May You Fish in Interesting Times is a role-playing game for 3-5 players, played using a deck of playing cards and a 6-sided dice (purchased separately). A typical game session takes 90 minutes to 3 hours.

You play as anthropomorphic birds going on a fishing trip, who also happened to be rebels in a failed revolution that took place in the past. This is a cosy fishing game, but at the same time about broken birds bonding over shared past trauma.

Instead of coming up with backstories for the characters at the beginning, the players learn about the bird anglers' backstories as they play the game.

Mechanics

To play the game, each player picks one of the bird angler playbooks. The players take turns drawing cards and answering questions on their playbook. When a player manages to collect a trio of cards that fit certain requirements, something is caught on the hook. Certain questions allow characters to deepen their relationships with each other, and for the players to manipulate the cards in their hands.

After fishing, the bird anglers would share a meal using what they've caught. At the end of the meal, the secret police would show up.

The game mechanic draws inspiration from For the Queen by Alex Roberts and Brindlewood Bay by Jason Cordova.

Credits

Art by Carol Wu

Writing and layout by W.H. Arthur

Card joker, hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds, queen crown, round table, duration, poker hand, perspective dice 6 faces 6 icons by Delapouite, Skoll and Lorc, from Game-icons.net, under CC BY 3.0.

Special thanks to the backers on Kickstarter who supported this project!