Till Death Do We Part is a one-hour, narrative-driven murder mystery game where players take on the role of detectives investigating the death of a groom on his wedding day. Designed for group play, players analyze a curated box of immersive evidence—including physical objects, documents, and character interviews—to uncover who committed the murder and why. Intended for adult players and fans of story-rich experiences, the game explores deeper social themes such as empathy, grief, privilege, and truth.
Design Process & Thought Process
Game Design Document (GDD)
Core Concept: An immersive detective experience driven by evidence-based storytelling.
Purpose: To foster empathy while exploring power dynamics, emotional depth, and the complexity of truth.
Rules: Players must go through the provided evidence in order, discuss findings, and make a final deduction using a reveal card.
Mechanics: Evidence examination, character interviews, group discussion, and narrative deduction.
Iterative Design
The game was fully fleshed out from the beginning, with a clear vision for both story and structure. While the core design remained unchanged, two key improvements were made based on playtesting:
A player guide was added to clarify the order in which evidence should be reviewed.
A final “reveal card” was introduced to provide closure and enhance the narrative payoff.
Evidence Analysis: Players examine realistic documents, photos, objects, and text screenshots.
Character Interviews: Each of the five suspects has a full police transcript revealing personal motives and emotional complexity.
Group Discussion: A free-flow experience that encourages collaborative interpretation of the facts and stories.
Final Reveal: A sealed solution card confirms the killer’s identity and motive.
Player Goals
Players aim to determine:
What killed the groom
What pieces of evidence point to the answer
How the pieces of evidence come together to reveal the full story
Victory is achieved when players accurately connect the dots and empathize with the emotional layers behind the crime.
Gameplay Sequence
Briefing: Players receive a short overview of the murder and are told to examine evidence in order.
Investigation: Players analyze items including:
A glass flute
Wedding invitation and timeline
Drink menu
Wedding card
Three photographs
Five suspect interviews
One personal letter
Screenshots of text messages
Discussion: The group compares notes, interprets motives, and formulates a theory.
Reveal: Players open the final card to discover the truth and reflect on their conclusions.
Game Board & Components
There is no game board; instead, the experience is driven by tactile storytelling through evidence. Components include:
3 printed photographs
A glass champagne flute
A handwritten wedding card
5 police interview transcripts (one per suspect)
A drink menu
Wedding invitation and schedule
A personal letter
Screenshots of character text conversations
A reveal card for the final solution
These items guide player actions and slowly build a layered, emotional narrative.
Rulebook & Playtesting
Rulebook Sample
A short instruction document is provided to:
Guide players through evidence in the correct order
Encourage group discussion and theory-building
Explain how and when to use the final reveal card
Playtesting Notes
Players found the experience highly immersive and emotionally engaging.
The biggest challenge was managing the flow of evidence—solved by adding a clear order-of-play document.
Players requested and appreciated the addition of the final reveal card for narrative closure.
Game Reflections
Developing Till Death Do We Part confirmed the power of narrative games to evoke empathy and critical thinking. The biggest lesson was in narrative coherence—ensuring every piece of evidence felt intentional and interconnected. Future expansions might explore alternate suspects, branching storylines, or character-driven epilogues to deepen replayability.
My concept for the final projection was to illustrate the connection between our mind and body. To create this narrative, I projected the human organs and a skeletal figure onto myself, and interacted with the projection itself.
I wanted to tell a story about how external stressors impact the nervous system, causing us to become overwhelmed by daily life. A subtle choice I made while filming, that I forgot to mention while presenting, was the decision to wear a white button down shirt and white dress pants. I had more comfortable all-white alternatives to project onto, but I chose office attire to reflect the situations in which one would feel the kind of unease I wanted to convey. I believe that a corporate environment is unnatural to our way life and how we are meant to experience it.
