I finally caved to peer pressure from a chat group at work and got Gnosia and have been mainlining that since Thursday or so. It's a single-player Mafia game (or Werewolf, or Among Us, or however you identify "impostor deduction" games.) To sum up how it plays in an elevator pitch, it's kinda like a roguelike visual novel. Each "game" takes 5-15 minutes, and you have multiple loops (usually over 100) to see all the events and finish the game, as you try to find the impostors or kill the uninfected crew, with 14 other characters and their distinct personalities, quirks, and play idiosyncrasies.
They build a one-player Mafia game mechanically by giving you EXP each loop that you use to level up and increase your stats, which effect how well you do things in the games. Charisma, Intuition, Charm, Stealth, Logic, and Performance - each help you mechanically in the games. High charisma makes it more likely that people listen and are convinced by your doubting or covering for someone. High intuition and you might get a flash knowing that someone is lying. High stealth, you're less likely to stand out to the bad guys and get targeted at night, or get doubted for not speaking up enough. High charm makes you more likeable, and less likely to get dogpiled on/more likely to be defended when doubted. Performance makes you a better liar and actor.
You play via commands, and can get more of them—special skills essentially—by getting stats high enough. The basic commands are Doubt (That person is suspicious), Cover (That person is not suspicious,) Deny (I'm not suspicious!), then context-specific ones for agreeing or disagreeing when other people are doubting or covering others. You can also claim a role if you have it or if you're a baddie.
Then, raising certain stats unlocks new commands. Seek Agreement is a "This person knows what's up, listen to them!" skill to boost someone else's arguments much more than the normal "Agree" command. There's "Don't be fooled," to turn it around when someone suspicious is doubting you (Like when you're the engineer and the other person claiming engineer is trying to get you iced). There's Regret, to act really sad and hurt when someone suspects you and get other people's sympathy. Let's Collaborate, to propose an alliance with another character. There's even Grovel, where if you get voted out, you might be able to beg and cry really hard and have them decide not to sleep you after all. Et cetera. How effective each one of these is at moving the (invisible) needles is based on your values of the related stats.
There are also the basic Mafia roles. Engineer - examine a character. Doctor - identify the person who was voted out. Guardian Angel - pick a person to be protected against the bad guys' night kill. Guard Duty - two people who are guaranteed crew but without special powers. AC Follower - a human, unknown to the Gnosia and vice-versa, but who's trying to help the bad guys win. Bug, who's on neither team but wins over either side if they survive to the end.
You also set each game's setup details specifically after a while - for each loop you can set however many crew members and gnosia there are, which roles you want active, and which role you are (you can also choose random for the last one). There's also an event finder that automatically sets the things to allow for base conditions for events you haven't seen yet.
The actual games play out mostly through canned dialog lines ("You point out suspicious things about Setsu's behavior.") with each character having a few basic lines for each situation ("So I'm in the way, huh...?") ("No, I trust Comet over Otome.") It gets repetitive if you're actually reading it like dialog, at the beginning. But I think the repetitive nature actually makes those simple, repetitive lines work in the game's favor, especially after 50 or 100 loops. After a while the dialog kind of falls away and you proceed through it as a kind of series of long ideograms/logic signs. I dunno, it doesn't bother me too much.
In between each day of the "games" you can go see one of the other characters on the ship. This might just be a very simple line of dialog, depending on whether they trust or distrust you, but you can also trigger events - this is where you learn those special commands mentioned above, where a fellow baddie gives you advice on who to take out, where someone might tell you they want to collaborate or tell you someone they think is lying. But most importantly, it's where the story develops. Each character has a number of bits of their backstory, and progressing through and finishing the game is mainly through story events revealing those bits. Sometimes it's just random, sometimes it's based on who's alive or who's in what role, or whether you survived with X character until the end of the game. Like "if X and Y are on guard duty (guaranteed crew but with no special powers) together, this story event happens" or "if you and X are both Gnosia and both survive til the end," and so on. There's a pretty decent chunk of backstory, though the characters' stories can be a little fragmented from each other, and some really cool/shocking/interesting twists and revelations along the way.
