I took an hour or so and put together a basic playable prototype in Tabletop Simulator, which I’m hoping to playtest soon! It’s a pretty simple take on the chapter The Crossing, in which Hazel must decide whether to leave behind the rabbits who can’t swim across, or risk all of their lives if the wild dog should catch them.

This represents something of a departure from the squad/rts/tactics idea concept that has been a staple of the game design concept so far, and I think that’s a good thing to question. It’s leaning much more toward loose adventure puzzling, with a sense of urgency, multiple solutions, and the main conceit that failure doesn’t mean and ending, but instead a progression into a different branch of the story.

For example, the fail case in this scenario is that the dog takes one of the rabbits. My thought is that this would open up a special next encounter in which they must mount a rescue to retrieve their comrade. Or, I could imagine that character coming back in the future, as a bit of a surprise.