Who is the protagonist (to the others), and why would they trust him/her if they ‘insist on people not going places’? If it results in something bad happening (the lesser of two evils, but nobody else knows), how do they retain enough trust for people to listen to them a second time?
My thoughts on this would be that the player would need to earn some level of trust for a given character through character interactions and (possibly) either/or decisions where they can side with someone or not. If that character trusts the player enough by the time it really counts, they’ll be willing to take them at their word. I haven’t thought enough ahead to figure out what negative (albeit not lethal) consequences for given choices might be if they save another character but it’s certainly something I will need to consider.
Does nobody suspect the protagonist themselves? Do the murderer(s) not take steps to make them discredited or disabled once the first kill is thwarted
So there will be at least one timeline where the player either through bad choices or deliberate interference by the killer becomes a suspect for the killings - I’ll talk a bit more about the killer setting the player up in a moment
Does the protagonist retain memories completely, or do they get fragments via echos in a dream? Are all the memories reliable? Can the protagonist mentally handle remembering multiple versions of the past?
It’s flashes of memory that occur in visual form when the player is close to re-living that particular event (a character dies after going on a wander during the night to prove a point to someone else, the player has an opportunity to speak to this character before they retire for the evening, the memory kicks in and the player becomes aware that if they do nothing, this character will be killed during the night).
Where does the protagonist get their looping abilities, and is there a price for it?
So for this, my idea is that the sealed door on the ship contains something that, when activated, not only triggers the fog but essentially traps the ship in a pocket dimension. During the players’ first timeline, they always end up in the same situation: the try to do something with the source, fail and die. This attempt also locks them in a timeloop and gives them their ability to recall previous timelines. As for price, I’m not sure yet - I’ll discuss this more after:
Could there be a rival looper?
So all of this got me thinking about an alternative to what I’ve mentioned above: One of the other characters is not only a looper, they also got trapped in much the same way as the player. However, due to this characters personality flaws, they couldn’t figure out a way to undo the looping or save the other characters. All their loops end up in bloodbaths with the survivors turning on each other. After a significant amount of loops where the killer couldn’t figure out how to get everyone to cooperate and solve the mystery holding them there, they gave up in despair and started treating it as their own personal Hell, doing whatever they feel like and setting up cruel ways to torment and kill of the cast over and over.
I haven’t figured out how yet, but the player joins the fated crew by accident and becomes part of a new loop. The killer doesn’t know why or how the player becomes involved but decides that a new variable will shake things up. The player gets trapped in a time loop in the same way the killer does and starts recalling past timelines. The killer doesn’t realise the player is recalling things, however so for a while at least, the killer just treats the player choices as random quirks of fate.
When you brought up a “price” being paid for the ability to recall previous timelines, I figured it could be a rationale for why the killer, by the time the player arrives, is no longer interested in trying to figure out an escape. The recollection of so many murders, deaths (his own included) and the near-constant exposure to the mentally unsettling effects of the fog would have taken an enormous toll on his psyche.
An idea I had for when the killer starts to suspect the player is actually able to recall would be a specific trap set by the killer during a timeline where the player has already been forced to die several times. The killer uses it to determine if the player can remember a trap that they otherwise would have no reason to know about after they’ve already fallen for it once.
Who are the cast? A bunch of strangers who happen to be thrown together? Acquaintances who know each other from in normal life? A bunch of strangers who naturally hate each other because they are on opposite sides of wars/conflicts?
Either way, what is their motive for murder?
The cast would be a group of strangers who don’t know each other who survive the sinking of a luxury cruise liner and all end up in the same lifeboat. The lifeboat encounters the ghost ship and that’s how they end up on board. Their motives (at first) are non-existent although since no-one knows who the killer is, actual motives are manufactured from character clashes and arguments that take place during the first few nights. As time goes on, the debilitating mental effects of the fog will create reasons for them to turn to violence.
What makes the subsequent kills justified? Why aren’t they justified anymore if the first doesn’t happen?
This was badly phrased on my part, the original idea was that the first kill was a result of an argument turning violent. Subsequent kills would be because the killer, now unhinged due to their guilt and the exposure to the fog would justify it through a misguided attempt at “removing threats to the survival of the group”. I’m thinking this approach to a motive is not really workable with the time-looping mechanic and savable characters.
It’s something I want to think more on, but if you’ve further comments I’d love to hear them!
You mentioned the murder happened because of unknown force in one sealed room of the ship. Why not make that the goal?
Plot-wise, the murder will always happen no matter what the PC do. They might prevent the first murder, but the next one came up totally unexpected. So on so forth, while still maintaining the illusion that the murderer is one single person the entire time.
It’ll be up to them to discover the cause of the madness and solve the issue, the Fog. It won’t necessarily be a murder-mystery game, more like escape-room puzzle style.
I think moving to the escape-room style for this situation is probably a good course to take; the major threat here is the looping, the fog and freeing the ship and those on it from the situation they are in. I think trying to figure out the identity of the other looper would still add an element of the murder-mystery so I’ll try brainstorming some ideas based on that!
