FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD59 → Many Wearing Rapiers are Afraid of Goosequills

Many Wearing Rapiers are Afraid of Goosequills

By j3m and

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4443.5541
Fun5593.1943
Innovation2533.6541
Theme3833.8243
Graphics994.4144
Humor1493.6639
Mood2193.9740

Comments

muzzlove 2026-04-21 08:17

great atmosphere

draki 2026-04-21 08:37

A truly original concept and the designs are good, well done!

dontgiveupboy 2026-04-21 08:55

Her eyes are like daggers!

saering 2026-04-21 09:46

Amazing visuals and mood, and very interesting take on the theme! The thing is, I feel kinda dumb but I don't understand how I'm supposed to decipher the letters, I went through the first day a few times trying to understand how it worked but could not find a logic. Is there something obvious that I've missed, or are the signal very well hidden inside the letters? Maybe I'm not a good castle protector after all :joy:

It was a nice experience overall, and I'll play it again with pleasure with more info on how to play!

j3m 2026-04-21 09:55

@saering It might help to read about common steganography methods, and see if anything about any of the letters seems suspicious or weird! But yes, my assumption was it would probably take most people a few goes around to get the idea. A fuller version of the game might have a tutorial level or something to ease you in.

Each day, either one or zero of the letters somehow encodes who the assassins' target for that night is. The other letters are innocent and unrelated. It isn't anything graphical like to do with the font or something, you could get it from just the text itself. But it is a bit lateral thinking-y!

accelerate0814 2026-04-21 10:18

The hand-drawn, parchment-style art is incredible! I also really love the theatrical presentation

alexhonor 2026-04-21 10:23

Absolutely loved gossip cards, the humour is peak. Design and graphics on point. Tho more level would've been much appreciated.

aniretti 2026-04-21 10:55

beautiful character design and great atmosphere!! it took me some time to understand what was expected of me. for example, I chose one of the notes and assumed it was left by spies. I would have liked to simply click on it rather than choosing from the characters. after selecting the suspected spy note, I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to determine who left it? since I know nothing about the characters. a brief introduction to the characters at the beginning of the game would help! for example: the man is the queen's cousin, he works as a court doctor, the girl with black hair is the queen's daughter, etc. after making a choice, there is also a lack of some input, because it's unclear whether I made the right choice or not.

j3m 2026-04-21 12:03

@aniretti Thanks for the feedback! Actually the idea is the three different characters are potential assassination targets that you're protecting. The presentation is pretty spartan so it can be a bit confusing I'm sure

kuviman 2026-04-21 13:01

Maby getting a hint would be nice, but thy game is exelent aniawy

nullval 2026-04-21 13:16

It's a good game, but stenography puzzles are incredibly hard. I think there's missing a "punishment"/consequence for protecting a target when there's no attempt.

I got them all on the first try, but not all of them were, well equally earned.. :P (I also protected on the false alarms)

The presentation is pretty good and the writing is very funny, so great job :)

pipetto 2026-04-21 14:25

I love this concept!

kkritselis 2026-04-21 17:56

I liked this idea a lot and great execution... I would have like a little more action in the resolution.. some shadowy figure creeping in the background and either slinking away or some pouncing. Keep working on it!

2026-04-21 21:14

Such an original game idea! I played through it twice and thoroughly enjoyed it :D I'm a big fan of StealingPanda's traditional art and I've always hoped that one day it would be in some kind of visual novel game! I'm very much looking forward to seeing what game project you guys inevitably create next! *Nudge nudge, encouraging yodel!* :D

gamebuilder 2026-04-21 21:34

Very imaginative and very unusual. The title drew me in—I rarely, if ever, see games like this. You certainly have the knack for setting a mood. The music and artwork are alike beautiful, and the messages are both funny and oddly convincing. Well done.

luka420 2026-04-22 14:29

Had a lot of fun playing this game! Also nice to see an entry with this interpretation of the theme!! Great job guys!

j3m 2026-04-22 17:06

@luka420 Thanks! Me and @StealingPandas both loved Vice Signalling!

2026-04-22 22:05

Gorgeous game and I loved the writing style! Honestly can say the only downside was there wasn't even more! :D

kerdelos 2026-04-22 22:17

The game is really beautiful and clearly sets a mood ! Well done.

I am however finding it really hard to discover the riddles. I haven't been able to solve any of them. Maybe some kind of really easy riddle for the beggining or having the option to see the solution would have helped me understand what kind of code I should look for. But currently I'm just puzzled as to what constitute a clue and what is just me not understanding old english.

Congrats anyway, you seem to have put a lot care into this :)

flx 2026-04-22 22:26

Excellent drawings ! The game is a bit hard, I managed to beat it but i'm not sure how :p

anku 2026-04-23 19:54

Excellent visual style and music. It reminded me a bit of Reigns in terms of the variety of choices. The game really pulled me in.

2026-04-24 04:38

I really like the art style which has a very hand-drawn feel.The player feels a bit like the Doctor in a game of Werewolf. However, the notes are a little too hard for me to fully understand, probably because English is not my native language.

ansible 2026-04-24 09:16

tried so hard to decode these but I don't think the method is clicking for me (even after reading comments), so some way to learn in there would be awesome. The game is beautifully drawn and designed and I played through trial and error for the win! XD

2026-04-26 10:38

I would also need a hint

r4ndomthunder 2026-05-04 21:59

A bit hard to understand whos the target is, maybe 'cause I'm not a native English speaker. Art is good and the concept is a nice take on the theme.

Overall nice entry!

janku 2026-05-08 23:39

Interesting and really fun concept, although even small tutorial would be nice and some introduction to characters, some relations we can expect from them to determine which messages could be theirs. Would love to play more if the riddles were bit more polished! Starting without any info was hit and miss, sometimes I did guess correctly, other times didn't know why I guessed or didn't guess correctly. Some input on that would be great!