Ten Candles is a collaborative storytelling game set in a world where "Endless night has fallen.

[2] Characters have only four characteristics, which are written on index cards and stacked in front of each player: Virtue, Vice, A Moment, and A Brink.

If no 6s are rolled, the action is a failure, a candle is blown out, a die is removed from the dice pool, and the scene is over.

[2] After the dice are rolled, a player can use the top index card of the stack in front of them to try to influence the outcome.

[2] During play, the player might also be able to use their two other traits when a certain situation arises: When there is only one candle left, failures do not extinguish it, but the gamemaster describes the way in which the character who failed dies.

On the Polygon website, Charlie Hall recommended Ten Candles for Halloween parties[6] and compared its building tension to the game Dread.

"[8] Kam Burns, writing for Wired about the use of games in mental health care, discussed how a player's experience of Ten Candles helped them cope with mortality.

[5] In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted that the use of candles was "a central, and largely uncontrollable, game mechanic that represents the constant march (and cost) of time ...

Horvath concluded, "In tandem with the game's character-based narrative tools, the fire serves to create emotionally rich stories about desperations and sacrifice.