I also created a 3D model of myself to aid in positioning my graphics, and found through my early trials that the projector had a pixelated effect on my visuals. I used this to further my story and pose the connection between humans and how computers operate, emphasizing how both can be affected by input and environment. I used animation, performance art, and light and space to showcase what I have learned in an experimental way.
‘Fraudocracy!’ is a one-on-one political satire card game where players use characters with influence hijack parties and rig power structures. It targets fans of games with social commentary. The game uses 3D-printed tiles, each representing a societal figure and containing directional spike values that dictate their individual ‘influence’. It depends not only on which tiles (characters) you get but also how you play them (offensively or defensively). The person with the most power over a party (purple or green) wins. Through its mechanics, the game satirizes how institutional power is often less about who you are and more about how you position yourself—rewarding manipulation, betrayal, and opportunism as viable paths to dominance.
Over Winter Break, I hyper-fixated on the old game franchise ‘Skylanders’. Within 6 of their games, 5 of them feature a minigame called ‘Skystones’. Stones are based on previously defeated in-game enemies, and feature various spike values encompassing them to represent how much damage they do to adjacent stones. I knew I wanted to make something for Game Design using this concept.
The political portion of the game is more of a manifestation of my emotions than an intentional decision. Not that I regret making this game per say – I don’t – but I most likely would have gone with a different theme had there not been political… ‘events’… that transpired during the start of the semester. I’ve been sitting here for like 30 minutes trying to figure out how to word this section, but I’m sure we all know what I’m referring to.
The first challenge was figuring out how to convey dynamic ownership of a card. In a round of Skystones, one card may have its color changed several times, and I wanted to remain faithful to that. The prototype used double-sided index cards with a “Corrupt” (Bad) side and an “Altruist” (Good) side. The spikes were represented with numeric values. I initially wanted 2 designs for each character – one for each side – and require players to flip cards whenever they gained ownership of them.
The first playtest revealed this wouldn’t be a viable mechanic because, not only did it take extremely long to do each time, it was also difficult to do when cards were placed next to each other. I needed to figure out a new way to represent ownership.
After a lot of thought and discussion, I concluded I’d make additional ‘frame’ pieces to magnetically attach to the cards. This change had the unintentional benefit of making the game even more faithful to its inspiration, as Skystones have a colored outline around them.
So I had a decent idea for a game, that’s good; but how do I even make these pieces? The biggest problem was my desire to make them weighted – something paper/cardboard/posterboard is not. It wasn’t until one class whenever Reese asked me to playtest his game, Invasion, which had used 3D printed pieces. I immediately knew I wanted to do the same, completely ignoring the fact I had never used one or anything remotely similar. I used a browser-based modeling software called Tinkercad to create my first model:
I printed the frame too large. But it’s a start! In fact, it felt weirdly invigorating. If you like cool gadgets and gizmos, I highly recommend watching a 3D printer work in real time; It’s absolutely fascinating. A bit of tweaking and a few days later, I printed my next rendition, this time with a correctly sized frame:
Things were going well! I posted this in a discord server, and a few people were quick to ask “why didn’t you just make a snap-fit piece?”; and with some help from an online friend who knows Blender, they edited my model to integrate a snap-fit frame, saving me money on the originally planned magnets.
Things were going well! The next step was to make about 20 more, each with different spike values. Unfortunately though, Tinkercad wasn’t well-suited for such a project. I briefly tried to teach myself Blender and Blockbench, but gave up quickly. I had hit a roadblock, and on top of that, I got busy with other classes and began to stagnate.
A few weeks later, Professor Ames helped me get the ball rolling again during class. I was busy worrying about the weight or thickness of my piece, and stressed about the process of finishing the game. Ames took my model, shrunk it, filled the bed with copies, and printed 16 tiny prototypepieces. I was honestly confused and reluctant, but I let him do his thing; and in a few hours, they were done:
By printing these, Professor Ames was finally (better late than never) help me understand the importance of looking past aesthetic and focusing on mechanics when in the designing stage. This was eye-opening for me, and unfortunately I cannot effectively communicate the impact at 3am.
