Don't. Kill. The. Crew.

How To Play

Controls

• Use [W] [A] [S] [D] to move the camera around the ship.
• [Left Mouse] to execute suspected imposters - but observe their behavior carefully first. Don't accidentally kill the real crew.
• [Left Mouse] to open or close doors on the ship.
• [Right Mouse] to lock or unlock doors on the ship.
  • By locking/unlocking doors, the intent is to be able to make certain paths easier or harder for the crew of the ship to access.

Win / Loss

• WIN: Reach your destination without the ship being critically sabotaged. (10+ systems damaged by imposters is considerd *critically sabotaged*)
  • The progress bar is at the top of the HUD, and will progressively fill up as you approach the destination.
• LOSE: Kill all the real crew members on the ship.

Known Bugs

• The ratio of crew to imposters is currently random, which has edge cases where every person is an imposter, or there are no imposters at all resulting in less-than-exciting rounds.
• When locking all doors, crewmates are undettered and will simply begin to walk through walls to reach their destinations.

About the Game

Description

Don't Kill The Crew is a game where you play as the AI responsible for the daily operation of a non-combat cargo vessel. Your mission is to use the environment and nonconventional methods to prevent imposters from taking over the ship while ensuring that the crew remains mostly unharmed.

Inspiration

The game takes inspiration from the map design and task mechanics of Among Us, but with a twist. In Don't Kill The Crew, the imposters are met with resistance from you, the ship's AI, which must protect the crew at all costs.

Genre

Single-player, puzzle, casual.

Development Software

The game is built using the Godot engine.

Theme Interpretation

The optional jam themes, and how we either did interpret and use them, or what we planned to do with them, even if it did not make the final cut.

You Are The Environment

The AI controls the environment to stop the Imposters.

This comes through in being able to open/close the ship doors by clicking on them, and lock/unlock the ship doors by right clicking on them. Initially we wanted to have more things you could interact with on the ship to deter the crew, rather than killing them.

Peaceful

The AI must avoid causing harm to the crew while defending the ship.

This kinda fell away. You are not very peaceful when being able to immediately execute someone with a single click - but nonetheless, the objective remains to avoid doing that.

The Main Mission Is a Side-Quest

Protecting the ship is crucial, but ensuring the crew's safety is paramount.

Unconventional Weapons

Use environmental tools and systems instead of direct attacks.

Yep. also kinda fell away. At one point we had planned to use the doors as ways to eject imposters, trick them into using systems that would hurt or trap them etc.

In the end, the scope had to drastically shrink to the current kill/don't kill mechanic we ended up with.

Attachments After Attachments 

Overcomplicate systems to slow down the Imposters.

Had considered making the different systems of the ship function just like the tasks in Among Us, and as the AI, you could spend resources to over-complicate certain ones to slow down the imposters. Didn't end up making it into the game.

Aaaaand It’s Gone Forever

Lose a system, and it’s permanently disabled.

This also did not make the jam build. If an imposter successfully damaged a system, it was meant to be gone for good in that run, and each system would alter the map (losing comms means slower reactions from crew / losing power to certain areas would cause lights to go out etc.)

Frick Around and Find Out

Trick Imposters into sabotaging critical systems, potentially enabling lethal countermeasures.

A trend is emerging, that this also did not make the cut. There is currently not a way to influence the decision-making of the crew, simply to observe and cast judgement.

All Systems Have Broken

Manage the final stand with what’s left.

There would have potentially been a final encounter when reaching the destination before you would "win." -- You would need to succeed in that encounter based on whatever remained functioning on the ship, and could be either less or more difficult based upon that.

Self-Destruction For Gain

As a last resort, initiate self-destruction to take out the Imposters.

This was mostly going to be a funsies thing. If you are going to lose anyway and the imposters have taken hold, go out with a bang rather than a fizzle.