A downloadable game for Windows

Murder Among Nobles

Introduction

You, the royal tradesman, have returned home and come to the castle for a dinner with King Henry and his court. However, you arrive only to find that the king has been murdered! Talk to the other nobles and explore the environment in order to find the culprit!

Showcase Video:

Controls:

[ASWD] = Basic Movement
[SHIFT] = Sprint
[CAPS LOCK] = Accessing the Quest Journal
[SPACE] = Interact
[ESC] = Close Game (Only works after the confrontation cutscene).

About Development:

Inspiration:

The narrative concept for this game was very much inspired by mystery narratives like Knives Out and ones about medieval stories like Hamlet. I had wanted to do a mystery for this project since I thought that would be a fun narrative to write and explore telling through using dialogue.

Features:

This is a narrative murder mystery game. All the characters have branching dialog and different dialog paths based on what stage you are at in the game or what quests that player has been given. For example, the player can't really engage with the character Princess Adrianna until they have been given the task of going and talking to her. After the player has found and confronted the murderer, they can then talk to the remaining characters after the fact. Their "endgame" dialog gives some context on the setting and the player's character which wasn't really the focus while the King's murderer was still on the loose. These branching dialogs keep the player engaged and allow them to learn about the setting of this game via character interactions.

The game has one main quest and several smaller quests, that support that larger quest, that give the player several things to do within the setting. The player is given quests that involve talking to the other NPCs as well as ones that involve finding items within the environment. The items that are interactable do have some particle effects on them so that they stand out to the player.

Two main cutscenes are used within the game. The first establishes the setting and what has just happened. The second one elevates the height of the drama at the end of the narrative when the characters go confront the murderer. Different camera angles are used to better convey the tension of that scene.