With newfound motivation, I jumped in a call with another (different) online friend. He works full-time as an engineer, so being proficient in Fusion360, he was able to help me significantly improve my model. He rounded the spikes and corners, aligned the frame with the piece, sloped the spikes, and so much more. My project was finally starting to feel like a real game.
Next, I needed to make 20 cards with different values, so that my friend could model them with the correct spike amounts. I created a spreadsheet with various figures within society to use for the roster. I needed to design their spike values based on how much ‘influence’ that person has in real life. For example, an Editor has more influence (spikes) than a Protester due to their power to alter the narrative.
A lot of this is going to be a retelling of a long interaction between myself and my friend. He then sent me the models, and I begun printing them on 2 printers at a time.
While these were printing, I was in the lab working on the instruction manual for the game. I took a new approach, and rather than designing it in Microsoft Word like I did with my previous games (for some reason) – I designed it in Adobe Illustrator. I was able to convert a piece file into a topographic image, and use that to incorporate a visual informative guide. I had a ton of fun and was incredibly happy with the result.
I continued until I had all 20 pieces, and left campus at around 11:30pm that WEDNESDAY NIGHT. WHY DO I ALWAYS DO THIS TO MYSELF ITS 4AM CLASS IS IN 4 HOURS. ahem. anyways. Despite saying I learned about prioritizing mechanics over aesthetics, I didn’t – and then proceeded to work on spray painting my pieces until 2am.
Here’s one of my cats Charlie watching me (he’s very cute):
I can confidentially say this was one of the TWO times in my ENTIRE LIFE that I went to bed feeling excited for school; and the second playtest begun in class the next morning. I wasn’t able to create the character portraits at that time, so I temporarily used sticky notes to convey which figure each card represented. I also had to create a temporary playing board/grid out of cardboard, as players would often misperceive them as puzzle pieces and try to connect them.
We played a few rounds, and I gained a LOT of insight into my game. Most importantly though, I needed a way to hide cards from your opponent, or limit the players hand. Flipping them over didn’t work, since the spikes allowed for players to intentionally leave bad cards for the other player. They were too big and there were too many to hold all 9 in one hand, so we needed something else to hold or hide the cards. Professor Ames gave me the idea to create a machine of sorts which would conceal upcoming cards from the player. I went back to the drawing board, and came up with this:
This was shaping up to be one of my all-time favorite projects, but I still needed the actual characters for the cards. I measured my pieces, opened an Illustrator file, and started shamefully AI-generating portraits for them. I told it to generate characters in an Monopoly/Fallout76 art style, and I can’t say it didn’t deliver.
This stage of the design put the cards through many changes, mostly in name and style.
I printed 2 copies, laminated one, and then cut them out. They fit perfectly, and it was incredibly exciting to start seeing my game properly come to fruition.
Next was the card dispenser. Another call with my friend later, I had one designed; but it had one major problem: it took 18 hours to print.
While that was printing, I headed to class for the 3rd playtest.
Playtest 3 was the most popular (for lack of a better term) playtest. After watching several games unfold, it quickly became clear that the corrupt cards were incredibly overpowered, and desperately needed a nerf.
I had become fully invested, and at this point, I was ordering my own spools of textured filament online to use for my final print. But I needed to go check on my tower print.
It worked, but it also didn’t. On one hand, it printed with very few visual issues, which surprised me. Unfortunately, on the other hand, the measurements and model could’ve been better.
The tube was too wide, which allowed for cards to flip or rotate when they were dropped in. The ramp was not steep enough, meaning cards didn’t slide down to the output slot; which was too low, meaning cards got stuck. As much as I was dreading it, I needed to edit the model and print a new one.
And then I procrastinated and jeopardized the quality of my game. This was quite literally the last picture I took, because I never finished. I printed a few of the final pieces with a marble textured filament, and the frames with holographic filament. I started printing my new tower, which with some tweaking, I was able to shave the print time to 10 hours; except I started too late. I quite literally fumbled the bag, and I had no good excuse.
