Not Your Game

NOT
YOUR
GAME

Let’s play a game, shall we?
The rules are simple: you try to escape from my maze, I’ll try to
devour your identity, if you succeed you are free to get rid of
me, throw me away, even set me on fire. However, if I succeed,
your mind and soul is mine until you find another player that
agrees to play with me.
To accept this terms simply write your name in the owner’s list
beside this column, this will be the only letters you will
write in this book, however you can underline, draw, doodle
this book to leave hints to the next owner of this booklet.
Right from the first paragraph I’ll ask you to pay a letter of
your name to move further in the story, simply draw a circle
around it to pay.
Do not read the paragraphs without following the rules, I’ll
know when you do and I’ll punish you for doing it.
What do you say? Oh, your name is not long enough to have a
chance? Okay, I’ll give you some passepartout to compensate,
there are some icons representing a key in the list of names, if
your name do not reach to cover those keys you can use them as
if they were any letter of the alphabet.
When you don’t have any more letter to spend just go to the last
paragraph of this booklet and follow my instructions.

Are you game?
Deal.

Now write your name on the list and move on the first chapter
of the next page, and remember: when you are unsure on what you
can do or cannot do, always come back here and read back the
rules.
OWNER’S LIST

1. You start this journey in a room full of old weird stuff,
the sunlight shines through the big window right behind
you, casting stark shadows on the many objects that
populate this room, objects from different periods of
history. By a first glance you’d say this place is just a
badly curated studio, however a to a closer look you’ll
come to the conclusion that this place it’s more like a
Wunderkamer, a room where nobles and rich people of the
early years of the last century used to show
unconventional items and memorabilia from all corners
of the world. This place looks awkward and familiar
together, as if many things you have long time forgotten
had been placed randomly one over the other, as you look
around some elements catch your eyes in the mess: a metal
arrow, a big lense, a thin cog
Pay a Consonant of your name to touch the cog and go to

paragraph 2.
Pay a Vowel of your name to Inspect the arrow and go to 3.
Pay a “S” of your name, if you have any, to grab the lense
and go to 5.

2. When you touch the cog you feel pierced somewhere and
scream, the cog drops of from the dusty book “principia
mathematica”, the 137th edition, where was precariously
standing, you check yourself for cuts or wounds but you
are okay, the cog sits there on the floor staring at you as
if it was a surprised eye from an old mechanical robot.
Pay a Consonant to keep staring at the cog-eye and go to 4
Pay a Vowel to look away from the cog-eye and go to 6
Pay a “A”, if you have any, to kick the cog-eye away and
never see it around again and go to 10

3. This item looks like a part of a bigger gizmo, some
indicator of pressure, temperature or whatever, you look
around to see if it fits somewhere just for the sake of
doing something, and you spot a broken mechanical
engine, it’s clear that the thing is completely out of
function because the tubes are all out of place, another
thing clear is: this engine was somehow steam propelled,
o sign of electricity or aethyr propulsion.
Pay a Consonant to look away from the engine and go to 6
Pay a Vowel to look for a place to fit the arrow and go to 9
Pay an “L”, if you have any, to use the arrow as a dart to
hit the engine and go to 15

4. The cog-eye you keep staring at winks at you, may be
the sun glared at it, maybe you had a moment of
daydreaming, it is nothing to give any importance. You
look around to distract yourself from this event and
suddenly you feel awkwardly watched, as if may invisible
creatures were spying on you. You take a deep breath
turning around to see if an exit door is available but
there is no sign of it, maybe behind that big wooden
closet there is one but it is highly improbable, you
finally realise this room don’t even exist for real, it is
some surreal hallucination. You move on one corner to
look at this place from another perspective and oh boy!
This place seemed far more small than you thought, from
the corner you now clearly see this room must be at least
4 reeds by 5.
Pay a Consonant to keep staring at the room and go to 8
Pay a Vowel to move near the closet and go to 12
Pay a “E” to scream as loud as you can and go to 20

5. When you take the lense a peaceful feel pervades you, as
if you downloaded an unbearable weight.
Pay a Consonant to look around with a peaceful mind and
go to 10
Pay a Vowel to use the lens as a missile to hit an object
and go to 15
Spend a “O” to look through the lense and go to 25

6. Uh… What do we have here: a Zman Operator Diploma, a
profession that no longer exist, no one can make a zuz out
of it nowadays that we have the aethyr counters. You look
at the year of graduation and something's not right: it is
5 year from now, in the future.
Pay a Consonant to keep looking around and go to 12
Pay a Vowel to turn around the frame and go to 18
Pay a “C” to break the glass protecting it and go to 30

7. So... you really thought you could cheat this game by
reading it through without me knowing it right? Well you
must be really bold or really naive, either way go back to
the paragraph you were before and Pay a letter of your
choice for this mischievous act you did.

