Ribbon Drive

Letting go on the open road...

I’m going somewhere, and I want you to join me. It’s a place that always seems just past our reach. A mixture of myth and reality. It’s wedged between a mix tape, a throw-away comment and a shifter. It’s going to take a lot of open road to get to. But open road’s all we’ve ever really got, anyway.

In Ribbon Drive, we collectively create a story about a road trip. We do this in the comfort of a living room, over the course of 3-5 hours. We each create a character, one of the people going on this road trip. These characters are our individual jobs; each of us will roleplay one character’s decisions and actions. We’ll share the responsibility of narrating the obstacles and scenery that comes up all around us. Music mixes guide our journey and shape the story as it unfolds. Ribbon Drive creates stories about letting go on the open road, and we all work to both further and complicate this agenda during the game. It draws inspirations from road movies like Wristcutters, Everything Is Illuminated, y tu Mama Tambien, Little Miss Sunshine, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things and Thelma & Louise (and, to a lesser extent, Two Lane Blacktop, The Doom Generation and Wild At Heart). Our ultimate goal is to create a thought-provoking, meaningful experience. We let the music guide us. We let the road throw us curves. As our characters, we rethink our attachment to the future.

A game about road trips, music, and self-discovery.

In a Nutshell

A game about road trips, music, and self-discovery.
By Avery Alder.
First released 2009. This iteration 2011.

This is a structured freeform game, guided by playlists that each player brings to the table.

Feedback

If you like music or driving, trees or memories, small towns or long silences, people’s faces, or summer roads that stretch on more endlessly and elegantly than language can give credit for — this is the game for you.

-Daniel Wood, author of My Daughter, the Queen of France

Buy Now

A mockup of the Ribbon Drive booklet.

This game is available as a short, full-colour book (24 pages). A copy of the PDF is included.

A mockup of a tablet that is displaying the Ribbon Drive PDF cover.

The PDF is also included as a standalone product.