I learned A LOT from this project. I learned how to use a 3D printer, general maintenance as well as how to load/unload filament; I learned about models, their innerworkings, and several methods of saving time by cutting corners; I learned about the concept of tolerance/clearance, and I was reminded that millimeters exist; I used spray paint for the first time, and set a record for the longest I’ve ever stayed up for a school project; There was probably a lot more that I’m struggling to recall on 3 hours of sleep. I wish I could say this experience taught me not to procrastinate, but I can’t imagine myself ever changing.
Game Overview: Players use cards representing the four classical elements—Fire, Water, Earth, and Air—to battle against each other. Each element has strengths and weaknesses, and players must strategically play their cards to defeat their opponent’s cards. The goal is to win the most rounds by having the stronger element in play.
2 to 4 players
Objective – To win the most rounds by defeating your opponents’ cards using elemental strengths and weaknesses.
Card Types
Fire: Beats Earth and Air, but loses to Water.
Water: Beats Fire and Earth, but loses to Air.
Earth: Beats Air and Water, but loses to Fire.
Air: Beats Fire and Water, but loses to Earth.
*Each deck contains an equal number of cards for each element.*
Setup
1. Each player receives a deck of 12 cards (3 Fire, 3 Water, 3 Earth, 3 Air).
2. Shuffle the decks.
3. Decide who goes first by drawing a random card (highest value goes first).
Gameplay
1. Each player draws three cards from their deck to form their hand.
2. On each turn, players simultaneously choose one card from their hand and place it face down.
3. Both players reveal their cards at the same time.
4. The winner of the round is determined based on elemental strengths and weaknesses:
– Fire beats Earth and Air, loses to Water.
– Water beats Fire and Earth, loses to Air.
– Earth beats Air and Water, loses to Fire.
– Air beats Water and Fire, loses to Earth.
5. The winner collects both cards, and a new round begins.
6. After each round, players draw a new card to replace the one they played.
7. If both players play the same element, it’s a tie, and both cards are discarded.
Winning the Game
The game ends when all cards have been played. The player who has the most cards collected is declared the winner. In case of a tie, the player with the highest total number of Fire cards collected wins.
Variations
Power Cards : Add special power cards, such as “Double Attack” or “Shield”, to make the game more complex.
Elemental Combinations: Create dual-element cards “Water + Air” that can attack with the strengths of both elements but can be vulnerable to a wider range of weaknesses.
This Story Based RPG is a wild adventure throughout unknown lands, in which our main protagonist, Osiris, is tasked with finding parts for his crew’s fallen airship, which has found itself crash landed on a plethora of floating islands. Throughout the story, we learn about a race of mechanical beings called the Custodians, who are referred by the townspeople as mecha-men. These mechanical beings have been living underground for centuries, only coming to the surface for maintenance and repairs on the town’s infostructure. For years there has been peace between Mecha-Men and humans; however, ever since the islands split apart from an unknown mysterious reason, the mecha-men have been rising to the surface far more frequently, and far more upset at the humans. However, none of the townspeople truly know why this is, and after listening to their leader, Chancellor Topaz, everyone starts to believe that the mecha-men are just a crazy and violent race of people. After 20 years have passed since the splitting of the islands, tension has gained between the Mecha-Men and the humans; and with the Chancellor still in office, hysteria towards the Mecha-Men has only grown. It is around this time that we find our protagonist stranded on one of the islands from his fallen ship, and when he attempts to find parts, he is also told by townspeople to “take care of” some of the Custodians. After hearing how bad of a race of beings they are, Osiris decides to battle a few Mecha-Men, which inevitably leads him to one of their underground dungeons. Here he discovers the truth. Mecha-Men are suffering now worse than ever, mainly due to the fact that the energy they received from the original island’s core for centuries, is now fragmented into 7 pieces, which in turn makes them weaker. And to make matters worse, we now know that the reason for the core’s splitting, was not a freak occurrence, but rather a deliberate attack taken out on the mecha-men by the Chancellor in an attempt to harness the core’s energy for himself. Now Osiris has a new goal; protect the custodians and fight back against the evil government that has been spreading lies to its people for decades.
