Hoodsum Lange, Ultimate Rogue
STR: Mid, CON: Mid, AGI: Mid, INT: Mid, LUK: Mid
Magnificence Manifest (Passive) - Whenever the Blackened is properly executed, gain +10 in all stats. If this does not occur, then you lose 10 in all stats. You start the game with a legendary crossbow ‘Palintonos’ and 3 arrows.
Great Thief’s Sabotage - White Wolf (Passive) - At some place on the map, your pet Garmr is hidden. He obeys only you and people who learn your secret whistling technique. You are good at making predictions regarding the movements of animals.
Survivalist (Passive) - You are an expert on all matters plant, nature, and simple poison. You are skilled at making traps.
Caerbanog’s Fury (Ultimate) - Learn the rooms of all secret passages on the current map. Increase your jump height, physical strength, and relative movement speed to be able to access these easily for the rest of the chapter.
Tim Tomlam, Ultimate Toymaker
STR: Low, CON: Low, AGI: Low, INT: Mid-High, LUK: Mid-High
Cracks in Time (Passive) - You can create up to 5 wholly automatic automatons as long as you have access to 3 things: a key, cardboard/some other material to serve as a shell, and optionally a claw or beak. The automatons follow up to 3 simple instructions. They cannot perform complex tasks and are unsuited for direct murder due to their small size. Every 7th hour, they will take on a frightening appearance to all those who see them.
The Told-tale Hearth (Passive) - You are proficient at making timed devices. You start the game with a lighter and a remote.
Black Scrawl - Instruct your currently active automatons to perform a specific action. You must be within 2 rooms to activate this ability and be holding your remote. May be performed up to 3 times per chapter.
Giga-Fizth (Ultimate) - Requires being in a workshop-like room. Lock yourself in for 6 hours. After completion, a large vehicle-shaped robot will be constructed that will perform up to 8 tasks of your choice and can attack players to great effect using bladed weapons.
Prototype Room #3: Observation Deck
Key Object Descriptions:
SECTION 1
Overview (Prologue)
You burst from the mirrored hallway, out onto an observation deck, faux seats of black wicker surrounding a stout and low table, on which there is nothing but a large glass bottle locked with multiple chains. An inactive terminal lies next to the door. But that is not what draws your eye. Nor is it the top of greenery you can see over the lip of the balcony you appear to be on. No, it is the far wall, made of clear glass, exposing something that cannot be real.
Stars. There are stars outside. And beneath that vast firmament, there is… your home. The planet you call home. From far, far, far, above. You are not where you thought. You are not home. If that were not evident by now.
You gaze into the void, trying to find something… solid that you can accept. And there, at the very top, just barely visible through the ginormous window… is a metallic man. Their face is a screen. You’ve never seen anything like it.
The air feels fresh, like you’re outdoors. It is a mockery of the fact that you’ve just recognised how truly imprisoned you are.
HOSTS SHOW UP AND GIVE THE RUNDOWN AFTER EVERYONE HAS HAD TIME TO REACT TO THIS NARRATION
Overview (Later Chapters)
You enter the Observation Deck, where your illusions were first shattered. Faux seats of black wicker surrounding a stout and low table, on which there is nothing but a large glass bottle locked with multiple chains. The body reporting terminal is a permanent reminder of where you are. The air feels fresh, and over the balcony you can see the Garden below. What now?
Seats
Inspecting the seats closely, you notice that you can see through them… and through the floor, seeing some greenery below. There are holes in the floor beneath the seats, it seems.
Beneath Table, if inspected
Beneath the table is a scrap of paper. On one side is a tiny fragment torn from the corner of an official-looking document reading:
-POSAL
-ire
-illing.On the back is something written in a nigh-illegible scrawl- “check results 4:30”
Bottle
The glass is extremely tough, unnaturally so. The liquid you can see sloshing inside the dark glass is as black as midnight, yet seems to be… glowing ever so faintly? A network of chains with a single ornate padlock binds the cork in place. Inscribed into the glass are the following words: “Bottled Mire-Dream”. A tag is attatched to the cork, reading “A Liquid of Edification For Guests”.
Terminal
WORK IN PROGRESS - I don’t have any clear ideas for how the body reporting system could work especially, so I’ll leave it able to be filled in later for now.
Puzzles (Again, Not Really)
SECTION 2
Edification
Game Design Notes: This room does not have puzzles- rather it has plot hooks. The bottle and the note are both effectively leads to investigate over the course of a whole game- I plan to put in lore of one particular experiment that the results of were to be checked at 4:30, and a long “quest chain” of puzzles that will eventually grant the key to unlock the bottle, notably only possible after someone has been murdered.
To explain the rough lore of this bottle, it makes you “Mire-Dream”- it knocks you out for 1 hour, then in your dreams you can view something from the Mire without being able to interact with it. This vision (explained in Section 3) was intended to be viewed by Odie after at least one murder, and hints at his motives without outright stating them. It is also extremely creepy.
I plan to make the section viewed in this Mire-Dream accessible much later in the game, probably in ENDGAME, making there be an “aha!” moment when it’s recognised. By hinting at stuff that will happen during ENDGAME throughout the entire thing, the end will feel more connected to everything that came before.
Secrets of the Room
SECTION 3
The Mire-Dream
You swallow the liquid. It tastes bitter. Then, suddenly, the rest of the liquid bursts from the bottle! All of it streams out, forcing itself into your mouth, diffusing your body with an inky nothingness. In a start, you lose consciousness.
You dream. In your dream, you are in a dark field next to a forest at twilight. The grass is wrong. Standiing, facing away from you is a man. He has antlers, and from each of those expansive, ethereal things, hangs a chain from a set of golden scales.
He speaks. “I am a memory. If you are hearing, it brings me no pleasure to say I appear to have been right. I did not intend for anyone to kill. I have no intentions of the sort. Yet someone did. It is my hope that you can live in peace in this place of luxury I have set for you to languish in with them gone. Justice has been served, either way. I cannot communicate any longer”. He vanishes. Only the antlers and a floating… playing card… remain.
The jack of clubs. You cannot move your dream-body. The black ink on the card expands and covers the entire surface. The antlers suddenly swing in and pierce your body. The vision ends, and you languish in void. Then your consciousness fades from the bizarre dream.
Miscellanea
SECTION 4
Another Note
Game Design Notes: I’ve been doing quite a few rooms that exist for later chapters recently, haven’t I? Well, the next few rooms I do will all be intended for Chapter 1 or to be constants throughout the entire game. I have bubbling ideas as to what the method of acquiring the key that unlocks the dream-bottle would be, so I might put that in the next room I work on as an addition after the first tribunal.
This one mostly exists for plot hooks. It’s been designed to be vulnerable enough from below and useful enough for muder that people won’t Cabin there, although obviously we’ve taken other measures against that happening.
Phil Ander R., Ultimate Broker
STR: Mid-High Con: Med AGI: Low INT: High LUK: MED
Shady Dealings (Passive) - With your experience with the darker parts of society and the black market you have a great eye for what is a bad deal and when a good deal turns to a bad one. You are skilled at reading people who are trying to make a deal with you and how to pick something off someone with out them noticing.
Strike a Deal - You start the game with 5 encrypted item codes, these codes can be used to summon items through the food terminal however due to your known nature your logins have been blacklisted through the system for interfering with and submissions in this manor. While offering a deal to keep everything in a concise measure you and someone else can strike a deal where they receive a code that you offer them and in turn they agree to one of you demands. You only have one use of each code. - Once per ChapterEncrypted Item Codes
- Morter Launcher
- Great Sword
- Taurus Judge Revolver
- Cyanide Capsule
- War Hammer
Agreements
- Recipient pays in an item of pre determined in this agreement listed here --------.
- Recipients pays in an agreement that said item will never be used against each other willingly while both are within this station.
- Recipient agrees that neither party will talk about the trade that took place here for their remainder they are trapped within this station.
Always ahead (Passive) - After an agreement takes place and the recipient has imputed their code you will gain access to their login with limited access. You may with their information gain a single print of the item you traded them however as you are a person of business and reputation you will not use this item against the recipient you gained it from.
Always leave a loophole (Ultimate) - You may fake your own death for the following hour you will seem dead to all that investigate you however during this time the body report function will not work on reporting your death. When someone investigates your body you will automatically search them. After this event all Agreements previously made are voided due to a pre established loophole for your own benefit as well you may enter your private code to receive one item that you viewed during your search’s to be printed for you. (Some Items can’t be printed.).
merge hacking abilities from Com Off to Prof
(Note: will probably appear in every chapter)
WIP
Prototype Room: Grand Hall
Key Object Descriptions:
Section 1
You emerge into a grandiose entrance, your hurried steps reverberating through the hallowed halls as echoes. A velvet carpet near your feet guides your eyes to a set of stairs, leading to a well-decorated area past it. From where you stand, you can just get a peek at a towering receptionist’s desk and a translucent tube of some sort behind it at the far side of the room. You can see a board displaying a large 0 at a higher point on the tube. On either side of the stairs, pillars stretch to a peak out of view, adorned with creatures you can only just make out. Behind you, there are 2 sets of couches, with 17 masks of various shapes and sizes affixed to the walls above them. The couches are black and white respectively, with clusters of 8 masks above each and one gold one directly above the entrance you came from.
