READ & REVIEWED: Lighthouse at the End of the World

by Kyle Tam

In the infinite darkness of the endless water, when the waves run deep with the bones of the fallen, there is no salvation for the wanderer save the lighthouse’s beacon. Ghosts and ships alike as moths to a flame. And you are the keeper who must help others find their way home.

Lest you, too, shall be lost to sea.

Overview

Lighthouse at the End of the World is a solo game by Ken Lowery which tasks players with overseeing the titular lighthouse. You are both the guide “so the world’s commerce doesn’t dash against the craggy shore” and guardian of this watchtower, tasked with putting the spirits of wandering dead sailors to rest. The pace of the game requires you to draw cards from a deck, document what happens to your player as a result of the events denoted by each card, pull blocks from a tumbling tower and, should the tower collapse, deal with the fallout. Success means leading the restless undead to their final destination and ending your tenure in peace - failure means joining their number.

It is a game that, by design, feels more lonely and deals more with the aftermath of loneliness than most play experiences. Players are required to put themselves into a mindset where they are isolated from most other living human beings through their own choices, dealing only with distant ships, the nearby penal company, and the wanderings of ghosts. You will find yourself contemplating a fictional life as well as the shadows and corners of your own. But if you are looking for a rewarding tabletop experience that rewards steeping yourself in loneliness, then Lighthouse At The End of the World may scratch your nautical itch.

Vibe and Theme

Lighthouse at the End of the World is notably a game of isolation and hauntings. You are surrounded by naught but ships, spirits, and the sea, and must keep your wits about you if you wish to survive. But beyond being a game only of survival, this is also a game that deals with the prison of the self. The ways in which solitary humans stave off loneliness.

It is easy to see how the idea of isolation comes through. The plentiful white space punctuated by images of compasses and anchors and prompts framed with scratched pen remind you of the lighthouse that is your cage. You are constantly reminded of your keepsakes, your letters, your recollections, with only the faintest reminders that other people still exist in the outside world. It is entirely possible that you are writing letters not to some loved one or superior but merely to yourself, which only compounds on the staggering loneliness the game is steeped in. 

The hauntings are less expressed throughout the illustration and layout behind Sally Cantirino’s striking cover, which means that at a cursory glance the game might feel more obsessed with ships than spirits. But the meat of the game is in the subtleties of prose by which Lowery introduces ghosts into being, catching players off guard in subtle mentions. The 8 of Spades where a barely sentient ghost repeats the echoes of its life, or ship manifests which contain the 10 ghosts that plague your solitary watch.

The prompts are split into four categories: Hearts (Keepsakes, Curiosities, and Crude Salvage), Clubs (Maintenance of the Self and Otherwise), Diamonds (The Past Intrudes), and Spades (An Interlude). Each category contains prompts of no more than two lines designed to evoke happenings that occur naturally during your lightkeeper’s time. There are no excessive details - only invitations to fill in blanks with as much or as little detail as one pleases. Prompts range from discovery of vials of poison and recollection of childhood tunes to dealing with vermin and speaking with ghosts while smoking a cigarette, adding enough variation that no two plays of the game will ever feel alike. 

Mechanics and Complexity

The barest bones of The Wretched & Alone system have always been that of drawing cards to indicate an event or rumination in your journey, then logging down the results of that which you have encountered. In the case you have drawn a specific combination of cards, the infamous Dead Man’s Hand (two Aces and two Eights), or find the tumbling tower you’ve built has come crashing down, your journey will be altered or come to an end. It’s a tried and true system that effectively portrays the fragile balance between life and inevitable death.

What makes Lighthouse at the End of the World mechanically distinct from its W&A brethren is the task of Laying A Ghost To Rest. Laying A Ghost To Rest is a win condition which comes about when the player rolls a 6 (or 5 and 6 in certain circumstances) to select the events they must endure for this week of play. Upon doing so, you unearth the origins of one of your ghosts. This involves physically charting their voyage from its hopeful starts to its untimely end, as well as anything tied to them like names, items, places. This charting is not something typical of Wretched & Alone games, so players with muscle memory for W&A mechanics might miss the trigger to undertake this upon rolls of 5 or 6 as this author did, so it may be prudent to have a reminder or note during play. 

While it is possible to engage with Laying A Ghost To Rest without creating one’s own physical map, there is a certain satisfaction in having this visual reminder of a journey. Of charting the voyages of those who have come before you across oceans that your character can only see from the safety of their perch.

The Dead Man’s Hand, a fascinating rarity that comes about when drawing two Aces and two Eights, leads to an intriguing adjustment in your play. While it’s not a significant change in play, it can be an abrupt if welcome wrinkle in one’s play session.

A notable thing to keep in mind when playing Lighthouse At The End of the World is that it is not designed to be fair. If your tower is built poorly, if you struggle in Laying Ghosts to Rest due to bad rolls, or if you run into a glut of ill luck and pull block after block it is all too easy to find your time in the lighthouse has come to an end. This can be a frustration for players looking to have an extended journaling session and who aren’t used to the fatal nature of W&A’s play.

Who Is This For and Why

Ocean voyages, lighthouses, and themes of isolation have always gone hand in hand, and in the past few years nautical horror has begun to experience a renaissance. If you’re a fan of Dredge from Black Salt Games, Hellwhalers by Moss Powers, and of course The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers there’s a lot for you to love in Lighthouse At The End of The World. The game draws less upon the terrors of the deep and more on the weight of sin and isolation upon the human psyche. Nevertheless, it joins a great tradition

Conversely, if you’re a fan of the Wretched & Alone and other journaling games, Lighthouse at the End of the World takes the same tension-building mechanics while also adding its own flavor and twists. One feels a sense of responsibility without incessant urgency in Laying A Ghost To Rest, and there is something of A Quiet Year or Microscope in the paths that you must draw for others that have lived and died. You must be comfortable with journals, with solitude, and the contemplation of the lives and deaths of others. If you find yourself possessed of all three qualities then don’t hesitate to sign up for your shift at the spotlight.

Kyle Tam (she/her) is a dreamer, writer, and full-time complainer from the Philippines. Her nonfic and reviews have been published in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Rascal among others. She also creates tabletop games, including the Indie Groundbreakers Honorable Mention MORIAH and Primadonna from PlusOneEXP. You can find her on Blusky at @PercyPropa, or find her work at whatkylewrites.carrd.co.

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