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faq
 what is this? |
Welcome aboard The Pygmalion, traveler. This is The Cradle Project, a sci-fi and murder mystery game set on an abandoned space ship in the not too distant future. The game is projected to be short term, and is heavily inspired by SOMA, Blade Runner, Alien, Total Recall, and a few other surprises. The Cradle Project runs as one might expect the party game Mafia to run, but not exactly the same. We've adapted some things for the format, as well as the story. Please note that this particular murdergame does not run in the traditional Mafia format; it is more close to the investigative formats of games like ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small} murdermanor, cravencastle, and sevenvices. The ship is abandoned, and has been so for quite some time now, according to the last few running robots aboard. ...Until, that is, you wake up in a glass case. Life is now briefly restored to the ship, and you find you're not alone. Your group of survivors are alerted that you're the last of the ship's inhabitants, and are thrust into a game of murder and betrayal. You may ask 'why', and that certainly is the question! Hopefully you live long enough to find out. |
| how do i play? |
| The Cradle Project is a Dreamwidth community based game. All logs will be posted to the in-character community. There will be logs and/or top-level comments posted by the mods for each day of the week, and players are encouraged to mingle in the comments. These weekly logs are open to the entire game. Remember, interaction is key! In order for faction-centric mingles to happen, a mod posted mingle filtered to those roles will be posted. This is where many interactions pertaining to roles will occur and where IC plotting will happen. For third party roles, a filtered post to an NPC will be put up, where the third party role will be able to engage with the NPC. Be warned—they might not be very helpful! We are borrowing heavily, with permission, from cravencastle and murdermanor. Murder mechanics will be slightly different from the now traditional RNG, but RNG is still involved. |
| how do murders work? |
| Please refer to our Murders, Trials and Incentives page for more information on this. We highly recommend reading it, even if you've played in murdergames previously, as The Cradle Project is borrowing from Craven Castle and Murder Manor heavily here -- with permission, of course! |
| how did my character get here? |
| It's a mystery! We can't tell you how they got on board, but we can certainly tell you what it's like to wake up in the glass containers, which will only open once they're fully awake. Upon awakening, several robots would usher them out into the halls, and then leave them to explore the ship at their leisure. The ship is large, and there's several levels to explore. Even so, the middle level is clearly where most people resided... Wherever they are now. The hallways are pristine, and if one presses the little robots, they might have said that they're cleaners, right before beeping out, "I am returning home now." From there, it would be expected that characters would begin mingling, and just meeting one another! |
| the premise mentioned aliens, but i don't see them mentioned here? |
| Presently speaking, there are several little plot points that are shrouded in mystery. The presence of aliens is one, ICly. OOCly, however, we're revealing it right out the gate as the premise was originally a pitch for the game's idea. However, it went over so well, we decided to keep it! Please consider it a preview of some of the things we've got planned. The Cradle Project is a game with an intricate, player dependent plot, and we're confident we'll have at least one important plot reveal per week. |
| when my character dies, there's nothing left to do, right? |
| Wrong! There will absolutely be things for dead characters to do, and they will play an important part in the game as living characters do. Please don't think about your character dying as them being ousted from the game! More details will be given regarding this when and if your character does die. |
| how many characters can i app? who can or can't i app? |
| There is a character cap of 40, and it is a hard cap. Once apps close, if all slots have been filled, we will not be permitting even one application over the number. Our cast cap is at three characters per canon. This applies to franchises as well. For example, you can app Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, and someone else can app Squall Leonheart from Final Fantasy VIII. They would considered as being part of a cast, however, so if someone else apps Lightning Farron from Final Fantasy XIII, then Final Fantasy hits its cast cap. We do not permit OCs, AUs (CRAU or otherwise), real people, internet personas, historical figures and customizable protagonists, such as Bioware's Wardens and Shepards. Silent protagonists are tentatively allowed pending how much of a 'character' they have; someone like Red from Transistor, Persona protagonists, or Chell from Portal would be allowed as they have a set role in the narrative. Characters under 18 are tentatively allowed, but the suitability clause must be filled out for them, and we may ask you to pick a different character. Characters under the age of 13 are not allowed. If we decide you need to pick a different character, you will not lose your spot in the application queue. In regards to the story, there will be a large focus on what being human means and how far humanity will go to survive. We won't keep you from applying who you would like, but we would like to make a gentle statement if you'll allow us. Characters who are robots, artificial intelligences, were born immortal, and/or personifications may