itch.io

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to play it solo at all. I think that's why I had saved your game last to try to play. I had been a little nervous :)

The playfulness of the game setup and the diversity of denizens is what helped me build out distinct voices, backstories, motivations, and to make the disputes fun.

Everything kind of added to that. The random dish and ingredients--I was able to incorporate that into their cultures and personalities.

The rating categories helped me try to direct my scenes--but I try not to min-max and manipulate things to be perfect. I'm big into generative and narrative gameplay, so I wasn't trying to manipulate every scene arbitrarily to earn high or low ratings. It allowed me to try to judge a little more fairly.

The reactions to the food were surprising and also just sometimes so hilarious or perfectly timed after the end of a dispute scene (For example, in one of my last scenes, the Dark Lord + Dark Lady--aka the Sovereign Darkness--were confronting a goblin about his mad science experiment in a workshop. He was working on an unauthorized interdimensional teleporter prototype and sent half of the shop into another dimension during an explosion. By the end of the scene, the Sovereign Darkness told the goblin he would be finishing the prototype and also partnering with the Demon Slug, who had been the original prototype's designer--back before the Demon Slug lost his short-term memory by accidentally sending that part of his brain into the other dimension. As the goblin was still reeling over this semi-promotion, the Sovereign Darkness tried some of the goblin's dish. It blasted them into another dimension. ROFLMAO  So the goblin had better finish that prototype, I guess lol) 

There was enough happening each turn that I remained engaged long enough to want to give each denizen a chance to be the active character in a scene and find out who would be employee of the month.