By Dale & Kristiina

Welcome to Cozy Critters Island! While we will host a live session of this roleplaying game on Sunday, August 24 at 12:30 PM CDT / 5:30 PM UTC, we want campers to be able to have fun with this game on their own time and with their own friends too. So this blog post will provide you with everything you need for both of those cases.

SUPPLIES

  • For the live game: access to Discord, a microphone, a d12 or your favorite dice rolling app.
  • If playing on your own time: a printer OR a digital whiteboard or editing software if you want to use our base map and character sheets, paper, writing and drawing supplies, a d12 or your favorite dice rolling app.

INSTRUCTIONS

Cozy Critters Island is our adaptation of the TTRPG “Cos’île Été” by Gaël Sacré , itself inspired by Animal Crossing and Jamila R. Nedjadi’s Cozy Town. This is a collaborative game, with no set goal, no winning or losing, and simple rules. You will create an island and the quirky animals that inhabit it, then bring it to life through various situations and events. Since there’s no set goal, it can last as long as you want; it can be played in one sitting or over a lot of short sessions, by a single player or as many as you like.

The drive containing all the necessary files is here!

It contains:

  • a map
  • link to a character creation Picrew
  • blank character sheets
  • several NPC character sheets
  • Geographical features table
  • Buildings table
  • NPC creation table
  • Character actions table
  • Events table.

These will of course be accessible for the live session as well.

 

Creating the island

Kristiina drew a lovely map for the live session, that you can download from the link above. You can also create your own, in which case you’ll need to add some geographical features. Either pick and choose from the Geographical features table, let a d12 decide for you, or invent your own. We recommend one or two geographical features for each player, depending on how many players there are (if playing solo, aim for five or six). Add them to the map.

Once you have the geography down, repeat the process with Buildings, adding them to the map as well. Don’t stress over which feature or building is more important to include: you will be able to add more later. We recommend one or two buildings for each player, three or four for a solo player.

Once your island is nice and cozy, don’t forget to name it!

Populating the island

Now, this island needs villagers! For our live session, we’ve created several NPCs; feel free to reuse them, or to make your own. We’ve made tables you can roll on for this as well, but of course feel free to do your own stuff. We recommend three starting NPCs; you will be able to add more later. Mark where they live on the map.

Next, create your own character, using the blank character sheets. Kristiina has designed a helpful Picrew you can use (found in the drive linked above or on Discord), but you are not forced to use it; you can be any animal, even a fictional or mythical one. In this case, feel free to draw them yourself, use photos… There are no rules for character creation, but you can refer to the NPC creation table if you want. Think of where on the island you want your character to live and mark the spot on the map. If you don’t have many players (or play alone), you can create multiple characters.

Playing with the island

Now it’s time to make this place come alive! During their turn, a player can either perform an Action (usually but not always something their character will do) or organize an Event. Whichever you choose, roll a dice on the corresponding table, or pick if you don’t trust randomness. While the player whose turn it is has the last word, others are encouraged to add things, especially when it comes to Events, since those can involve the whole island. Don’t forget to involve the NPCs too! The prompts are intentionally vague so you can let your imagination go wild, though we recommend keeping it fun and lighthearted.

The NPCs are not controlled by a specific person. When a player decides to involve an NPC in an Action or an Event, they will likely be the one to decide what that NPC does, but other players can give ideas as well.

Over the course of the game, your island will change, story lines will emerge, running jokes will appear and be ground into dust. Like we mentioned at the beginning, this game has no set end: stop whenever you want, and don’t hesitate to shake things up and do your own thing!

Campers who want to join in on the fun, but not actively play, can also use the Picrew and/or fill a character sheet and post it in the dedicated thread. They can even have those characters be NPCs for the live session, either on the island proper or as “backup” for when we’ll need visitors. Simply mention it on your character sheet!

Live session specifics

During the live session, the communal map will be hosted on scribbletogether.com, a free whiteboard. You will not need to create an account or pay anything; the specific link and access code will be provided in the Discord thread. This likely means we won’t be able to draw like we would on a physical map; we’ll mostly use Xs to mark spots as needed.

We also want to make this session open for campers to watch even if they don’t want to play. This does put more pressure on both the players and the activity leaders, so we trust everyone to be kind and accepting, and will put safety measures in place so that everyone can have fun. I will also try to take notes during the session so that I can later provide everyone with our island’s “journal”. This is always a fun souvenir to have.

Do show us your characters and islands in the Camp Discord!