“Don’t kill the messenger” Game Design Document

Set in occupied Europe during the 1940’s, Don’t Kill The Messenger is a single-player World War II Resistance simulator, where the players take part in an underground network of Villagers working together to oppose a Fascist Regime. The game revolves around composing coded messages to recruit Allies and spread critical information, while balancing risk through the amount of information the message contains and the delivery routes, with the goal to avoid detection. If captured, the players enter an intense interrogation where they must choose between gaslighting the Officers, cooperating with them, or dying.

Each of the player's choices impacts their character and the Resistance group itself. Dying does not mean the game is over, as players respawn as other Villager characters, but repeated losses and poor recruitment can disintegrate the Resistance movement. Through its core mechanics of Composing, Dying, and Gaslighting, the game explores themes such as the tension between individual survival and collective responsibility within a tightly knit village, set against an oppressive “Big Brother” system of constant surveillance and Fascist control.