I’ve been silently aware of the solo tabletop journaling rpg as a concept for a few years now. I think my first exposure to the concept was back in 2021 when I bought a massive bundle that had some in it, and I thought “oh that’s a neat idea!” and then never thought much of it again after that. After all, I was too busy for journaling much at that time and while it seemed neat, it just didn’t interest me that much, nor did I have access to any of my dice or notebooks.

Flash forward to this year - they introduce communities on tumblr, and one late night a few weeks ago, I happen upon a community called cozy gaming friends and decide to join for the heck of it. I love cozy games, and I’m always trying to find more games in that vein, so I figured heck it, I’ll just lurk and see what stuff everyone is talking about.

Lo and behold my surprise when I spot an entry from someone calling themselves starlightcornergames talking about a new solo ttrpg they have just released called BUNNUSHKA, paired with this image of an adorable bunny (purportedly from pinterest).

You can’t beat a price like free, so of course I went ahead and downloaded it and read over it. Seems cute, but I’ve never played one of these so I’m nervous, but one night a few weeks ago (at this point nearly a month ago ) I was bored enough and wanted to journal, but I wasn’t really sure what to write about. Suddenly, I remember this exists so I’m like “heck it, let’s give it a go.” and it ended up being REALLY FUN!

I used to do theater when I was in school, and this experience kind of reminded me of doing theater, except I got to kind of “create” the character of Bunnushka. The stuff you’re given is pretty loose, so you can basically make her however you want to. I was really inspired by Beatrix Potter books, which my mom used to read to me as a child, and just kind of let myself go from there.

The way it works is, basically you turn to which season it is currently (though you could just choose a season you enjoy to write about I suppose). There’s prompts for each season, and you can write about all of them or just one, whichever suits you. I planned on only doing one, but ended up writing all three when I played my first time. There’s also prompts to write about “Special Moments,” which you roll a d20 and choose from 2 different tables. I didn’t like the prompt I got for the first, so I ended up going with the second one. I also decided to write a poem, which is an additional prompt. There are also optional add-ons you can do, like writing a letter or a book review or recipe in Bunnushka’s voice.

It ended up not being my longest entry, but it was fun to experiment with, and I can absolutely see myself turning back to this in the future when I don’t have anything specific to write about but feel the urge to do so. The poem prompts are really cute and intriguing, and I haven’t written poetry since I was probably 14 or so, so that was fun to dip my toes back into.

So, if you enjoy journaling but don’t really know what to write about, or if you’re a person who misses tabletop gaming but are in-between games or just don’t have anyone to play with, I recommend giving solo ttrpgs a try! This was a cute and fun experience, and since I already enjoy this kind of cute, cozy, “country life” vibe (looks over at my stardew valley shrine), I felt like it was a great experience for me personally.

I hope you’re all doing well and eating enough, getting enough rest, and drinking plenty of water! This heat is so outrageous, and it’s only the start of summer,,, please stay safe!

Until next time~!