Carved by the Garden

You love the woods.
You fear the woods.
You can't stay away from the woods.

Document your character’s last days in the nearby haunted woods in Carved by the Garden, a single-player structured journaling game. Using a standard deck of playing cards, you’ll follow prompts that reveal the horrors waiting for you among the trees.

You’ll roll dice, pull blocks from a tumbling tower, and write about your experiences in character.

With 52 prompts, 6 major and 4 minor endings, and 7 thought-starting character archetypes, each playthrough is unique!

Carved by the Garden is a solo journaling game inspired by folk horror stories like The VVitch, The Ritual, Midsommar, and those found in Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror Anthology. Featuring a sprawling forest as a backdrop, Carved by the Garden blends self-reflecting questions with unsettling and often bloody discoveries.

What you need to play

• A standard deck of cards with the jokers
• A 6-sided die
• 8 small pieces of nature to act as tokens (leaves, pebbles, seeds, thorns, petals, etc.)
• A tumbling block tower (or one of the listed alternatives)
• Something to write in, such as a notebook or word processor

Writing, design, layout, art: Cassi Mothwin
Assistant developer: Joshua Peters
Editors: Cylinda Parga and Erin Bowen

A5 saddle-stitched zine, 44 B&W pages, color cover.