Ten Candles is a tragic horror indie role-playing game designed by Stephen Dewey and published by Cavalry Games in 2015. Ten days ago the world went dark for an unknown reason; generators are failing, fuel is running out, and since the monsters of the dark known as “Them” arrived, no one who leaves the light has come back. Players know from the start that the game will end with every character dead.
Ten real votive candles are lit on the table and used to mark time. Actions are resolved with a pool of six-sided dice equal to the candles still burning; a single 6 is a success, and a failure puts out a candle and ends the scene. A character is only four cards — a Virtue, a Vice, a Moment that would give them hope, and a secret Brink written by another player as a witness statement beginning “I’ve seen you…” — and cards are burned to reroll.
When the last candle goes out, any characters still alive die as Them arrive with the darkness. In a game with no way to win, the aim is not to survive but to leave a shared story before the end. Reviewers compared the way its tension builds with Dread and its Jenga tower.