Go up the stairs:
CON check. If players pass the check, they will be told that they felt like there was a bit of give to the stairs.
As you reach the peak, you get a better view of what you had previously seen. The receptionist desk is almost as tall as you are. Like a podium, it appears to be slanted. Atop it, you can see a computer connected by a cord going downward out of view. At ground level, the tube houses a silver cylinder with 12 large buttons and a screen above it. Doors a few meters to the left and right of the tube display huge locks with ornate tiger and dragon designs. The carpet extends to the left and right ends of the room. Against the wall on the left side, there are three statues:
- A woman in a labcoat holding a document via clipboard out in one hand triumphantly.
- A knight on its knees, holding the blade of a sword stabbed into its chest.
- A fractured man with a lost arm. The statue appears to be falling apart.
Two paintings hang on the sides of the knight, depicting well-known events in the history of Britain.
On the right side, there are only two statues, but three stands:
- The left stand has a potted plant, from which sprouts a Sundew.
- Atop the middle stands a cloaked figure holding a staff. From the staff ebbs and flows an energy you can only determine as ominous. A placard on the stand of the cloaked figure reads ‘The Wretch of Bright Eyes’.
- Atop the right stands a demon sprouting out of the chest of a man whose expression is contorted into one of horror.
Aside the statues lie exotic plants of several varieties.
Computer:
Upon inspection, the computer appears to have been used recently, as a single press reveals an email account…with all the emails wiped other than one.
Clickity Clackety
From: V.A.
To: The ProfessorI trust that this will get to you at some point. You must make sure that nobody sees this. You will find a few vital tools placed around the station. They are divided amongst each main section equally. You will need these in order to connect to the mainframe. From your current room, follow the trail of tears to the next modus of communication. From there, I will communicate everything else.
The computer also has Minesweeper open. Sweet.
Silver Cylinder:
The buttons are a numpad input, with the remaining buttons being backspace and enter.
Design Notes: The password is 9 digits. 098620913. Players are not intended to figure this out early on (really just reserved for endgame). Upon a successful guess, players are allowed to visit the trial area outside of the trial using the elevator. Incorrect guesses will show the following on the monitor ‘Error: Failure’. Entering 11037 will yield ‘Nice Try, Dumbass’.
Lion (Left) Door:
The door doesn’t appear as it will budge in its current state.
Design Notes: Need a key that won’t appear for a while.
Dragon (Right) Door:
The door doesn’t appear as it will budge in its current state.
Design Notes: Need a key that won’t appear for a while.
Desk:
In case we need to run it
Odie Smith, Ultimate Starseeker
With Suit: STR: 150, CON: 100, AGI: 200, INT: 122, LUK: 90
Without Suit: STR: 50, CON: 39, AGI: 76, INT: 122, LUK: 70OD1n-Suit allows:
- infinite flight
- halving the chance of murder attempts actually hitting
- 3 lives for the purpose of calculating murders
- Can shoot concentrated burst of plasma from the wings
Odie has executive control of the station
please note: this was written while I was half-asleep. do not expect coherence beyond my usual level of passable semi-cogence. or sentences with remotely good scansion.
Prototype Room #4: Library (WIP)
Key Object Overview:
SECTION 1
Overview:
You enter the library, a cool modern atrium, the walls lined completely with bookshelves, many of which are comically inaccessible, even to the balconies leading into the room from the upper floors of the station. In the center of the room, a mahogany desk cluttered with various objects, including a laptop, sits. And at the far end of the room, surrounded on both sides by bookcases, is a ginormous mass of metal and beeping screens that resembles a vault door. It is marked “EXIT”
(Only add this bit in Chapters 2 onwards: “Probably too good to be true.”)
Vault Door
You examine the vault door and its’ nearby wall. It is almost flush with the long row of bookcases stretching from wall to wall, their frame including a large looking compartment, something more at home in a wardrobe than a bookcase. You can neither make head nor tail of the arcane locking mechanism of the door, only that there is a screen and a pin pad. The screen, predictably, impassively reads:
Killing/Judgement Game Emergency Exit. Please Enter Bellerophon Code: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ](game design notes: the code is not 11037 lmao, feel free to give them a snarky message if they submit it, we are allowed to have fun, nay, obligated to)
Desk
A laptop sits in the center of the cluttered desk, surrounded by bits of scrap paper, scattered playing cards, someone’s eyeshadow, an unplugged lamp, a packing knife, a few pens, and a wine glass, still smelling faintly of some unidentiifed beverage or other. Inside the single drawer, hanging open, is a copy of “Crime And Punishment” that has very clearly had water spilled on it. (game design notes: lmao theme. anyway the copy of crime and punishment has a cavity cut into it that contains a vial labelled “Brilliant Potion - Blinds for 10 minutes upon ingestion. WARNING: Despite viral claims to the contrary, Brilliant Potion does not enhance your intelligence, and was solely created to promote awareness for the struggles of the blind. Only use as directed. By usiing this product, you acknowledge that ME Biochemicals LLC will not be held liable for any injuries inflicted by failure to read the label and inspect the contents.” This poison is, as it happens, labelled correctly.)
Bookcases
Game Design Notes: If someone, grabs a book, roll a d25. (This section was redesigned once I realised that my proposed system would require too many rolls.)
| No. | Upon Picking Up | Upon Finishing Reading |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | It’s a copy of “Spider Lady: A Collection Of Essays On Vriska Serket” by various respected academics who have elected to remain anonymous. The blurb says that this book was published as the result of a drunken bet, and that you under no circumstances should read it. | The discourse sickly hums in your brain. Vriska Did Nothing Wrong. Vriska Did Everything Wrong. The hours poured into arguing about this one vaguely morally ambiguous fictional character terrifies you. You have gained a headache. For the next hour, you have a slightly lower chance of succeeding on INT rolls. |
| 2 | It’s a copy of “The Michealangelo Code” by Darren Brown. | Standard - 50% chance of raising INT by 1 point, which is realistically cosmetic, with the following text: Well, that’s an hour of your life you’re not getting back. Perhaps you should be more discerning in your choice of book. Nonetheless, you feel at least a little wiser. |
| 3 | It’s a copy of “Histories” by Herodotus. The first work of western history, but not too relevant. | Standard. |
| 4 | It’s a copy of “Why Exactly Do So Many Of My Colleagues Care About Whether Animorphs Are Furries Or Not Again?: An Analysis Of The State Of Modern Literary Academia” by Louise Baker. | Standard. |
| 5 | It’s a copy of “Hey, Wait A Minute (I Wrote A Book)” by Johnathan Madden. | Standard. |
| 6 | It’s a copy of “Dune” by Frank Herbert. | Standard. |
| 7 | It’s a copy of “The Astonishing Truth They Didn’t Tell You About Traffic Cones” by Johnavid Irk | Standard. |
| 8 | It’s a copy of the Carcasses and Catacombs™ Player’s Manual, Seventh Edition, published by Mages Of The Tower. | Standard. |
| 9 | It’s a copy of “Guards, Guards!” by Terry Pratchett. | Standard. |
| 10 | It’s a copy of “Time Loops And Utilitarianism: An Analysis” by Pyra Glassworker | Standard. |
| 11 | It’s a copy of “Blazing Bat And The Curse of Crows: My Time As A Cricketer” by Micheal Townsend. | Standard. |
| 12 | It’s a copy of “The Minecraft Survival Guide”. Who exactly put this here? | Standard. |
| 13 | ||
| 14 | ||
| 15 | ||
| 16 | ||
| 17 | ||
| 18 | ||
| 19 | It’s a copy of “Regarding The Theory of Effacious Rituals” by Araki Norihiko. | It tells of the nature of rituals, of how they require either blood or a mirror, how they can only truly be performed near a Mire-Eye… And such. It speaks of three in particular: Imaginary Prisons, Conjoined Fates, and Sanguine Judgements. You feel you have enough of a sense of ritual magic to be better able to find those rituals in this library, if they are here. (If they look for one of the rituals, roll a d10 and ignore the first 15 entries of this table instead. |
| 20 | It’s a copy of “The Isle’s Scepter” by Lady Aldritch Drewsbury. | Overall, it’s a rather dreary piece of hagiography. But one of the citations intruiges you: “A History of The Dynamics Of The Union.”, it seems used in a… unnaturally cursory manner. Perhaps there is something of note in there. (Consult the Secrets of the Room section) |
| 21 | It’s a copy of “The Body In The Library” by Agatha Christie. | Reading this book, you realise quite a bit about how to formulate murder mysteries, which, given your current predicament, may be helpful. Still, there is one passage that seems out of place, the page it is printed on somehow… newer than it should be. It describes the Mire, and how libraries are inexorably connected to murder, like the words desire blood. Perhaps you just believe that, but perhaps that makes it true. Murders you commit in the Library have a higher chance to succeed! |
| 22 | It’s a copy of “Between Two Mirrors” by Alejando Rosalia | One of the first works attempting to truly understand the Mire. You can only pass through unintentionally. If you do not, the consequences shall be dire. And if you place two playing cards of the same colour and value (for example, the two black aces), stain both with the blood of two different people, then touch the faces together, anything that happens to one card happens to the other. If one is set on fire, the other catches fire too. The Mire recognises them both to be different, but wills them to be the same. Touching one of these cards psychically communicates their abnormal properties… This could be useful, you suppose. You have learned the Ritual of Conjoined Fates! |
| 23 | It’s a copy of Le Carceri d’Invenzione by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. | You see lurid, impossible, distorted visions of impossible scale. The prints on the pages tell no story except of being dwarfed, swallowed by stone, spat out, chained. A caption speaks of how to walk on ceilings. “To walk upon a ceiling, it is quite simple. One must merely touch a mirror then touch their legs to the ceiling. Beware, though, for the world upside down is treacherous; it is much as my prisons have described. To leave this state, simply enter free fall. You shall leave footprints of ash upon the ceiling.” You have learned the Ritual of Imaginary Prisons! |
| 24 | It’s a copy of “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe. | *Disease, a blinding red. A man in a mask. You lean back. A nightmarish vision of blood crawls in. You hear the Mire. Some rasping voice tells you of a ritual to temporarily take the form of an indistinct grey man wearing a red mask for one hour, or until you wish to be known again, that requires… that requires… o blood, o judgement, it requires the heart of a recently dead peron. Still, you doubt you can forget. Forgettijng would be mercy. You have learned the Ritual of Sanguine Judgements! |
| 25 | it’s a book called “A History of The Dynamics Of The Union”. The only author listed is “Various Authors”. | See Section 2 |
Computer
Game Design Notes: Still not finished yet, but here’s part of the description:
ERROR - Programme “FOLLOW AND AVENGE. CLEAN MY HANDS” saved the following file from deletion, but no such programme exists. Antivirus detected no threats. Would you like to view the document?
