December, 1879, St. Petersburg. You are an investigator for the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery (known as the Department), tasked with exposing a religious conspiracy plotting the Tsar's assassination. While the Seraphim are a fictitious group, the game incorporates real history and describes a plausible scenario (Alexander II was in fact assassinated in 1881 by a radical conspiracy, after numerous other attempts).
The Department intercepts letters and has provided a library for you to work from, but the rest is up to you. That means reading carefully through those letters, often cracking ciphers first, and digging up old newspapers and classic literature from the archives. I wanted The Seraphim Letters to evoke the feeling of reading a classic Russian novel, which led to the black/white woodcut aesthetic and period music, but also (fair warning) tangled family trees and long names. All part of the fun!
Full disclosure: this is a project created in large part with Claude Fable. I initially wanted to test whether it could create an entire original game based off just an idea. The answer was a resounding no, but though it took a ton of prompt engineering and writing revisions, I was able to finish the project without knowing a single command in Java (or javascript? if that's different?). A brave new world, for better or worse.
Any feedback greatly appreciated!