8.You really like staring at things uh?! Well beware
because if you keep looking long enough then things will
start looking at you back. The room at first seemed messy
and with no apparent logic but after a deeper look a
scheme started to emerge: the room was clearly filled with
faces, you heard right, faces composed of objects arranged
in a way that no matter where you were standing they make
sense as happy, frowny, peaceful, angry, puzzled faces
with one thing in common, they were all looking back at
you
Spend a Consonant to do nothing at all and wait, then go
to 16
Pay a Vowel to start moving objects to mess things up and
go to 24
Pay a “I” to start speaking to one of the faces and go to 40

9. After few tries you finally find a place where the arrow
fits perfectly, you had to pop out some tubes and pull
them back but it was worth it, there is nothing better
than fixing something, even if the whole gizmo is not
even far from being fixed.
Pay a Consonant to search for other part to fix the engine
and go to 18
Pay a Vowel to inspect further the engine and go to 27
Pay a “P” to bump the engine a little bit and go to 45

10. When you look around you notice behind you the
window from where the sun comes is cracking up, like a
slow motion lightning bolt the cracks are covering the
window.
Pay a Consonant to observe the phenomenon and go to 20
Pay a Vowel to speed up the process by breaking the glass
with a blow and go to 30
Pay an “H” to try a fixing spell on it and go to 50

11. I can see you doing it right now, you are cheating the
game under my nose and you thought you could get away
with it without a punishment, Pay a letter of your name
and go back to your last paragraph.

12. You walk by the closet to check if it hides a door
behind, you seem to spot a ray of light but the closet
seems welded to the ground.
Pay a Consonant to figure out a way to move the closet and
go to 24
Pay a Vowel to look through the keyhole of the closet,
then go to 36
Pay a “I” to look inside the closet and go to 60

13. We need to talk about rules and being a good player,
you are cheating this game by reading this trough and
this is not fair, it hurts even me. Please follow the code
of behaviour expected from every person that can call
themselves a player. Pay any letter of your name and go
back to your last paragraph.

14. You’d better go back and play a fair game, don’t be so
stupid to think I’m not seeing you reading through
without following the rules.
Pay any letter of your name and go back to your last
paragraph.

15. You miss the target and now the object’s ricochet is
going to hit the glass of a framed certificate.
Pay a Consonant to do nothing and go to 30
Pay a Vowel to avoid the collision and go to 45
Pay an “F” to scream “stop!” and go to 90

16. You gently sit at the corner of the room, passively
watching the faces, they are not common faces, they are
your faces, they are always the same face, your face, and
they are not even looking at you, they are looking
through you, you now remember that sense of piercing you
had, that sting was not inflicted on your body, was
directed to your core part of you, it poisoned a down deep
part of your inner self, opening an opportunity to see
things as they are. Now that feeling of being bite seems
like aeons ago, you must react to the venom inside you,
you must act, move, take a stance against the face, your
face, your many faces.
Spend a Consonant to take a moment of reflection and go to
32
Spend a Vowel to stand up and change perspective, then go
to 48
Spend a “O” to start crying and go to 80

17. You look around and there is a mirror, you see a
person into the mirror, but is a cheater and you do not
identify as that person, so please don’t do it. Pay any
letter of your name and go back to your last paragraph.

18. On the back side an incision mark the wood of the
panel: “look for the reciprocal square power of the
analytical continuation in the complex plane of the
mapping of convergent sums of integer”, some pencil
scribblings beside completed the picture
Pay a Consonant to search for a book that could explain
this jargon words and go to 36
Pay a Vowel to stay away from this jargon words and look
around for a way out, then go to 54
Pay a “I” and look closer to decipher those scribblings go
to 90

19. Stop it!!! This is not one of those games where you win
by lateral thinking or those new age things that are so
popular these days. Pay any letter of your name and go
back to your last paragraph.