YES
"London Godfather" Janus Willoughby Missing?
A rumour from relatively accredited sources tells the Times that notorious gangster Janus Willoughby, responsible for the murder of six, has mysteriously vanished. Sources say that Willoughby’s associates suspect a low-profile arrest was secretly made on one of London’s most infamous criminals. Willoughby was notorious in organised crime circles for not simply employing the threat of violence but rather setting events such that the threat of violence would not come from him but a third party. More on the situation as it unfolds.
Cupboard
You open that strange cupboard installed within the bookcase on the vault door’s wall. Nothing is in it. It looks spacious. (Note: The doors can be locked from the inside but not the outside, and additionally the cupboard is soundproof, the occupant only able to see the room outsied via the redundant keyhole. I’ll add a description of the locking mechnaism Soon:tm:)
Puzzles And Secrets
SECTION 2
Game Design Notes: I’m combining these two sections for the purposes of convenience this time, since once again they are heavily intertwined. This room conceals a secret passage, leading to a room that would otherwise be a dead end only accessible from two floors up. However, the puzzles required to access this passage for murder are quite stringent. In exchange for that, this passageway also provides access to key lore information much earlier than you’re “supposed” to get it, lore information specifically calibrated to only apparently be useful for murder, of course.
I wanted to provide incentives for players to not be entirely honest about their possession of lore-relevant documents, and hiding one only accessible to “clean” players (not that we plan for there to be any such thing in the long run) in Chapter…honestly, I want to say Chapter 4 or so? You’ll see.
In any case, once again there are multiple puzzles, all of which are intertwined and nested, because this is an Ici room, what do you expect? There is also, of course, quite a lot to offer for your average player as well; see the previous section.
What’s On The Other Side Of That Vault Door Anyway?
(1 minute after the correct pin is entered) A beep, and a light turns green. The metal begins to move, shifting out of the way, parting in two, pushing the bookcase out of the way, obscuring the cupboard entirely. You see a metal wall. There is a plaque on it.
~ TO THE SUBJECT WHO HAS GOTTEN THIS FAR ~
Congratulations on solving this puzzle set here for your intellectual stimulation.
It is wonderful that you worked so hard to save your friends from this fate that we must regrettably consign you to.
However, as you might have gathered, this is in fact a false exit.
Consider it a gift of Hope, that greatest of treasures.
Speaking of Hope, I would grant the following advice- if you seek a future of hope, do not kill.
By the time this message has been received, a death may have occured.
If so, seek Redemption amongst the stars. I did.
Yours truly, a friend. O.A thin knife handle sticks out from behind the plaque.
Okay, So, What’s The Deal With That? Is The Door Just A Big Red Herring?
Game Design Notes: Nope! In fact, the door is the key to entering a secret passage- its mechanism pushes the bookcase on its’ wall forwards and backwards (when closing, after 5 minutes of inspection, it retracts the bookcase with it. If you were to store yourself within that cupboard after entering the pin, it would push you into the Library Secret Passage.
Library Secret Passage
Where: The walls on the (WIP) side of the Library, leading up from the Library into a room on a higher floor.
What To Tell The Roles That Care About Passages: There is a secret passage leading from the [Library] to the [x], but you are uncertain as to how. Your only clue is that there’s something fishy about the construction of the walls with the bookcases on them.
Why: Because I felt like it.Description: You enter the dimly lit secret passageway. A mustily lit wooden staircase, incongrously rickety anywhere else on the station, leads up. You see the bookcases from the other side. Tiny peepholes are instaslled into the lower shelves, but not the higher, inaccessible ones, confirming what you ssupected- those books were fake! Except there is one, which, curiously, by the crack of brighter light from the atrium creeping by its spine, is real. “Crime and Punishment”, the spine reads.
Crime and Punishment…2!
You open the book. From the point at which the book naturally opens from the flaws in its’ spine through loving use, falls a folded piece of paper, which you pick up. It seems to be a meeting transcript.
[WIP. INCLUDES SOME EXPLICIT DRAMA AND SOME HUGE IMPLICATIONS LORE-WISE, ALSO MAYBE A DESCRIPTION AS TO HOW SOME OTHER STATION MECHANISM USEFUL FOR MURDER WORKS?]
Assorted Book Puzzles
WIP
HISTORY
Game Design Notes: A longish branching loredump that is designed to simulate the experience of researching Anything. there are puzzle elements too, not just chains of citations to be sifted through via trial and error; rather, the player must make judgements as to whether or not the particular information in the book would be useful. Do not give out any of these books unless specifically looked for. All four “ending” books lead to useful information, but one can be considered the “most” useful given that it pertains to Odie Smith directly, being a book he wrote. The following SUBSECTION describes the books and their text.
This puzzle is designed to be completed throughout the game as a sort of ongoing idle project for the players. The main benefits are as follows- the slow pace creates an incentive to work together by dividing the work between multiple researchers, but the benefits for all but one of the “ending” books are helpful primarily for murder, incentivising hiding said details. Note that the information contained within is more significant than the benefits in the useful books section, given the extra AP and time investment that has to be put into finishing the quest.
SUBSECTION (CONTENT WARNING: NERD SHIT)
| Accessed Via: | Upon Picking Up | Upon Finishing Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Various Methods, Begins Quest | It’s a book called “A History of The Dynamics Of The Union” | Inside, the book begins with a story you know well- after the failed attempt at revolution by the colonies of America many years ago, the British Empire consolidated power, claimed land in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, becoming the dominant tripartite power it is today. |
WIP
Miscellanea
SECTION 3
WIP
this is a work in progress but i’m proud of what i’ve done so far! expect some stuff to be built upon this soon, but feel free to criticse it now
The Point
I wanted to create a secret passage that was hidden in a “clever” way; the secret passage containing some critical piece of lore that could, in a sense, ultimately lead to escape, being covertly opened by the fake door to escape shown from the very beginning. It had a certain dramatic irony to it that I enjoyed. Additionally, a library allows for the store of a lot of worldbuilding information, all of which can be useful elsewhere, and books are helpful weights in committing physics based murders. They’re a staple at this point, and for good reason.
Fil. Buster
Stats: Irrelevant
NPC ‘Automatic Intelligence’ who performs maintenance around the facility. Every odd statement made is a soft insult. Every even statement made is a soft compliment. In general can be characterized as gloriously pragmatic to the extent that every comment is an awe-inspiring amount of fucked up.
