The Executioner was first conceived as a text-based quest. There were only two of us back in the fall of 2016 — a game designer with a thing for drama and psychology of deviant behaviour and a novice writer, still kind and soft-hearted.
The story of Theodor Grim, the royal executioner by necessity, was created in Twinery. Those who’ve seen the demo have an idea of the minimalistic design we had to work with.
Testers and the most curious of our friends had a chance to appreciate detailed descriptions of torture, color-coordinated conditions of the hero’s victims and his father’s journal full of love and sunshine.
Then Ludum Dare #37 happened. It had a perfect theme for us — One Room. So we created a brick and grim torture chamber simulator with a random victim generator, the hero’s slowly waning sanity and a convenient ability to finish the game at any time by means of a suicide. We received quite a bit of feedback with one thing repeated over and over: “Guys, get this gaьe a cool interface!” So we did.
By that time our lead game designer acquired a young bright-eyed and bushy-tailed co-designer. This sketch is the result of their brain storm.
One of the most important thing the testers pointed out was making all the actions easily accessible. The Executioner’s arsenal is vast and in the alpha version of the game you had to go from page to page to see is all.
Second, we wanted the player to have an overview of the cost and consequences of every action without opening its detailed description.
Third, we needed to color coordinate the icons indicating the victim’s health loss with her health bar, and also to visually differentiate the victim’s sanity from that of the executioner himself.
Fourth, we needed everything to look beautiful, and our designer managed just that. Interface that she created was approved unanimously and we’re very proud of it.
Black, white, colors of ash, rain, grief and impending insanity. Bright accents allow for the eye to register all the important stuff.
Now all we need is beautiful and grim concept art. Right now we’re busy creating atmospheric music, dark, sad and restless, a gallery of characters and a map of the city where tragic and dramatic things shall occur.
So in April we launch our Kickstarter campaign! Keep your fingers crossed. If a game about a grim executioner is destined to exist, it needs to be created by crazy Russians, right? 😉
Participate in our polls on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/executionergame/) or VK (https://vk.com/executionergame). Put your humanity to the test and help the story of Theodor Grim become even better!