Hello and welcome to the first of many developer updates for The Purge Dilemma!
In this Developer Update we will talk about the Task System and briefly explain all of its features.
The Task System is arguably the most important aspect, since it pretty much determines most of what makes the core loop of the game. Coming up with a functional and balanced system was not so easy and it took a lot of testing. What will be shown here is the result of weeks and weeks of testing, rewriting and balancing.
Before getting to it there is something we must clear out.
Playing the game with just 5 players requires its own rules. These kind of adjustments are something you see often when it comes to board games, therefore I advise you to read the note at the end of the Developer Update that addresses the 5 player case.
The Commissar
What you're currently looking at is The Tyrant's Commissar selection dossier. At the beginning of the game a dossier will appear infront of the Tyrant, allowing him to choose who the next Commissar will be.
The red bar at the bottom is the timer: if the Tyrant doesn't pick the Commissar before it reaches the end, a Commissar will be randomly picked. This puts both pressure on the the Tyrant player and prevents any attempt at holding the game hostage.
The Commissar will have a dossier infront of them appear after they have been chosen, with which they are able to pick a Task. A log will appear in the chat telling the players who was chosen as Commissar.
Between the brackets will be the player's Steam name.
The Task
In the dossier you will have to choose between two randomly picked Tasks. As you can see, from top to bottom, the Task contains the following information:
- A representative polaroid coherent with the title;
- The title;
- How many players will be involved in the Task, Commissar included;
- The effects the Task will have on the match. A window will appear if you hover over the box with your cursor explaining what that effect does.
Once the Task has been selected, the Commissar will be able to either sabotage or fulfill the Task, a decision which will be based depending on their role. Right after picking an option the dossier will be passed directly to the player on the right, who will also be able to sabotage or fulfill the Task and so on until the maximum number of players required to partake in a Task has been reached.
If a player has decided to sabotage the task, then the players on the right will receive a sabotaged Task and will not be able to sabotage or fulfill.
Discussion time!
Once the last player has performed the Task, Discussion time begins. Voice chat and text chat is enabled. Every player, including the Tyrant, will receive a dossier which tells if the Task has been successfully fulfilled or sabotaged.
- If a single player sabotaged the Task, then the Result is sabotaged.
- If everybody fulfilled the Task, then the Result is fulfilled
Now comes the Social Deduction part. If a Task has been sabotaged, the the Tyrant player must interrogate the Committee members involved in the previous task. Through their testimony, the Tyrant will need to discover who among them is the Dissident. Everything can be noted down on a notepad on your right.
Discussion time will expire once a five minute timer on the Tyrant's Dossier will reach the end, or whenever they decide to click End discussion at the bottom.
The result of a Task is what directly interferes with the Tyrant's paranoia.
But we will talk about that in another Developer Update.
Task effects will also be explained in another Developer Update.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q&A (read, this is important!)
How many tasks are there?
As of now, there are exactly 22 tasks. Depending on the severity, 2-4 players will be required to perform the Task.
The number of tasks depends on how many players are in a match.
Tasks requiring 4 players will apply effects to the match.
Oh and you can run out of tasks. They are limited, meaning that if the players perform 4 player tasks one after the other, they will not appear anymore. This also applies to 2 and 3 player tasks.
The number of available tasks decreases or increases depending on how many players are in the match.
Can the Tyrant take part in Tasks?
Nope. If a player has the Tyrant directly on his right, then the next player performing the Task will be the player on the Tyrant's right. The order in which Tasks are performed is counter-clockwise.
Does the Tyrant always decide who the Commissar will be?
Nope. the Tyrant will only be able to pick the Commissar at the beginning of the match. After that, the next Commissar will be the player immediately to the right of the last player involved in the previous task.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT
Remember the warning at the beginning of the Developer Update? This is what we have to clear out:
as we said, playing the game with 5 players requires its own rules. So what will change?
A match with 5 players will not have Tasks requiring 4 players and Tasks are randomly selected as soon as the next Commissar is chosen.
Thank you so much for reading this Developer Update. See you in the next one!
Make sure to follow us on Social Media! You can find us on:
Discord
Twitter
Reddit
YouTube