What This Is

This is a free solo game by Pandion Games created to raise awareness and educate people about the gruesome difficulties of living through and surviving an environmental catastrophe like Hurricane Helene that rampaged through Georgia, South Carolina, Western North Carolina, and Tennessee on Friday September 27th, 2024.

Tabletop games have the powerful ability to transport you into someone else's shoes and glimpse the world through their eyes. And so, Helene of the Blue Ridge is a simple, guided journaling game that has you play as someone living in the blue ridge mountains when Hurricane Helene hits the area.

Any donations will be given to charities or mutual aid helping with relief efforts in Western North Carolina or Upstate South Carolina, or used to purchase food and supplies do donate to those in need.

We are not a charity, and donating does not qualify as a charitable donation for tax purposes.

Why We Made it

I decided to create this game after seeing many people’s comments on social media posts of survivors and volunteers that showed a complete lack of empathy and understanding of the horrors of the situation, or even outright victim blaming. 

Surviving without electricity, food, water, and shelter has always been difficult. Minus the modern marvel of electricity, these services and resources have been fought over and provided in our civilizations since hunter gatherers settled into an agrarian society.

As of October 3rd, 2024, the death toll has risen to 205 people, with thousands still missing. No one knew the amount of damage that was approaching and we were sorely unprepared. Even by the time the path of Helene was determined to hit the area, there was little people could do to prepare for this massive amount of destruction.

The amount of money, time, and ongoing maintenance required to survive without the core services we all take for granted is monumental and unrealistic for most people to have on hand. Even if you invest all that money and time, when your house is destroyed by the floodwaters, so is the equipment and supplies you were planning to survive on.

I hope this game provides some context and understanding for the extreme difficulties being experienced by people in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

Submitting Feedback

While this is a simple game, and we tried to make note of where nuance was lost and drastic simplifications had to be made. If you identify an egregious or offensive simplification that needs correction, please comment below or send us an email at hello at pandiongames dot com, and we will work to correct it.

Player Tip: If you do not have a deck of playing cards, this game can be played with a 4-sided, 8-sided, or 12-sided die and a coin to get the 4 suit choices, or the 2 Red/Black options.