Pirouette: A Solo Ballet Horror TTRPG

It started as any normal day, you prepared for your performance, you’ve done it a hundred times before. You’ve trained for years to get to dance on this stage, you get yourself in position, nervous but ready for your first performance but as the curtains open you know it very well might be your last

Have you ever been to see a ballet? The dancers move in pristine perfection, each part of their routine practiced for hundreds of hours until they hold a level of control very few could comprehend. It takes a decade for ballet dancers to be able to perform professionally and even longer until they can pirouette on the stages they dream of. They must master pure resolve, faultless grace, and amazing levels of strength.

Pirouette is a solo ballet horror game written by InnocentGoblin. You play as a ballet dancer performing on stage but the audience is wrong, the amorphous eldritch horror that stares at you through an impossible multitude of eyes demands perfection. Too many wrong moves and you’ll be devoured, absorbed into its unknowable ranks. It watches you hungrily, every move you perform incorrectly, every injury sustained. You push past the pain, knowing you must continue, knowing you must survive. After all, the show must go on, even if it kills you.

Played with a tarot deck and a block tower, Pirouette balances emotional prompts, rising, unforgiving tension; and the art of ballet. Each move you perform raises the chance of you never leaving that stage. Each wrong move brings you closer to exhaustion, each injury closer to death. Throughout your performance, you’ll be in your own head, beloved memories will inspire you to push on, to keep going but intrusive traumatic thoughts will blunder in to pull you down, sapping your motivation. How long would you survive?

Pirouette is launching on the 1st February on Crowdfundr for their Tabletop Nonstop event, rewards such as physical copies will be available to grab. Furthermore, stretch goals such as improved layouts and even fully composed musical score for your playthrough by the one and only Muse En Lystrala! Come and join us and don’t forget to click “subscribe” before it launches, you don’t want to miss the performance of a lifetime!

Pirouette has been a passion project for me, it has gone through many variations over the last few years, even starting as a short story I wrote as a teenager. What was most important for me was portraying the ballet correctly. I reached out to a professional ballet dancer and discussed the best way to incorporate it but also which moves to use. Pirouette has given me a chance to work with some truly amazing creators and the better it does in crowdfunding, the more people we will get to bring in.