fault of a crew member, or rescue a ship from a renegade AI. Each contract has rules to modify the set up, additional rules (if needed) and details on payouts and prompts to roleplay out your failure should you escape but fail to complete the contract.
There are five manifests - the different vessels involved; the Breached (a failing vessel breaking up in orbit); the Infected (a corporate science vessel where things have gone horribly wrong); the Raided (an abandoned military vessel which is likely to attract the interest of raiders and scavengers); the Shifted (a ship whose experimental temporal shift drive has made reality unstable); and the Stalked (a long range merchant that has encountered an alien horror). I’m sure you’re mentally mapping films against each of this. Each manifest describes any set up changes, special rules and then Peril Events which happen as your character hits certain levels of oxygen use.
So we have a game with five characters, five contracts and five ships so you can mix up the mission nicely.
Orva heads off the Drikleen store on their way to visit the vessel, because they need to have their super-sharp ironed jumpsuits with shiny press-studs ready for the meeting with audit the next day. That done, they get a space suit and take a runabout out to the wreck…
The game plays quite simply; you start in the airlock, and open doors to find rooms and choose to enter them. But opening a door costs a point of oxygen. And entering a room costs a point of oxygen…
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| Tracking progress and also some items I’ve found. |
I entered the airlock and cycled it, revealing a library mess area beyond; lots of potential information, but very little opportunity to get me cash. Opening the other doors from the library revealed a tool locker areas, and off to the side, a scanning room with screens show images from around the ship. The tool locker looked more of a certainty and I started to ransack it. Surprisingly, I found an incriminating holo-recording of my supervisor which proved they’d been involved in the decision which had led to the ship foundering. Interesting, I suspect I can use that later on. I also found a condenser valve which made it easier to move quickly, and some circuits I could sell for cash (1 loot). I followed the room around and discovered a laboratory; as I opened the hatch in, the ship shook. Looking at the feed from my runabout, I could see a large section of the ship had broken loose, perhaps the hold (which meant I was losing opportunities to loot). Fortunately, the lab was well stocked; I pocketed lots of scientific kit and some interesting looking test reports, and then decided that it was time to get out of here. Turning round, the weight of the material that I was carrying made my oxygen consumption rise. As I reached the library, there was another horrifying screech of metal failing and the tool locker roof twisted in and collapsed. Had I stayed there, I would have been trapped. I quickly exited the ship and headed off to meet a contact that I knew to offload the kit I’d rescued.
Orva retrieved three loot and a couple of clues to the ship’s fate (which didn’t have any interest). There was also the matter of the incriminating evidence. As the loot generated 9 cash, it was used to get a small pet, some nicer furniture and some more fashionable workwear. The incriminating recording was handed over to Yuri, in return for a promotion for the discretion shown.
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