| Field Guide to Memory | |
| Italic Title: | yes |
| Date: | 2021 |
| Designer: | Shing Yin Khor, Jeeyon Shim |
| Genre: | Solo tabletop role-playing game, storytelling game, journal-writing game |
| Players: | 1 |
| Playing Time: | Daily prompts for 20 days |
| Skills: | writing, storytelling |
Field Guide to Memory is a one-player, narrative, pen-and-paper journaling, indie role-playing game by Shing Yin Khor and Jeeyon Shim about the mentee of a missing cryptozoologist traveling across the United States in search of information about their missing mentor.
Field Guide to Memory is a "keepsake game" where players create a physical artifact as part of the game mechanics.[1] Players follow daily prompts that ask them to write, create art, and do other physical activities in the real world, often involving nature.[2]
In December 2020, Shing Yin Khor and Jeeyon Shim launched a Kickstarter to fund the creation of the game. The crowdfunding campaign surpassed the goal of $18,000 and raised just over $62,000 with the support of 1817 backers.[3] [4] Initially, the game was run as a live game in February 2021 for Kickstarter backers who received the game prompts via email over the course of four weeks. The game was then repackaged as a PDF of daily prompts available for purchase on Itch.io.
Field Guide to Memory won the 2021 IndieCade Award in the best live game category.[5] [6] Jeeyon Shim was awarded the 2021 Diana Jones Award for "Best Emerging Designer" largely based on her work on Field Guide to Memory.[7] Nerdist called it the best solo (one-player) tabletop role-playing game.[8] Greg Loring-Albright at Drexel University wrote about the game in his Ph.D. research on keepsake games.[9]