Anyway, it's a weird, very unique game that does something really neat and, mostly, succeeds pretty admirably. It's pretty cheap too, it's on Switch, and y'all should try it out. Or talk about it here if you have. Mark your story spoilers because there are some big ones!
They build a one-player Mafia game mechanically by giving you EXP each loop that you use to level up and increase your stats, which effect how well you do things in the games. Charisma, Intuition, Charm, Stealth, Logic, and Performance - each help you mechanically in the games. High charisma makes it more likely that people listen and are convinced by your doubting or covering for someone. High intuition and you might get a flash knowing that someone is lying. High stealth, you're less likely to stand out to the bad guys and get targeted at night, or get doubted for not speaking up enough. High charm makes you more likeable, and less likely to get dogpiled on/more likely to be defended when doubted. Performance makes you a better liar and actor.
You play via commands, and can get more of them—special skills essentially—by getting stats high enough. The basic commands are Doubt (That person is suspicious), Cover (That person is not suspicious,) Deny (I'm not suspicious!), then context-specific ones for agreeing or disagreeing when other people are doubting or covering others. You can also claim a role if you have it or if you're a baddie.
Then, raising certain stats unlocks new commands. Seek Agreement is a "This person knows what's up, listen to them!" skill to boost someone else's arguments much more than the normal "Agree" command. There's "Don't be fooled," to turn it around when someone suspicious is doubting you (Like when you're the engineer and the other person claiming engineer is trying to get you iced). There's Regret, to act really sad and hurt when someone suspects you and get other people's sympathy. Let's Collaborate, to propose an alliance with another character. There's even Grovel, where if you get voted out, you might be able to beg and cry really hard and have them decide not to sleep you after all. Et cetera. How effective each one of these is at moving the (invisible) needles is based on your values of the related stats.
There are also the basic Mafia roles. Engineer - examine a character. Doctor - identify the person who was voted out. Guardian Angel - pick a person to be protected against the bad guys' night kill. Guard Duty - two people who are guaranteed crew but without special powers. AC Follower - a human, unknown to the Gnosia and vice-versa, but who's trying to help the bad guys win. Bug, who's on neither team but wins over either side if they survive to the end.
You also set each game's setup details specifically after a while - for each loop you can set however many crew members and gnosia there are, which roles you want active, and which role you are (you can also choose random for the last one). There's also an event finder that automatically sets the things to allow for base conditions for events you haven't seen yet.
The actual games play out mostly through canned dialog lines ("You point out suspicious things about Setsu's behavior.") with each character having a few basic lines for each situation ("So I'm in the way, huh...?") ("No, I trust Comet over Otome.") It gets repetitive if you're actually reading it like dialog, at the beginning. But I think the repetitive nature actually makes those simple, repetitive lines work in the game's favor, especially after 50 or 100 loops. After a while the dialog kind of falls away and you proceed through it as a kind of series of long ideograms/logic signs. I dunno, it doesn't bother me too much.
In between each day of the "games" you can go see one of the other characters on the ship. This might just be a very simple line of dialog, depending on whether they trust or distrust you, but you can also trigger events - this is where you learn those special commands mentioned above, where a fellow baddie gives you advice on who to take out, where someone might tell you they want to collaborate or tell you someone they think is lying. But most importantly, it's where the story develops. Each character has a number of bits of their backstory, and progressing through and finishing the game is mainly through story events revealing those bits. Sometimes it's just random, sometimes it's based on who's alive or who's in what role, or whether you survived with X character until the end of the game. Like "if X and Y are on guard duty (guaranteed crew but with no special powers) together, this story event happens" or "if you and X are both Gnosia and both survive til the end," and so on. There's a pretty decent chunk of backstory, though the characters' stories can be a little fragmented from each other, and some really cool/shocking/interesting twists and revelations along the way.
Anyway, it's a weird, very unique game that does something really neat and, mostly, succeeds pretty admirably. It's pretty cheap too, it's on Switch, and y'all should try it out. Or talk about it here if you have. Mark your story spoilers because there are some big ones!
