Original Story From Project Two
Abstract Takeaways
- divine punishment
- hunger
- insatiable
- insanity-inducing
- murderous
- only relieved by consumption of human flesh
- moral conflict
- eat oneself?
- hurts
- can kill you
- still hungry
- eat another?
- murder is wrong
- dangerous, damages reputation and psyche
- full, not hungry anymore
- eat oneself?
- coming to terms with terrible outcomes
Themes
- divine intervention, fate, and unfairness
- moral conflict, murder is wrong, is sacrifice any better?
- can you call it “murder” if it’s to survive?
- madness, insanity, slowly succumbing to temptation, the pull of evil becoming stronger every moment
Potential Message
- there is no right answer in desperate times
- survival is a test of morality, not fitness
How Interaction and Play Can Communicate the Message
The themes of succumbing to an ever-present creeping madness definitely can be a conflict within the game design, the goal being to simply make it to the end, whatever that means (time-based? challenge-based? experience-based?). The machinic of the game would likely be something to do with surviving each day to the end, but facing various effects of the hunger each day. Perhaps this is a card game, the goal to last a week long with this ever-growing hunger within you. Maybe each day you draw an additional card that has the chance of serious setbacks upon them each day, drawing one on day one and seven on day seven. I would like this game to be played alone, if possible, a game between yourself and fate and random chance. The concept of keeping up facades, reputation, and not being creepy could play into the game design as well, perhaps including a player card that has a series of stats (health, reputation, suspicious, hunger) that change as you draw cards, and as one gets too low, you must react accordingly and potentially hurt other stats.