20. The window explode into a thousand pieces as if a
soprano had sung the highest note on her scale, a stormy
wind freeze the air and gives you a bright memory of a
night spent in the forest when you were fighting the
Golem war. You find surprised and scared together,
especially because the explosion led somehow to the
falling of a pile of papers scribbled with an unfamiliar
alphabet.
Pay a Consonant to feel the breeze and spend some thoughts
for the people that died that night, then go to 40
Pay a Vowel to pick up the obscure paper from the floor
and go to 60
Pay an “X” to cast a fixing spell and go to 100

21. Again!?! Well if you are not one of those people that
can follow rules well I don’t know what to do anymore, put
away this little booklet and go copy a class test or
something… Pay any letter of your name and go back to
your last paragraph.

24. You use a metal bar to lever away the closet to find
just a mirror behind, while the dust you made settle down
again you see your self-reflection through the mirror,
you look way older than you remember.
Pay a Consonant to look closer and go to 48
Pay a Vowel to speak to yourself and go to 72
Pay a “U” to break the mirror and go to 120

25. Holy shit, what you see through the lense is
astonishing, no words are capable of describing it, all
you can think is this place is unreal, but now you can
feel the fresh air tickling your skin, the warm sun
inviting you in, all the burdens of your life are lifted
here, nothing can compromise your happiness here.
Pay a Consonant to break the lense and go to 50
Pay a Vowel to remove the lense from your eye and go to 75
Pay a “U” to step into heaven and go to 125

27. Wait a second, you know this type of motor! It is an
Odradek maker, you didn’t recognise it at first glance
because it is an old model, probably made before the Golem
war. You had one new model at the Academy, nobody used to
operate it anymore back then, Odradeks are now out of
fashion, replaced by domesticated hellions. You wonder if
you can squeeze one more Odradek out of it, just to have
some company while you figure yourself out of here.
Pay a Consonant to search for a way to fix this machine
and go to 54
Pay a Vowel to mechanically force the Engine to move and
go to 81
Pay a “R” to name the machine using the Hilkot Procedure
and go to 135

28. Nope you are not allowed to read this, if you do this,
as you are doing right now, it means you are cheating, and
that’s not fair.
paragraph.

30. There is no turning back, the glass is on the floor,
you notice a small parcel of paper, handwritten, fall
down.
Pay a Consonant to look at the parcel without touching it,
then go to 60
Pay a Vowel to take the parcel and read it, then go to 90
Pay a “T” to take the parcel without reading it and go to
150

31. Why are you reading this through? No way! Cheating is
not a thing for a smart person like you.
paragraph.

32. You close your eyes to focus yourself more on what to
do next, while thinking you almost fall asleep and lose
your balance, when you open your eyes again suddenly all
make sense, all faces you previously seen are gone, the
room is almost empty now, all the stuff that you were
considering other than the room is the room now, the
things are the room, and you are the room too, when you
look at yourself you see an object as the ones that
surrounds you, you feel peaceful and happy to be part of
something bigger than you, something more coherent, you
fit perfectly into something important, you are
something, somewhere, somehow…
Draw a line through your name and go to 301

36. You see a book, you can see the title in the spine:
principia mathematica, 137th edition, the date of
publication is today, makes you feel weird. When you open
the furniture where was stored and open the book you find
it is a mirror instead, not a book, you feel relieved for a
moment, but the relief instantly leaves the room to
surprise and wonder because the mirror itself says:
“close me!!!”
Pay a Consonant to speak back and go to 72
Pay a Vowel to close it and feed it to an old shredder,
then go to 108
Pay a “D” to order the book to decipher the scribblings
and go to 180

37. I feel something about you and your overall attitude
toward this book, you believe you are smarter than me! You
thought that you could read this through without being
noticed by me, well… you were simply wrong.
paragraph.

40. They speak back at you, all of them, some are
whispering, some others are screaming, some just laugh, a
few of them are crying. None of this make sense to you, you
would like to reply to all of them, if only they’d stop
speaking altogether you at least could understand what
they were saying.
Pay a consonant to wait for the voices to stop and go to 80
Pay a Vowel to focus on just one voice, the one that speaks
more firmly, then go to 120
Pay a “S” and go to 200

45. Nothing works the way you wanted to, but luck is on
your side today and the bump didn’t hurt a thing, you look
at the floor and you notice some marks, from the window to
the machine, they are written in a language you do not
know, but in a way they are familiar, as if you had carved
it but had no memory of it.
Pay a Consonant to look closely at the marks and go to 90
Pay a Vowel to try to recall if you made this marks and go
to 135

48. You make some steps closer and what you see terrifies
you, the closer you go the older you become, as if you were
on a weird aging machine.
Pay a Consonant to stop moving forward and go to 96
Pay a Vowel to move backward and go to 144
Pay a “E” to move forward and go to 240

49. Beautiful number forty-nine I agree, but not a number
you are supposed to read, it’s private! Stay away! Daaamn I
hate cheaters… don’t make me hate you.
paragraph.