Protoype #5: Walk-In Wardrobe (heavy WIP, i’m mostly just posting this to get it out of my drafts so i can work on an idea i’m more invested in)
Key Object Descriptions
SECTION 1
Overview
You enter the wardrobe. A soft carpet lines the bottom of the brightly lit pseudo-room. Four compartments line the walls, each cotnaining an extravagant and… very perculiar outfit, with closed drawers beneath. There is a terminal by the door, marking this as a Safe Room.
Comparment 1
It contains a long, ornate black judge’s gown, with the insignia of the Supreme Court of the Atlantic Union sewn into it. Lying on the counter beneath it is a box containing an attorney’s badge, and a box containing a prosecutor’s badge. Despite this presenting no dsicernable advantages, you feel the need to Present them to someone.
Drawer 1
It contains a pile of folded onesies, atop which sits a pair of handcuffs.
Compartment 2
Character Themes:
NPCs
Fil Buster
Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 OST | 15 Enoch Drebber ~ The Link Between Science and Magic - YouTube
Odie Smith
Normal Theme:
NIER OST - His Dream - YouTube
Backstory Theme:
NIER OST - Shadowlord ~ White Note Remix - YouTube
Mayakalam
use selections from:
The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stages 1-6 (Complete) - YouTube
Ultimate Street Performer
Ultimate Skullbreaker
Ultimate Dreammaker
Eddie Vedder - Love Boat Captain (Record Store Day Vinyl) - YouTube
Ultimate Skateboarder
NENA | 99 Luftballons [1983] [Offizielles HD Musikvideo] - YouTube
Forgotten Psychopomp
NIER OST - Ashes of Dreams ~ Nouveau - YouTube
ultimate will:
NIER OST - Shadowlord - YouTube
Bravely Default Flying Fairy - Wicked Flight - YouTube
Ultimate Professor
Ultimate Philosopher
Eminem - Rap God (Explicit) - YouTube
KOMM, SUSSER TOD (M-10 Director's Edit Version) - YouTube
Ultimate Clairvoyant
Empty Chairs At Empty Tables - YouTube
Ace Combat 4 Ost - Megalith Agnus Dei [Digitally Remastered Remix by DarkIce] - YouTube
Epic Action Music: "The Battle for Everyone's Souls" by Shoji Meguro - YouTube
Ultimate Assassin
Flandre's Theme - U.N. Owen was her? - YouTube
[Touhou 9] Flowering Night // Slowed + Reverb - YouTube
Ultimate Arborist
Unpainted - NEO: The World Ends with You - YouTube
Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem: Theme of Love - YouTube
Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 OST | 17 The Professor ~ The Phantom Lives - YouTube
Ultimate Heartbreaker
ultimate catographer slash hunter
just Indiana jones stuff
iowneoivnwe, Ultimate Ambassador
STR: Mid, CON: High, DEX: Mid, INT: Low, LUK: Low
Territorial Imperative (Passive) - Depending on what area in the station you are in, you will gain one of the following benefits:
- [Luxury] -
A man chooses. A slave obeys. Tell me, are you a slave or a man? By answering, you have chosen to submit to my question. Does this make you a slave because you obeyed, or does it make you a man because you chose to answer? Or would the answer be to destroy everything around you to get an echo of an answer?- [Prison] -
You are free. The end of freedom arises as you step out into the fold. There is no freedom. There is no fold. You were never free in the first place. Would it not then be best to face god as you walk backwards into hell. Only then will you have achieved freedom by rejecting the script set out for you.- [Backstage] -
You see now the darkness in our eyes and our hearts. You have a reawakened perspective on the world because you reject all of it. What, then, do you do now? Speak to the One who rejects and then you will know.- [Trial Room] -
Accuse the tortured One. Lose yourself in the sensation of your own existence. You will be an animal. Adore that fate. You will no longer be cursed with knowledge.- [Mire] -
Feel a pressing, a longing, a desire, to go higher, higher, higher, to beyond infinity and its' pressing, shifting stars. Do not question why. You do not know how. But above is the past, lying in your shattered heart. Pick it apart like amber to unlock this ability.Extraterritorial Rights (Passive) - Attached to this card is the emblem of Italy. Whenever a room clearly has this emblem in it (either added by yourself or it was normally there), you will have certain privileges there. You start the game with two wiretaps which can only be used in these rooms.
- Cannot be followed while on Italian territory
- Cannot be investigated (includes item checks) while on Italian territory
- You will know when a player attempts to investigate you while on Italian territory
Treatise of 2019 - Only usable during Daily Life. Propose an alliance with the targeted player. Should they accept, you will be able to whisper to them during the trial, but you will not be able to investigate them at any point. Only up to 2 players can be Allied with you.
Lord Returns to the People (Ultimate) - You start the game with a code to access a syringe containing fluid that will allow your mind to enter an ascended state. The injected will become Mired.
The Hammer of the King (Ultimate) - Use only during Deadly Life. If the body was discovered on Italian territory, you will be able to take control of the investigation, allowing you to:
- Seize items with 100% success
- Block off Italian rooms from investigation
- Imprison players, limiting their movement during Deadly Life
Prototype #6: Batrhroom
Game Design Notes: Do not list this room on the map; instead, simply place an Ominously Described Door somewhere on the map. People will go in expecting something Mysterious and instead will gain a bathroom, an area that although seemingly banal is in fact everything they wanted- this room, the bathroom, is the domain of llies, an intricate warren of murder and deception. It is also, admittedly, a place where you go pee pee poopy and have a nice funny bath. But it is also an Evil Hive Of Scum featuring Evil Hecked Up Puzzles.
The intent of this is to act as a soft tutorial to the central design of this game’s map- hidden areas not on the map are a huge element, so having an easily accessible one that sort of teaches the principle early is a good idea. Plus, the gag of a mysterious, imposing door that in fact just leads to a bathroom is too good to pass up.
Room Overview
SECTION 1
Overview
The heavy wooden door creaks open, a tiny snap as it exits the doorframe. You see before you… an ornate room of white tiles and wooden furniture, containing two booths on both si- Oh, it’s a bathroom. Those are stalls. A large porcelain tub lit by false candles mounted on the wall above it, adorned with swathes of cleaning and hair products. Two sinks, one on either side, flank either side, one containing a mirror in a iron frame and the opposite containing a blank canvas in an identical frame. The blank one has some sort of dial centered in the frame.
The Bath
The bath is a large hot tub, somewhat out of place within the obnoxiously baroque room. Various products associated with hygeine lie on the side; you spot some bubblebath, some shampoo and conditioner, some bodywash, and some… bleach? Good grief. You can hardly believe they’d put such a thing within reach.
Bottles
Game Design Note: When inspected, each of the bottles is revealed to be a nonlethal poison with a strange effect by the safety warning on the bottles. This is because each of them has been exposed to the Mire, granting them relative safety in some sense but also a fantastical aura, each loosely based on a particular story. They also actually function for their obvious properties; you can genuinely wash your hair with the shampoo, for example.
- Watershape Bubblebath - “Warning: Consumption may lead to intense perspiration and rapid lubrication of skin. If consumed, avoid slippery surfaces for 2 hours.” About 30 minutes after being consumed, causes the victim to sweat profusely and become extremely slippery.
- C-Return Shampoo - Warning: Consumption may lead to a rapid accumulation of dust particles upon the skin and clothes. Clean thoroughly afterwards. No other adverse effects demonstrated via clinical trial. - About 30 minutes after being consumed, causes the victim to be swarmed with grey dust, temporarily making all actions cost an extra AP and leaving a trail wherever they step. It also makes them appear to be an indistinct grey figure.
- Rapunzel Conditioner - Warning: Consumption may cause rapid hair growth, which has been known to tangle easily and get caught in objects. - About 30 minutes after being consumed, causes the victim’s hair to grow rapidly, anchoring them to a nearby object until they cut free or spend 10 AP tugging themselves free.
- BLEACH 2 - Warning: While safer than ordinary bleach, consumption of BLEACH 2 will cause disconcerting hallucinations of visions of the dead about 30 minutes after consumption. Remain calm. Do not follow. It will lead you astray. It will fade after 15 minutes. - After about 30 minutes, the victim will begin to hallucinate a vision of one of the prisoners killed in the earlier experiments, who will appear in each room the victim enters, hoarsely whispering “Follow and avenge. Clean my hands.”, guiding them towards the bathroom, if they are aware of it. While affected by this specter, the victim is 50% easier to kill with melee weapons. See “Horriific Hallucination of the Damned” in section 2.
Blank Canvas
There’s a control knob in the center of the frame; it has three settings: AMBIENT WHITE, SANGUINE RED, BAKER-MILLER PINK. It is currently set to Ambient White.
(This, fairly simply, just changes the colour of the lights in the room. Each of the colours that isn’t White impacts the room in some way that is only useful for murder-puzzles, each elaborated upon in a further section.)
Stalls
Each stall contains a magazine on a shelf, a toilet, toilet paper, and a sink. There’s also a shelf, and each one seems to contain a different object.
