Songbirds is created by Snow and is available on itch.io. It is a dungeon crawling adventure TTRPG where you play as a songbird, someone who has gained strange powers after dying and returning to life. You then travel to dungeons that pop up throughout the world, that are filled with dangerous spirits and traps, in order to seal them.

The setting is sci-fantasy. There are cyberpunk bodymods and magical tomes side by side, you could use a sword, a gun, psychic powers, or vampiric abilities. The setting really does provide something for every single group's preference, and it's easy to lean more in one direction or another if you'd like to.

The setting of Songbirds is simultaenously fleshed out enough to make the rulebook a compelling read even if you're not planning to play a game, but also malleable enough to make it your own and create something unique to your group. Genuinely, it's hard to not be inspired to do something with it after giving it a read through. The book can act like something of a puzzle, giving you clues that you can later find meaning in, if you give it the proper attention. I'd go into specifics, but I wouldn't want to spoil anything like that just on the "What is Songbirds?" page! (I love that I can worry about something like "spoiling" with a TTRPG rulebook. That the reading of it is its own experience that I want you to have, instead of just "the thing that is necessary before playing.")

The gameplay of Songbirds generally follows a cycle of exploring and traveling to different places, going through a dungeon at that location, and then participating in downtime activities. The rulebook contains plenty of tables, events, monsters, and all sorts of ideas to make each of these activities unique, and give you the tools to build these different gameplay elements into your own story.

You'll be rolling checks, managing your inventory, and trying to not have your HP go to 0 if possible! The moment to moment gameplay is familiar and approachable to someone who has familiarity with other TTRPGs, making it an easy pitch even to a group who has only ever played D&D up until now. But, it adds so many new and interesting ideas, such as sharing your backstory to give you advantage on a roll, many different types of magic that all function in unique and flavorful ways, the idea that between sessions time is still passing, and my favorite class system that I've ever seen.

Explaining the gameplay is one thing, but at least for me, the thing that's generally going to get me to read through a TTRPG is the vibe, the emotions, how it feels moment to moment. So, let's talk about that!

Songbirds, appropriately, feels haunted. You exist in a world where grief comes to 'life' and can attack you. You used to be someone different, you decide how much that matters. This world used to be different, and you can feel the history beneath everything. The world can feel impossibly large, with so many facets you'll never see.

Songbirds also feels dangerous, and bloody. There are many many ways to be injured and to die. Some characters gain HP from being covered in blood, others might know Gore Arts, magic spells cast from their own blood. If you like it when your characters get messed up, you have a lot of toys to play with here.

I worry saying that it feels "haunted" and "bloody" will set you up to think this game feels like a downer, something that's always very serious. It isn't. Songbirds occupies the space that so many things I love occupy, where it effortlessly plays all parts of its own tone without ever feeling dissonant.

Much like the setting combining sci-fi and fantasy, the tone combines emotional highs and lows, and all of the messy middles. People will die, people have died, and the world is falling apart, but you can also play cards with people, watch an animated mecha show, and have slumber parties. These are all important pieces of the experience, and if you enjoy that sort of mix of emotions, I think you'll get a lot out of reading through Songbirds.