Cadences: The Story of a Distance and Its Pair

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NOTE: If you have already backed Cadences, the Audio Files and Transcripts are available here for free under the "Download Demo" section to allow you to gift physical copies to other people! These are not actually demos for Cadences, just files to be used with the game rules. 

CADENCES: THE STORY OF A DISTANCE AND ITS PAIR

All around you right now are incalculable distances, measured in years, measured in heartbeats, measured in steps between, or miles to a destination. Other distances elude our best efforts to quantify them, and cannot be weighed or assigned a number, even if we feel the weight of them settle in our bodies. Distance is a queer thing. No matter how close two people get, the very molecules of their being push them apart, resisting ideas of perfect alignment, making sure that there is always some level of separation maintained. Language is an imperfect tool, too, for communicating just what another person means to us, just how close we wish we could bring them, or how far apart we need them to stay.

But perfection was never the goal. This is the story — your story — of a Distance and its Pair. 

"This game rules and is probably my favorite

play-by-post experience of the last several years."

— Playtester 'Happy Birthday'

Cadences: The Story of a Distance and Its Pair is a game designed to be played by two people asynchronously. Together, players create the story of a relationship’s life, from the moment of its conception until the moment it ends. Maybe your Pair will be a cashier and a customer, a parent and child, two members of a five-person polycule, best friends, or even mortal enemies*.

*Enemies to lovers? Enemies to lovers!  

In Cadences, there are two roles for the players: The Distance and The Pair.

The Distance is ever-shifting and mysterious. Playing The Distance means seeking to find words and metaphors to describe something abstract and mutable.

The Pair is human and flawed. Playing The Pair means playing a grounding, concrete role in contrast to the metaphorical and amorphous nature of the Distance.

Using the inspiration and instructions provided in the booklets and in the audio files, The Distance and The Pair take turns going on guided strolls, considering the changes and phases of the relationship, and communicating the next part of the story in a way that fits their relationship. This could mean mailing each other letters, leaving each other voicemails, firing off a text message, or anything that you can imagine.

The Pair describes, with the help of prompts, events that happen in the relationship while the Distance describes, through metaphorical language, how those events impact its form and qualities.