This Is What an RPG for Indie Movie Heroines Would Look Like

Look out over the indie movie landscape of the last few months and you'll see a trend: women running. More specifically, single, neurotic women running while coping with their middle-class problems. Renate Reinsve did it in The Worst Person in the World; Alana Haim did it in Licorice Pizza. But they're not alone. Remember Frances in Frances Ha? She did it too. And let’s not forget Run Lola Run. But what if you, dear reader, were the director of their lives? To wit, may we present Saturn Return, an open-world role-playing game that someone should really make.

Saturn Return: Existential Crisis

No boyfriend. No career. And now—no roommate. In Saturn Return, you play as Fiona, a dilettante in search of purpose while coping with adult responsibilities. As she rapidly approaches 30, Fiona wakes up in a city filled with lost potential and closed doors.

Armed with only her intellect and wit, Fiona must make money, fall in love, meet cool and interesting people, and gain validation in order to survive in this bitter land and regain her lost optimism—all before the planet Saturn returns to the same ecliptic longitude it occupied at her birth.

As Fiona, you can explore the landscape of Metro any way that you like! You can attend parties and ask NPCs if they like their jobs, flirt with local baristas, performatively shop in the bookstore, ask a bartender if they have any good sour beers, or search for new destinations. (Maybe go to that museum exhibit your friend recommended? They read about it in The New Yorker.) You set your own path into the overpriced neighborhood she’s decided to call home.

Fiona has two meters that let you know her current ability to function: her mood and stamina. When they’re both filled up, she can explore the world endlessly! When they’re depleted, she is stuck in her apartment and retreating into her brain.

Mood

Stamina