Stall 1: The shelf contains a scrap torn from a magazine, reading the following:…but there is a value in new studies that contradict the old studies, especially in the field of psychology, which is in the midst of a reproducibility crisis. For example, Baker-Miller Pink, a classic piece of colour psychology, is…
Stall 2: *The shelf contains a heavy diorama of a man in a fedora holding a gun. An inscription on the underside reads: “I AM LIVING IN THE WALL. AVENGE ME.”
Stall 3: The shelf contains a pair of golden scales on it. It is weighing a golden statue of a heart and a golden statue of a feather.
Stall 4: *There is a tape measure left on the shelf. Next to it is a note: “FLUSH RED = FLUSH DEAD”
The stalls have a flimsy locking mechanism, and it is possible to just barely make out who is in a stall from outside thanks to the relative shortness of the walls.
Puzzles and Secrets
SECTION 2
Flushed Away
Any item flushed down one of the toilets will end up in a septic tank in a cupboard off from the Control Center accessible on the other side of the station.
RED = DEAD
Any item flushed down one of the toilets while the lights are red will instead be sent to the Morgue, falling out of a vent above the dissection table.
Horrific Hallucinations of the Damned
First Room: *Suddenly, you see someone you haven’t seen before. A wispy, crumbling, crackling thing straight out of a tomb, a floating corpse. It… no, he, he lolls his head and says “FOLLOW AND AVENGE. CLEAN MY HANDS.” r. Nobody else can see, you can tell.
Subsequent Rooms: *He’s here too. You cannot run. “FOLLOW AND AVENGE”, he repeats, the words creaking across his dead tongue. “CLEAN MY HANDS.”
Bathroom: He’s standing now. With greater purpose. A grim smile forms on the specter’s face. “YOU ARE HERE.” he drones. “GUIDE ANOTHER HERE. HIT THEM TO SLEEP.” He seems more alive, as you come to your senses, the cthonic haze you’ve been in fading away. “FLIP THE LIGHTS TO THE COLOUR OF PEACE IN A PRISON. VIOLATE IT. BREAK IT. THEN WE SHALL MEET. I AM DEAD. I AM ALIVE. FOLLOW AND AVENGE. CLEAN MY HANDS.” He vanishes. You sleep no more.
Baker-Miller Light
Game Design Notes: This is what everything has been guiding you towards. The lightswitch casts everything “baker-miller pink”, a colour said (probably wrongly) to reduce aggression in prisoners, that prisons are often painted in. lot of clues point towards the solution to be committing an action of violence in the midst of the light. The person who committed this act of violence is taken to a nearby Prison area (a completely bare cell) hidden behind the hot-tub by the following method:
- A hidden door on the wall behind the hot tub openss.
- A figure jumps up and rapidly knocks them on the head, then drags them through the gap, shutting it before anyone has the chance to react. (EXCEPTION: if the specific act of violence chosen was a murder, the figure does not come out, instead cowering in the corner of his cell out of fear. This basically exists to prevent the circumstance where a huge element of the murderer’s plan is taken out of their hands by an NPC. This is extremely unlikely but I feel like I should mention it.)
There, you will meet this strange figure, an NPC by the name of Janus Willoughby, who is the first bit of lore about the previous experiment you get.
Janus Willoughby (Stats)
Janus Willoughby, The Crooked Gravehaunt
STR - 100, CON - 01, AGI - 01, INT - 20, LUK - 01
Half-Dead, Half-Alive, Half-Neither (Passive) - Tainted by the failed attempt to Mire him safely, Willoughby is simultaneously alive, dead, and Mired at once. It is a state of indescribable agony, trapped between three worlds.
Willoughby was not a good man when he was alive. Now his eye bleeds, always, the blood shifting into translucent amber before shifting back to red. His body shimmers between that of a corpse, that of a regular man, and a fram esimmilar to Gollum.
His ghost calls people here in an attempt to bring himself back to life, the vain hope being that the touch of another human will cure his affliction.
When you enter his cell, he will say “'ello. Name’s Janus Willoughby. I brought you here to save me. Instead, you’re going to kill me, alright? You got three questions before I go. Ask 'em.”WHAT JANUS KNOWS
He is in space, and that a governmental group is trying to perform experiments on the Mire that failed for some reason, using condemmed prisoners.
He is their most disastrous failure, and arguably is the failure that prompted your current situation.
He did not set up the secret passage leading into the cell, but he did use the Mire to subtly distort events such that you would arrive there.
He knows that the Mire won’t accept anyone Mired on purpose, with full knowledge of what that means, and will send them to a deep deep place within it, and that it is a place of myth.
While he was sitting in this blank cell, trying to manipulate things such that he could kidnap someone else and take them there, he did not intend to die. He still fears it. He brought you here in the hopes that seeing another human for the first time in months would force him to be one thing or the other. Ultimately, it will, but the only thing it can do is force him to be dead. He knows that now.
There’s a vent high on the wall he can’t reach due to his condition, but you can, that will allow you to escape safely.
He killed a friend of the Ultimate Baker, and in response the Baker killed a body double of his, an innocent he had threatened into the position.WHAT JANUS DOES NOT KNOW
Any of the names of the people who trapped him here.
Anything about the current killing game.
Anything about any player except the Ultimate Baker.
Miscellanea
SECTION 3
The Tale of Janus Willoughby
Game Design Notes: So, what is the point of this character? Firstly, a blatant reference to the fake guy Trochi made up in DR5 that is different enough to the actual name to be a good fakeout of a solid connection between DR5 and DR6- think of Alice in Virtue’s Last Reward. Secondly, I realised that the best way to introduce the Original Experiment (probably just call it the Mire Project) before Odie took over and set up the killing game would be to introduce the players to one of the victims, who is a terrible person, in order to reinforce the themes of justice. I want to include Willoughby in one player’s backstory; possibly he committed a murder that caused the Ultimate Baker to commit a homicide in revenge, creating a miniature cycle of revenge, and linking the players to the story once again.
Additionally, Willoughby is the first introduction to what the Mire does to people; those who have been touched by it too much become mythological. His demand for three questions and three questions only is reminiscent of rules in various tales in which a limited number of questions are to be asked, and his ghost haunts various other points of the game in various cryptic ways leading people towards the puzzle with the pink light, which is hinted by multiple elements throughout the bathroom even if nobody ever drinks the bleach, which realistically someone is going to do as soon as they read the label, given the nature of drinking bleach being a meme.
Entrance
This room is a secret entrance to the prison. Later in the game, once the method of opening it by committing an act of violence under a certain light is noticed, and the way of opening the door to the adjoining cell (pending), unlocked in… Chapter 3? is the first way for the players to get into the Prison, from which point they can then open the main entrance, permanently unlocking the play area for everyone else. This secret passage was created for the purpose of allowing researchers to enter a selected prisoner’s cell without waking them up, for the purposes of psychological torment. Opening the main door to the cell is extremely loud, operating the (one-way) secret-passage is quiet.
Vent? Sus? Among Us?
The vent leading out of the cell is hugely sloped and slippy; it’s possible to slip down the vent but nearly impossible to get up it without passing a very difficult STR/CON/AGI check (probably all three, only possible with some sort of equippment to help. This does mean the puzzle can be bypassed with creativity, and this is entirely intentional; giving puzzles multiple solutions sounds cool, I think. If you can figure out how to crawl up a slippery air vent that’s at a 45 degree angle, you deserve to get some lore for it.
Below is a very rough diagram of the vent structure, not to scale.
Room A and Room B are intended to be on other sides of the elevator gap, making this vent, once discovered, a secret passageway between the two halves of the station. The addition of the Cell makes it harder to monitor all entrances/exits to this particular vent system. Additionally, the fact it is sloped allows for, say, a shot-put ball to be rolled down the vent passageway into room A, which could then be used to murder somebody with momentum.Sus.
Protoype #7: The Elevator
Game Design Notes: This is the central element of the Luxury part of the station, an elevator dividing the two halves of the station. Both sides are complete, full of areas to explore, but the intent of the elevator is to offer the possibility of splitting the game between the two sides of the station, using the various “security systems” to create “flawless” PoEs- in reality, the elevator’s design is so full of holes that using it as such uncritically is very dangerous.
The basic design is that there are three security settings:
- Password
- Permission
- Time-Limited
Each appears to create a system that allows the two halves to be seperated, but all have critical weaknesses that can be used in a murder plan to render possible that which seems impossible. As you may have gathered from the Bathroom post, there are secret passages between the halves, but there are far more ways to cross over covertly than just that.
Given that the elevator is not a room in the traditional sense the structure of this one will be slightly different. I hope you don’t mind.
Three Security Settings (Details)
SECTION 1
How Are These Activated?
Game Design Notes: Well, me, in both rooms conjoining the elevator, there should be a console in the corner where, once per chapter, security settings can be activated. Listed below are two things- the message displayed on the screen and the secret details that make these seemingly flawless security mechanisms incredibly bad. Once used in a chapter, each setting cannot be used again.
