Playing with an Ouija board (or Spirit Board if you don’t want to violate Hasbro’s copyright) is a weirdly ordinary high school sleepover experience. Usually, these dabbles with the occult end with the assembled party guests getting so worked up that they convince themselves they’re moments away from being the subject of the new Paranormal Activity film. However, Slumber Party Séance is a solo TTRPG that flips the script on this classic slumber party staple, pondering what would happen if your Ouija board somehow summoned the spirit of Regina George.
The game shows off its uniqueness right out of the gate, as rather than asking you to create a character, Slumber Party Séance asks you to play as your 13-year-old self. The slumber party you’re attending is going well, until one of your friends pulls out an Ouija board and suggests you all have a go at contacting the spirits of the damned.
A Truth Or Dare TTRPG
As you expect, this plan quickly goes wrong as you end up contacting the spirit of a mean girl, one who gives you a simple command: play truth or dare with her, else she’ll curse you with uneven bangs forever.
The game has six rounds. Each round begins with the player rolling a die to see if the mean ghost will tell them to participate in a truth or a dare. You then check the relevant prompt table to find the exact nature of the secret you’ll be revealing or the dare you’ll be performing, and then complete the task in-character as your 13-year-old self.
After spilling your guts or completing the task, you then roll to see how the ghost responds to it. If the ghost enjoyed your humiliation, they’ll gift you with gems. However, if your answer angers them, they’ll take gems from you.
These gems are crucial, as they protect you from the ghost’s evil influence. If you ever have 0 gems, the ghost takes control of you and forces you to type out two lines from a cursed chain email. If you end up writing out the entire email or end the game with 0 gems, then the ghost will give you a punishment to perform.
However, this isn’t the only thing the ghost has up its sleeve. If you complete specific tasks during play, the ghost will gift you with a relic from the early 2000s. While some of these relics give you bonuses during play, you should tread carefully, as if you ever end up with a complete set of relics, the ghost will trap you within the Ouija board.
A TTRPG Séance Success
Slumber Party Séance is a delightful TTRPG that had me smiling the entire time I was playing it. While truth or dare may seem an odd party game to build a TTRPG around, as you play Slumber Party Séance, you’ll quickly realize that truth or dare isn’t that different from the question tables and writing prompts that solo TTRPG players have come to know and love. Plus, the addition of the gems and relics adds an extra layer of randomness, meaning that the game will keep you engaged and on the edge of your seat from the first turn until the last.
While some players may be confused by the game’s decision to forgo character creation in favour of having you play a younger version of yourself, I’m a big fan of this choice. The risk of social humiliation, combined with the transgressive nature of doing something you usually wouldn’t, is what makes truth or dare fun. So, playing a truth or dare-style game as a character, especially one created specifically for this game, would suck a lot of the fun out of the experience.
However, what makes Slumber Party Séance really stand out is its dedication to its theme. All of the text is dripping with early-2000s flair, and it is sure to reawaken long-dormant memories in the brains of players of a certain age. The ghost making you type parts of a spooky chain email if you run out of gems is my favorite example of this. While it only has a tiny effect on gameplay, anyone who grew up on the early-2000s internet will know how ubiquitous (and weirdly terrifying) these emails were.
I also adore the punishments that the game makes you perform if you fail. Not only does the idea of forfeits perfectly match the game’s playful bullying slumber party vibe, but the chosen punishments work as both a nostalgia bomb and an amusing moment of gentle awkwardness, much like doing a dare during a late-night game of truth or dare.
Slumber Party Séance is a delight. It’s clear the designer wanted to evoke a specific feeling and time period with this game and laser-focused every mechanic and block of text to ensure they hit it, leading to an experience that perfectly captures the feeling of teenage confusion and giggly euphoria that most of us associate with chaotic slumber parties.
