Simulcast on Black Gate: Doom Pilgrim! – War Claw’s Solo Card-Game-Book
Narrative game books steered my interest into dark fantasy reading and playing. The 1980s phenomenon of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks championed blending RPG elements into the choose-your-own-adventure genre. Although these persist in 2025 (in releases, digital versions, several tabletop games... all susceptible to reviews here soon), the last decade has enabled new forms of narrative, choose-your-own-adventure solo games.
This post highlights DOOM PILGRIM, a narrative-card-game-book by War Claw Games. The company is based in the Czech Republic. Most of their lineup has Print-to-Play options in addition to physical copies (produced by US-based manufacturer, The Game Crafter).
Released in 2022 as a physical and print-and-play game, Doom Pilgrim was awarded "Best Small Game of the Year" from the solo-dungeon-crawler guru Daniel from Dungeon Dive (see also his his Doom Pilgrim tutorial). In short, it is a superbly elegant, beautiful game. Doom Pilgrim has several expansions available now, with more on the way. Also, these proven game mechanics have evolved into Arthurian Legend, Sci-Fi, and weird horror games.
