Recently I picked up the solo "strategy RPG" zine DEAD BELT from A Couple of Drakes. In this game, you play a Belter, who salvages dead ships (known colloquially as "Birds") in a ship graveyard orbiting a supermassive black hole. Ship layouts are generated with standard playing cards, and an oracle tells you what each compartment contains as you enter it. It may be juicy salvage, it may be supplies to replenish your air or tools, or it may be a barrier or Bad News.
It's a dangerous profession, but the risks don't end there. The ship itself may break while you are aboard, forcing you to make a precarious spacewalk to proceed. You might generate a Threat, which could be anything from murderous ghosts to a nanite swarm. Basically, flipping a red card is something good, while flipping a black card is something bad - unless it's the Joker. That's your Payday, the most valuable component on the ship.
It's a game that combines card-based map generation, procedural play, and resource management into a game that's quick to play. The game is currently in a Kickstarter campaign for a new version, with even more roles, more ships and more danger, as well as a Co-Op and "head to head" Rivalry mode.
The goal is to pay off the debts you have incurred, and maximize your investments to retire. It doesn't always happen - and by "always", I mean "usually". In my first playthrough as "Maurice" the Space Cowboy, I salvaged 17 Birds of various classes, and retired as a legend who will never be forgotten.
This is not the story of Maurice. This is the story of Dakota "Cody" Boone, a veteran of the Consolidation War. Private Boone never once fired his weapon in combat, but when he mustered out, he had no other marketable skills. So he became a Belter. Cody's lifelong dream was to pay off his JK-43W "Jackdaw" ship, buy a farm on a serene, pastoral world, and retire in peace. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for...
MISSION ONE: Light Cargo Freighter
The first Bird that Boone located was a CM-23L "Camel" merchant ship. This was a promising start, as merchant ships naturally pay out more creds.
Boone headed forward toward the bridge, hoping to find some lucrative salvage. The first compartment he entered was Stacked to the Rafters with crates, cases and boxes. Sadly, none of them contained anything of value, and it was difficult to pass through. On the bridge, the ship's log was playing - but it was mostly screams and other horrible sounds. Boone turned it off quickly. Unsettled, he headed to starboard, where he found another room filled with hazardous cargo. He didn't know what the labels meant, but he knew they were dangerous.
Hopefully, there was something good to the aft of the ship - but Boone would never know, because by then he was dangerously close to running out of air. He returned to the airlock and boarded his ship, with only enough Cred to pay the upkeep on the Jackdaw.
After Boone left the ship, I revealed the rest of the compartments. It could have been quite a lucrative run if he had headed the other way from the start! Better luck next time, right?
MISSION TWO: Civilian Station Hopper
The second Bird that Boone encountered was a TRC-17R "Tracer", an ubiquitous civilian vessel. He smashed his airlock into the ship, just behind the bridge, and went to work. Making his way through the ship, he found some reserve air cylinders, and then passed through a bulkhead to a compartment that just wasn't there any more. To continue forward, he would have to make a risky spacewalk. Draw 2 cards, and if they're both red you're good. If one or both are black, spend a resource (usually checking your air aka "Gas") and try again. If you draw 3 black cards before you make it, you drift off into space and it's game over.
Boone didn't succeed on the first try, but a lucky draw on the second attempt got him past the obstacle. However, it cost him some of that precious air. He continued, finding a bug-out bag with more oxygen cylinders and replenished his Gas.
Forcing open a jammed hatch, he located the Payday - an Atmospheric Gravity Boot. As he pried the covering off of the part, the ship cracked along the keel, and the port section drifted away from the starboard half, where his airlock was located. He undertook another dangerous spacewalk, once more making it by sheer luck alone. Dropping off what he could carry to his ship, he returned into the shipwreck in the hopes of finding more.
Sadly, all of the exertion and extravehicular activity had burned through his oxygen too quickly. Out of Gas, Boone perished from asphyxiation - his last view was the Jackdaw's airlock, attached to the other half of the ship, a vast gulf of open space between him and survival.
To the right are the cards drawn in his spacewalks.
His lifelong dream had been to buy that farm - but Cody Boone bought a different kind of farm in the end, and his mortal remains might one day be found by another daring Belter.