Uncanny Valley is a live action roleplaying game about autonomy, prejudice, helplessness, and justice - or a lack thereof. It is written for four players, one game facilitator, and takes 75 minutes to play (not including safety briefings/theme discussions beforehand, and a debriefing afterwards). Uncanny Valley will be my submission for Game Chef 2016.
Game Chef 2016
Theme: Technology
Ingredients: Alarm, Sketch, Dance, Sunlight
Uncanny Valley takes place within an interrogation room at the Sentry Police Station, an incredibly busy urban hub of law enforcement. It is early in the morning. Nix, a SOLAR D3X(9) android came to the police station two hours ago, before sunrise, in order to report an Autonomous Assault (a non-consensual hack) which occurred the previous night. Despite the early hours, Nix has still had to wait a significant amount of time to be seen in order to file a police report regarding the incident.
As Nix is a SOLAR android, their solar cells require sunlight to maintain power. As they have been waiting in this interrogation room for two hours for an officer to become available, they have missed sunrise and their internal power supply is in danger of depleting. They will fully lose power in 75 minutes. Fifteen minutes from the start of game, an alarm will notify the android that they have one hour of power remaining, and will continue to sound every fifteen minutes until power is lost or the android leaves the station. Either of these will end the game
This game deals with heavy themes and draws direct parallels to real life trauma and assault, victim blaming, misuse of power, murder, prejudice, and other such content. This game is not comfortable, and may be very difficult to read through or play. The game will include content warnings as well as safety measures for play.
More to come on Uncanny Valley as the Game Chef competition continues. Gold and Platinum patrons can see the game now through my works-in-progress folder. Enjoy!