Sewing is one of the most fascinating crafts. Not only does it have a long and storied history, but it can also be used to create a stunning variety of different things, from basic shirts to gravity-defying runway pieces that are impossible to forget once you’ve seen them. Stitchery Faire takes this idea and turns it into a wonderful TTRPG where you have to use your sewing skills to create outfits for a horde of fussy customers, trying to win the approval of your local community as you do.
Stitchery Faire is a solo TTRPG where you play as a seamstress who has just arrived in the cozy town of Threadwyke to take part in the titular Stitchery Faire, an event where fabric artisans come to show off their sewing skills, hoping to catch the eye of both potential customers and potential patrons who can fund their future endeavours.
Sewing The Perfect Cozy TTRPG
The game uses a single six-sided die, a deck of regular playing cards, and a sketchbook. Before the game starts, the player splits their cards into three decks: even cards go into a deck representing patrons, odd cards go into a deck representing the community, and face cards and aces go into a deck representing story moments. They also create a seamstress with three stats: Charm, Artistry, and Diligence.
The game takes place over ten weeks, each with four separate phases. At the start of each week, the player draws a card from the story deck; this card’s prompt will explain a character the player will encounter at some point during their week.
Then, in the first stage, the player draws three cards from the patron deck. They read the associated prompts, choose one person to be their patron for the week, discard one card, and shuffle the third back into the deck before rolling on a table to discover why the patron wants a new garment.
In the second phase, you roll on another table to find what elements the patron wants in their new outfit. You then sketch a design or make a mood board for the outfit in your journal before rolling a final D6 and adding your charm stat to learn if your patron is happy with your idea, or if it upsets them.
The third phase asks players to roll on a table to find what last-minute complication your seamstress encounters while working on the project. You then draw the final version of the outfit in your journal. The player then rolls using their diligence stat to see if your patron is happy with the final result.
In the final phase, cards are drawn from the community deck. You combine the results of your successes in the previous phases and compare these to the ranks of the cards you’ve drawn. If your total is higher than the ranks, the community members compliment you, and you get to increase one of your stats. This process repeats until either the 10 weeks are up, or you draw specific collections of cards that unlock one of the game’s specific endings.
Perfect Balance Of Fiction And Friction
Stitchery Faire is a charming solo TTRPG that fantastically captures the ups and downs of the creative design process. It is one of those solo games that, when written, does sound pretty complex, but after you go through a single week, the whole thing will click into place, and you’ll find yourself breezing through it, meaning that you’ll be able to do an entire ten-week game in a couple of hours.
One of my favorite elements of the game is its use of sketching. Having the player sketch or draw the outfit after they first talk with the patron and again at the end palpably captures the design process. Like in real-life projects, things are rarely straightforward, and the final product rarely looks exactly like the initial sketch.
Plus, having the player draw the outfit really makes them think about their patron’s requests, which adds a lot of fun texture to the game, as it makes each patron (and thus each outfit you design) feel different and helps capture the feeling that you’re being hired by unique, three-dimensional people who have come to the Stitchery Faire for their own unique reason.
But at the same time, I’m glad the game doesn’t put any mechanical weight on your sketch. Drawing outfits is a specific type of technical drawing that requires immense practice and skill, so expecting players to pull it off well would dramatically limit who could play. Plus, asking players to judge or rank their own work and assign mechanic values can be tricky, because people struggle to assess their own creative work, and assigning numbers to something as nebulous and subjective as “art” can often lead to confused game design.
Plus, the game’s prompts must be praised, as they perfectly walk the line where they are descriptive enough to give players solid guidance (avoiding situations where the player locks up due to having too many options) without being so rigid that players are unable to show off their creativity, something which dramatically limits a solo TTRPG’s replay value.
If you like Stitchery Faire (One-Page Edition), a complete version of the game is available that features more story, more art (which is utterly stunning btw), and some expanded mechanics, including in-depth character creation, meaning you can take your seamstress on even more adventures.
Stitchery Faire is a wonderful solo TTRPG that combines journaling, sewing and doodling into a really fun world-building experience. If you’re a fan of costume design, this is a must-play TTRPG, as no other game I’ve played has captured the process of designing and making clothes quite as well as this one. However, even if you’re not a fan of costume design, Stitchery Faire is still well worth a play, as it is a really strong solo game that will quickly pull you in, and you’ll be totally immersed in its fantasy world before you know what’s happened.
