Deadly Whispers
!!!For the the full experience please use Firefox. Audio does not work with chromium browsers!!!
In the months between July of 1565 and March of 1566, the layout of Scottish politics would change forever. Deceit, lies, and ignorance covered the lives of those in Scottish Court in such a short period of time that the fallout of the lords’ actions can be felt today.
Play the tragedy drama from start to finish across many point of views! Different characters meet up at different times, and the narrative, or what the characters might believe is the narrative, changes in between. Some are brilliant, some are witty, some are gullible. Good intentions, clever plots, and large schemes during this tumultuous time period shaped Scottish politics and set them up for what the region is today.
Credits
🇰🇾 Ben Davey - SFX
https://soundcloud.com/benjamin-davey-164799350
🇫🇷 Chris "Torone" CB - Composer
https://www.youtube.com/toronemusic
🇺🇸 Lee Green - Writer
https://authorleegreen.itch.io/
https://twitter.com/authorleegreen
🇨🇠Sophie Hengartner - Artist
https://www.artstation.com/phihengartner
🇨🇦 Sean O'Brien - Programmer
Comments
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Nice effort put into this! Art was good, and writing was gernerally tight. (There were a few typos, for example a random 4, deceipt instead of deceit, etc.) I really liked how you could choose who to follow throughout, and the different perspectives were unique!
I know little of this time period, so I can't speak to historical accuracy, but a list of sources used would be nice (for nerds like me who like to fact-check, lol). But I'm pretty sure no one said 'okay' or 'reality check'. For the most part, the writing gave a historical feel without all the olde (sic) spellings and grammar. But there were a few, like 'okay', that really stuck out as being more modern.
Spoiler, if history can be spoiled.
At the end, I was confused as to what was actually going on. When it started, I thought he'd been poisoned, and they were counting the seconds till he dropped, lol. Then, at one point, the word 'lash' is used, which made me think whpping, and made me even more confused. Maybe just a mention of a flash of a blade would make things perfectly clear. :)
Thanks for the feedback! :)
Most of our sources are listed on the official submission page.
Did you hear the music & sfx while playing the game? If not I can see how the end scene could be confusing. You're supposed to be able to hear stab sounds, which clarifies (or at least should clarify) what is happening. (We also thought about adding blood splatters, but ran out of time to implement that.)
We've learned that the sound doesn't work with some browsers, so we recommend playing in Firefox.
Thanks, I'll check it out!
Ah, that clears things up, lol. That's really cool that you used sfx to help tell the story instead of just augment it. Unfortunately, I could hear only the sfx for page turning, but I couldn't hear any music or the stab sfx. I was using Firefox, so not sure what the issue was. I'll try it again quickly to see if I can get it to work. Anyway, thanks for clarifying, and thanks for the interesting game!
EDIT: Ok, NOW the music and other sfx are working! Dang! It just mustn't have loaded properly when I played it the first time. (;-;)
I'm glad to hear it ended up working, at least on your second play-through! :)
Writer here! Thank you for the feedback!!
For some of the typos, I absolutely believe that I missed a handful. Editing took a backseat during the timeframe while the content for submission was the priority.
As far as time period, you're super right! They wouldn't have said things like "okay" or other phrases we use today. In fact, almost nothing of this time period would have been spoken in a dialect we would recognize. In this time period in Scotland, a mixture of French, Scottish tongue (a more German variant of English at the time, like a slightly newer Old English), and early Elizabethan English (Shakespeare) would've been used across all of these scenes.
Although those above phrases might not have existed in 1565 Scottish lexicon, there were similar variants and expressions that wouldn't make sense (or translate well) in today's English. I chose to focus on mimicking Shakespearean style to drive the theming home instead, which hopefully made for a smoother read!
I hope that helps!
Typos are pesky! I can read over something I've typed five times or more and still miss things, sigh. Understandable you couldn't 'catch 'em all' on a timeframe.
And I absolutely understand about the language, dialect, etc. If I were suddenly dropped into mid 1500s Scotland, I likely wouldn't understand the majority of what was said. (I can't understand even some of today's dialects, lol, sorry Scots :D ) Like I said, the writing was quite good! 'Okay' in any historical use before the late 1800s is just a pet peeve of mine, and other people are perfectly okay with it. I know it's not easy to capture a casual historical feel. :)