After the first playtest, I had to learn how to balance out the difficulty level of the battles, as they were either far too easy or far too hard to win when encountering one. After going into RPG Maker MZ I made tweaks to this aspect of the game’s mechanics, as well as making adjustments on minor details such as character face images which play out for the important characters, as well as adjustments on the map layouts, soundtrack, and dialogue, to make things seem more navigable for the player.
The message I wanted to portray in this game is to never judge others based on another person’s perception of them. We see this heavily in today’s society with politicians spewing lies about entire races of people, labeling them as murderers and rapists, when in reality, life without these said people could make life for everyone else far harder. Overall finding the truth in every situation and having humility for other people, and not judging them before you get to know the entire story is a life lesson that I think everyone should learn.
My next steps with this game is to truly flesh everything out, and have more events such as mini games and especially a boss battle between the crew and the Chancellor. During the final boss battle, I want the chancellor to exhibit his full range of magical powers, as well as morph into a monstrous demon of some sort. Once we defeat the chancellor, Mecha-Men return to their peaceful custodian state of being in which they help out the humans now that the townspeople have learned the truth about the Mecha-Men as a whole, rather than listening to lies spewed by their evil leader.
one of my videos wouldn’t upload but I showed it in class still :/
This game was for my Writing and Pr Class. We needed to come up with a campaign and host an event for it. Our campaign was about Earth Day, preserving the environment, and sustainability. The game I decided to develop (I mostly did this part) was an unwanted item gift exchange.
This encouraged people to repurpose items that they don’t really need or want anymore and challenge modern day overconsumption. The game also sprinkled in some education and facts about Earth Day and its history.
Primary Audience: PR and Advertising Writing Class (although this game could be used for other audiences as well, mostly as an Earth Day introduction!)
Design Process & Thought Process
Iterative Design:
There wasn’t a lot of visual design associated with this game. The game was mostly something with verbal instructions, and the physical components were contributed by the players themselves in the form of gift exchange gifts. These assumed a few different forms, but mostly they were in brown paper bags because the audience forgot to bring most of their gifts. Other gifts were in old grocery bags, boxes, etc.
In the background of the game, was a slideshow that introduced the game and the idea of Earth Day, it remained in the background to help set the tone of the game.
Game Mechanics:
Players gather in a circle. They are asked to listen to a story for directional cues to pass around the gifts. When you hear LEFT, pass it to your left. When you hear RIGHT, pass it to your right. When you hear REVERSE, undo your last pass. At the end of the script, players are allowed to open whatever gift landed on them in the end.
Player Goals:
To gain a better understanding of Earth Day and understand the importance of reducing overconsumption. Every player essentially “wins” with each player receiving a prize that is different than the one they brought in.
Gameplay Sequence:
BEFORE STARTING: Ask if everyone has brought an item and if they have it “wrapped” or in something concealed. If there is anyone who doesn’t have an item or have it wrapped, quickly arrange to get this sorted out.
THEN ASK: Will everyone please sit/stand/gather in a circle with their items? And follow the following story based on the directional cues. When you hear LEFT, pass it to your left. When you hear RIGHT, pass it to your right. When you hear REVERSE, undo your last pass.
AND THEN THE SCRIPT IS READ.
Game Board & Components:
A script and unwanted item gifts (contributed by the class). I also supplied some extra gifts in the event that players forgot to bring one in and another group member brought in brown paper bags to put any “unwrapped” items in.
The wrapped gift picture is a craft set that I wrapped with paper packaging filler and decorated using a ripped Trader Joe’s bag. Players were encouraged to come up with similar gifts for their contribution. Also pictured is the gift that I received from playing the game, as an example.
