A big inquisitorial hello to everyone!
It has been a little over a month since our last post, so it is time to share some news and answer a few questions that have been coming up.
First of all: development is going according to plan. This October, during the demo festival, you will be able to step into the role of an inquisitor yourselves.
We also have another piece of good news: the game has started attracting attention from the Spanish press. Yesterday, journalist Bernardo Álvarez-Villar came to visit us from Madrid and interviewed us. If Bernardo does not completely tear us to pieces (haha), I will definitely share the article here.
Now, on to your questions.
“Are you aware that the Spanish Inquisition almost never burned witches and sorcerers, unlike the French, German, or Italian inquisitions?”
Oh yes, we are aware. And we did not learn that yesterday.
I have read Helen Rawlings’s The Spanish Inquisition, Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, and even the book by Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, although, to be honest, I did not manage to finish it. Besides, it is not really about witches, but it does help complete the picture.
So why am I bringing this up? At the very beginning of the game, this will be stated directly: Torquemada complains that Spain is terribly behind other Catholic countries in the number of burnings.
At the same time, Your Judgment, Inquisitor does not force you to play as a villain. You can finish the game without sending absolutely anyone to the stake. Or, on the contrary, you can roleplay as the darkest inquisitor in the world. There is room for roleplaying, and that is exactly what matters to us.
“How important is the setting? Why Asturias, and not Castile or Cantabria?”
We chose Asturias for a very simple reason: we live here.
For me, moving to Asturias was a conscious choice, and I am still impressed by its beauty every single day. The mountains, the mist, the small towns, the old churches, the road along the coast... I recently walked the Camino de Santiago, and that impression only became stronger. All of this fits very well with a dark, unsettling, but also interesting story.
I think it would be wonderful to show Asturias the way I see it. Not as a tourist postcard, but as a living place: harsh, damp, green, somewhat cut off from the rest of the world, and very fitting for a story about rumors, fear, faith, and demons.
“How deeply is Asturias itself represented in the game?”
This is an important point.
I am a foreigner. Although I read a lot about the region, and the works of Juan Uría Ríu have become almost bedside books for me, I still would not dare to frame the game as a direct story about Asturias. To do that, you would probably need to have been born here or to have lived here much longer than I have.
But I do want to convey in the game what I see and love myself.
That is why Your Judgment, Inquisitor will include many small, pleasant details: several iconic places, fabada and cachopo, madreñas, cider, local festivals...
You will not get a lecture about Asturias. But I hope you will feel its presence.