50. The glass breaks and an unstoppable wind storms the
room, you barely manage to stay up by grappling a piece of
furniture nearby you, you try to cast a void spell to stop
the wind, but it’s a dangerous spell, and the last time you
casted a spell like this was years ago during the golem
war.
Pay a Consonant to prepare for the spell-casting and go to
100
Pay a Vowel to cast the spell immediately and go to 150

54. You wander around to find many broken things, things
you could adjust but… you keep looking and returning on
that Odradek Maker, after some hesitation you finally
decide to fix it with a series of pieces you just found
around the room, it is time to see if and how it works you
switch it on and…
Pay a Consonant to fuel the machine with some papers you
have found and go to 108
Pay any letter to fuel the machine with nothing and go to
1

63. If you managed to read until this point you should
already know that this paragraph could not be a valid
one, only a trap for those of you that likes to cheat your
way through.
paragraph.

60. From what you can see on the paper there are some odd
numbers and letters: (1+1i), (2-1i), (2+1i).
Pay a Consonant to listen to your inner Math teacher and
go to 120
Pay a Vowel to pronounce out loud these scribblings and
go to 180
Pay a “I” to open the maths book you previously noticed
and search for these formulas, then go to 300

71. You are wise and ambitious, well well well… you just
have to write to a person this exact phrase: “I’m the zman!”
Pay any letter to know who is the person to tell the
phrase and go to 137, if you can’t go to 93

72.” who are you?”, you say looking at the mirror. The
mirrors reply firmly: “look away from me or bad things
will happen to you, only the zman operator can use me
with no harm”,
Pay a Consonant to look at the frame and reply: “I am the
zman operator!” and go to 144
Pay any letter to look away and go to 1

75. You almost broke the glass but was worth it, the damage
would have been too high. Now that you feel safe again it’s
better to start searching the room for something that
could help, this disc for example, seems a perfect way to
accompany the journey. You look at the cover: “Über die
Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen Grösse”,
nothing promising but…
Spend a Consonant to put it on and listen it, then go to
150
Spend any letter to put it away and go to 1

80. You wait until it ends naturally and then you start
confessing all your deeds until you have no voice to
speak any longer, you feel emptied and relieved, as if you
unloaded a big burden. Now that your sins are confessed
you have nothing to hide, while you adjust the rope
hanging from the closet, you hum an old song your granny
used to sing, you whisper gently the refrain and jump
down the stool.

81. You force the mechanical parts to move, the engine
sound like an old grumpy grandpa unwilling to move from
his couch, but then you hear a stark sound coming from
within the mechanism of the machine and a small Odradek
pops out from the little cavity concealed below the main
body of the engine, the Odradek looks exactly like a small
miniature of you, is then that you realise your hand is
stuck inside the machine, feeding it with your blood. The
Odradek quickly move away from your sight hiding
beneath the closet.

90. From what you can see there are some odd numbers and
letters: (1+1i), (2-1i), (2+1i).
Pay a Consonant to keep thinking about it and go to 180
Pay a Vowel to pronounce out loud these scribblings and
go to 270

93. So you can’t spend any more letter uh!? I know I could
lure you into one more trap… I guess you are now mine, go
to 301

100. The wind rises above any human possibility to be
stopped, by the time you are ready to cast your spell you
are whirling endlessly looking at the whole room being
sucked up and disappear.

108. The machine switches on and starts popping out
Odradeks every second with no intention to stop, the
Odradeks starts crawling around, the faster ones jumping
on and over the lower one, you’d like to stop the machine
but the Odradeks won't allow you to do it, they are now
blocking you on the floor and after few other minutes
everything becomes pitch black, leaving only the noise of
the odradeks mechanism squeaking and twirling around

120. The voice is saying to you “you are in the territory
of imaginary numbers, they have the power to drive you
insane!” you try desperately to call for help but all you
say is -1/12 and dissolve into the aethyr.

