War is approaching and nearby Kingdoms are coming to you for assistance. Some of them truly want to be on your side, yet others are trying to deceive you. Pay careful attention to what they say and their Kingdom's statistics to determine whether or not they are telling the truth.
Developed: January 2018
My Role: Solo Development
Type: Make-A-Thing Game Jam
Design Decisions and Process
For this game jam, we were given 3 words that the game needed to involve. Kind, thwart and blip. The idea of being kind or thwarting someone made me think of Papers, Please. So I went with a medieval variation of that game.
The overall aim was to make the player feel pressured and on edge. This was done with the following design decisions:
- Having a timer. It's in the middle of the screen, so it's always in their view. Allowing the player to know how long they have left until failing, causes them to feel more pressured. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, has the players on edge and feeling pressured the entire time. With a ticking timer as well, this does indeed cause the players to hurry and feel more on edge as the game progresses.
- Adding in more sections that the player needs to check is another way to make them feel pressured. All of a sudden they need to review Kingdom relations and travel distances. Still within the 30 second time limit, their pace of reviewing information increases as more is introduced, increasing the pressure on the player. This can be seen in Papers, Please, where new requirements are added constantly.