Password cannot be used in Chapter 1. Other than that, there are no time restrictions.
Password Activation UI
ELEVATOR SECURITY SETTINGS 1 - PASSWORD
Take control of your destiny. Enter a password, and we will require all those passing through the elevator to enter it in order to reach the other side. This cannot be used until after the first Tribunal, as we require proof of a concrete need for security first.
ENTER PASSWORD, THEN CONFIRM BY ENTERING IT ON OTHER SIDE ___________
Password Caveats
Game Design Notes: The elevator asks for the password halfway between the halves rather than before entry; as a consequence, when someone attempts to pass through the elevator, the following will be said to them.
You enter the elegantly furnished elevator, and watch as it noiselessly moves without vibration, presumably taking you to your destination. Then it stops with the slightest of shudders. A screen, mounted on the wall where buttons would be, with a small keyboardd beneath it, comes to life. It reads:
- ENTER PASSWORD - _______________
- GO BACK - This option will automatically be picked if the Elevator is left idle for 2 hours.
- ENTER TRIAL ROOM - Unavailable due to lack of admin permissions.
Well, either you should enter the password, go back… or maybe there’s something else going on here?
If they enter the password, take them to the other side. If they choose to go back, let them. But they can stay in the Elevator for 2 hours, as mentioned. This makes it partially a safe-room, though not truly safe since it’s not as secure as a proper saferoom.
It is also, in this role, an escape room, granting access to the Elevator Shaft secret passage. See Section 2 for more details.
Permission Activation UI
ELEVATOR SECURITY SETTINGS 2 - PERMISSION
For a low-trust environment. A lever will be added to the Grand Hall and Observation Platform (note: those are the two rooms connected to the Elevator). When both are pulled, the Elevator will function. Otherwise, it will not open. Both levers start switched on.
To aid communication between the two sides, tapes and only tapes will be allowed to pass between the two sides. Please find recording equippment in [insert rooms where recording equippment is present here].
ACTIVATE? Y/N
Permission Caveats
Game Design Notes: To be short, there are two key weaknesses with this one- number one, the recording equippment on one side only records audio, and the one on the other side only records visuals, creating opportunities for deception by limiting communication. In particular, using sleight of hand and messages warning of dire things the movements of people on the other side can be manipulated.
Secondly, when you flick the lever to release the lock on your side, there is a 15 minute delay before the light on the other side flips on, ncreasing further the opportunities for deception using this method. Effectively, this one opens up opportuniites to Deceive the other players on the other side, remotely.
Time-Limited (WIP)
Want to work out the exact timings on this one; it’s by far the simplest one, limiting the times people can cross over such that secret passageways become way more valuable. Additionally, sending over an empty elevator becomes a valuable and important mechanism.
The Secret (An Unravelling Of The Guts Of The Station)
SECTION 2
How To Break Out Of The Elevator
Game Design Notes: Strictly speaking, this puzzle can be accomplished at any time, not just with the Password functionality. However, without the ability to stop the elevator in the middle of its’ transit, it isn’t much use- see the following Very Bad Diagram of the Elevator Chamber:
A and B are the two sides of the station, linked by the Elevator, C is the Mirrored Halway that leads to the trial grounds. As can be seen by the rough structure, the chamber curves upwards, meaning that the escape hatch will be jammed unless it is opened mid-transit. To allow this area to be accessed later in the game without the Password feature, the ability to stop the elevator with a call button will be added in later chapters.
In other words, this passage is enabled by the Password functionality; it becomes just a normal room in Endgame.
Now, how do you break out of the elevator? It’s quite simple- solve a simple cryptographical puzzle! Most of the puzzle here is having the initiative to search the elevator, by necessity a liminal space, as if it were a normal room. I call this puzzle “I Came Out To Have A Good Time And Honestly I’m Feeling So Attacked Right Now”.
“I Came Out To Have A Good Time And Honestly I’m Feeling So Attacked Right Now”
You examine the hatch in the ceiling. It has a small keypad on it, with numbers going from 0 to 9 on it. It seems that to open the hatch, you need to enter some kind of number. The only hint that is forthcoming is an inscription on the hatch- “23 WOUNDS - WLPHV IRXUWB VLA”
Solution: 23 Wounds is a reference to how many times Julius Caesar was stabbed- this indicates to do a Caesar shift with key 23. The ciphertext translates to “TIMES FOURTY SIX”, indicating the solution- 23*46 = 1058, which is the code to open the hatch. Fairly simple, I think- just a simple two-step code problem to reward you for looking, and slightly increase the challenge in getting into the Elevator Chamber.
Elevator Chamber
You clamber out of the Elevator. What you see is a stark contrast to what you expected- rather than a writhing mass of wires and pipes, the place you see is pristine. White walls that would not be out of place in an art gallery. It’s dark, but light filters in from cracks in the doors at both ends. A metal walkway lies next to the elevator, linking the two sides. And beneath it, the room tapers in, spiralling down into the trial chamber, heralded by. From below the walkway, the walls are dotted with strange devices that whirl in tones of red and amber.
That’s when you realise that the elevator has no suspension wires. It floats, freely, disobeying what you think of as gravity, next to the walkway. A small plaque at the center of the walkway jumps out to you. There is something lying on the floor next to it
Plaque
The plaque reads:
GRAVITY ELEVATOR OPERATING SPECIFICATIONS
- Load: 5 tonnes - SRI-G Index: 28.3 - Product ID: +Cross
- Danger: Highly sensitive Miretechnology. Do not disrupt.~
- DO NOT DISRUPT FALSE-GRAVITY ORBS.
- If you are a test subject reading this, this section allows covert travel between the halves of the station. Keep it secret. - J.A
The section in italics at the end seems to have been scratched into it roughly, a contrast to the elegant engraving demonstrated by the rest of the plaque.
Lying next to it is a knife with a serrated edge.
Doors
Game Design Notes; Both doors have peepholes, allowing you to see what’s and have buttons next to them that allow you to open them. I’ll leave it to your imagination how that might be useful.
to be done: descriptions of the physical nature of the doors. wanted to post what i have now because its pretty key to the work on the overall structure of the station that i’m probably going to post in the course of the next week
Generic Room #1:
ORb
Game Design Notes: This room is just an orb. This is a haha pointless room in the middle of another room.
Orb
You enter a room only to be met by you all around you. A thin metal that clanks to the kick adorns the walls of the slightly small spherical structure you find yourself in. Outside a black hatch at the bottom and top of the room, there is nothing of note.
Hatch
A black door of wood lies on the floor/latches to the ceiling. Neither a knob, input, nor other modus of opening can be found.
Prototype Room #8: Tech Booth
Game Design Notes: this is, uh, a small room that leads into a big room- it’s the key to the Theatre as a room, which I will post afterwards. But before I do that, I should elucidate the geometry of the space, since it’s crucial in this specific case- here’s a quickly mocked up isometric map of the relationship between the rooms:
Room B is the theatre, which will be Elucidated:tm: shortly. Room A is the Tech Booth, which will be Elucidated:tm: now.
As you can see, this room is located directly beneath the theatre’s stage- this will be crucial to understand, as this room is part of quite a few of the theatre’s puzzles. When put together, I honestly think these to be the most interesting rooms I’ve designed so far- they contain a lot of opportunities, a lot of which are honestly far from certain to actually occur, but allow for player freedom.
These rooms contain lore, Murder, MURDER, MURDER MURDER (and lore, I guess). But that’s enough prelude- here we go!
Key Object Overviews
SECTION 1
Overview
A coiled mess of recording equippment huddled around a computer fills the room- coat hangers with heavy-looking coats on them line the walls. But quite frankly, your eyes are not on the recording equippment, or the blunt-looking spear leaning against the wall, but on the large white metal orb floating in mid-air in the center of the room. It is, quite frankly, inscrutable, aside from the apparent hatches in the top and bottom…
Recording Equippment
There is a desk scattered with tapes, tape players, tape recorders, and microphones, that can seemingly be used to record and play back anything… so long as it’s on a casette tape.
Ceiling
Looking up, you see some sort of hatch in the ceiling. It looks far too heavy to budge.
ORB
See the Orb for details about the interior, namely that it IS an Orb..
The orb seems to have letters inscribed into it- on top, N, on the bottom, W, on the right side from the door, E, on the left side, S.
Computer
There seems to be nothing on the computer except three folders- “Scripts”, “Projections”, and a zipped folder named “AFTER PERFORMANCE NOTES”. But there’s something… odd, about the screen. It seems somewhat… alive, somehow. Nothing as gratiutious as it being made of human skin, but you could absolutely believe that if human skin were glass, it would be made out of human skin.
Folder 1: Scripts
There are two files: “Read_Me_First.txt” and “To_Learn_The_Truth_With _A_Bullet.txt”
Read_Me_First.txt
ACT 1
Enter: C_____, wearing a veil over her face.
Enter: Narrator, inscrutable.