125. You step in and you feel like gravity disappeared,
everything is just like you expected, the grass, the sky,
the trees, even the small things you didn’t think about.
You make one more step and you hit the glass, an invisible
glass at less than a smoot of distance, you sidestep to
discover you are surrounded by this glass, you are
trapped forever here. Only after what seems years you’ll
finally realise you are trapped in a weird snow globe, a
banal gift item piling dust.
Pay any letter to go back to 1

135. You follow the procedure and it seems to work well,
then suddenly a light flashes the room and… Go to 1

137. Send it to the address you find at the end of this
booklet

144. You start this journey in a room full of old weird
stuff, the sunlight shines through the big window right
behind you, casting stark shadows on the many objects
that populate this room, objects from different periods of
history. By a first glance you’d say this place is just a
badly curated studio, however a to a closer look you’ll
come to the conclusion that this place it’s more like a
Wunderkamer, a room where nobles and rich people of the
early years of the last century used to show
unconventional items and memorabilia from all corners
of the world. This place looks awkward and familiar
together, as if many things you have long time forgotten
had been placed randomly one over the other, as you look
around some elements catch your eyes in the mess: a metal
arrow, a big lense, a thin cog.
You look around realising all this happened before, the
metal arrow, the cog, the lense are all traps nicely set up
to lure you in, and make you forget who you really are and
who you really can do. You are the zman operator, you just
have to search for your inner aethyr…
Well done human, you made it, you are free to go and keep
your own identity. But before you go let me offer you
this: instead of burning me leave me somewhere and I’ll
give you the opportunity to gain a great power.
Pay nothing and burn this booklet
Pay any letter and go to 71

150. You realise too late what you did, those words brings
you to the imaginary numbers plane, they have the power
to drive you insane, you try desperately to write the
counter-jinxes but all you write down is -1/12 before
dissolving into the aethyr.

162. The machine start feeding itself with aethyr of the
room and after a while the only animated thing around is
a little Odradek slowly crawling around. Your dead body
lies near the machine dried out by the sudden aethyr
consumption, now you look like a mummy

180. You realise too late what you did, those words brings
you to the imaginary numbers plane, they have the power
to drive you insane, you try desperately to write the
counter-jinxes but all you write down is -1/12 before
dissolving into the aethyr.

200. Her name is Sibyl, you recognised her voice, she was
once the girl you loved and long time lost in the war, she
always said to me: “we’ll meet again, trust me, we will” but
you’ve never seen again. Not until now, you close your
eyes and lean your head toward the source of the voice,
the last thing you hear is a song sang by her voice, while
the cold freezing wind drops your body temperature to a
non returning point, you simply let it go.

240. You move too close to it and find yourself on the
deathbed breathing your last hiatus, you instantly
crumble into dust, adding it to the already dusty room

270. You realise too late that those “i” are imaginary
numbers with the power to drive you insane, you try
desperately to write the counter-jinxes but all you write
down is -1/12 before dissolving into the aethyr.

300. You discover on the book that those “i” are imaginary
numbers with the power to drive you insane, you try
desperately to close the book to avoid the worst, but
before you close it a number posses you, it is -1/12, one
of the most feared one, its power is too great to contain
and you dissolve into the aethyr.
301. You are now part of my room, I told you I would have
devoured your identity and I did. I hope you enjoyed the
journey, even if it didn’t turn out well for you.
What do you say? I didn’t give you the chance to make it?
Oh well you have your surname to spend too, don’t you? No
problem, use your surname as a second chance and start
again. Oh you spent your surname already?! That’s a shame!

Well there is no other thing to do, then, You must let the
cycle continue, give this Booklet to somebody else and
persuade them to write their name on me…

NOT YOUR GAME
A “Legacy-style” choose-your-own-adventure book
(second house print)

Gameplay time: 5-10 minutes
Age: 10 and up
Number of players: 1 at the time, up to 7 owners

CREDITS
Copy, Game & Graphic Design: Federico Latini
Editing and Review: Simone Longobardi

Special thanks goes to Paolo Mori, Carlo A. Rossi,
Beniamino Sidoti for their support and wise tips.

This game system is looking for a publisher, whether from
the board games industry of the book/rpg industry, if you
enjoyed it, please spread the word.

For any question or suggestions email to:
federico.latini@gmail.com

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Pay a Consonant of your name to touch the cog and go to

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