Midnight Muscadines: A Solo Game that makes you Feel like a Player
When I first picked up this cute little book, I subconsciously placed it into the category of something like Stardew Valley, a cozy, mainly-solo game with no real stakes or danger, which is simply not my thing. (Seriously, you cast spells by eating magic jam?) However, when I skimmed the back cover, two phrases stood out to me: cozy-dark and solo+.
Let’s start with solo+. It’s clear this term implies a game that was designed with solo play in mind and group play as an afterthought. Given the size of the book in my hands, still arguably diminutive but absolutely massive compared to the more zine-like presentations of other solo games I’d encountered, I was intrigued.
Rightly so, it turned out. Midnight Muscadines is a veritable treasure trove of everything I love in a TTRPG: well-developed towns, factions, creatures, ten different playable species, worldbuilding tidbits scattered throughout, and an absolute wealth of random tables. I had toys to play with, and lots of them! Let’s just say I started salivating.
The book quickly caught me up to speed on the world of Nimm, where an ancient conflict between people and gods left half the world in perpetual day and half the world in perpetual, restless night. The PCs are Marmateers: brave souls that venture into the endless night to collect Midnight Muscadines, special grapes that allow their bearer to create jam with magical effects.
The other descriptor that caught my eye was cozy-dark. This was what made me look into this game further, rather than dismissing it as simply cozy with no stakes. And oh boy, let me tell you, this game has danger galore, if you know where to send your poor hapless PC.
More specifically, this game has a “cozy zone” and a “dark zone” in the forever-light and forever-night areas of the world, respectively. Obviously there can be overlap, but the game is designed so players can choose which style of gameplay they want to experience, based only on where their characters will be questing to next. You could spend a whole campaign in the darkness, in the light, or swap back and forth.
So of course I charged headfirst into the darkness. And I experienced for myself: there are some truly frightening creatures lurking in that well-stocked bestiary. And if you’re playing solo? You’re out there on your own.
Now to talk about the mechanics:
Midnight Muscadines uses a combination of playing cards and dice mechanics. Playing cards scream “traditional solo journaling game” to me, and in that sense I was hesitant about those mechanics, but I ended up loving the effect they had on the game. The main use of playing cards in Midnight Muscadines is as a sort of GM replacement/randomizer. Some tables have a straightforward 52 options, and whichever card you draw is what you find. Skill checks become more difficult the more black cards you draw before rolling. This game does not deprive the solo player of the satisfaction of rolling dice, however. Skill checks abound, along with a very cool “impact die” mechanic, which adds a die to your base stat roll, determined by how impactful your action is.
Most importantly, the back-and-forth of drawing cards and rolling dice made me feel like I was a player and a GM separately. I drew a Spade and said “sorry, it’s going to be harder for you to get that bat-dog to like you now, you make her nervous,” and then seconds later anxiously rolled the dice to see if the bat-dog did indeed like me. I think that was what I didn’t expect from a solo game: truly feeling like a player. Being able to explore, to be unsure how an NPC felt about me, to not even have full control over how difficult a skill check was? It was all so surprising and delightful.
The adventure module that I played was stellar as well (pun intended). Yes, this solo game comes with adventure modules, plural! Midnight Muscadines has great advice for playing solo in general, but also tells the reader how to approach the adventures solo. The book recommended I refrain from reading the module in its entirety, but simply read the introduction, familiarize myself with the key NPCs and locations, and then dive in. Said introduction, NPCs, play instructions and locations were all on the first few pages: very easy to skim while still leaving the bulk of the module a mystery. The module Starfall on Tyrian Peak has an excellently enticing location map that shows a picture of each place, but to learn what’s actually there, you must turn more pages (read: actually go there).
I was a bit apprehensive about how the module was going to play out, seeing as I lacked the insider knowledge to orchestrate it myself. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. There were regular story events and encounters that were triggered by the PC(s) interacting at and traveling between locations. NPCs came and went, factions fought each other, stars fell from the sky, and I couldn’t help but be swept up in it all.
Overall, this game changed my perspective on solo play. As a “forever GM” type, it was refreshing to be in the dark (pun intended) about what happened next, and yet still tailor the game to what I wanted to experience. The seamless mechanics only enhanced this effect. But the thing that will stick with me most about Midnight Muscadines is the sheer amount of creativity and dedication to making the world feel vast and alive, and experiencing it with all the fear and wonder of a player. I can't wait to go back.