NARRATOR: A performance is about to begin.
C (nodding): Yes, it is. But I cannot perform it.
NARRATOR: The greatest of lies contain a nugget of truth.
C: And we are the greatest of lies.
NARRATOR: Correct. Speak, she who mourns for herself. Tell they who listen what they must do.
C (sadly): Perform the second play I wrote. Then you will learn the third. You need not perform this one. I have always thought, that the greatest of plays would be that which cannot be performed, for they are impossible. But you need entertainment, after all, given your situation, so I will grant you a play that can be performed, that must be performed. May it be a respite from the killings.
NARRATOR: Thank you, spirit of the theatre. Once you were more. Once you learned, and did not lie. Once you healed with hurting. Once you understood. But now you do not understand. Your nerves rot, do they not, shade?
C: This is true. But you shall see. One day they will finish what I started.
NARRATOR: Must we wait long for justice?
C: If Orestes is to be believed, no. But we must. We must wait by grasping it into our own hands.
C dies, her body melting into dust and dripping, languidly, over the stage, into the audience. The Narrator dissapates, leaving behind his bones. The audience is unamused. They do not clap. They melt too. CURTAIN.
To_Learn_The_Truth_With _A_Bullet.txt
Note: The stage directions shall be handled, and will not be elaborated upon in this script, except when they pertain directly to the actors.
Dramatis Personae:
A - An important government official.
C - A scientist with a penchant for the theatre. They wear a veil.
O - An obsessed man. They have an eyepatch.
The Englishman - A vile criminal. Wears a mask with two faces.
The American - A vile criminal. Wears a mask of a boar.
ACT 0
There is a display. (File 2)
ACT 1
Enter the Englishman.
ENGLISHMAN (muttering): Follow and avenge… Clean my hands…
Enter the American
AMERICAN: Hey! What the fuck? You said this operation would be safe!
ENGLISHMAN: I… I don’t know what happened.
AMERICAN: Yeah? Well let me tell you what happened! Your little “routine robbery” job got the Frenchman scrubbed! Think the husband of that… person we had to drop… think he contacted a… I don’t know, a tradesman or something, runs an anonymous consulting detecitve agency…
ENGLISHMAN: Oh, shut up. He’s dead because you didn’t cover your tracks.
AMERICAN (shouting): He’s dead because you covered your fucking tracks over your own boyfriend’s!
A pause.
ENGLISHMAN (sobbing): I… listen, mate, he knew it when he entered the business, I…
AMEICAN (softening): …Okay, okay, buddy, I understand. But we’ve gotta do something before we-
A BOOMING VOICE: FREEZE. DO NOT MOVE.
Blackout. Exeunt.
ACT 2
Enter A, C, and O. O sits down, rubbing his hands together silently. C is wearing a veil.
A: So. Regarding the experiment.
C: Yes?
A: It’s going to have to go ahead of schedule. We’ve got a big problem. Both of you read Blackcroft’s declaration, right?
O nods
C: Yeah. I take it it was a bit of, uh, set-dressing over the truth?
A: Correct. They killed the person who found the Mire-Eye. We can’t have people looking into this, you understand? We’ve got the cops off our back for now, easy enough since we’re their direct superiors, but… well, there’s complications.
O (finally speaking): What kind of complications?
A: Two Ultimates got together to murder the Frenchman. Extrajudicially. They don’t know each other, of course, they did it anonymously, but…
O: Ah. And that complicates the situations further.
A (speaking softly): Let’s call them the Professor and the Tradesman. Both are smart. They’re bound to realise the Frenchman wasn’t the ringleader of the operation eventually, and track down the American and the Englishman. If they got to them before we did… well, they could easily make the Englishman talk.
C: Really, A, I don’t see what your point i-
A: I captured both of them and sent them up to the station this morning. C, you designed a lot of the equippment used, right? Get it working sooner. We have to test it now. I’m sending my agents after the rest of the candidates.
C: …I, uh… Can I speak freely?
A: Granted.
C: Normally i’d have concerns about rushing the experiment ahead, ehitcal concerns, but I’ve seen the things their ring has gotten up to. I think they deserve a needle that hasn’t been prepared properly, don’t they?
A: …Yeah, sure.
O (muttering): …Sure… But what does it mean to… deserve>
Blackout. Exeunt.
ACT 3
A display. (File 3). Screaming.
Enter the Englishman, crawling.
ENGLISHMAN: …I… can’t… Clean my hands… follow and… avenge… (dies)
Enter A and O, who drag the Englishman’s body off the stage. Blackout. Exeunt.
ACT 4
Enter C, angry.
C: …H-how far is this going to go, A?
A (hands clasped behind back, looking away from C): What is your issue, C? You seemed perfectly content with rushing the first experiment.
C: It’s… look, I can’t condone this… sick game of yours-
A: It is no game. It is what is necessary to maintain the stability of the empire.
C: Shut up about the empire! This isn’t about the empire… You mentioned the Professor and the Tradesman as if you liked them but thought they were an inconvenience to us…
A: They are accessories to murder. Criminals of a high order. They deserve it. Wasn’t it you who said that all who kill without the blessings of the just authorities deserve what’s coming to them? We kill with the blessings of Their Highness.They did not.
C (screaming): I… I know they deserve it, but I don’t fucking care! You’re playing games with lives, lives…
C extracts a knife. A grins.
A: I know that knife. It didn’t kill the Englishman, you know. And I doubt it’ll kill me.
C: …I know that too, A. But remember what happened to the later subjects? The Mire cares about whether you… kn-know, somehow.
A (suddenly starting to lose composure): I… I see…
C: You know you can’t run. For a spy, you’re nowhere near as fast as me. I… uh, I learned to move in quite extreme ways as part of my theatre trai-
A: Shut up. Just kill me. Maybe it’ll make you feel better, even though you can’t stop what I and O set into motion. (head held high)
C stabs A, in the heart. (Use a prop knife, not a real one!)A crumples to the ground, smiling faintly and painfully.
C: …W-what do you mean, what you and… O. Oh god…
the knife clatters to the floor. Exeunt C.
O enters
O: …So, they Mired you, A? No matter. Soon we will know if this is justice. Whatever justice is, we shall know it intimately indeed. Whether it cascades over us or over them… the invisible hand of justice shall set into motion truth. (pause) I imagine she’ll have fled somewhere on the other side of the station.
Exeunt O.
CURTAIN
Projections
There are three files “File_1.png”, “File_2.png”, and “File_3.png”.
Coat Hangers
Five heavy coats are each on seperate coat hangers. They all look identical, however one of them has a small knife poking out of it. Game Design Notes: This knife looks identical to the stage knife in the Theatre- see the description there.
Spear
Game Design Notes: It’s a blunt spear, what you see is what you get. If you sharpen it, it’s a murder weapon.
Secrets of the Performance
SECTION 2
Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy
Game Design Notes: Right, so… How to explain this puzzle? Because it’s more accurately about 5 seperate puzzles delicately coiled round each other. I’m unbelievably proud of it, but it’ll be hell to explain. Right, so, on the computer, as mentioned earlier, there are three images, and a script. As I have been hinting for a while, the only way to complete one of these puzzles is to perform the play, namely “To Learn The Truth With A Bullet”, which contains a series of seemingly barely connected tidbits that ultimately create initial understanding of the lore (I think the current version is a bit too obvious, but I can tone it back in later drafts.)
But as you can imagine by the script, there is a very obvious opportunity to covertly commit murder using this play- namely, substituting knives. Yes, I know, it’s an old-fashioned twist, but it’s honestly the most basic vulnerability built in. The far more… pertinent vulnerability is something that can’t be seen from just the script- it involves the ORB.
Special Effects
During the play, in ACT 3, the projection of the eye does not merely go onto the back wall- instead, the hatch in the ceiling of the Tech Booth opens up, and a hatch in the floor of the stage opens up, and the anti-gravity keeping the orb levitated moves it up to float in the middle of the stage- by projecting the image of the eye onto it, it looks more realistically like a giant floating eye.
Given that this orb can contain a human, you can already see the opportunities presented by this, given that it can covertly move somebody onto the stage. But it also leads to, quite frankly, a puzzle I am inordinately proud of.
A Puzzle I Am Inordinately Proud Of
As will be explained in Section 3, the orb can eventually be moved up onto the stage independently of a performance, once the main event is over (this event is created by the mechanics pretty much exclusively to create crowd control and unnatural movement of players that could present opportunities, as well as for the purpose of being cool as fuck), once control of the special effects is handed over to the players.
If you project the test card image onto the orb, it becomes possible to see the image from the side. And from that, you can assign each of the words on the side of the test card to one of the cardinal directions on the orb. Strictly speaking, the orb doesn’t have to be actually levitated to do this, it just has to be registered that you could do that, but to be safe we should just… you know, let them.
With that, we can unlock a door hidden elsewhere in the facility- quite frankly, I want to hide concealed weapons in this one, and very little lore, maybe even an outright gun.
