Welcome, all, to Lord Mortimer's island.
Please join us in the small salon for a little more information on The Council, and how one of the key mechanics in the game will work - the Confrontation System.
The Confrontation System in The Council is one of the ways that we uniquely twist the narrative adventure game, and is instrumental in deciding how your story will play out.
In narrative games, the vast majority of your decisions come down to how well you understand the way the other characters in the game think, and how you can manipulate your dialogue to get what you want out of them.
In The Council, encounters with goals at the end of them are called Confrontations and are essentially battles of wit between the player and the character they are talking to. During a Confrontation, players will go through several steps of a conversation, while trying to be as persuasive as possible. These Confrontations will have a direct effect on the story and are one of the most pivotal parts of the game.
The Confrontation could have as little as two phases in it, for quick arguments (such as if you have to convince somebody not to shoot you), to as many as five or six phases, or maybe more! Along with the steps, you will have a set number of failures.
When you say something to upset the opponent or use a Skill that your opponent is immune to (which will be expanded on in a future dev blog), you will lose one of these failures, which is called a Blunder. Lose all of your Blunders, and you fail the confrontation, which can lead to drastic changes in the storyline.
You'll have a lot to help you avoid those Blunders, however, as you'll take everything you've learnt about the characters into the Confrontation with you. Everything you've learnt up to that point will be valuable in a Confrontation, so don't forget to search everything, and interrogate everyone, to learn what you need to.
In each phase, you will have to choose from a variety of options to best persuade your opponent of what you want. For example, you may want to convince them to give you the letter in their possession. You'd first need to convince them that you're trustworthy, and then that you're worthy of holding on to the letter.
This would be the first two steps of the Confrontation. In the final step, you would want to convince them to then give you the letter. This last step is repeatable until you either manage to convince them by picking a favourable solution, or you run out of Blunders.
As Confrontations are so important, don't hesitate to use Consumables or Skills to get the result you need. You never know what could happen otherwise - and the consequences are permanent.
The Council Episode 5: Checkmate releases December 4 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC digital stores. The Complete Season contains all five episodes.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/287630/The_Council/
