The art of wearing someone else’s face is a time honored tradition. From Leatherface to Hannibal Lector, slipping on skin masks has become the hottest new craze for horror darlings. But hark, a new figure has taken the stage-
Enter Muffles- our faceless protagonist! Their very identity is as pale, blank, and amorphous as the rest of their post-op bod. But masking up is not just fashionable- to survive in Muffles’ Life Sentence, defeating inmates and taking faces will be crucial to combat, puzzle solving, and story progression.
All around me are familiar faces
In MLS, faces can be gained through story progression and winning combat against certain inmates. Some of these characters are off the critical path, so sharp if you’re looking to have the full collection.
When retreating into Muffles’ empty mind, you can find a familiar looking manikin to slip these faces onto in order to talk with their now-deceased hosts. And most importantly, you can access the Skill Shop of many defeated inmates, giving you access to new cards and deckbuilding mechanics.
There are 2 types of faces- Skin Masks and Soul Masks. Both masks allow for the purchase of new combat cards, but the Soul version has a very rare and dare I say mystical property to them…
Why be you when you could be new?
That’s right- move over Majora’s Mask, a new face-based transformation game is in town. When Muffles puts on a Soul Mask, they take on the identity of whoever it was taken from. This introduces massive implications to gameplay outside of combat, allowing you to have different dialogue encounters, use character-specific abilities, access new areas, and solve new puzzles.
But along with these benefits comes a host of new things for Muffles to be wary of. They’ll have to be careful not to provoke combat by looking like a potential enemy, and watch what identities have access to what sorts of areas across the Prison State of Maddox.
Because acquiring a new Soul Mask brings with it such widespread story and gameplay implications, you can expect probably 1 new transformation per episode, to keep them high quality and properly paced. Each will be dramatically distinct, appropriately addled, and probably more and more strange and uncomfortable as I keep making this wild game.
In other news…
The big news for me right now is that the trailer for Episode 1 is out!!! Check it out here. I wrote a trailer script I liked months ago, but have only recently been far enough into development to record some good gameplay to feature.
Switching from weekly updates to biweekly (1st and 15th) has given me a lot more grace to write these (I’m even writing this a few days before release! Wow look at me!). Considering the number of people reading these is nearly nil, I think this switch was totally warranted and already paying off.
As always, busy. As always, excited to get this game out there. As always, in love with Dee.
New update post might be focused on character design and portrait art stuff. There’s a lot I could talk about there- especially considering this is the first game I’ve ever made art for.
Adios cell-buddys.
