Dev diary - Seven: The Days Long Gone and Gamedec!

It holds especially true for the Seven Daemons. We had two games to combine: Gamedec with its futuristic setting and Seven: The Days Long Gone – a wonderful, post-apocalyptic RPG chosen by our Kickstarter backers. We also wanted the case to be completely readable to those who played neither of these games and offer a mouthful of additional flavor to those who did. Moreover, most of the mechanics were already defined for us in Gamedec, and we knew they had to be left intact. At the same time, we needed to use them in a way that would be interesting and fresh for those who have already played the original game.

All these goals posed an exciting challenge and allowed us to channel our creative energy directly into creating a familiar yet completely new experience for you. Take Gamedec’s ‘rapport mechanic’, for example. The basic idea is very simple. Talking to some NPCs is more challenging, and if you strike up a conversation with one of them, you have to choose your words carefully. Each time you tell them what they need to hear, you build rapport, and each time you tell them something that goes precisely against the grain, your relationship deteriorates. If your rapport reaches a critical level (sufficiently high or low), the conversation changes, the NPC shares information they previously withheld, and you are rewarded with new clues for your investigation. Having these rules already defined by Gamedec’s mechanics, we could focus on making them feel novel in the case by crafting each of the encounters with the rapport mechanic to be distinctly different.

Firstly, we’ve fleshed each out so that you can snoop around and learn a bit about the characters before speaking with them. With more information to guide your choices, more complex encounters could be built. Having such groundwork ready, we focused on the fun part of inventing new, more challenging uses for the old mechanic. Thus, in one of these conversations, you will be talking to three NPCs simultaneously instead of one, judging both whose favor is most worth having and how to gain it. In another dialogue, you’ll meet a stoic introvert who’d rather be alone. And no, there’s no way to turn her into your chatty friend. Can you fit your conversation style to suit her? Or can you annoy her enough to make emotion show? In yet another conversation, you’ll craft dad jokes freely, but only a certain type of wordplay will gain you the admiration of your peers. Elsewhere, you’ll choose which questions to ask to determine whether an AI gained self-awareness. If you choose your words wisely, not only will you learn more about AI, but you’ll also gain the right to determine its fate. All of the above are examples of the same mechanic. But in each encounter, it is combined with other gameplay elements differently. You may have to eavesdrop, follow a trail, or talk to additional NPCs to get the desired outcome. Your decision about the desired outcome of the quest will sometimes be made before, sometimes after, or during the rapport mechanic dialogue. In each of these encounters, the mechanic is also tightly intertwined with the narrative and highlights a different element of the main story. This enabled us to give the mechanic a new meaning in each scene.

The approach of creative exploration guided us through many aspects of the case. You’ll be able to hack multiple objects, with varying hacking mechanics that stem from both Gamedec and Seven: The Days Long Gone. With Gamedec’s aspect system, you’ll be able to role-play, choosing how your character reacts and comments on the world. Do you want them to be boastful, full of energy and creativity? We’ve come up with new ways for you to express that. Would you rather they focus on other people? There’s plenty of room for you to use empathy. If people are not a priority for you, you can be firm and decisive or divert your whole attention to facts in a whole new set of problems.

Another challenge that got our creative juices flowing was incorporating worlds from two different games into one case. Whereas Gamedec flaunts its hi-tech environments, in Seven: The Days Long Gone, technology is rare and perceived as mystical. This gave us a wonderful opportunity to place the known and liked characters from Seven into a setting they don’t understand and confront them with the technology they distrust. This composition of previously existing elements immediately opened up new possibilities. You’ll see the characters adapting astutely, attempting to ignore the transition with varying results, and even breaking under the realization they’re NPCs. We’ve also incorporated Seven’s technology tropes. Mysterious daemons featured prominently in Seven came to life as the latest invention in Gamedec’s world and became the cornerstone of our plotline. Fear and acceptance of AIs, typical for each game respectively, fuelled the narrative of the case. We’ve left the final judgment to you.