This is a great innovation in adventure creation...a "concept" adventure, rather than a fully detailed one. Rather than providing a detailed encounter that may or may not fit into your world, it provides a solid, innovative idea plus a framework for the encounter which includes writing prompts to let you fit it to your world and style of gaming. And there are hooks to other stories, if you or the players wish to pursue them, or it can be a pure stand-alone encounter.

It's also level-less, because there are no defined stat-blocks. It can be written and run for first level characters wandering around, or high level characters encountering something truly sinister and dangerous.

My only critique is that the prompts often tie to specific items on the map which are not obvious. The module would be better if it provided a short section in the module that says "here's what you're looking at" for each point of interest int he map. (There's a shrine here, etc.) to spawn your imagination more easily.

I'd also love it if the maps had a more detailed version of the maps, ideally good enough that they could be imported to a system like Roll20...but that's not a must-have.

That said, it's PWYW, and certainly worth the recommended $1 cost for an innovative encounter.

Longer review at: https://www.dicedeliberations.com/2021/04/this-is-longer-format-review-of.html

This is one of my favorite adventures. It's a solid 4 hour adventure to run at a con, or to introduce new players to the game. Besides being a really fun story, I like that there are optional pieces to the adventure, to let you strech or shrink the storyline to fit a given amount of playtime.

This is an extremely innovative game, which combines role playing with creative writing and an element chance. It is also a very easy game--I downloaded the rules, glanced over them, and was playing within 10 minutes or so.

To be honest, on reading about it, I was unsure how it would work, or if it would work. However, my first "scenario" was beautiful and fun, and really enjoyed it.

I can see it being something that people could play contentedly on their own, or play together, and read their letters for a given secnario out loud to each other. I can also see real potential for expanding on this with new scenarios.

As a bonus, it's "pay what you want" so I was able to download the rules for free, and see for myself. After playing, I went back and purchased it--it was absolutely worth it.

CypherCaster magazine issue 1 had everything that I want from a "fan" magazine: It had "insider" information, in the form of interviews. It had new ways to approach the hobby, through an adventure, a campaign entry, and some really good "don't describe, show" narrative insights into The Strange. Plus it had some very well done fiction.

The one things I'd hope to see in future issues is some reviews or at least overviews of the myriad 3rd party Cypher system books, or even a "what's in here that you don't expect" from the the official releases. Something that will help people understand the landscape of what's available.

This is an exceptional supplement. I tend to think of all my Numenera adventures in terms of the Wander, and this gave me many new insights to that theme's potential. The places you might see were well done, with very good color notations. The people (and foci) were well done, though the least surprising. My favorite was actually the list of 36 events...things that could happen to you while on the Wander. These were very original, and each could be a one-off amusing event, or a whole storyline.

In all, well worth what it cost.