Recursive Transit: A One Page Time Loop

Recipient of Best In Theme and Winner's Circle for the 2024 One Page Dungeon Contest

As if on cue, the lights flicker and the train car shudders. It’s 11:25 and you’ve just passed the  Warren Ave station. Your stop is not for about another 25 minutes, just past the Grant Ave station, but thankfully this is an express line, so you don’t have other stops to worry about.

Given the time, it’s just you and your friends in this car at the back of the train and the next 20 minutes seem to sail right by. As the Grant Ave station passes by in a blur, the lights flicker and the train car shudders. It’s 11:25 and you’ve just passed the Warren Ave station.

Recursive Transit is a system agnostic one page time loop written for the 2024 One Page Dungeon Contest.  The train your party is riding in has slipped into the liminal space between the shadows of reality, traveling the same segment of track on an endless loop. To break the loop, your party will need to navigate the perils of the train and overcome its challenges, all while racing against the clock.

Designed to be easily adaptable to your system of choice, this adventure would pair nicely with:

• Liminal Horror
• Delta Green
• The Company
• Cthulhu Dark
• Mothership

Touchstones:

The attempt to write a time loop was solidified after watching X-Files S6E14 - Monday (1998). Using a train as the vessel came from playing the train sequences in Silent Hill 3 (2003) and Dead Space 2 (2011) in close succession. The end result here ended up coincidentally being very similar to what an adaptation of Platform 8 (2024) might look like, though I wasn't aware of its existence until the draft was nearly finished.