The Iron Oracle

This entry to the Pleasure-not-Business Card RPG Jam is about tension: the tension of your character's self-doubt, based on the tension of their unaswered questions, those in turn borne by the surface tension of water.

The other two games I've written for this jam ("Froggy Times Writer Needed" and "Magic Number") have been about features like the brevity of space for a player to write on a business card, and about the portability of the card. This one is about the physicality of it: that when torn up, it is small enough to make into a floating compass, and also that there's a finality to both tearing it up and placing it in the water. It's only a matter of time before it sinks or dissolves, but in the meantime there are also answers to be determined. 

In the back of my mind was originally hotel sewing kits: the way those are also small and made of cardboard. And how needles can be threaded into cardboard as an emergency or a temporary way of housing them. From there, it was a quick jump to iron, cardboard, magnetism and floating compasses. Turning that into a ritual of divination lends the game a direction that will hopefully help the player's character resolve some narrative tension. So then we have circled back round to tension - and that seems like a good place to end this devlog.

I hope you enjoy the game.