The Purpose of roles

Maze of Ghosts makes use of a hard role and a soft role. Basically, 1 player is always considered an Overseer while the game is played. However, all other players can be considered a player or a survivor. It is more flexible then the Overseer role.

Roles were brought up during the beginning of the development. I wanted to separate players between the two roles, which provided a unique feel. An Overseer represents a being that is neither good nor evil. Survivors or other players represent themselves within the game.

The use of roles has opened up ties to a greater story that will be told through the release of future projects. This part of the tale focuses on beings known as Overseers. Overseers were granted a territory that exists between the realms of life and death. Their job is to observe the behavior of the deceased within a confined space.

This space is unique to each Overseer, but functions much like a massive and complex prison. This territory is built from fragments of reality. Buildings, rooms, and environments from the living world fuse together to form the prison. This prison is constantly undergoing development. The position of one area will often change, which creates a maze. At some points, people have been trapped in the territory of an Overseer.

When this occurs, the Overseer gets full reign over what to do with the people. Many Overseers see the intrusion as a possibility to perform more complex tests using the people lost in the maze. It is unknown why the Overseers seek to observe and document the interactions of ghostly beings.

The game is setup in a way that tells this tale. Think of each turn a player has. The Overseer will ask the player 1 question, a question the player will most likely ask themselves. After making a choice, the Overseer observes what will happen by reading the story text and effect text of a card.

The victory conditions of the game actually represent the Overseer. This specific Overseer liked to play games and decided to place a bet on how many survivors would die versus how many would escape. If survivors died, the overseer would get more ghosts to observe. However, it is not necessary to obtain more random ghosts. The gamble was merely for entertainment.