Reference Hopping

"Reference Hopping" is a solo journaling one-page RPG where you play as an intern of the Multiversal Library Network. Since today's most urgent tasks are distributed across 15 different branch locations, you'll need to travel between them via reference hopping.

What you need to play: The PDF, a dictionary

How it works: Each branch library is associated with a dictionary word, or logonym. You can travel to another branch location if the two logonyms: 

• Begin with the same letter
• Are anagrams of each other
• Are synonyms or antonyms
• Rhyme or are homonyms
• Have the same number of letters

If your target logonym doesn't meet any of these five conditions, you'll need to come up with other words to serve as stepping-stones to reach your destination — preferably without destabilizing the spacetime continuum.

Once you've reached your destination, the task list and associated library information serve as prompts for a story in the form of an incident report (a fillable incident report template is included).

Reviews

Reference Hopping has been reviewed by Tal of the Gamers' Rest, and he had this to say: 

Personally, I loved this game and would highly recommend it. If you’re a fan of word puzzles, you’re going to enjoy plotting routes between the different branches and giving your vocabulary a real workout. If you're a writer, you’ll love the challenge and minimalist structure of this fabulous game.

Check out the full review, as well as his solo playthrough, on YouTube, Spotify, or KoFi!

Licensing

"Reference Hopping" was written by Julia LaFond and is an official product of Calenmir's RPGs under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Noncommercial sharing and adaptation of this work is permitted only with attribution.

Image Descriptions

Banner: The title of the game, "Reference Hopping," is in an ornate font on a yellowish paper background. To the left is a pink-and-black circle badge indicating it was created for the One-Page RPG Jam. Note: the cover image has different dimensions but contains the same content

Screenshots: Two of the screenshots are the front and back of "Reference Hopping." The first page contains a brief introduction, the rules, and the goals, along with a 3-column, 16-row table of the libraries where the intern has been assigned tasks; the columns are the library's logonym, the library's architecture, and a summary of the task. The second page is an incident report template entitled "Multiversal Librarary Network Official Incident Report Form." The form is divided into three sections: "Employee Information" (which includes name, ID number, and primary branch), "Site Information" (which includes logonym, site supervisor, and sequence of travel), and "Task Summary and Status" (which includes a field for the task summary and a much larger field for the full report). The third screenshot is a filled-out example incident report; due to space constraints, I have uploaded the text as a plain-text file.