In Swords at Dusk, players play as a group of high-class socialites in a remote manor, who make a grisly discovery: someone among their number is slowly poisoning them all to death. Players will need to work together to figure out who among them is the deadly killer and bring them to justice.

The problem is, being the high-class socialites you are, nobody can agree with anyone else, so instead messy conversations and accusations, you have all decided on one way to settle one's differences, the honorable act of dueling!

In most social deduction games, you often get into arguments with each other, keep track of lies, and jump through hurdles of logic to try to get some sort of consensus. This leads to a lot of downtime and often leads a casual player to stop paying attention.

However, in Swords at Dusk, if you think you know who the killer is, whether or not anyone agrees with you; you just need to put your own life on the line...

Swords at Dusk starts out like any typical social deduction game, every player gets a secret role, and then close their eyes. The game starts off with all players closing their eyes, allowing hidden roles do devious actions. Since the duels start at Dusk, these actions are taken in the Morning…

Now, before I go over how the rest of a round of play goes, let me explain the roles you may receive:

The main culprit is the Killer. They win the game if they’re the last one standing, or if the only other player with them is a Socialite. They secretly wound 2 different players– They could also wound themselves to throw off any suspicion.

Making things just a touch more complicated, is the Noble. The Noble doesn’t do any secret things at the beginning of each round, however, if they were to die from wounds, instead of simply dying like anyone else, they have the strength to not only reveal their identity as the Noble when they die, they also stay alive with their role revealed until they get wounded again.

This is very important, because the Socialites and Noble can win the game if The Noble is the only other player left alive with the Killer.

Unbeknownst to everyone, they also have someone to watch out for: the Admirer. At the beginning of the game, the Admirer is shown who is the Killer and who is the Noble, but not which player is who.

The Admirer wants to be with the Killer, and the only way the Admirer (And only the admirer) wins is if they are the last one alive with the Killer. The Admirer also has the ability to Shame players, making them more vulnerable to wounds during duels. Like the Killer, the Admirer can shame themselves to avoid suspicion.

Last, is the Socialite. The Socialites have no special powers, but they have numbers and they win the game if the Killer dies, or if the Noble and the Killer are the last players standing. Socialites can win regardless if they are dead or alive at the end of the game.. 

When morning ends, Dusk follows....

During the Dusk phase, everyone is free to discuss who among them might be the Killer, but at any time and for any reason, any player can point at another player, and declare, “I challenge you to a duel!”

Now, before I get into what dueling looks like, let me also talk about Privilege. Privilege, like in real life, is assigned randomly at the beginning of the game. Players with Privilege do two very powerful things.

The first thing they can do is that they can heal a wound from another player– All they have to do is give up their privilege to do so. Why wouldn’t you want to give it up right away? Well, they also are the player who deals the cards for duels…

Duels in Swords at Dusk are a simple, exciting way to resolve your differences through bloody combat– The Privileged player (Or the player with the least wounds if the privileged player is involved in the duel) will deal cards to each dueling player, but not without taking a look at the cards themselves…

Once the cards are dealt, duels are resolved with a flash of the sword: whoever wounds the other player, gains a wound, and can choose to stop the duel, or continue.

While being wounded and bloody isn't great, don't worry; you can take up to 5 wounds before you are eliminated-- which allows you to keep going, even if you lose the duel!

Once two duels occur, Dusk ends, everyone closes their eyes, and the Morning phase begins once more.

Want some more details on the rules? You can view the current draft of them here! 

Swords at Dusk started in 2019 as a school project that I decided to continue after receiving my Master's degree from the NYU Game center. It was meant to be a project to work on while I was searching for other jobs, and for a while, I was busy iterating on the game's design, showing it at Come out and Play 2019's After Dark event. While the game was a success at COaP, the job search was going slowly, so I was planning on creating a crowdfunding campaign in 2020 to release the game.

Obviously, a lot happened between then and now.

The game has slowly gone through several iterations since then. I took a break from 2020-2021 to work on more pressing matters (Paying rent, bills, etc) and didn't really start working on it again until 2022, when a friends of mine Jeff Petriello, nominated me for a Graffiti Games grant at PlayNYC.

It was after demonstrating the game at PlayNYC did I begin seeing its potential, and after a series of employment adventures, I am in a comfortable place to start sharing this game with the world to pursue getting this game into people's hands.

This campaign is for getting the game out there for everyone to enjoy in one way or another; and to make sure that everyone involved in working to get this game out there gets paid.

Funds go towards producing the game through Longpack Games, paying for shipping overseas from the factory, and shipping supplies on my end so I can get the game over to you. Any extra funds beyond the goal will go towards creating and distributing more copies of the game, as well as improve the quality of the materials.

I'll be taking on fulfilling orders once I receive the printed copies and I will ship weekly in batches per received surveys. I will be using a pledge manager after the campaign to collect shipping info and payment, and possibly offer copies for sale after the campaign ends.