I write a lot about games, these days.
English Eerie is a single player roleplaying game written by Scott Malthouse.
Described as a Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player, that’s what it does, and it does it quite nicely – using narrative cues to help the player tell a ghostly story in the form of a diary or journal.

Inspired by the works of M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, English Eerie is a writing game – the player is required to build a story, and write it down, based on a set of details presented in a “scenario”, plus random factors represented by playing cards and a die.
The whole system is simple and easy to use, and presented in a very nice way…

The game is designed to be played over one or a series of dark evenings by the flicker of candlelight. The player, you, will need a journal, a pen, a ten-sided die (d10), a set of tokens in two colours (beads etc) and a deck of playing cards.

The roleplaying part comes, of course, from the fact that the journal is written in the first person, by a character that the player is asked to portray.

What I find interesting, apart from the theme and atmosphere of the game, is the idea of a game based on writing. I like it, I like it a lot.
Complete with a sinister set of scenarios, English Eerie is both a strange game, a curious way to spend a few evenings, and a great writing exercise.

The game is published by Trollish Delver Games, and is available as a Pay What You Like game on DrivethruRPG.