Satanic Mills was a game I wrote for the 2-page techno horror game challenge last year. It is a game about alienation set in a 19th century factory town and is basically a short mash-up of Polaris and Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Since our group spent the last session trying out a few early stage designs and mini-games, we gave it a mini-test.

(draft available for download at 1km1kt: http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/Satanic_Mills.php

Characters are defined by four positive aspects of their lives- qualities, possessions, relationships etc that make them happy. Each aspect is something that can be degraded and lost as your character suffers one of the game’s four forms of alienation. For example, since alienation from labor produces, in marx’s phrase, ‘mortification of the body and mind,’ a character’s labor aspect is a positive physical or mental trait that will be ground down by a life of drudgery and exploitation.

We decided to make a family of four who all worked at the same textile mill. Jim was the father, Charles Cooper:
Labor aspect: strong hands
Products of labor: fine smoking pipe
Other people: wife and I are still in love
Species being: plays piano down at the pub

Joshua was the mother, Henrietta Cooper:
Labor aspect: deft fingers
Products of labor: china hutch
Other people: darling children
Species being: suffragette pamphleteer

Judson was their 8 year old daughter Drusilla:
Labor aspect: optimistic
Products of labor: china doll
Other people: grandpa
Species being: singing

I was Andrew, the 11 year old son:
Labor aspect: cheery smile
Products of labor: toy soldiers
Other people: my friends
Species being: invent games

We each led one scene. Scenes have to involve your character and put you at risk to suffer the effects of one of the forms of alienation. A player not involved in the scene decides how that alienation effects the active character. Jim led the first scene as an argument between husband and wife over which of them could miss work to take daughter Drusilla to the doctor (no doubt a charity clinic). The scene took place on the street corner where Henrietta was passing out her suffragette literature. Jim’s character gave in rather than cause more of a public scene, and as the alienating player I summed up how the fight put a shadow over Charles’ ‘wife and I are still in love aspect’

During the second scene, in which Joshua’s mom character was chastising my son for his slovenly toy soldier campaigns outside in the dirt, one of the other players came up with the suggestion that more than one characters should always be at risk in each scene with the alienating player decide which one of them – or all of them, are alienated. This was a great idea that we immediately tried. At the end of this scene my character had his toy soldiers alienated and the mother’s darling children was alienated since her son resented his mom’s interference. In a later scene, brother and sister were walking by the railroad tracks and thanks to the son’s idea for a game, sis got stuck in the rails, risking her optimistic outlook. Luckily their father was coming home from the bar along the same route and risked his strong hands to pull her free. Even though Judson and jim’s characters were more directly threatened in this scene, Joshua decided that only my character suffered alienation, since the boy was scared when his habit of inventing games got his sister into serious danger.

Characters are graphed on a grid and at the end of scenes you move one step towards the edge of the grid bearing the type of alienation that was inflicted. At the end of the game the shape of your character’s lines of alienation correspond to their final destinies. For example, my character had suffered equal alienation from the products of labor and alienation from species being so the combo meant that he ends up becoming toadishly submissive or being caught up in the consequences of rebellion.

Lessons:
• more strongly require characters to be linked by social ties and/or intersecting aspects
• adopt the change of more than one character per scene and at least one and potentially all can suffer alienation at the discretion of the observing player.
• The game was amusingly depressing, a dish best served in small bites, so make sure the grid is small and the game ends quickly.

There was also the loom scene in  the factory, where wife and i argued over how our son was being raised. Judson, I think penalized all of us... I know I lose out again.

For my two cents, I would love to see the scenes fleshed out into 5-10 minutes arcs. The finality of everything makes this game so very bleak.

This may be one of my favorite indie games to date, in premise and tone.

I had a blast, in that sick way someone might really enjoy an eli roth movie.