Sample is a story of an obsessive electronic dance musician, who finds a tape with a cursed song from a shady seller. It is a solo tabletop journaling game that involves cutting out musical melodies and gluing them on a music staff to create a song.
It's 1999. Only a few months before the new millennium.
A new year, a fresh start. And what’s even more exciting is your management company managed to snag you a spot on one of the stages in Times Square in New York City during the Ball Drop. The tabloids have written you off as a one-hit wonder. They’re all expecting you to play the same song from 1995, but it’s time for you to show them they’re wrong about you. You’re going to ring in the new year with something big…and unforgettable.
Sample is a story of an obsessive (and relatively well-known) electronic dance musician named Leonard (performing under the stage name Neville), who finds a tape with a cursed song from a shady seller.
It is a solo tabletop journaling game where the player (you) will be cutting out musical melodies and gluing them on a music staff to create a song. The melodies you choose will determine the outcome of the story.
Cover by Alex Eckman-Lawn
The Final Book
Sample is the final book in the Mephistopheles Trilogy, after Forgery and Knockoff. Sample is also the precursor to both of those stories. In this finale of the series, you will be playing a flawed character, who sometimes expresses some odious views, especially misogyny. For the best horror experience, engage with the character and his point of view and root for him on his way down towards a tragic end.
Sample is a solo journaling tabletop roleplaying game, meaning you will be pretending to be the main character, Neville, as you journal his thoughts and choose the path that you want him to go down. The game also asks you to transcribe melodies or cut and paste melodies.
This means you will need the following to play:
The game that comes in the book, Sample
A separate journal to write in
A pencil
An eraser
A copy of the staff, melodies, and lyrics you will be transcribing
(If you are cutting and pasting the melodies) Scissors and glue or tape
(Optional) A six-sided die
Image of Major, Minor and Diminished Melody options
How to Play
You will be inhabiting the point of view of Neville as you read about his story, so we will be referring to Neville as “you.” There are a few things that you, as the player, will need to know before you start reading this book. It uses two main mechanics:
You will be asked to journal your character’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions at specific prompts.
There is also a choose-your-own-path style of immersive storytelling using the melody you are creating, allowing you to choose the outcome for Neville.
This story will ask you to transcribe melodies onto the blank staff, or, if you prefer, you can trace over the greyed-out version of the melody of your choice, or use a printed copy, to cut and glue over the blank staff. Keep pencils, erasers, scissors, and glue handy. You do not need to have a background in music to create your piece. You just need to follow the directions to create your masterpiece. Based on what melodies you have used for specific parts of the melody, you will be directed to go to a specific chapter to determine the outcome of what will happen to your character.
Banana transcribing the notes from the game onto blank staves
The game comes in a ~125-150 page book that has 28 chapters that you will go through in a choose-your-own-path style of play. As you choose from the options provided, you will fill in noted parts of the picture with colors of your choice.
If you feel conflicted over some of the options provided, you may roll 1D6 to determine which option you go with.
For example:
As you transcribe the notes, who or what do you think about?
On a 1-2: How you want to hook up with the bartender that gave you a free shot. Either transcribe or trace and glue the Major Melody over the space labeled 1.
On a 3-4: How you want to break up with your girlfriend. Either transcribe or trace and glue the Minor Melody over the space labeled 1.
On a 5-6: How you want to murder your childhood best friend. Either transcribe or trace and glue the Diminished Melody over the space labeled 1.
At the end, you'll have a song (with lyrics) from the game that you had a hand in creating.
The game may have a comedic tone at times, but it also deals with the following topics and themes: Misogyny, anti-immigrant sentiments and xenophobia, homophobia, alcohol and drug use, smoking, loneliness, manipulative romantic relationships, paranormal horror, death of a loved one, self mutilation, gore, suicide, murder, body horror, sex.
This game is not for children and is for an audience that is 18 or older.
Media Touchstones
The tone of this game is dark comedy and horror, and the story is set in tragedy. Some touchstones include American Psycho (film, 2000), Doctor Faustus (play, 1592–1593) and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (novella, 1915).
Other film influences include:
Smile 2 (2023)
The Substance (2023)
The Church (1989)
The Fly (1986)
Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Here, you can find the playlist that Banana created that features music influences from the 1990s and other decades.
Because we are a small team with limited capacity, we are only doing 3 Stretch Goals. We will not be attempting to unlock any other further stretch goals past the ones that you see here.
We are currently only offering shipping to the United States and Canada, due to the unpredictable circumstances of increasing costs and tariffs, in an attempt to mitigate as much risk for us as possible as a small publisher. We apologize that we're unable to provide everyone access to this game immediately, but we will be working with our global distributor when the game is released.
For our Canadian backers, we will be partnering up with Screen Free Games to deliver your pledge levels.
Logo for Screen Free Games: Unplug and Play
Some alternatives for backers outside of the United States and Canada are:
Backing at the digital level (Groupie).
Purchasing the digital version of the game via DriveThruRPG when it's available.
Following us on BackerKit, so we can provide updates on when our distributor has access to the physical games.
If you are in Italy, we will be working with our Italian publisher, Narrattiva to localize the game into Italian and they will be distributing the game at stores and conventions in Italy.
All shipping fees will be added on after the campaign is over.
In the meantime, here are the estimated shipping fees:
Rockstar
United States: USD $8
Canada: CAD $18
Producer
United States: $12
Canada: CAD $25
Record Label
United States: $18
We will not be fulfilling this pledge level for Canada for the time being
These estimated shipping fees are subject to change based on the rising costs of shipping in the future.
Timeline
Pending any more global disasters, we expect to have all rewards delivered by Summer 2027.
But on the bright side...
The manuscript: IS DONE!
The editing: IS DONE!
The interior chapter header graphics and front cover: IS DONE!
The layout: Is with the graphic designer! Jon is working hard to get the doc ready for all our backers.
Manufacturing and printing: Once we have the digital proofs and physical proofs signed off from Whatz Games, we'll be getting the full print run sent to us.
Shipping: Obviously, we need the games in our hands first, so this will be our final stage.
Other pledge level items: Forgery and Knockoff both already exist, so we'll be shipping that out with Sample as soon as it's ready.
Risks & Challenges
The digital PDF version of the book is actually finished! We just need to get it sorted for print, which brings us to...
A majority of our risks lie in the timelines for manufacturing the game and shipping it to us in a timely manner so we can distribute the copies to our backers. Luckily, we’ve partnered with our printer on several projects in the past (such as Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, Battle of the Boybands, Deimos Academy, The Darkness at the Brink of Ohio, Forgery and Knockoff). We will also be planning ahead and getting all other components manufactured during the length of the BackerKit to get a head start.
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