I have an idea for a game: It's the usual "a princess is kidnapped by a dragon and a brave knight is on a quest to rescue her" story. But you (the player) plays as the princess, who is somehow helping the knight on his quest.

The issue is that since the player is playing as a trapped character, I want to make the player feel trapped, but I don't know how to do that.

My original idea is that the princess telepathically communicates with the knight and tells him what to do. But this doesn't work, the gameplay is identical to the player playing as the knight. How can I make the gameplay feel like the player is playing as the princess (and thus feel trapped) instead of the knight?

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[–] pulido@lemmings.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Pretty sure your concept is flawed from the start.

It might sound nice as a 'what-if' scenario, but as soon as you get into any of the details, it falls apart and hopefully shows us why games and stories are typically focused on the people doing something.

Now, if you want something a bit more likely to succeed, you can make a "Damsel in Distress Simulator." From the get-go, you can start to think of gameplay mechanics like combing your hair, talking with guards, taking care of birds, etc etc. The ideas just flow, instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

In fact, this could loop around to your idea of helping the rescuers by opening up opportunities for the princess to sabotage her captors. You can have a Majora's Mask-like timer which keeps track of how far the knight is from saving you.