have a hard time fitting into the game due to this focus. There is a suitability section in applications, where we ask you flex your muscles and writing abilities and convince us, but our gentle reminder, ultimately, is just a cold truth. As such, we feel the best way to approach this question is to rephrase it as, "how human would this character read?" Due to this, we imagine characters like Holo-Jack from Borderlands and Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to have next to no issue settling into the premise of the game, due to Holo-Jack still seeing himself as 'human', and Dio previously being completely human. We permit characters who have an inhuman appearance, too, as long as they are sentient and capable of making decisions on their own. The is the future in space, so humans have naturally began to start families with other races so no one will judge you if you're a dog man. The rest of the ship might, though. Characters who do not have a body, such as the aforementioned Holo-Jack or a robotic character, would find themselves in a body that is made of flesh and blood. |
| how long will the game last? |
| We are projecting the game to last an upwards of three months, give or take. Due to the nature of a murdergame, this could go on longer or it could be shorter. If characters manage to trigger endgame soon enough, it's possible for the game to end a few weeks early, but no more than that. 14 weeks is the absolute maximum, and come August the game should be over. |
| what is the pacing? |
| The game moves along with real time, so there is a 1:1 ratio for IC days. There will be four posts made by mods during the week: a weekly post, an investigation, day one of a trial, and day two of a trial. The weekly post covers four days: Monday through Thursday. Here, characters are encouraged to form bonds with other characters and explore The Pygmalion to attempt to solve some of its mysteries. The investigation will be posted at noon EST on Friday and continue until everything necessary for the trial is found. Day one of the trial will be posted on Saturday at noon EST and will continue until the mods decide to close it for the day. Day two will post on Sunday at noon EST, and will continue until midnight/12AM EST, upon which all votes must be cast. |
| i need to drop! |
| We understand that life is unpredictable and things come up, but we strongly discourage needing to drop from the game. If it is necessary, please immediately contact us and we'll try to work something out. Please understand, however that a sudden drop can and will negatively impact the flow of the game and that it possibly could become both an OOC and IC inconvenience. If you suspect that you will be unavailable for a long period of time during the game, we ask that you reconsider if the game is appropriate for you! |
| how is activity handled? |
| There is no formal activity check! However, we do expect characters to be active throughout the week, including in the investigation and trial. Once again, we understand that life gets hectic, along with the fact that this game is being run during the summer. If something comes up and you happen to be unable to be around for a weekend or even for a week, please message us and we can work something out up to and including randomizing your vote in the trial and making their IC involvement for the week minimal. Please note that failure to vote twice will result in an automatic death. |
| how do special abilities work? |
| Powers and anything that would fall under the umbrella of "special abilities" have been downgraded to being at 40% capacity. It is impossible for characters to use anymore than that. This rule only applies to supernatural abilities. As an example, Sherlock Holmes wouldn't be affected and could use his extraordinary powers of deduction unhindered, but Goku from Dragon Ball would find himself much, much weaker. |
| i need to contact a mod! |
| Please either send us a private plurk at |
| this sounds a lot like the space land board from mario party 2. |
| What? No. No...shut up. |
| i have a question that wasn't answered here. |
| Please submit it below! We'll get back to you as soon as possible. |
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items are totally cool! characters are allowed one item, provided it's not gamebreaking. it can be anything from a piece of clothing or jewelery to a cellphone to a board game, so be as creative as you would like to be! on the note of weapons, those are allowed, as long as they aren't gamebreaking, or won't cause damage to the ship. for example, knives would be absolutely okay, but explosives are something we'd like to be left at home. basically, you're free to bring a gun to the space fight, but your bazooka's gonna have to stay home!
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The character and item I have in mind are Jin Kisaragi from BlazBlue and his sword, Yukianesa. I'm completely fine with the nerfing of it's power ( I don't know how much havoc ice would cause on a ship), or even it's complete inactivation (which happens in canon at some points, as sometime he's unable to unsheathe it). I just wanted to make sure it would still be acceptable, even if it's unable to be properly wielded, as it does have an effect on his mental state and his personality should he be without it.
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coco and i talked about this, and we think the best way to handle this is to ask you if you'd be willing to detail his sword in your app for jin? we'd like to see it all from your perspective as the player, so we could nerf accordingly! that way, you could potentially retain some of his abilities, and we could avoid anything too gamebreaking. would that be cool?
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