Galatea
A downloadable game
Your creator is a brilliant artist - celebrated, lonely, tormented - who has never been satisfied with his own creations. Until now. His magnum opus, his crowning masterpiece, the pinnacle of his art - is you. And yesterday you came to life.
You must remain perfect for him - or else.
Galatea: Paragon Edition is now available! A revamped layout, updated prompts, and stunning new art await in this new 36-page A5 zine.
Purchase print copies from:
Galatea is a solo journaling RPG based on the Wretched & Alone SRD, but takes significant departures from other games of the genre. Awaken in the story of a sentient masterpiece striving to live up to your creator's expectations. Choose how to build up your confidence and self-knowledge before you start undermining your own foundations. Explore the wider world with tarot cards or standard playing cards, with different rulesets for a customizable experience. Try to retain the favor of your creator. And leave behind a legacy for the next creation to follow you - or disappear without a trace...
- A tumbling block tower (e.g. Jenga tower), to represent your self-knowledge
- A deck of tarot cards or standard playing cards (with jokers), to represent the unknown world
- Gameplay with tarot cards will focus slightly more on exploring your own psychology
- Gameplay with playing cards will focus slightly more on how far you think you can trust others
- Somewhere to record your story
- A few hours of your mortal life
Galatea is a game about bearing the weight of unrealistic expectations. It contains themes of narcissism, controlling behavior, co-dependence, helplessness, despair, self-mutilation and suicide. If you are sensitive to these themes, please look after your mental health and make sure you have someone trustworthy to talk to, and stop playing if you feel overwhelmed.
Galatea pulled out of me a wondrous creative force, the likes of which I haven’t felt in years... Galatea is an absolute masterpiece of self-exploration, and naming the dichotomy between self and the experiences we have outside of ourselves.
Galatea is a brilliant combination of heartfelt journaling and knuckle-popping tension. Navigating the card prompts, pulling from the tower, each mechanic fits together like another piece on a plummeting roller-coaster track. You will fall in love, and then recoil in horror. And then you'll be excited to do it all again and see what you missed last time.
The crushing expectations of others and how you personify the failure of those hopes is a powerful vehicle for self exploration in Galatea. You will disappoint them, you’re playing to find out how. Embrace your downfall, because learning how it comes is joyous.
Galatea uses Wretched & Alone better than The Wretched did.
- Black Dragon Dungeon Company
Playthroughs (beware spoilers!):
If you enjoy Galatea, consider checking out these games as well:
- Paramour by Wren Goderie is another Wretched & Alone game, featuring a paranormal and parasocial romance with a dream lover, with themes of loneliness, helplessness, and intimacy.
- Masterpiece by Stephen Kohler is a solo journaling game, featuring a custom-built card engine, where you play as a frustrated creator trying to bring your greatest work to life.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $12 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Community Copies
Support this game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copy
If you want to play Galatea but can't afford to purchase it, feel free to take a community copy! All I ask is that you follow the instructions on page 7: Don't read the entire PDF before you play.
Personalized Physical Copy
The first print run of Galatea included copies that were, let us say, not perfect.
I'm selling these seconds as the Imperfect Edition: records from failed masterpieces, personalized with handwritten notes and ink splatters. Please note that I'm selling these at a higher price than the standard retail price will be! Since I'm selecting, personalizing, and shipping each of these myself, the cost to me in time and postage is rolled into the total here. (Yes, the base price includes the cost of shipping worldwide!)
Please indicate how bad you want your imperfections to be (my stock ranges from "very slight" to "so crooked that there's printed whitespace", as seen above), the name you'd like the notes inside the book to be made out to, and your full shipping address (including the name, which I will not assume is the same as the personalization name).
Development log
- Galatea: Paragon Edition is here!Mar 12, 2024
- 15 March 2023 - v1.01Mar 16, 2023
Comments
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I am interested in playing this, but I have shaky hands so I’m not sure I’d be able to do because of the use of the jenga tower. Is there any chance someone has proposed an alternative?
Hi there! There isn’t an official alternative printed in the game since so many aspects of the game involve interacting with the physical tower in a way that dice pools and other typical Wretched & Alone tower-alternatives can’t model (for example, choosing how many blocks to build up the tower with in each layer, and inserting tarot cards into the tower between layers). That said, here are some alternatives I can recommend you:
The tower falling is only one out of four potential ending conditions, and most playtest games ended before the tower fell. You’ll still have interesting choices to make and multiple paths towards different game-end conditions if you remove the tower from gameplay.
I played it through! I am thinking about ways to make it a two player game or how to handle the rules of there's two players. I wish to share that experience with someone else, the next time I pick this up!
Or is there already a great addition out there I simply have overlooked?
I loved it. Not reading after page 7 is strongly encouraged. Otherwise it might compromise your play experience!
I’m thrilled you enjoyed your playthrough! I haven’t given any thought to making Galatea a multiplayer experience - if you devise a way to play it with two players, please let me know how it goes!
Your statement at 20:11 is indeed a sizzling hot take, haha! Thank you so much for covering Galatea and for your lavish praise!
Galatea is a Wretched and Alone game retelling the story of Pygmalion, the man who created a statue of the perfect woman, who came to life. You can choose the type of art and take the role of the masterpiece but you must remain perfect.
This game is different from most W&A games as it has you build the tower as well as removing pieces. You start out with only 9 tiers of blocks and slowly add blocks (and sometimes cards) to the tower.
There are a variety of different ways you can end the game. There’s the standard tower fall and 4 kings, but you also lose by getting 4 aces, or by giving enough secrets to the queen cards. Galatea doesn't have a “”win”” condition like some other W&A games and doesn't use tokens.
I told the story of a painting created in the image of the painter’s dead brother, meant to be a complete replication of him, but the painting has other desires and wishes. You can find it here!
Thank you so much for playing! I loved the subtlety of the delicate overtones you brought to your playthrough.
I posted my playthrough of Galatea on YouTube! I really like that this ruleset takes such a departure from other W&A games with multiple ways to find an ending. It's interesting and fresh while still capturing the essence of the system!
The prompts helped me pull details out of my world and learn about my character in the process. I thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough, and see myself going through Galatea again.
Thank you so much for your fantastic stream and your beautifully heartbreaking playthrough! It was such a mindblowing experience to watch!
I'm so excited to give this ago in the future. What's your preferred way folks play? I'll probably go for tarot cards since they're an option, but which way do you think best captures what you intend the game to do?
They lead to different game experiences - the tarot gameplay is a little more introspective and full of weighty questions, and the playing card experience is a little more about figuring how far you can trust people - so the preferred way is whichever one of those sounds more fun! Personally I would play the tarot card version.