Zeitnot [Work In Progress]

ZEITNOT: [German, “time crisis”] Having very little time on the clock to complete the remaining moves of a timed game. Synonymous with time trouble and time pressure. It’s the situation where a player has little time to complete the required moves.

The game, Zeitnot, is a murder mystery game that happens in a masquerade setting with regulations based on chess (or, to put it simply, a Murderade with chess rules). Mind you, it loosely follows the real game’s guidelines (so if you’re most looking forward to the chess part, you’re in for a letdown. I’m going to make chess masters cry with this one).

There are two teams (Black and White) that will compete with each other for first place, by… killing their opponents (until either teams loses their King or they are left with no players). Every character represents a position/piece (King, Queen, Rook, etc.) that will abide by a different set of rules (pawns have a lot more restrictions than bishops, for example), and you have to plan carefully your moves.

Good luck surviving the game: Zeitnot

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Sounds like a drink.


Anyway, I’ll check it out.

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I and several others have reviewed the judges notes, I am sorry if you feel you were put on the spot. I will be happy to fully review any judges notes again if you would pm me on this. The judges are tough but fair, and consistent scoring on each game show me they use a even and equal value on all games scored.

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@Lordirish I’m not angry or upset about the scores, I fully understand that I didn’t do a very good job with the stats and other things, that’s solely on me. I’m mature enough to realize what I did wrong and how I should correct it (now that I have more time and no pressure), but the problem is on a personal level. I still can’t wrap my head around what I have been accused of, that’s why I made a thread, so more people can review it and tell me if it’s really me who made such titanic mistake.

They could have told me that the entry was crap and hella boring, but I have been accused of making content that gets people killed. This, I cannot accept.

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In an effort to further understand this I will read the wip Sunday night and then review the notes again. Then I will sit and talk to see if we can clear this up. :slight_smile:

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I have read the notes and was just as confused as you are. As a judge, I hope it’s appropriate for me to explain my opinion here so that you can have peace of mind and others won’t be deterred from playing your game.

My personal opinion is that the judge who made the accusations misunderstood your story. You have a crossdressing man as one of the NPCs. He has the role of the queen (the chess piece) and perhaps symbolizes a drag queen. The judge might have assumed that the character is gay or trans (and misrepresented) because he wears a dress (Edit: I might have remembered wrong, I’m not sure what he was wearing. I can check again.) Queen can be a slur against gay men. Calling a trans woman “he” would be offensive. So if you assume the character is gay or trans, the dance scene would be offensive. But nothing in the scene says he’s LGBT, so there’s no homophobia or transphobia in it.

As far as the racism accusation goes, the only connection I could see was that maybe the judge was offended by naming the black king The Faux King. However, I think it’s unfair to assume that the colors of chess pieces represent the colors of people’s skins.

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I really like this. The concept is very interesting, I look forward to seeing where the rest of the story goes.

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I found it quite interesting and in my opinion the judge was probably just being sensitive and jumped at shadows.

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i’ve played the game again and i am just as confused as you and Lavender.

For the anti-LGBT accusations, …I feel like i don’t know much about the White Queen in that aspect but you mentioned in the prologue that he was wearing a white suit (though it is possible that the guests can wear a gown on one night and a suit on the other). He also seems to like the MC but as always, i’m dense when it comes to feelings. As for everyone else, i can’t really say until you established relationship to be honest.

As for the Faux King, i immediately understood that he was going to the “fake” lines since it has been established that this is roleplaying game and he wanted to emphasize on that that this is game of making believe of sorts.

Edit: Could it be possible that the judge didn’t like the scene where The White Queen dumped his drink on the Faux King. But i know that the White Queen doesn’t like liars and probably took offense on the insincerity of the gesture rather than the possible interpretation of the White Queen being homophobic.

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I just read through and love the premise, and I think it’s written fairly well. It could use a bit more detail in some places. But it was good enough that I definitely want to see where you can take this.

I don’t really understand where the accusations are coming from, and that’s speaking as someone who can be sensitive to those kinds of things. :sweat_smile:

I think there was maybe some misreading of the text by that judge, but if they do feel that way it’s best for you to speak to them and clear it up. I honestly don’t see a single issue here but everyone interprets things differently.

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I’m gonna echo the thoughts of others and say that I’ve just played through this game again, and though nothing sent any glaring warning signs to me the first time I played it, tried to look for anything like what you’ve said the judge mentioned… I… can’t really find anything?

I mean, my best guess would be it’s what others have mentioned about the White Queen but that… still feels like a stretch to me because, y’know, chess. In chess, there is the Queen piece, and this murderade is (however loosely) based on chess.

Other than that… well, I’m just scratching my head. I don’t really know what they could’ve seen. So my best guess would have to echo what others have said, that it was just that person’s interpretation of… whatever it was they saw. Sorry that I can’t be of more help, but I honestly can’t find anything. :sweat_smile:

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Add me to the pile where I don’t really see where the accusations are from. The closest passage I can find where it could be interpreted as problematic is when Elaine called Evander, who is cis male, brave for wearing a skort-suit in public. However, It is clear that they’re antagonistic toward each other and she’s mocking his fashion sense rather than for his choice of attire, and Evander snapped back accordingly with his own insult.

