Deathmatch Island RPG fuses Lost with Squid Game… and Severance

Tim Denee and Evil Hat Productions’ upcoming tabletop role-playing game Deathmatch IslandDraw on the deadly stakes of competitive gaming Squid GameYou can also find out more about the following: The Hunger Games, Characters form temporary alliances, before turning against each other and fighting in the battle royale. This fast-paced game, which will launch a BackerKit crowdfunding campaign Oct. 17 also attempts to grab players’ attention. The mystery of Lost The following are some examples of how to get started: Severance. Your character is likely to die, but that just gives your next character the opportunity to puzzle out what’s going on behind the scenes and fight against the game itself.

“To me, the appeal of these kinds of TV shows and movies is the psychological aspect,” Denee told Polygon. “Like a good zombie movie, it’s really about who the main characters are and what they will or won’t do under pressure. It’s about solidarity against the odds just as much as it is about the actual battle royale.”

The characters are similar to those in SeveranceContestants wake up on Deathmatch Island with no memories of their past or the boat that brought them there. It’s easy to create a new person, because all you need is a simple name, description, and occupation. These can all be chosen randomly. All the participants are wearing matching uniforms, which makes it easier for them to write their descriptions.

Production is the game master who will assign each character an objective, such as winning money or becoming popular. The job they choose will determine what aspects of the competition they’re best at, so a flight attendant thrives at the social game while a steelworker is better at physical challenges. The characters are given trust building activities before they face their first challenge. This allows them to establish bonds and develop certain aspects of their personality.

“As well as the usual safety tools like a pause card and lines and veils, a big part of keeping things friendly is that you need your team and your teammates in order to survive until the end,” Denee said. “You have to work together, and you’ll end up saving each other’s lives, and that builds trust and solidarity. It’s like an alliance in Survivor; there will be tensions within it, but ultimately you rely on each other.”

Deathmatch Island Uses a modified version from AgonSean Nittner & John Harper are playing the part of everyday people, competing to win followers as opposed to Greek Heroes seeking glory.

“The system is designed for episodic play, so it moves very fast and it’s great at handling different kinds of competition in a dramatic way,” Denee said. “In AgonPoetry competitions can be just as exciting as sword fighting, and are resolved the same way. There’s a danger that a deathmatch game becomes a long series of repetitive gunfights, but this system ensures that scenes are resolved in all sorts of different ways, from social encounters to physical challenges to dance-offs.”

Competition in Deathmatch Island travel between a set of three islands where they’re tested in increasingly dangerous challenges leading up to a final battle royale. They’ll explain how they plan on approaching a challenge, which can be anything from attempting to forge temporary alliances with another team to using secret weapons to threaten opponents. Everyone rolls the dice at once to decide the ranking, and then they describe how the actual game played out through confessionals.

Victorious competitors earn more “followers,” a mysterious number tracked on your character’s wristwatch. They strengthen characters and eventually allow them to unlock new dice for challenges. Also, they can earn rewards which are useful for future challenges and allow them to recuperate after injuries or fatigue. Players also earn advances when their character is injured by failing in a dangerous contest, as strain allows them to tap into deep reserves they didn’t know they had.

During the time between each challenge, participants share a boat and travel to another island. The flashbacks allow them to spend more time getting to know eachother and building trust. Production introduces details which may be connected to players’ memories, for example, the Deathmatch logo that was on the van involved in the accident or an unknown man who stood in the shadows of key events.

Also, Downtime allows the characters to talk about what is happening. Is this a depraved TV reality show? Or are they part of an espionage project by the government? This theory-building is to be incorporated into their story, and they are encouraged to work with the actors to develop a puzzle that the audience can solve.

Those aspects are played up in Denee’s design for the book, which is inspired by his years of working in corporate communications. There are redacted memos about seasons that have gone wrong and helpful tips directed at players, like: “You may not have all your memories to begin with, but try to imagine that you have friends and family back home rooting for you. That imaginary moral support can make all the difference.”

“It was great fun playing with those skills in a new context, and satirizing everything I love to hate about corporate comms,” Denee said. “That bland-yet-sinister tone of voice was dangerously easy to slip into!”

Evil Hat Productions

The visuals are inspired by mid-century modern style and branding from the DHARMA Initiative. LostSmoke bombs and packaged cookies are designed to look just like the store brand groceries.

“There’s something haunting and unsettling about a decades-old utopian project that’s gone off the rails,” Denee said. “This is the weird, spooky side of Deathmatch Island that is just as important to the game as the big battle royales.”

Navigating an island might take a single play session, but the game itself is meant to be played over the course of “seasons.” At the final island, the party will get to vote if they plan to play to win or try to break the very game itself. It is difficult to overthrow the game the first time around because the battle royale will continue if one person wants to try to win. Also, the nature of the mystery means that most weapons can’t be used to fight against Production, and characters might find themselves battling mental programming or heavily armed guards.

That’s where Deathmatch Island’s new game plus mode comes in. Most characters won’t survive the final island, but a player’s next character might be someone investigating their previous character’s disappearance or even a clone brought back to compete on Deathmatch Island again, depending on how weird the group’s mystery has gotten.

“Something I really appreciate in a tabletop role-playing game is when the game is designed to have a definitive ending, a play cycle from beginning to end,” Denee said. “In new game plus mode, the player characters enter the game undercover as saboteurs, here to bring the whole game down from the very beginning, armed with all the knowledge their characters uncovered in previous seasons.”

When they wake up this time on a boat they may find a secret map to a restricted zone or a cryptic radio message. Of course, they’ll still need the cooperation of the whole team to have a chance at beating Production at their own game.

“The endgame mechanic in Deathmatch Island intentionally saves the betrayals and confrontations right for the very end, which means everything until that point can be on friendly terms,” Denee said. “There’s a lot of levity and black comedy in most seasons of Deathmatch Island (and in the game text), and that helps the rivalry stay fun rather than overbearing.”

BackerKit, the BackerKit Campaign for Deathmatch IslandIn the campaign, which runs from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, the game’s core is offered as a pdf for just $15. The hardcover version in digest-size costs $30. Deluxe bundles can cost up to $149. The delivery is scheduled for spring 2024. All backers, however, will receive a digital version to begin playing right away. Evil Hat has said that the product will be available in stores by summer 2024.