I honestly think this one requires enough of a stretch that it has a chance of not being solved compared to the play, which will almost certainly be performed by Chapter 2, so I don’t want to put anything crucial behind it, but it’s difficult enough that it should have something behind it.
Orb Notes
Once the orb can be freely levitated, it’s held in place far less securely than it is down in the Tech Room, so it can be pushed out of the anti-gravity stream holding it up. This can potentially make it a piece of another puzzle- you mentioned a puzzle involving rolling a ball through the grand hall, and this absolutely could be used for that. It can also, of course, be used for murder, by creating a path that a giant heavy ORB rolls down to run someone over.
Lore Details
So, what lore details are revealed, somewhat cryptically, through this play?
- The Ultimate Philosopher’s spouse discovered the Mire-Eye as an archeologist, and has not realised that it’s been stolen yet.
- The Englishman is Janus Willoughby, who killed the Ultimate Philosopher’s spouse alongside the Frenchman and the American as part of a robbery.
- The Philosopher anonymously contacted the Ultimate Baker, knowing him to secretly be a private detective via contacts in academia, and the Baker, whom had been wronged by the Englishman, told the Philosopher that only the Frenchman did it in order to get the Frenchman, specifically, murdered in revenge, by guessing that the Philosopher was out for revenge. He did this becuas he knew the Englishman loved the Frenchman, and hence decided to hurt him more greviously than he could’ve by simply killing Willoughby.
- Because of the tangled web of events, the experiment was forced to go a bit early using the Englishman and American as the first test subjects, which lead to the prison experiment being a total failure, and ultimately, to tie up loose ends, the Philosopher and Baker were both chosen as candidates for the second phase of the experiment, the killing game, using the convenient excuse that they had conspired to kill someone.
- C is Veil-Schaften (communicated by the veil on C’s head), A is Antebellum, O is Odie (communicated by the eyepatch; Odin was one-eyed in Norse mythology). C felt that the killing game was wrong, and hence tried to kill Jeanine Antebellum by trying to Mire her intentionally, believing that it was only fitting that she die by the method she killed the prisoners. But as you will see in the Third Play, this is wrong.
All of this takes a while to decode, and is far from obvious from the text itself- only properly decodable using information from elsewhere, and of course the fact that the Philsoopher and Baker faintly remember the events. But remember, we incentivise people to keep quiet about their backstory by the fact that it is a known fact that the Mastermind committed the worst crimes out of all of them, so all of them don’t want the others to know their crimes.
After The Performance
SECTION 3
WIP Stuff
- An interface for controlling the special effects, which I’ll work on later. This section is mostly here for the third play, the most significant unlock of actually performing the play.
The Oresteia
You open the previously locked folder, now opened by the performance you just carried out. There is a single file in it- it reads “The_Oresteia.txt”.
The_Oresteia
ACT X
Enter Clytemnestra, wearing a veill, and Orestes, wearing an eyepatch.
CLYTEMNESTRA: …Agamemnon said that you worked with her to create this, before I… did what had to be done to her.
ORESTES: I created it, Clytemnestra. I used her, obviously. And my motives could not be more pure. I wish to know that which nobody is brave enough to know. But that is not what I care to talk to you about. The fact is that you are a liability, and I imagine when Agamemnon wakes up she will not be pleased if you are still… extant.
CLYTEMNESTRAL …What do you mean, when she wakes up? I killed her!
ORESTES: You mired her intentionally. And as we learned from our experiments…
CLYTEMNESTRA: Executions. Righteous executions that happened to grant us knowledge.
ORESTES: From our experiments, we learned that if you MIre someone on purpose, they are trapped in the throes of the Lament, and die. But Clytemnestra, you intentionally Mired her intentionally. You were doing it with intent to kill.
CLYTEMNESTRA: …So she lived.
ORESETES: Exactly. Now, I am not going to Mire you. Nor am I going to kill you.
Orestes extracts an impossible object, a glowing stave forged out of the antler of a deer, glowing amber asnd red. It looks, inverted.
ORESTES: You always loved the theatre, did you not? Well, you were always a skilled playwright. And I shall make you a playwright. Forever. Grant them plays, Clytemnestra. Exquisitie tragedies such that they will not kill. That is all you can do. You can no longer tend the truth. And we will know, Clytemnestra. You may see this as a game, and it is true, it is a game. But is the world we live in not a game for the gods? A game of money, of power, of revenge? You let your guilt blind you to the truth. But I left such things behind ages ago. Justice will reign, lit by the glory of the Mire. And thanks to my kindness, you will live to see it.
Clytemnestra is consumed in a flash of light. The stage bleeds, red as a wound, amber as something in which aeons are trapped. The eye of an impossible being, a dragon, an angel, whatever it can be, is seen.
NARRATOR: Thus ends the Oresteia. Clytemnestra told the truth. And thus she shall die.
EXEUNT. FOREVER. AND CURTAIN FALLS. SHE IS NO MORE. SHE MERELY RUNS THE PLAYS, AND THAT IS ALL. MOURN FOR HER AS SHE MOURNS FOR HERSELF.
Game Design Notes: This scene took place in the Garden statuary, as indicated by the image of the plot of the Oresteia there. I imagine this fact can be used as part of some significant puzzle, but that one shall take place elsewhere and thus is not for discussion here.
fucking hell i hope this is as good as I think it is. anyway the Theatre is coming soon, and it contains more, a lot of unrelated puzzles but also elements of the puzzle shown here, including the projector that is key to it all.
Merlin:
remove dreamwalker
starting equipment: staff (which you know is secretly a key and a knife)
Jean-Pierre Falcout:
no changes
no starting equipment
Gno et. al:
Remove unnamed man
Warner Orland, The Mastermind, and Merlin will know that the Meteor belongs to a player. Players can also find this out by finding documents
starting equipment: USB stick, flash paper 3x, lighter, stamp (allows cain’s label, only works for you)
Warner Orland:
Remove Baritsu, move stealing success bonus to sting operation
starting equipment: blood sampler (can roughly match blood, based off blood types), 10 ft of thin rope
Zoya Halfbright:
ella will rework this
τίποτα:
Remove last rites
Starting equipment: ritual dagger
Virgo:
Change intersection to be half on another, then move smoke capsules to SE
Starting equipment: Smoke Capsule 2x, Syringe, Adrenaline
Masqdorima:
Killer Smile is no longer a thing and instead moved to starting equipment
Starting equipment: Small gun (low kill chance) that is disguised as one of your teeth, inhibitor dart 1x, guitar
God-King:
Remove unblessed birth
Starting equipment: 5 steel chairs and a bowling ball
Sheba:
Remove ulti
Starting equipment: tape recorder (with enough film for 3 hours of recording), whistle
Jeux:
Move ruler of everything’s effects to second ability, turn starting items into starting equipment
Starting equipment: Microphone, aforementioned mats, shades
Speedrunner:
Remove hyperactive
Starting equipment: 5 cans of G-Fuel, Plastic sword, gloves
Koko:
Remove Soul Music
Ulti leaves a layer of soot on your face and creates a loud sound
Lost in a Storm instead allows you to swap places with another player in the room you are in. This swap will only work if they are either asleep or doing another action (such as reading)
Starting equipment: Gungnir, drumsticks 2x
TREEMAN:
Remove territorial imperative and Lord Returns to the People
Change name of extraterritorial rights to Territorial Imperative
Starting equipment: Chloroform, Molotov Cocktail
plot details (aka how people may be connected)
generally good form when writing mysteries is to refer to the past
‘why are we here now and why did this happen’
- the reason is often because things are interconnected
We already have the story of Merlin and Odie Smith, but as for everyone else:
7 years ago, expansion into the Amazon Rainforest finally reached a fever pitch. While it was mainly motivated by greed, there were hands pulling the underlying strings of this expansion.
Professor Gno et Al had recently published a research paper in collaboration with Doctor Smith and Lord Gone, linking the apparent ‘divinity’ following God-King Astrapogiannos I to instances of impossible replication scenarios in history. As a group, they had traced a pattern of these ‘events’ to have moved westward over time, with modern-day seeing the most in and around the Amazon Rainforest. Unfortunately for all parties involved, the paper was never published because of meddling by Syr. Jeanine Antebellum who kept everyone quiet on threat of
alright, i’m back! time to start making stuff here again, maybe, soon, idk, i’ve had a lot of thoughts and i think the main thing to do is simplify, and in accordance with that, i am going to take all the prototype rooms I’ve made so far and use material from them and kind of… squish it, a bit?
then i’ll work on some late-game areas, start to piece together the shape of the map itself, and come out with what i think this game should be- an intruiging immersive-sim type game ran via the forums
that is the closest analogy i can think of in terms of other kinds of games, and so using design principles taken from the immersive sim genre could stand to benefit us greatly- we both have to make things simple and yet not oversimplify to the point of removing the interactibility of the whole map