(rules were mostly written by Amber, with some contributions from other group members)
Playtesting Notes:
Overall, I learned that no matter how many emails you send out to a class, you can’t expect everyone to remember to bring stuff to contribute to the game. With finals and the Great RMU Blackout happening all around the same time, it was a little bit expected that not everyone would remember; however, there were about 2 people that actually remembered. Despite this, the game was still able to work, but it was mostly just with items that people had in their backpacks that they didn’t want anymore. This was luckily able to still reinforce the concept of overconsumption and sustainability.
Players seemed to receive the story and content of the script super well. With a couple people commenting that they really enjoyed it and that it was a cute idea. Players were forced to pay attention to the story so that they could listen to the directional cues, making them more engaged in the facts about Earth Day.
What questions did your players have? Players were confused at times but the misleading directional cues. Some of the words such as “WRITER” intended to make them still pass the gifts to their right, but many people asked if they were supposed to.
How quickly did they learn to play? They learned to play fairly quickly, although the script needed to be restarted because I don’t think everyone was fully paying attention, which is important for a game that involves a high level of observance and attention.
What kinds of interactions did the players have? Players passed gifts back and forth to each other, which involved a lot of laughing and confusion at times when there were multiple directional cues back to back.
What confused players? I think sometimes players got mixed up with their left and right, especially when the directional cues were so close together. It especially made it hard when a reverse was thrown in the midst, and players weren’t sure what way they needed to move to undo their last pass.
What made players excited? Players really enjoyed opening their gifts at the end and listened to the story in anticipation of the next directional cue.
What did your players enjoy doing? Opening gifts and passing them back and forth.
Did any aspect of the game frustrate players? The most frustrating parts for players were the confusing directional cues such as WRITER and maybe not a slow enough pace for reading the script.
Game Reflections:
To reflect on this game, I honestly feel like this was a pretty good way to give people an introductory understanding of Earth Day and its history. I could see something like this being especially helpful at a high school level, maybe on Earth Day itself. Unfortunately, we were unable to hold our event on actual Earth Day so that is one limitation to the effectiveness of this game.
In the future, I would like to correct some of the confusing directional cues that I included such as WRITER. Or clarify that even if it is not technically RIGHT if you still hear it, you need to pass it. I would also like to make some improvements to the process of contributing gifts to the game. I like the idea of everyone bringing their own gift but in a scenario such as this, someone is always going to forget unfortunately. The pacing of telling the script is also integral to the gameplay experience and the comprehension of information. I would consider maybe a pre recorded script for this or nominating someone specific who can rehearse the script prior.
I started to vaguely work on structuring out my interactive fiction game… nowhere near done but this exploration helped me get started to see how I want to continue in the future. I might explore other programs, since it was difficult to find much information to style the pages, especially since there are like 4 main types of stories in Twine. I know a lot of it involves a CSS stylesheet, but at that point I might as well just make my own from scratch.
Future Considerations
To continue on with this on the future, there are numerous things I want to do to this game. First of all, I need to actually finish it and refine the content. But here are some other things I might want to work on as well:
add an anxiety-inducing soundtrack (fast-paced, unnerving, etc.)
add even more text animations and shakes to the screen to make the decisions and content reflect the feelings expressed in the text
make it so that the text appears on the screen in little chunks, so that the player is more likely to read the text
could even make it more of like a kinetic typography kind of thing!
add little illustrations occasionally (kind of in a sketchy style or the one below)
could do these illustrations on scratchboard and then scan the drawings!!
consider maybe both “good” and “bad” endings. For instance, maybe the one offers some tips to help deal with these anxious thoughts and they are hence resolved and then the other the bad scenarios do come true, but it still works out in the end!
playtesting!!
I couldn’t figure out how to link to the file, but you don’t wanna see it anyway. This is pretty much all I have.
