Paper Apps Dungeon
I can’t quite recall where I first saw the Gladden notebook games, but I remember thinking they were charming enough to order a set on the spot. Naturally, they just sat untouched on the shelf. I took them on a trip last month, hoping their minimal footprint might justify their existence.
I’ve been gravitating toward more analog experiences in an effort to spend less time glued to all things digital. Paper Apps are palm-sized, with a simple and addictive loop, each a self-contained little distraction.
There are several different games, each printed in a flip-book format. Despite being pre-printed, every notebook is unique—assembled using a seeded system that mixes and matches the pages to generate distinct combinations and layouts.
You roll a die and bounce around a pre-generated dungeon, gathering gold and bonking monsters. Every few floors, you might encounter a denizen or a merchant, make a few choices, then press ever downward.
A clever little flourish is the “pencil die”: a hexagonal pencil that doubles as a six-sided die. In practice, though, rolling pencils leads mostly to floor-chasing and questionable randomness. I ended up reverting to a dice app, ironically defeating the whole analog push—but needs must.
Perfect for a quick flight from London to Aberdeen. I perished ignominiously on Floor 9 (out of 45), but reincarnated and carried on like a good little dungeon crawler.
Sometimes, a tiny book of mazes is all you need.