The draughtsman’s contract
Developer Dogubomb Publisher Raw Fury Format PC Origin Release US TBA 2024
An immutable rule in fiction says that any eccentric old person who passes away at the story’s outset must never bequeath a property to a relative without first drawing up a will insisting they fulfil a specific condition to get their hands on it. For the protagonist of this firstperson puzzler, the catch sounds relatively straightforward. On Herbert Sinclair’s Mount Holly estate sits a 45-room mansion; his grandnephew Simon must find the hidden Room 46, within which is the physical deed to the property. A simple enough task for a brilliant young mind such as Simon’s, the dead man suggests – though there’s another catch. “Do not assume the rooms you find today will be the same rooms you find tomorrow,” reads Sinclair’s welcome letter. As in many a Roguelike, the walls are shifting – but here that goes for the floors, furniture and decor, too.
Pick either the north-, east- or west-leading exits from that lobby area and a selection of three rooms will appear at the top of the screen, alongside a draughtsman’s tools. Make your choice and you’ll find it awaiting on the other side. There’s something quietly magical about the idea: that you can simply imagine what lies beyond a door and then see the thought actualised in an instant. As you quickly realise, though, you can’t just pick the room that appeals most from its miniature top-down view. You need to consider what that room contains and where its own exits lead, so you can navigate this 5x9 grid to reach the antechamber at the top, where – presumably – your prize awaits.
It’s renovation as exploration – resulting, invariably, in an architectural abomination. If your primary consideration when drafting a new room (by interacting with a door, you commit to draughting one of the three choices, so approach it with care) is the number and position of exits, you also need to think about its properties or contents. Keys are highly desirable, since you’ll find more locked doors the farther you go, but you’ll also want to collect coins (to buy items and foodstuffs) and gems, without which you won’t be able to draught some of the less common rooms.
There is a further wrinkle, in that you can only go so far before collapsing from exhaustion, your step count depleting every time you enter a room. Fifty might seem plenty to explore a 45-room house, but that’s before you factor in backtracking when you hit a dead end. Draughting a room with no way out other than the way you came in might sound unwise, but placing a closet (containing two random items) in the west wing might just help you advance in the east. And if a run isn’t going well but you’ve picked up something useful – a security keycard, say, or a shovel to dig up patches of dirt outdoors – the coat check gives you a tick