Mind you, it’ll take a good bit of mental gymnastic to jump on that one little scene as something-phobic (I know I did). :roll_eyes:

On a positive note: Consider me intrigued! I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how this game of murderade plays out. Please don’t be discouraged from working on it because of one person.

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I’m of the mindset that authors should be allowed to write whatever they want even if it touches topics people would rather forget or leave in the dark. I’m not sure I would go so far as to call this a sanctuary for social minorities but it is at the very least a meeting ground, so properly labeling your work about what kind of content it has or hints at can save everyone a lot of headache.

That aside, it was only one judge correct? I don’t know about you but I’ve watched enough shows to know there’s always one particular judge who is the harshest on the contestasts, however, their opinion alone means nothing if the others don’t agree with them. While it is painful to see your work getting labels it probably doesn’t deserve, dealing with such individuals is a part of life.

The moment you display your work to someone else, you’re at the mercy of their opinion, whether you agree with them or not. If they made it to judges (unless the selection is arbitary) then they probably had their reasons or can see things the common individual cannot. Remeber where you are, inclusivity is an important part of this community, so having someone sensitive to that sort of thing is probably intentional. My advice is this: don’t let it get to you and just keep doing what you’re doing, you can’t please everyone anyway.

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Well, first I must congratulate you. I love the game’s premise and I love the demo so far. I’m glad you’re not upset about the scores they gave you, because you really shouldn’t, the game is amazing.

As for the things they’ve accused you:
Well, I’m white, so although I haven’t seen anything racist, it’s not up to me to say, so I’ll focus on the supposed transphobia.

At the beginning, surely many people can be confused about the Queen. Call a queen “he” may sound at least strange at first, but when we get our roles it’s clear that the characters’ gender doesn’t matter for what role we get, so it’s perfectly fine. I was thinking of suggesting you write “they” or just avoid using pronouns at the first part of the game, but after a while it’s clear that the Queen is a man, we get to see that, not a transwoman or any other gender than male. So maybe you could just add some thing that suggests you know that the Queen is a man, something that suggests that you’ve met him before. It’s not that important, however, it can just stay as it is.

The game is well written but it has some words I find a little too complex to my understanding of English, so I can’t say I have understand fully all the phrases. One of them is this one: The King takes the White Queen’s hand and kisses his knuckles, and you can’t help but feel the mockery in the gesture; his wide movements, slow and deliberate, scream of travesty. His, whom? The Queen or the King? Scream of travesty? I don’t really get it, but as “travesty” may be a delicate word for some people, maybe it would be better to change it, but I don’t know.

But is this transphobic? Hell no.
Honestly, very much the opposite: you don’t have idea how surprised and happy I got to see that I wouldn’t have to write my gender myself, it was on the gender selection already, together with many others n-b genders, plus the option to choose pronouns, not being obligated to go by the standard they/them. Your game is in fact one of the most inclusive games I’ve ever seen with non-binary trans people.
All the stuff that I mentioned above about possible “transphobic” scenes aren’t transphobic at all, I just can’t see how this could be seen as transphobic if not by misreading.

As for homophobia, I really didn’t find any clues. I have no idea what could have bothered the judges so far.

I played the game being part of the White team, so maybe there’s some more stuff I didn’t see yet. Maybe I’ll try playing being part of the Black team later.
But that’s it. I’m n-b, pan, I’m loving it and didn’t feel offended AT ALL.

so, uh, what does “finespun” mean? I couldn’t find a translation for this word. Judging by its opposite, I assume it’s something like “well disguised”, is that right?

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That’s the best definition I found. I also didn’t know the word before…

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[quote=“Nael, post:15, topic:28453”]
His, whom? The Queen or the King?[/quote]
The King. His gesture is mocking, his movements are wide and all that. The Queen is on the receiving end of this.
I assume “travesty” means “parody” in this context. As in, he is mimicking typical courtly behaviour of a king interacting with a queen.

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Oh, the roleplay. I get it now, thanks

It ended too soon. I was just getting into my MC’s personality!!

Maybe it was the “the queen” whole thing but when actually read the rest with everyone being assigned chess pieces; I could infer that it was his placement and probably took a step farther OR relished in the title by wearing the dress.

Even then, The notion of transphobia is is contradicted by having the MC choose how they dress. Like how my character is female but she chose To wear a suit. If the author was transphobic that wound even be an option.

I don’t know you personally but from what I observed in your previous works and how you interact with the forum; I can tell you wouldn’t do that: deliberately attack a community like that. The judge needs to reevaluate themselves and become even familiarized with the terms they accused you of. You have a lot more patience/control/ forgiveness than I do, @Lycoris, because (excuse language) I would be fucking pissed.

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I read it, loved it, and had no idea on what why could even be considered “anti-lgbt”.
You can never say/write anything anymore…I swear…
Regardless, I really enjoyed it. I hope you continue with this one! I’m really intrigued!

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