The Walden Paradox

You are Henry David Thoreau.

You came to the woods because you wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if you could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when you came to die, discover that you had not lived.

At your cabin on Walden Pond, a mile from any neighbor, you will remain. These are the final months of your two-year, two-month, and two-day experiment in living simply here in the Massachusetts woods.

In addition to working on your first book, you keep a journal of visitors.

There have been more of them lately.

Each of them peculiar.

Each taking an unusual interest in you.

Game Overview

The Walden Paradox is a solo journaling game about Thoreau's final months at Walden Pond from May 1846 to September 1847.

Each month, a new visitor will call upon you. Converse with them. Keep a keen eye for both peculiarities and signs of time paradoxes.

Record everything in your journal.

The game ends either at the 6th time paradox or when your time at Walden ends in September—whichever comes first. Then, you will write a final letter to your friend, mentor, and fellow Transcendalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson.